True insight or withdrawal?

[Sparrow]

Recently I've been experiencing what feels like some major revelations about my past and my self. So many things that I've always known were true, but they were too distressing to accept.

 

I seem to have spent a great deal of my adult life in a state of persistant denial about many important things, hoping that if I just did the right things and behaved the right way, everything would somehow come out all right in the end. It appears to me that I've been miserable and confused to varying degrees the whole time.

 

Am I having a painfully enlightening epiphany, or is this my withdrawal-incapacitated brain feeding me BS? How do you tell the difference?

 

Sparrow

 

[Aria]

I had profound clarity during w/d and it made me face a lot of issues head on. I think it was my emotions/thoughts being able to truly express themselves after yrs of drug numbness and I developed a better sense of self too. I still have the clarity and it has helped me deal with family and situations. I need to add it was scarey at first because the filters were off and having these revelations could be overwhelming.

[Barbarannamated]

This is very painfully true for me, as well, and the blinders pre-date drugs. The drugs reinforced the blinders and denial.

 

Very often recently, I'm hit with the question "HOW did I NOT see this before??". Then I start doubting myself and fear I'm seeing things incorrectly NOW and that I'm going to be hit with "the old truth" again and regret a lot of what's happened during withdrawal (mostly family related). The cognitive dissonance is maddening.

 

Ive noticed that my instincts are much better or I'm trusting them more.

[Sparrow]

Thank you Aria and Barb. This helps enormously.

 

Barb, my blinders predate the drugs too. Ah, god, it's all making sense now. What a terrible mess I've made of things, a lifetime of self-delusion.

 

I don't know what to do with this knowledge.

[Barbarannamated]

Sparrow,

 

This thread might resonate with you and, hopefully, be of some help (sorry,I didn't check to see if you had already visited it):

 

http://survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/topic/3655-long-pasttraumatization-might-seriously-exacerbate-your-complaints/?fromsearch=1

 

I'm not a big believer in "everything happens for a reason", but this unveiling has been so dramatic (and traumatic), that it seems I'm supposed to be learning this at this point in time.

 

I don't want to pry, but if you ever want to discuss more here or privately, please feel free to contact me. I know how overwhelming it is to look back and see things that were there all along but our subconscious blocked out or interpreted in a way that was easier to accept, to fit into my existing paradigm.

 

I've struggled with the feeling that "I did everything right, followed the rules for a good life, so WHY has this all happened to me??". Terrible feeling that sends me back into fetal position.

[Aria]

When I was coming off the psyche drugs my new realization made me see what I had missed and I still have feelings of loss, time ill used (family, what I might have done-accomplished).  I blamed myself for what had transpired and apologized profusely to family. I learned and am still learning from it (painful as it is).

[Meimeiquest]

I look at my history with my spouse differently through every phase of withdrawal. So I am trying (oftentimes unsuccessfully) to be kind to him and put the deep thoughts off for clearer days. But we have a complex past and I think in way too complicated ways. But the sadness of these years lost, the way I fail my daughters....my feelings about that don't change.

[Barbarannamated]

Bump for MM