Transcript
I was able to see that my anxiety
is higher when I'm not on my medication.
I'm more snappish with people, I'm intolerant of
just people's humanity and making mistakes
and things like that, I don't have patience with that,
and I don't have patience with my own mistakes.
I would get so angry with myself.
Any time I did something that didn't turn out right
I would want to just smash things.
I went through a period where I wanted to drink,
but I couldn't drink because I have my kids.
I couldn't smoke because I didn't want my kids to see me
smoking because that's bad.
I needed something to cope with what I was dealing with,
and I didn't have anything.
So I was eating a lot of junk food, I was driving my car
too fast, I was trying to find all these ways to deal with
the knots inside of me and the big empty spaces inside of me.
And eventually, when I stayed on the medication
and I was consistent with it, and it took probably six months
of consistently, every day taking my medication,
I realized that it's not as bad, it's not as hard.
Getting up in the morning and getting out of bed
is doable again.
Just brushing my teeth and taking a shower are things
that are totally manageable, and there was a while there
where I didn't want to, I just didn't care enough
about myself or about anything to even want to get out of bed,
and the medication helps me do that.
And it doesn't keep me from being sad, it doesn't keep me
from being angry, it doesn't keep me from
having my emotions and being who I am,
but it helps me to do those things, it gives me
the control back that the PTSD took away from me.