Spring In Winter
I am still on my antidepressant medication. It has been hard to stick with it. I keep on forgetting to get the prescription refilled and rarely remember to take it at the same time each day but I am persisting.
The other week I ran out of the pills and couldn’t get an appointment to get another script for six days. I had two pills left so I broke them in half. I skipped a day, took half a pill each day for four days, skipped another day then got more pills and went back on my full dosage. I got some very bad headaches from doing that so I will try to ensure I don’t run out again!
Normally I would have just given up taking them but I promised myself I would not mess about this time. I will take them until the doctor says I don’t need to any more!
They help, I’m sure they do, I’ve noticed I tend to get a bit down if I forget to take them for a few days.
I’m still getting counselling too. That isn’t as hard to stick with because I like seeing her. I saw her again today and she said she didn’t think there was anything more we could do about my post trauma symptoms. She said you can never go back and be the way you were before you went through a trauma but I am no longer having symptoms that interfere with my ability to function so there is not much more she can do.
There was something healing and soothing about hearing her say I seem to have dealt with it quite well and that I have had a lot of experience coping with traumatic life experiences.
She gave me the option of ending therapy but I don’t want to. Not yet. She makes me feel I am OK and relatively normal and I need to hear that! I can talk to my children but I don’t think it’s always good for them to hear about my stuff so it is better to be able to talk to a therapist. Everyone needs to be able to talk to someone and I like talking to her.
When I headed off for the session today the day seemed dull and depressing. I was tired from being in the game all night. I felt weak and stupid for letting myself develop yet another addiction and wished I could just face life instead of running away into fantasy.
I talked to my therapist about it and she didn’t understand what I saw in the game but she did think it was a good thing for me to be there instead of at the slot machines. She said she would rather I spent all day and all night online than spend my savings and go into debt gambling. It confirmed what I have been telling myself – it’s OK if it helps me stop doing something more harmful to me than this.
It’s OK to be human and tired of trauma. It’s OK to escape into fantasy if I need to for a while. If I am functioning all right in other areas and the activity is not causing any real problems it’s OK to indulge myself. She said play the game day and night if you want to, as long as it doesn’t stop you from getting to work, it’s better than gambling!
When I left her the sun was shining and I felt better. I noticed the first signs of spring on some of the trees I saw on my way home. New life springing from bare wood and I felt maybe there is a future for me too. Not the future I once envisioned but a future all the same. Maybe new life can still spring from this human piece of bare wood too.
