Meditation vs Medication

I don't really take any medication anymore for depression and/or anxiety. Once I retired I didn't care if I woke up at 4am. At least I didn't have to get up and go to work! I would say that for almost

a year I continued to wake up very early and I felt filled with anxiety. (This was after I stopped taking cipralex for anxiety). It was a costly medication and I felt I could get along without it. 

So when I woke up at 4am feeling anxious I would get up (no point lying there) and I would listen to an audiobook (too anxious to read a print book) and usually I would fall back to sleep for awhile.

Now I sleep til 7am. I still feel some anxiety but not as much. I realize that

once I get up and start my morning routine the anxiety will subside.

My remaining medication is a small dose, 50mg, of an older drug (amitriptyline) that has had success for back pain. After taking a few other drugs my doctor recommended trying it and it really helped. Unfortunately it is really hard to get off of. You must VERY slowly wean yourself off. I tried more than once and it made me feel suicidal. I am in the process of weaning off again by having a whole pill one day and then a half pill the next and alternating. So far so good. It's inexpensive but it's the side effects that worry me. I realize amitriptyline masks my true emotions as I struggle to feel much of anything - my sense of humour no longer exists and I feel quite flat. It's a tough go.  I would prefer not to take it and I feel trapped - I read an article that said getting off amitriptyline is harder than kicking heroin!

Every day I do 30 minutes of yoga for pain control and recently I added a 20 minute meditation from the same yoga app called Yoga Studio. EXCELLENT! At first I resented the extra time spent laying on the floor but I do find it is helpful and now I look forward to it. I am hoping the effects of meditation will help both with pain and with balancing my medication. Time will tell. The next step in the weaning process would be to take a full pill one night followed by two nights taking a half pill. I think that will be manageable. I look forward to having feelings again although I also don't want to be overwhelmed with emotions by weaning too quickly. One day at a time I guess.

Positive thought for the day: "The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain."  Dolly Parton