i must say that today has been the best day of the week so far... hopefully tomorrow will be just as good as today has been.... hopefully not like the rest of the week (it hasn't been so swell)... today is my one year anniversary at my job and i also found out that i am getting a raise! that is awesome and totally unexpected!! knowing that my boss and co-worker think i'm doing a good job makes me feel really good!
onto the issues.... earlier in the week i found out that i need to work on my coping skills.... 20% of the women today do not have good coping skills... this is not something that we are taught when we were being raised... it is something that most people just develop on their own... but others, like myself, don't seem to develop those skills, or they do but the skills are not as developed as they need to be, and therefore turn to other things to help them cope... i personally turned to a psychiatrist who put me on some meds to help me cope (and to be perfectly honest, i knew he would put me on the meds that i wanted to be on)... the meds did help me cope, for about 4 years, but then one day (recently) i realized that i was totally dependent on the meds.. not only was i dependent on my anxiety meds but i was also dependent on painkillers as well... the very last disc in my back is herniated, how that happened i have no idea, and have/had been on painkillers for almost 2 years.. in that small span of time i have kicked an oxycontin addiction, morphine patch addiction, and now i'm working on the hydrocodone addiction... my family doctor started me out on "mild" painkillers but the pain was so intense that they didn't do anything for me... i was referred to a pain management doctor who put me on oxycontins... and laughed at the same time he told me that he was going to put me on them... that was when rush had come out with his problem... he then jerked me off the oxycontins, with no gradual steps down, and put me on the morphine patches... the oxycontin withdrawals were the absolute worst thing i have ever experienced... my body is still reacting to that experience .... and that does not make me very happy... i decided that i would like to be off almost all meds ( i say almost because right now i am not giving up my birth control!) and decided to start taking steps to change my life so that i can be med-free.... this might sound corny to some, and if you are one of those people, consider yourself extremely lucky that you have not had to deal with this problem... i didn't know how much of a challenge it would be to try to be med-free... this has to be one of the hardest things i have ever done... but, i know that in the long run it will pay off... and that's what counts.... (at least that's what i keep telling myself...)... i feel better about myself because i am actually taking steps to better my life and to do what i know i need to do.... get my life together so that i can live it the way i would like too and not have to depend on meds for everything.... the pain pills were bad as far as physical withdrawals are concerned but the anxiety meds, they are another story all together, i basically used them just to function for the past 4 years... a friend told me what he had learned in rehab.... this rehab place had never had one single person successfully complete the rehab program for xanax... and at the time he told me this i was thinking, what kind of worms were in there trying to kick xanax? that's nothing... i was so wrong! the mental addiction is right up there with the physical addiction... being mentally addicted to something is very scary.... i have seriously been thinking about going to see a therapist to help me kick the xanax habit and so that i can develop strong coping skills so that i can deal with life on my own and be med free! it took me a long time to actually admit that i had a pill problem.. i've known for a while but thought that maybe it would just go away... like that was really going to happen... but now, i am facing it, and can admit it.... and that's a step in the right direction!
all in all, today was a good day, and it's not even over yet! i'm proud of myself though for recognizing the problems and now taking steps to correct them... i realize i did not get where i am overnight so i shouldn't expect to get out of where i am overnight either... and it will be a long hard process, kinda like losing weight, it's so much easier to put weight on (or take a pill to deal with the world) than it is to lose the weight (or lose the pill habit).... but knowing that i have people who care about me, love me, and want to see my succeed in this process makes it a lot more bearable!