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Taking Any Kind Of Medication

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freespirit13

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Hello,
Wondering if any of you have the same issue ....I have .....I can not take any kind of medication ...Have trouble even taking paracetamol...although that is getting better ...Due to being spiked and then raped ....I find it very hard to take anything even herbal( to the extent of even dyeing my hair cos of the chemicals) .... because of losing control and not knowing whats going on/trust thing going on ...I don't touch alcohol or drugs for that matter ...which is probably a good thing ...But i do feel like i am in a catch 22 to be honest ....i know i probably need something but my mind won't let me ....I have been ok with out so far but there are those days when i am driving myself nuts and i do think if only ...even to take the edge off and get out the house.
I have the same issues with eating and drinking outside of my home or friends and family houses ...Although i managed that three times whilst on holiday...:)
Just wondering if any one else has had these issues and how you got around them ....I smoke and my therapist was trying to get me to think that i smoke and i don't really know what is in them...She has a point ...How ever didn't change how i looked/my behavior towards medication or anything else ...I know its anxiety/trauma and my alarm bells are going but i can not let my guard down where that is concerned...Any advice would be much appreciated :)
 
I've struggled with many of your same issues. I have a lot of problems with trusting my body and also trusting chemicals. And I have had pretty bad results with some of them (I ended up hospitalized after a doctor put me on Effexor, but I also lacked support at the time and don't think I even had follow up with that particular doctor...my weight just plummeted). I think now I could take meds and being able to tell what they are doing to my body, if creating negative side affects, and what I can tolerate. So I'm open, but I've already run through the standard list of SSRIs, SNRIs, and NNRIs with poor results (if I need something down the road it might have to be alternative, like Naltrexone or something that works with opioid receptors vs serotonin, etc). I might have tolerated one NRI (nnri?) well except for the trouble it gave my flimsy joints. But these common anxiety/depression meds have worked for many people.

Main thing is most drugs won't "drug" you. You will still be conscious and in control of your body. It would just be important to be in touch with a psychiatrist or prescribing doctor and therapist to discuss how symptoms change, or if anything gets worse. And with whatever you try, you can demand the tiniest dose. I am easily effected by chemicals and my doctor knows to start me on very small doses of anything I try.

I think it's good to be a little skeptical, because it's your body, but to also look at weighing out the symptoms you have and how much you feel like you can safely tolerate in your life. I did have one therapist who kept pushing meds and it bothered me because it felt like she was saying there was nothing else I could do to help myself (this was after I had tried every major med with poor results). My new therapist doesn't care about medication much at all, doesn't tell me I need it...we work on everything, all the emotional regulation, at a body-nervous-system level. But, if you haven't tried meds, you don't know if they might help you or not. Remember that if you would try any medication, you can't be forced to continue them. It's good to wait out a couple weeks if side effects are uncomfortable but not disasterous or dangerous. But if you continue to feel really uncomfortable, you can talk to your doctor and try something else or just stop the med experiment.

Not sure how deep your eating or drinking issues run, but either of those will affect how your body can make use of medication. Maybe you can keep the option open a little bit and keep discussing your fears with your doc/psychiatrist? Just remember, you won't lose control of your body. Medicines are made to help you. But that being said, it's okay to feel skeptical and have a lot of questions.
 
Hi,
It's a bit difficult to read your post as you don't always use complete sentences and use (....) between all of your thoughts. The easier your post is to read, the more responses you'll get. Thanks!
 
Thank you for your advice ...My therapist has written a letter to my doctor regarding medication and probably getting a psychiatrist involved when maybe i am ready ..My therapist did try and push it once but i told her that i felt she was pressuring me and it was actually making me not want to go to therapy ...She seemed to accept this and hasn't mentioned it since ...I am really not sure about medication ...My anxiety soars when anything like the comes into play...its the 100% on my exposure hierarchy ...I won't even go to the dentist same issue .....my safety behavior is not to take anything ...Even with the food because he put it in my drink ..I just don't trust any one ....My therapist is good and i do trust her to some extent ...I was having an issue with taking paracetamols as they make me drowsy ...i had come to the conclusion that they we're making me drowsy because of the trauma ...We researched paracetamols and they can make you drowsy...which was an Ok moment...I would never take any paracetamol off any one i would always buy it and always have to take it out of the packet would not trust any one to give it to me .....( the person that raped me ...i asked him for two paracetamols ,as i had a headache as he had put which i thought was speed in my drink...turn't out it was a tranquillizer and what i thought was supposed to be paracetamol turn't out to be rohyphnol )...
It's a difficult one for me ...I did buy some herbal spray (rescue remedy )....thought i would test myself...However not used it ...thought i would be confident to just buy it and test my reactions of just buying it and now its stuck in the cupboard .....It scares the crap out of me ...I think when i see my therapist i am going to ask her more about confidence and self esteem ...try targeting that a bit before i attempt any kind medication experiment ...Maybe avoidance there but it terrifies me
 
Sorry i've got to laugh, I just went on over drive with that comment Solara
Whilst i was doing the washing up , i had time to think about it
I know you was trying to advise me and be helpful but my head just jumped to conclusions then, the judgement part came out to play and mind reading.
Then it was well i won't post any more , ok i can't even write how i feel, the defensive side came out in me and then i had to stop and think about it .
I know my punctuation isn't very good and maybe that is something i might learn to do here :) , I had a big issue at school with all that , grammar, full stops etc etc , never really understood where everything is supposed to go , i am hoping that i am doing it ok now , but to be honest i don't really know if i am lol.
Thank god for spell checker :)
 
It scares the crap out of me ...I think when i see my therapist i am going to ask her more about confidence and self esteem ...try targeting that a bit before i attempt any kind medication experiment ...Maybe avoidance there but it terrifies me

I think it's a great idea to keep talking to your therapist. It does sound like avoidance, but our avoidances are for reasons...and there is a place where pushing it too far does not help. You and your therapist can sort of sort out what might be okay (and prescribing doctor). I don't know the severity of your symptoms, but it sounds like your fear comes from a place you could work on more in therapy first. I can relate to needing to feel a little more strong in myself, or confident, before taking on a new risk. I think that is common for many of us...and building up a level of safety is important in therapy.

