Being oneself and the psychological dance between identity and medication
Donna Williams
April 30, 2006
I had to renew my prescription this week for the small amount of atypical antipsychotic medication that helps me cope with life and found myself talking about medication and the concept of 'being oneself'.
When does medication stop us being ourself? When does it enable us to be more of that self? And which self does it enable us to be; the self we have built to fit a role or position in society that was never 'us' in the first place or does it enable us to be the meta self I would have, could have been had I not had the mood, anxiety and compulsive disorders that the medication was treating?
And why stop there? For some people nutritional supplements, smart drugs, special diets, tinted lenses, hypnotherapy, cognitive-behavioural therapy, cranio-sacral therapy, chiropractic, immune boosters, non-toxic water, exercise, sunlight or good sleeping patterns may together all dramatically alter information processing, sensory perception and, hence, behaviour, emotional responses, regulation of emotion and our relationship to ourself, to others and the world.
Do such things stop one from being one's 'real self' or enable one to become even more of that self? Is one merely fitting the status quo this way by making oneself functional enough to fit into the status quo? If one choses, instead to create a more fitting but idiosyncratic 'normality' of one's own, would we accept this as their 'self' or merely 'what they settled for'?
I explained to the doctor that I prefered to take the tiniest dose of medication possible because it allowed me to experience regular reminders of the mood, anxiety and compulsive disorders I was taking the medication for. Why, the doctor wanted to know? Because, I explained, when medication works consistently in higher doses its easy to imagine one doesn't need it, then go off it only to find life is chaotic, dysfunctional, unbearable. The sense of 'self', I explained, becomes confused, the 'it' versus the 'me'. I felt better experiencing little reminders of my natural but chaotic, dysfunctional, even sometimes dangerous (bipolar) state so I knew that I had a choice which self to be.
Which self to be? Such a strange concept to many people, that one has a choice and yet both are considered 'self'. But remove that choice and one cannot be sure that the functional, less chaotic self is the real self because it neither came naturally nor could one have a sense of having chosen it via the affect of medication. Its a matter of alienation and how to avoid it. If we feel removed from the process of experiencing self, then we cannot own that selfhood, identify with it.
Yet there are people who don't live this strange version of reality, 'normality' and yet they too have the dilemma of who is their real self. Is it the one everyone else has come to like and want, the one that fits the expected niches? Or are they the one which failed to do so and now lives, supressed underneath?
Self is a strange concept and ultimately the only expert on it is the one experiencing the individual themselves. If we walked back into our own life ten, twenty, fifteen years ago, we'd not be the same self we were then.
According to the Buddhists, selfhood is transient and we shouldn't become overly attached to it. Fortunately, I am not attached to any one sense of self. I'm glad for my sense of self to change and to be like the ocean, impossible to hold, and with a tide and undercurrent that can switch places in an instant, something enigmatic and difficult to truly know for certain yet possible to feel poetically.
As I take my prescription from the doctor, I know in my heart it brings me closer to the ocean by saving me from a Tsunami and that's all that matters.
Donna Williams
author, artist, eccentric
www.donnawilliams.net
When does medication stop us being ourself? When does it enable us to be more of that self? And which self does it enable us to be; the self we have built to fit a role or position in society that was never 'us' in the first place or does it enable us to be the meta self I would have, could have been had I not had the mood, anxiety and compulsive disorders that the medication was treating?
And why stop there? For some people nutritional supplements, smart drugs, special diets, tinted lenses, hypnotherapy, cognitive-behavioural therapy, cranio-sacral therapy, chiropractic, immune boosters, non-toxic water, exercise, sunlight or good sleeping patterns may together all dramatically alter information processing, sensory perception and, hence, behaviour, emotional responses, regulation of emotion and our relationship to ourself, to others and the world.
Do such things stop one from being one's 'real self' or enable one to become even more of that self? Is one merely fitting the status quo this way by making oneself functional enough to fit into the status quo? If one choses, instead to create a more fitting but idiosyncratic 'normality' of one's own, would we accept this as their 'self' or merely 'what they settled for'?
I explained to the doctor that I prefered to take the tiniest dose of medication possible because it allowed me to experience regular reminders of the mood, anxiety and compulsive disorders I was taking the medication for. Why, the doctor wanted to know? Because, I explained, when medication works consistently in higher doses its easy to imagine one doesn't need it, then go off it only to find life is chaotic, dysfunctional, unbearable. The sense of 'self', I explained, becomes confused, the 'it' versus the 'me'. I felt better experiencing little reminders of my natural but chaotic, dysfunctional, even sometimes dangerous (bipolar) state so I knew that I had a choice which self to be.
Which self to be? Such a strange concept to many people, that one has a choice and yet both are considered 'self'. But remove that choice and one cannot be sure that the functional, less chaotic self is the real self because it neither came naturally nor could one have a sense of having chosen it via the affect of medication. Its a matter of alienation and how to avoid it. If we feel removed from the process of experiencing self, then we cannot own that selfhood, identify with it.
Yet there are people who don't live this strange version of reality, 'normality' and yet they too have the dilemma of who is their real self. Is it the one everyone else has come to like and want, the one that fits the expected niches? Or are they the one which failed to do so and now lives, supressed underneath?
Self is a strange concept and ultimately the only expert on it is the one experiencing the individual themselves. If we walked back into our own life ten, twenty, fifteen years ago, we'd not be the same self we were then.
According to the Buddhists, selfhood is transient and we shouldn't become overly attached to it. Fortunately, I am not attached to any one sense of self. I'm glad for my sense of self to change and to be like the ocean, impossible to hold, and with a tide and undercurrent that can switch places in an instant, something enigmatic and difficult to truly know for certain yet possible to feel poetically.
As I take my prescription from the doctor, I know in my heart it brings me closer to the ocean by saving me from a Tsunami and that's all that matters.
Donna Williams
author, artist, eccentric
www.donnawilliams.net
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