Walk and Talk: Mental Health

Today I share a little more about my experience with am mental health struggles and how they are linked to deconstruction. I rambled a lot but hopefully some of you resonated with some of the things I’ve shared.

[@PolymorphicPenguin]

It's always reassuring to me to hear from other people who have been through similar mental health challenges. My manic episodes were clearly a lot milder than yours; I never experienced anything like an LSD trip. I must confess a bit of jealousy when you mentioned that you had a very stable mental state without medication. Everyone should absolutely weigh the beneficial effects and the harmful effects of any particular drug.
For most of the last 14 or so years, I have been taking lithium to counteract my manic symptoms. Almost immediately, lithium began to mess up my thyroid, so I'm been taking pills containing more-or-less what my thyroid would have produced. To me, that isn't a big deal, but other people might be really disturbed that an important part of their body was no longer working. For a while, unbeknownst to me (or my doctor) my lithium level had crept into the toxic range and my hands had developed a pretty severe tremor. Since hands are important for many physical activities, that was a much more severe side effect in my estimation. Perhaps the most feared side effect of lithium is that it can cause people's kidneys to stop working. Since the kidneys are responsible for removing toxins from our blood, this is a very deadly situation.
The point that for me, the risks and detriments of taking lithium seem to be worth it for the mental stability that I get out of it. It's a very personalized and subjective evaluation. It would be wonderful if every medication did just what it was supposed to do and nothing else, but unfortunately that's not the world we live in right now. As human understanding increases, that may definitely change in the not-too-distant future.

[@whatup6350]

Want to comment, but really need to get to bed. Just had to watch this first, after it popped up in the feed. Your openess and clarity are rare and admirable qualities:)

[@prismkite3188]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience. I found it helpful.