“Should I take Strattera” , or any medication, is a question that gets asked more frequently as the searches for Strattera related posts on Google seemingly increase.
It is an incredibly difficult question to answer objectively. You may have seen previous posts “Strattera Changed My Life” and “My Strattera Experience” which explain the journey in as much detail and honesty as possible based on the wisdom and knowledge that I had available to me at the time.
I tried to explain not just an understanding of the drug and its effects but an understanding of the changes that were happening as I struggled to break free from addiction, anxiety, depression and repeated toxic behaviours.
Should I Take Medication?
My understanding now, having been off medication for nearly a year, is that drugs and medication, be they legal or restricted, plant based or chemical, are a double edged sword. They give and they take, they heal and they damage and they can offer new profound insights whilst blinding you from situations which are directly in front of you.
A friend who is an ex heroin addict once told me something that has stuck in my head ever since. However these words of wisdom may have come somewhat too late in my drug taking career.
He told me that, “whatever you take from drugs you pay back with interest”, and this really resonated with me. What I have come to realise is that we are in a permanent state of medication. People think they don’t take medication for depression yet they drink, smoke, eat sugary chemical laden foods and take recreational drugs.
“Whatever you take from drugs you pay back with interest”
A wise man
It can be stigmatised to take ADHD medication yet people fill themselves with coffee and nicotine from the moment they wake. This is all legalised and normalised medication. The issue – the double edged sword – is that all these medications have detrimental effects on our health yet we use them perpetually.
Medication is usually a temporary solution and needs to fit into the bigger plan:
If concentration issues, anxiety, depression, insomnia, suicidal thoughts are interfering with your life and stopping you from being able to function then it could be beneficial to investigate medication as a temporary relief from this pain, and a chance to experience life without these symptoms, so that you know what you need to work towards in sober life.
However, medication doesn’t cure anything, it masks the issues. Because of this, it is so important to understand that when you come off the medication your original symptoms may even be exacerbated as you withdraw and recover from the medication. If you truly want to heal, then at some point it will probably be necessary to learn healthy coping mechanisms and finally face your demons – stone cold sober. Read the Path to Addiction Recovery if you are struggling with addiction issues.
Medication is a tool for getting your life back on track but it must be accompanied with a more holistic, therapeutic, spiritual – whatever you want to call it – approach.
This includes:
- Therapy
- Analysing past trauma: Read (How to Overcome Trauma – Breaking the Shackles)
- Exercise
- Sleep Hygiene
- Diet
- Soul searching
- Meditation
- Mindfulness
- Yoga
- Journaling,
- Re-connecting with your creative side.
If you are chronically anxious, stressed, depressed this is your body / brains way of telling you that something is wrong, but it is possible to find out the roots of these problems and truly heal yourself
Read (How to Overcome Trauma – Breaking the Shackles)
Go back to basics and build yourself from the ground up. Sort out your sleep, take care of what you eat and drink, exercise as often as possible. Once you have these three fundamentals sorted life starts becoming more manageable and building new positive habits upon these foundations becomes easier.
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