35 months: emerging from setback

Just dropping in for a quick update. In February, I took ritalin for a month to treat a lifetime of ADHD. It helped for a while, until I started having daily anxiety attacks. Then, when I stopped, I fell into depression. These past few weeks I’ve been traveling and spending time with friends and it’s brought me back to my baseline. In fact, it’s showing me how much being alone revs up my symptoms because the fearful echo chamber in my skull easily spirals.

 

I’m sad that I’ve nearly hit three years and I still have akathisia, anxiety, low mood and fragile sleep. At the same time, I see the progress that I’ve made and I’m reassessing how I want to live life in a way that promotes healing. I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to work hard and be independent, but this only puts pressure on my already sensitive system. So I would like to surround myself with the people who love me and stop pressuring myself to be productive when my body is clearly saying no. And hopefully that kind of self compassion will also help this final stretch of healing.

How bad is your Akathisia after three years? I just posted asking how that symptom gets better and goes away.

It sounds to me like you are coming to terms with your needs in a new and realistic way. I love the way you mention you will ’…stop pressuring myself to be productive …’ because in context, you seem to have reevaluated what is truly important and come up with a heightened sense of what is really important in your life, when you strip things down.

 

You post is why I sometimes get a glimpse of the way this horror story brings out the best in some people. You give me hope! Thanks for posting. :hug:

How bad is your Akathisia after three years? I just posted asking how that symptom gets better and goes away.

 

Oof, sorry that you’ve got akathisia as it’s a miserable experience. Mine has improved immensely. Used to be nonstop physical and mental agitation and now it’s just low-grade restlessness. I notice it particularly because my work requires sitting still and concentrating, but I feel just a tiny bit like I want to jump out of my chair, lol. Used to make work impossible, but now it just means that it’s harder for me to relax and read a novel for pleasure. Still a bummer, but more annoying than debilitating.

 

It will improve, but I think by its nature akathisia is hard to see improvements in until it’s nearly gone. Does that make sense?

It sounds to me like you are coming to terms with your needs in a new and realistic way. I love the way you mention you will ’…stop pressuring myself to be productive …’ because in context, you seem to have reevaluated what is truly important and come up with a heightened sense of what is really important in your life, when you strip things down.

 

You post is why I sometimes get a glimpse of the way this horror story brings out the best in some people. You give me hope! Thanks for posting. :hug:

 

Thank you so much. I’ve tried to treat this experience as a learning process, which in many ways has been positive as I’ve taken better care of my mental and physical health. As I’ve reached the 3 year mark, depression crept in (aided by the ritalin setback) that has made me reevaluate my goals. What I’ve come to is that treating myself as if I’ve already healed may be impeding my progress at this point, so acceptance means taking care of my needs as they present themselves now. And what helps me most is taking off the pressure and being with friends and family.

 

I hope that the hope sticks for you as there are so many reasons to hope. Some of the most hard-earned wisdom I’ve encountered has been on these boards. Folks who’ve been dragged through hell yet endured and as a result have firsthand experience of what’s true and real. But you know in Dante folks climbing the mountain of purgatory are actually ascending to the light.

How bad is your Akathisia after three years? I just posted asking how that symptom gets better and goes away.

 

Oof, sorry that you’ve got akathisia as it’s a miserable experience. Mine has improved immensely. Used to be nonstop physical and mental agitation and now it’s just low-grade restlessness. I notice it particularly because my work requires sitting still and concentrating, but I feel just a tiny bit like I want to jump out of my chair, lol. Used to make work impossible, but now it just means that it’s harder for me to relax and read a novel for pleasure. Still a bummer, but more annoying than debilitating.

 

It will improve, but I think by its nature akathisia is hard to see improvements in until it’s nearly gone. Does that make sense?

 

Yes, that makes total sense. Would you say it's nearly gone for you now? How and when did it start to leave? Do you still feel the pain of it in your diaphragm area? I hate that the most. Akathisia feels like being one of those walking chattering teeth wind-up toys with huge cartoon eyeballs.

Haha, yeah, I like the image of a wind-up toy with cartoon eyeballs for akathisia. For me, it’s just gradually faded. I think I noticed that it was waning after about nine months when I was able to sit still and focus again. This was also the result of admitting my circumstances and giving myself a reason to sit still and focus, which was focusing on my passion for writing. It’s still not completely healed, and sometimes it’s frustrating because I want to do so much that requires being still yet can’t quiet the agitation in my mind and body. But again radical acceptance has meant trying to live a more active life to accomodate the agitation rather than banging my head against the wall trying to make myself be still. But I can assure you that it does fade over time and what’s helped most has been dancing with it rather than pushing against it.

It sounds to me like you are coming to terms with your needs in a new and realistic way. I love the way you mention you will ’…stop pressuring myself to be productive …’ because in context, you seem to have reevaluated what is truly important and come up with a heightened sense of what is really important in your life, when you strip things down.

 

You post is why I sometimes get a glimpse of the way this horror story brings out the best in some people. You give me hope! Thanks for posting. :hug:

 

Hello,

 

 

Thank you so much. I’ve tried to treat this experience as a learning process, which in many ways has been positive as I’ve taken better care of my mental and physical health. As I’ve reached the 3 year mark, depression crept in (aided by the ritalin setback) that has made me reevaluate my goals. What I’ve come to is that treating myself as if I’ve already healed may be impeding my progress at this point, so acceptance means taking care of my needs as they present themselves now. And what helps me most is taking off the pressure and being with friends and family.

 

I hope that the hope sticks for you as there are so many reasons to hope. Some of the most hard-earned wisdom I’ve encountered has been on these boards. Folks who’ve been dragged through hell yet endured and as a result have firsthand experience of what’s true and real. But you know in Dante folks climbing the mountain of purgatory are actually ascending to the light.

 

Wonderful message!! thanks for sharing.

 

Setbacks, no matter how bad they are, give you full reality and the importance of accepting.

 

Withdrawal is cured with time, staying away from alcohol and other substances, taking advantage of the days when something improves while healing arrives. However, there are degenerative diseases that for now have no cure.

 

That is why anyone who is in withdrawal, no matter how bad the symptoms are, there is hope of one day recovering again.