I know it’s wild, but I think I can make it through life without drugs.
Some people distract themselves from their problems by being glued to screens. Some people turn to the bottle and drown their sorrows. Others use forms of psychedelics to escape. And some others remain on pills prescribed to them to dull the pain of reality. But me? I have decided to face the insanity head-on. I am coping with mental health spiritually, by embracing all that I am.
So, I choose to sit in darkness. I choose to acknowledge uncertainty. I choose to battle internally with control versus surrender, grappling with inner polarities of light and dark, all while keeping a smile on my face and pretending to be a “normal” person on the outside.
But I am not normal. I am largely not medicated. And that makes me an anomaly.
Am I weird because I actually choose to experience the pain? What is wrong with me?
Am I actually the insane one for not wanting to take mind-numbing substances that will save me from depression? Lots of people have suggested I need help — someone or something outside me needs to help me because they believe I can’t make it through reality on my own. They suggest a therapist or pills. They don’t believe me when I say this is meant to be. They don’t understand when I say that I meditate, and that is enough.
The worst thing is that people don’t believe that anyone should ever face their own shadows. If I am sad, they think it’s an emergency. I need to be medicated immediately or bad things will happen — like I might actually face the image of my own soul. Imagine that.
Imagine knowing the self and how scary that can be. It’s beyond the imaginings of most humans on this planet.
Nobody needs to rush in and save me from myself. Sadness and darkness are part of human existence. If I choose to run from it now, I will only have to face it in another time and place. People one hundred years ago didn’t have all of these escapes from the self — that’s a newfangled human society thing. Maybe our ancestors faced human misery head-on without forcing themselves to pretend everything is okay like we’re doing now.
Somehow, humans throughout their history until only a short period of time ago have existed without being medicated. Somehow, our species can live without unlimited amounts of alcohol, weed, pills, and even therapists. Maybe the humans long ago were literally out of their minds, but if they were, then it must have been natural. It must have been healthy. Because they were being exactly what they were meant to be.
As a species, we needed to (and still need to) evolve, and we do that by facing calamities along with the pleasant times of peace. We don’t evolve by running or numbing. We have to know the self to see that there is darkness and light there, and only then can we start to heal and regulate ourselves. We must know the truth before doing anything to evolve. Coping with mental health is part of our collective evolution.
So, if I am meant to have a dark night of the soul, then I will have it. If I am meant to be in depressive pain, then so be it. I’m going to feel it all. I will crumble into a pile of anxiety-stricken rubble if need be, but I will do it without being numbed from it. I believe it is meant to be this way.
Only in times of great pain can we learn to persevere, and in that moment of grit, the soul experiences growth. Evolve with me.
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