Honestly I marvel over it every day. Before meds my life was horrible. I was in a constant state of apathy, could not feel excitement over anything even huge things. Horrible focus/concentration and struggled greatly in school, often failing classes & having to retake. Apathy+no focus=no ability to do old hobbies or fun stuff either, then I’d feel depressed about not being able to do anything I liked. I didn’t have any energy either. I felt like a drugged, sedated zombie most of the time even though I wasn’t on any medication.
My hygiene was garbage. Took me hours to work up the ability to shower and some days, even multiple days if I was bad, I couldn’t shower at all. Teeth brushing was worse-I’d go months without. Getting dressed was a monumental task to the point where sometimes I literally just went out of the house in pajamas with a jacket over.
Mood wise I was a mess. Constant mood swings where I’d be fine and then hate life and want to die or feel horribly angry at people for really minor things like literally existing in a way that was inconvenient to me. Barraged by violent and disturbing intrusive thoughts. Crippling anxiety that could quickly turn to aggravation. At least monthly severe depressive episodes that were the psychological equivalent of being submerged in boiling water for 2 weeks, all I could think of was how much I wanted to die to end the pain. I had thoughts of suicide constantly and made plans several times.
I would get paranoia, just awful fear for my life over crazy things, be constantly harassed and tormented by demons both verbally and physically to the point where I got ptsd. Tactile hallucinations of being raped, molested and beaten after which would leave me curled up in rigid fetal position in my bed terrified to move in case it set it off again. In college, this was often followed by heavy drinking, or even self harm. Vivid visual trippy stuff and sometimes scary or startling things. Spiraling into obsessive delusional thoughts.
I don’t really know how I survived looking back on it all. I had to completely dissociate myself from what I was experiencing internally, and that created a whole other set of issues I’m still dealing with today.
Today I’m on 5 different meds that contribute to my functioning and wellbeing and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t even have to think about showering or getting dressed or brushing my teeth which to me is shocking. Shocking. I have a very normal, healthy attention span and get all A’s in school now. I am happy, I get excited, I look forward to the future now because I want to be alive and there’s so much I want to do, not because I’m looking forward to being able to die from old age and not feel guilty about killing myself and hurting my loved ones. My new antipsychotic I can tell is working for me. I haven’t had tactile hallucinations in nearly 2 weeks now. The voices are practically nonexistent. Delusional thoughts aren’t quite tamed yet & still have flare ups but are getting better as well and I think I’m not getting the flare ups as often, like once or twice a week instead of daily. No mood swings. Only 2 depressive episodes in a year that were nowhere near as bad as they used to be, and one was bc I accidentally quit one of my meds. No anxiety. Overall it’s just amazing how things have changed. My parents are always worried about how much medication I’m on but I couldn’t care less with how much it has changed my life. Even if all these meds took 30 years off my life, I’d rather have a 30 year shorter, quality life than live 100 years of the hell I was living before.
I know I’ve said stuff like this a million times before but it never ceases to amaze me. When people newly diagnosed are timid about medication, or ask if it can help or what it even does, I always want to say all this. PLEASE do not stop looking for the right treatment combo for your illness. It can make all the difference.
summary: I don’t really have one I was just listing all the ways my life changed after meds and how insane it is to me the difference they made. Night & day. And this is coming from someone who has been paranoid and distrustful of meds from day 1 (literally threw away my 1st prescribed meds w/o even trying them as I feared I’d become “addicted”) and has quit a million times and seen all the awful return of symptoms & relapsed time and time again until it finally got through my thick skull that meds were the way to go.