Sidenote: try not to let any comments on writing get to you. I got a note right away about making huge paragraphs (I'm so used to bad technology and a line break being the same as hitting "send", like facebook messages, that I have just lost some style. I'm actually a very good writer. And the suggestion to break up my mega chunk of writing felt nit-picky on a forum where new people are already completely freaked out. But just being a little aware of how we are spacing things does help other read it. I like that we can go back and edit because I can read something once and realize I can break it up a little bit. I hope it's not a college composition course here, and it shouldn't be, but general hints to help others read you clearly and respond. That being said, I read your writing fine because I write and think like this a lot myself (all the dots...see, I'm doing it again...just consider maybe some commas or periods in there, or really don't worry too much about it and express what you need and somebody will follow)
 
Thank you :)

I know i am not ready to attempt medication ( and i know i am avoiding it ) , although i would like that option there.( not as easy just to swallow a pill for me )
I think maybe by targeting some of the little problems, may/hopefully lead up to the daunting prospect of considering that option in the future.

Lol my poor therapist, I have to write about my week and normally it is 12 pages long ..God only knows how she makes sense of it ??? lol
Although i do find writing helpful (although not very good at it ) , I do tend to answer my self and put a spin on all the negatives, i seem to write and end up challenging my own brain.

I am not really used to writing other then to my therapist , a good idea maybe i should write what i want to say in word and copy and paste it.
Damn it therapist voice just came bellowing in my head lol , type what you want to say and leave it for a bit.

It's all a learning process, i suppose and no one ever said the path would run smoothly :)

Grrrr I've run out of cigarettes and milk , means a little adventure to the dreaded shops , that i loathe..
 
It took me about nine years of resisting meds before admitting that I needed to be on them, I hate having anything foreign inside of me. Anything that might dull my awarenesses or being used against me, that might put me in danger or at risk of it, that might make me do something I wouldn't have done normally and possibly hurt others, also I hate the idea that I might be dependent on anything or addicted. For me these are pretty obvious triggers, all of the worst of my abusers were drug users, the majority if not all of my abuse was by people who were stoned, I was drugged and raped repeatedly, also my Dad wanted me to be medicated so that he could say I was crazy and a liar and use that against me in a number of ways.

Right now, regular medications (a morning and evening tablet as well as three "as needed" ones) are what is keeping me alive and I appreciate and resent them for it in equal measures. I rationalise that though they benefit me emotionally and in a number of other ways, actually I could stop taking them at any time if I so wished. I rationalise that I am more aware of what's going on around me not less due to not always dissociating or being so depressed I can't move. I rationalise that they are not influencing my behaviour negatively towards myself or others. I rationalise that no one is using my medication as a form of abuse over me. Nonetheless it is still something that I try not to think about to much as it makes me incredibly uncomfortable. In the past I have stopped taking meds I've been on for a few days just to prove that I could - I''ve done this with any possible addicting substance including sugar, caffeine and chocolate this includes behaviours like self-harm, to prove I am not addicted to them.

The downsides are few with the exception of currently needing meds - though I'm working on that quite well now, mostly it only impacts on social things which I couldn't care less about and like you the upsides are that I don't drink or smoke or have any interests in any drugs whatsoever despite my traumatic past.

Other than being not great at taking meds a few years ago, there is little to do except prepare yourself mentally and rationalise everything out. There are some meds which can be taken only when needed, though these are often more addicting, you may find that these are better for you as you could retain an element of control over your use of them or not use them at all.

You are not alone in this, but it can be worked on and improved over time if you want to. Good luck :)
 
Medication can be a good tool in the healing process. You need to look at medication in terms of something that can possibly help you by making you stable enough for therapy and trauma processing, which is probably why your therapist recommend it. Not in terms of making you drowsy, as that can be changed or fixed and not used for raping you because those are different drugs.

Medication doesn't have to be life long either. Your choice of course, you started the thread so you seem like you are thinking about it but...

I know i am not ready to attempt medication

My therapist has written a letter to my doctor regarding medication and probably getting a psychiatrist involved when maybe i am ready ..My therapist did try and push it once but i told her that i felt she was pressuring me and it was actually making me not want to go to therapy ...She seemed to accept this and hasn't mentioned it since ...I am really not sure about medication

I hope our feed to your thread helps with whatever you choose!
 
When my therapist first mentioned it, I fell apart completely. It being medication. A year and two months later, I have my first prescription for an as needed anti-anxiety med. I am still not entirely comfortable even having it, but it's a start. I have not filled it and not sure I plan to, but I have it and that means my brain is opening up to the idea of getting a little more open to getting extra help when needed.
 
I can not take any kind of medication ...Have trouble even taking paracetamol
I don't by choice, not because I can't. I have tried all sorts, given medication its fair shot... but I'm not a huge fan of it unless it really has a purpose and works for the issue at hand, and... I absolutely need to have it. I'm pretty happy to feel pain without medication for most things. I've just found way too many negatives vs positives for many medications, especially mental health based nonsense handed out so readily nowadays.
 
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