I've made a decision, sort of, to stop taking my medication. Only time will tell the wisdom of this choice, but I can tell you my reasons.
It started a couple of months ago when I was no longer able to get in contact with my psychiatrist, for reasons I still don't know. I had needed to reschedule an appointment due to my work schedule, and although I left several messages asking to reschedule I never received a response. Ever. Not to this day. I still have no idea what happened.
I told my primary doctor and he was kind enough to write me a refill, but of course he wasn't going to permanently fill the script, nor would I expect him to. He gave me a list of other doctors I could contact. Unfortunately they were either not taking patients at the time or worked in clinics and only dealt with emergency cases, they had no permanent patients. At this point I was already out of meds and was feeling the effects; the anxiety, the panic, rushing thoughts, mornings throwing up.
Work was getting stressful too, and by chance I confided in a peer of mine what was going since we were working closely together and I was really tired of trying to hide anything anymore. I gave him the cliff notes version, after which he shrugged and said, "Just be OCD, man." I laughed at the time and told him he didn't understand how difficult it could be, to which he shrugged and said, "Whatever, man. Just be who you are."
The more I thought on it the more I thought he might be right. There was a time when I don't think I could have survived much without the medication, but I've learned a lot since then. I grew up with OCD without even knowing what it was. It was miserable, but I survived. Now at least I know why I am the way I am. Plus, I began to feel really irritated about being the only one who seemed to care about whether or not I was getting my medication (unless I was irritating someone with my OCD, then they cared suddenly). So yeah. Whatever, man.
All I can really say so far about not being on medication for about four months now, the first time without meds in probably nine years, is it's six of one and a half dozen of the other. It's harder. Kind of. I guess. What I mean is both meds and no meds come with their own set of obstacles to deal with. The anxiety is worse, the OCD is worse, but without the meds it's forcing me to come to grips with it as well. With the meds I was more relaxed, sort of, but there was also a fear when I wasn't anxious that the anxiety would come back. That (as it did happen eventually) I would run into a problem with filling my prescription. With the meds there was this false hope that I would no longer be OCD, instead of just accepting it. So was I really less anxious?
I can say the same with my thought process, as well. With the meds I can think more clearly, but much slower. Without the meds the thoughts race, but I can also process multiple subjects at once.
So I don't think there's a right answer. I don't know if I'll go back on meds or not. Don't really care at this point. To some degree I feel good I'm getting to know myself again, even if it feels like a horror show at times. I know there was a time I needed meds. I know there was a time they were therapeutic. I know I never would have learned to deal with OCD and understand why people without it can't understand it without having taken meds. But maybe that's as far as they could take me. Maybe meds were a nice vacation for me to see how the other half lives. Maybe it's time to get back to who I am. Maybe it's time to face the fear, face the anxiety, and just deal with life as a fact.
Maybe it's time to stop hiding.