The price of productivity

My yoga instructor told me yesterday that this is the month of sitting with difficult thoughts. I had been doing a lot of that so here is one:

I have found my thoughts this month coming back again and again to what we give up to be "normal." I know normal is the wrong word, but I can't think of a better one. In many cases, this is the price we pay for taking psychotropic medications, not financially, but personally. I think often people forget that these loses are real. Or sometimes it isn't medication, but just a type of self-stifling that we do, to keep ourselves in check, to not let the seems show in the fabric of our personalities so that we can write that last paper, make that last phone call, finish that last article, be that supportive friend. It's often the people who love us the most who may forget we've lost something by only showing these versions of ourselves, the ones that are competent and sane and yes, normal, because they are so relieved that we are spared (and they are spared) from the more difficult aspects of differences.

Fine Lines

I have been thinking a lot this month about the difference between those aspects of our personalities which make us unique and interesting, versus those aspects of ourselves which make us unhappy or sick. If these aspects were mapped in a ven diagram, there would be a lot of overlap. I find myself struggling to define what sorts of characteristics should be left untouched and what has to be altered for the sake of health and productivity.

As a soon-to-be lawyer, I value productivity in my own life very highly. I have a running to-do list in my mind (I imagine we all do.) And yet I wonder what our society is losing as we push people forward to achieve by developing strategies to deal with our mental conditions, especially when those strategies involve psychotropic medications.

And so I throw it open to all of you: what is the price you pay for being high-functioning? Do you have days when you miss the part of you that you stifle?