Evidence

[Darren_Gregory]

Hi All:

I'm working on finding way to better study myself when it comes to recovery. I've intuitively kept a running log of holding what's working, and discarding what isn't. I do this well, for the most part. My interests are asking to go a little deeper.

I've realized something. I was prescribed medications when first diagnosed in 2005. Some were obviously harmful, and were discarded. The medications that remain in my care plan I'm not ready to try giving up on again, yet. I got a little pushy with myself last fall in November. I was moving forward and feeling so very much myself that I was convinced I didn't need them. I hadn't added things like Mindfulness Meditation; Loving Kindness Meditation; Insight Meditation or Self-Compassion Meditation then. I wasn't exercising enough, nor were my nutritional choices considered at all. These elements are coming into play, along with a return to the medication regime I'd been on prior to the effort to eliminate them.

I relapsed, hard in March this year. I'd ventured my way towards teaching. As a First Responder, I desperately needed to give back what I've learned, to help protect my peers that I'd left behind. I've since come to realize that this was a fear-based need, and an ego-need to get back on the horse, so to speak. The feelings inside were really, very much, like I was sensing grenades (potential harm) all over the place, and emotionally and spiritually driving myself to save everyone. So when I was invited in to a Fire Hall finally to teach, I went to hard, and re-injured myself, setting me back, ultimately to the brink of suicide in June. That was the final straw for my partner of seven years. She saw, then, with the relapse, no light at the end of her own tunnel. She was living with Compassion-Fatigue now. Burned out from all our ups-and-downs with this struggle.

Background for the expressed need, I'm coming to.

I've re-written my care-plan. I have awesome local psychiatry (First time in over ten years I haven't needed to travel for this support). My current therapist is fully trauma-informed, and works with me in a very respectful, yet challenging way. I'm blessed here.

The medications are my issue: My physician was in the dark ten years ago. As was psychiatry then. They threw medications at me, which I won't deviate from right now. But, what evidence do we have, other than my own assessment of my functioning to say anything empirical as to the value of these medicines? Nothing.

The Question: I want to know if they could test efficacy. Blood-Screening for therapeutic medication levels, maybe? Could they not regularly test this for me? Cortisol levels. Adrenal issues. Can this not be tested for, to help with my own picture-taking, physiologically, aside from 'feeling' and sharing that (which can still be unreliable in terms of any empiricism of my biological, physiological state).

My own curiosity is driving this need more than anything else. But, I don't know what to ask for, don't know what to track.

Can anyone guide me with this? What bio-marker evidence can I help guide my psychiatrist and physician towards, to add this information to the study of myself, relative to my experience with PTSD, Addictions, and Depression?

Thanks for taking time to read this novel.

Be Well

Darren