When Medication Enables Meditation...

When meditation isn't enough and you have to turn to medication...
I am so humbled by the storm that's been taking place in my body and the recognition of my own mismanagement that contributed to it.

I mentioned gratitude for my ND on Friday. And recently I also mentioned that my ND had prescribed meditation for parasympathetic support. I don't know of many 'regular doctors' who would prescribe meditation. But as it turns out, it took 'pills' to enable me to meditate. Scary to even confess that I couldn't get there on my own.

Other differences entailed by seeing a Naturopath rather than a regular doctor: --Naturopaths believe in the wisdom of the human body and the experience of thousands of years of observation of the body at least as much as they do in scientific theory.
--You might have a harder time getting insurance coverage (but I still think it's worth it).
--Naturopaths are both more amenable to using diet as a tool for healing and willing to think outside the box in terms of what is 'healthy.'
--When Naturopaths do prescribe chemical interventions, they will usually be materials 'closer to their natural state.' (I love this: I get to use my motley 'herb' collection (soon to be moved to better-organized quarters!)

BUT--this is where there's an important similarity between seeing a Naturopath and seeing a regular doctor: -- if you're using some chemical alteration, it's important to check in before changing what you're doing. In both cases, they are overseeing your health journey, and therefore you have some responsibility toward them.

I love that there is so much 'alternative information' out there and that the internet and books empower us to do so much of our own research. However, when research contradicts what the professional who is interacting with me suggests, I get into a mental/emotional conflict. I desire to take control, perhaps to defy their authority. I insist to myself that I can make 'this' work for my body, that perhaps my ND hasn't read 'that' particular piece of research, perhaps he has certain biases...But what about my own biases?

A couple months ago, I decided to stop taking my 5htp, and neglected to mention this to my ND until crisis-time this week. I decided that I was feeling so much better and was probably making enough of my own not to need to take it. It turns out that this particular neurotransmitter support is not something you can just quit taking 'like that:' a body that needs the support also gets used to having the support. That was also the same time period that I went from 'eating slightly less fat to accommodate more carbs' to pretty much cutting out fat (and protein) altogether. Both these willful decisions were directly counter to my ND's advice and were based on stuff that I'd read (plus my own desperation over body image). Well, you can't make neurotransmitters without amino acids and cholesterol, neither of which a body like mine is any good at storing, so you need to eat them! 

I think I finally get it. I confess that honestly, the only recent 'tweak' that I've done as a result of my own research that actually garnered positive results was increasing starch, which my ND had been encouraging me to do anyway!

This is humbling to acknowledge. Also humbling: I already take more pills than I'm comfortable acknowledging just to enable basic functioning. When it comes to mental/emotional balance, I intend to do my best and be my best:

so many of my posts on here are about that. Since I try so hard for that, why couldn't I do it? Why did I continue to be angry, vicious toward myself, impossible to be around?... Obviously, it was all my fault, I reasoned, and continued to feel more hopeless.

So, it was humbling to take a mega-dose of 5htp as well as a dose of elemental lithium and within a few hours, to find myself transformed, able to think of things I could do to support 'being my best,' of meditating, rediscovering Tapping, which helped so much earlier this year... Some hope comes in. Humbling that it took yet more pills to get to that point. I surround myself with material about helping myself: ironic that it took some 'assistance' to get into a space to use them.

But with the humbling comes hope also (and some sleep to integrate it all). Yes, I'm very busy, but I can't keep eating cold potatoes and undressed salad and insist that that's all I have time to prepare. I'm an expert in making good food fast, for goodness' sake! And now I can remember that.

I'll be back over the next couple days with some good examples of good, quick food that isn't entirely exclusive of fat and protein!

Do you trust your healthcare provider? Have you had any recent humbling experience?