Posted by jerrympls on February 18, 2004, at 19:02:48
In reply to Dysphoria- it's your environment, not you » jerrympls, posted by utopizen on February 18, 2004, at 18:44:20
> > I don't even remember the last time I experienced euphoria. Maybe back when I was 17-18 - before the Darkness fell. I'm 32 tomorrow. What a horrible life.
> >
> > Jerry
>
> Jerry,
>
> I get 300 5mg tabs of Desoxyn for my narcolepsy (50mg/day, while the avg. daily dose is 20-25mg/day for ADD).
>
> I don't get euphoria, and lately I've been getting social liability (I express extreme sadness spontaneously when I talk to people often). I believe it's a mix of the Desoxyn and my sleep debt/insomnia contantly occuring so often. Adderall, I remember on occassion, would cause some instances of social liability if I choose to practicpate in a discussion the day following an all-nighter I did for a paper.
>
> But the high you experience, it's a stupid high. You feel very happy, but it gets old fast. I knew this in advance, and quit while I was ahead-- took 2mg of Klonopin and went to sleep an hour after the euphoria's onset. Protected my neurons, as Klonopin's a neuroprotective.
>
> It's the same high I experienced after climbing a large mountain when I was 13 and in the Boy Scouts. I had climbed it, went to the lodge, and sat with my friends as we said nothing and stared at the wall like we were half-sedated from some anesthetic-like drug for a full two hours. We were both fatigued and euphoric at the same time. It was over, all of the hurdles, all of the "this is never going to end" moments, but that's what made it meaningful. We reflected for two hours over what we had done, in our heads. Not random happy recollections of some girl I had a crush on, but a realization that life is a controllable variable that I can manage now and then on my own and yet still feel happy. I can feel happy, and there's no dose to record, no interval times to log, and no side effects to treat.
>
> When I experienced euphoria on the Desoxyn, it was a stupid grinny euphoria. It's not something I look back with and smile about, because there was no meaning behind it. I was happy at the time. Just that.
>
> When I look back to how I felt so accomplished and proved to myself I could be determined enough to finish something (a rare feat for an ADD kid!) -- that makes me smile to this day, 7 years later.
>
> Lots of drugs can cause euphoria. Dilantin can, even... I read a case of a prisoner who was prescribed it for convulsions and had to have his lawyer plea to get off it because he couldn't tolerate the effect.
>
> If you're searching for happiness from a pill, it is always a feeble journey. Pills are measurable, quantifiable, sceintifically reduced entities. They can help you find yourself when you're having tough times like depression and forgot who you once were, and remind yourself that you weren't always feeling the way you feel today, and that you will not feel this way for the rest of your life, and that all relief is found the day you realize you are still the same person you were before you felt hopeless.
>
> But they can only do this if you are willing to accept that the pills only can uncover what already is within you, waiting to come out. You were once happy. Your happiness, it's still there. It didn't die, hibernate, or anything like that. You are capable of feeling happy again, and you will within your lifetime. I hope a med can help you with this, but I also hope you explore things to combine with such a med, like exercise if you can and regular sleep and so forth. And reduced stress, if you can allow yourself to realize you're not Superman. All of these things, it's advice from a kid who's not following any of it. But I'm trying, slowly, to realize my meds will never be some magic bullet for me, ever.
>
> In other words, pills don't induce feelings. Your existing being induces whatever feelings you and your environment influences. And part of your environment happens to include pills, vitamins from foods you eat, and so forth. So taking a pill, that is taking in a part of your environment. But no pill can nullify the woes of your environment if it is too burdensome to bear.
>
> Only you can nullify your burden, alter your environment, and cope with the feelings you've let yourself over the years believe aren't possible to cope with. If coping means taking a pill, that may be what is best for you. But if it doesn't work out, you need to recgonize that pills alone aren't going to make you feel what you've felt when you were 17 or 18 again. You're in control of everything, not just doses, not just miligrams, but you.
>
> You elect what environment you are in, no matter what society has let you believe you must take on in some lonely, fearful, dark place. You'd be amazed at how refreshing and clarifying it is to turn the light on in the basement, walk outside, and tell yourself you will hike a mountain one day. Or volunteer to walk shelter dogs. Or connect with others who share your passions. No drugs will ever do this. No drug. No drug deserves to let you feel the way you would feel if you could somehow connect with another person who lets you know he or she loves you, or remind you humans aren't the only ones who want you to love them, and that you're not alone...
>
> when I worked in a shelter, I was just trying to come to terms with my life-long social anxiety. Connecting and helping animals that were afraid and lonely each day and giving them happiness let me know I could be with them in their loneliness, or in their friendship, and that was my choice, not my Celexa at 20mg b.i.d.
>
> Meds might help it make it easier for you to start, and hope they will, but the only thing that ever comes easy is to do what is truest for you to do.
>
> Pills are lonely. They are content with remaining in amber vials for you to take as you desire. But don't ever yourself believe you are reducable to a side effect profile, a dosage adjustment, a new drug trial, a drug interaction, or a dosage interval. These are to help your pills work, not you.
>
> You are more important than imaginary euphoric episodes, dyphoric discontentment, or your life's entire behavior reducable, justifiable, and explainable by what time you last took your round white tablet.
>
> Do something that doesn't make you happy, but makes someone else happy.
>
> Expose yourself to others who are feeling loney. Senior citizens, dogs, cats, anyone. Enter their lives, connect with them, and it will let you begin to realize they are suffering, too, and they are relieved because of what you do. If you don't help others find happiness, how will you ever find it yourself?
>
> You must touch others before you can ever touch yourself. How much has that helped you so far, these pills? I keep taking them, I mean, I'm the last person who says to stop taking them. But I have had to grow up eventually, and realize they're not a replacement for having touched someone else's life somehow.
>
> It's simple: other people need you to help them. They find relief from you when you do. You are relieved when you realize you matter to others.
>
> And you realize suffering occurs because it remains ignored. Ignore others, and you will assume others will ignore your suffering, and you will feel hopeless. Until you realize the ones who you help in this world are the ones who are helping you find out why you're not 17 anymore, and why you don't need euphoria from a drug to feel relieved. And I don't know what you have, bipolar or what. But everything can be reduced to some feeling of relief, just as everything can be magnified to some feeling of hopelessness. The only hope you can have to feeling better is to have more hope, and assume that you can be wrong about predicting how you will feel. If you didn't predict you would feel this was when you were 17, who's to say you can predict how you will feel when you're 37?WOW-- that was powerful and very insightful. I realize that happiness won't come from a pill...i think. Most of hwat you said above is very true...it's just hard and frustrating...to keep up this battle for years upon years - you know?
Thank you so much for your words - :-)
Many thanks
Jerry
poster:jerrympls
thread:314918
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040218/msgs/315313.html