Day 1

"Suffering is resistance to this present moment. Pain in life is a guaranteed experience. Suffering is an optional experience." ~Nobodysnotes.com

This morning I start a new phase of my journey. I took my first dose of Lamotrigine, a mood stabilizing medication, after more than a year of taking no Psychoactive substances including psychiatric medication.  

My relationship to this change is an interesting one.  I have spent most of the last year maintaining the idea that the years I spent on psychiatric medications and going to different doctors had been "a search for a medical solution to a spiritual problem". By that I mean that the spiritual awakening I have been on for the last year or more must be the answer to why I had been so miserable for long.  Alas that is yet again my need for control and certainty coming to the forefront and attempting to assert itself.

As I choose to go back on medication this thoughts of failure of "not being spiritual enough" or not working hard enough are coming into my head.  Tears flowed as I thought of those feelings of failure.  To ease my suffering I looked through some of the spirituality tabs I had open hoping to find someone else experiencing my feelings.  What I found was this question about ones relationship to suffering and the response which starts with "Suffering is resistance to this present moment.  Pain in life is a guaranteed experience. Suffering is an optional experience.  It is never the experience itself that makes you suffer.  It is believing the thoughts about the experience that makes you suffer" and for the first time I understood.

Depression is something I have battled my whole life.  I use the word battled because it isn't until this moment that I realize that a significant source of the suffering of my life has been this fight against something that is a part of me.  Depression and mood swings are my dark companion, my shadow they are as much a part of who I am as my brown hair and brown eyes.  I have spent a significant portion of my life trying to eradicate my dark passenger and find a guarantee and a stability that would ensure I had a solid foundation on which to live my life.  I'm a bit on the stubborn side sometimes and resist ideas like impermanence.

I no longer wish to eradicate my dark passenger but I do accept that she is there and I accept she is a part of my life.  I also accept that there is enough suffering in life and there is no need for additional suffering.  So I start this next phase of my journey with a new relationship with myself and a desire to find just a little stability in this crazy world of mine.

I wish to honor my spirit on this journey and share it in the event that it helps someone else.