One of the things that can happen on medications is that we gradually lose touch with joy. With the upbeat, hopeful, alive side of life. It happens slowly, without fanfare, over years. If you've experienced that, and you're wondering if it will ever come back, or if it's just who you are now, I want to share some good news.
I offer support groups and 1:1 coaching for those going through withdrawal. If you’d like someone to walk with you through this season, I would love to meet with you. My withdrawal was brutal. I know how dark it can get. I also know how real healing is. I’m now in a place of joy, health, and full life, and I want to support you on your way there.
👉 Go here to see my calendar and register
How it started for me
When I first got on medication, it didn't feel bad at all. Honestly, it felt like a rescue. I was in a really severe depression, and the medicine brought me out of it. I felt like myself again. Stabilized. Able to return to normal life and function.
So I never saw the medication as the problem. My doctor, my therapist, people in my church, they all encouraged me that medication could be a great solution, either to ride out a hard time or to correct what they described as a chemical imbalance, my brain not producing enough of the happy chemicals to keep me balanced.
That's how I understood being on meds. There was some kind of deficiency in me, and the medicine was filling the gap. There was nothing to be scared of.
The hidden factor
Over the years, when I experienced mental health symptoms, I attributed them to my diagnosis, my emotional issues, my environment. I worked on those things through counseling, lifestyle changes, trying to improve my relationships. All the while not realizing that the medication itself was a hidden factor.
When I finally saw what was really going on, it felt like a hidden betrayer.
The symptoms I was experiencing weren't just signs of my original condition. They were, at least in part, signs of dependency. In medication dependency, the drug eventually stops delivering what it once did. Your body has adapted, and it's no longer producing those chemicals on its own. It's relying on the medication to do that. Over time, the drug reaches a kind of tolerance, and that's when more mental health symptoms can show up, while you're thinking, This is exactly why I need the medicine, when really it's the other way around.
The spellbinding effect
One of the effects of psychiatric medication is that it can be spellbinding. While we're on it, we may not see how it's affecting us. We can't see the negative side clearly, sometimes for years. Part of that is the drug itself. Part of it is the whole mental health system and what gets reinforced through diagnosing and prescribing.
I thought I was being so intentional and proactive about my health. I thought I was enlightened. It was completely shocking when the paradigm shifted.
It can bring a lot of grief and confusion to realize, I had this backwards. I thought the medicine was helping, and it was actually perpetuating the problem. If you're going through that realization, hold on. There is so much good news on the other side of it.
What you're actually doing in withdrawal
When you go through withdrawal and get off medication, you're breaking up with an entire mental health system. What you need to replace it is a stronger, more grounded understanding of how resilience works, how your brain and body work, and that you actually can come through hard things, suffering, trauma, loss, and be okay.
Some of the hardest pressure points in life turn out to be transformation times. Withdrawal can be that kind of crucible. Relationally, I learned to open up and let people in. I felt so vulnerable, but allowing trustworthy people to love me through that process did something amazing for me. Spiritually, it forced me to look beyond myself and reach toward God for help I couldn't give myself. So much good can be forged in the middle of suffering.
Coming full circle
I now have proof, in my own body, that my brain is resilient. I doubted it so much. I agonized over whether it was true. But all those symptoms were not evidence that I need medication for life. God made our brains with an incredible capacity to heal from hardship, suffering, negative life experiences, and even dependency.
It's wild to be on the other side of this and know that I'm okay in my own brain and body. No chemical imbalance. No need for the medicine to be okay. If you're in the middle of that confusion, wondering what was the medicine and what was actually you, I want to offer my story as hope.
Joy like waking from a nightmare
Your joy can come back in full bloom. All those positive emotions that got flattened over years of medication, and then during withdrawal feel almost completely absent, they can return to a full flourish.
I have been amazed at what it feels like to be alive and present, unmedicated. I experience life so directly now. My feelings and my body are attuned to my actual life, not hovering under a cloud.
Coming out of withdrawal has been like waking up from a nightmare. You know that feeling when you've dreamed that the person you love most died, or your house burned down, and then you wake up and realize it isn't true? That relief, that rush of they're still here, it wasn't real, that's what it has felt like. The joy is doubled by having been without it.
So hold on to what's coming. On the other side of this, you will feel not only what it's like to be healthier and balanced, but the joy of having arrived there. So much good is ahead.
❤️🩹 Joanna