Hey everyone - just wanted to share something that has happened to me and see if anyone else has had a similar experience when they were almost healed / done withdrawal / coming around the bend... and also to encourage those of you just starting the journey.
After being on AD's for 8 years, then spending another mid-withdrawal time on Cymbalta for 3 months, I lost myself.
I forgot even what people were truly meaning when they were on AD's they became a different person. I forgot because I was that "different" person for so long I actually thought that was just who I was now. I was never scared by it I just thought genuinely I was who I was.
Well that is not true.
It is roughly 7 months of off of everything and what I have been experiencing the last 3 weeks or so is like something I have never experienced again.
I will try to describe it briefly....
Pure days where I feel like "myself" again - I don't say this lightly. I feel like my soul and personality is waking up from a long, bad dream of sorts. I literally know just NOW that I had been in a severe, severe brain fog the WHOLE time while on AD's and through MUCH of the harshest months of withdrawal. It feels surreal and euphoric simply because I am finding me again and I didn't even know I lost it, I just didn't even know. Some people may feel that is unnerving, but I am so comforted by it. I can smell things again and it provokes emotions and memories and I can feel things again. It is insane. Pure insanity and I am loving it. I have heard few things here and there about people feeling similar, but I never really listened because I didn't understand it. Until NOW
NO - I am NOT on anything at all, no meds, no THC, no coffee barely, nothing to make me "high" or "elated" - no nothing. It probably sounds like I could be based on this explanation but I am NOT. I am just overwhelmed by he fact that my brain did not lose its ability to feel, hear, smell and touch - I mean that - even TOUCH feels differently to me. I can feel it and sense it. It is like I was dead on the AD's.
My creativity and passion for life is back and I didn't even realize it was gone - memories are flooding back all day like a movie reel right up until I started the AD. I don't remember much while on the AD - and I am okay with that, If it somehow blunted my ability to remember, feel, etc, whatever - because everything outside of the AD timeframe is beautiful and I am not looking back - only forward.
My family and friends are even saying I look and sound different - but in a good way they assure me. I can see my daughters face - not just look at her - but SEE her - and it makes me cry. I can hear the birds singing out side - actually hear. I literally feel like I am waking up from death.
It is so sad what the drug took away from me for so many years of my young adult life ( 18 to 26) but from it I have learned so much and it has only made me appreciate this life so much more.
The capacity the brain to heal like this is beyond amazing - it is shocking - and awesome. I literally thought I was never going to heal - like I felt 100% certain about it. And look at me now. I am getting somewhere and I can only thank God for that.
