(Un)Comfortably Numb

I have figured out how to describe the antidepressant experience. It’s like being on emotional morphine.

I’ve heard it said that being on morphine for pain doesn’t so much remove the pain as push it away. The pain is still there, but it is as if someone else is experiencing it. That’s how I’m feeling emotionally. It’s as if all of my emotions are pushed away, and I have to reach to feel them, pushing through a layer of gauze in the process. I can reach them, but there’s some resistance to get to them and if I don’t concentrate, they slip away. That’s disconcerting.

Even more troubling is the loss of passion. True, the passion had a tendency to express itself as rage (either outward as anger or inward as sadness), and that was a situation that could not continue, but I’m not sure I can cope with this numb feeling that has replaced it. I can’t really bring myself to feel deeply about anything right now, and that’s not a comfortable place to be.

What is worse is that the sadness that caused me to seek help in the first place hasn’t really gone away. I was hoping that by going on this stuff, I would find that the negative emotions were all based on what was going on in my head. I’m coming to the realization that there are outward factors in my life that I find unacceptable. Now, the question is: Do I take action and do things that I find frightening to deal with them, or do I just learn to get over myself and accept that what is going on is just the way things are and I can accept them and be happy or not accept them and be miserable.

Oh! How very Hamlet like of me. “To take arms against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…” I have no answers and am not really sure where to go to look for guidance.