Popping Pills and Practice

Since writing my latest article for WitchVox (btw, I tried to write back to you, Carol but it bounced! Hopefully you'll see this instead?), I've actually been getting the same question a lot which makes me think it's on a lot of people's minds:

Do you think that taking medication affects your magical practice?

For the TL;DR crowd, my short answer would be: no. For those of you interested in a discussion, I will share my thoughts with you here. Firstly, I'd like to say that I really dislike it when people are made to feel like they need to engage in secrecy and shame. If that happens, something has really gone wrong in my opinion and the fact that apparently a lot of Pagans/Magical Practitioners feel that they can't talk about taking prescription medication and need to hide that from the community makes me really sad. Taking care of your health and taking advantage of modern medicine shouldn't be something you have to feel shame about in spiritual circles in my opinion.

So let's start kicking down some walls and lay it all out there. I have depression, anxiety, anemia and fibromyalgia. I currently take the following medications to make it so that I am a productive member of society: Prozac, Xanax, Remeron, Savella, Celebrex, Vitamin D, Multi-Vitamin and Birth Control. In the past, I have: gone to therapy and tried Kava and St. John's Wort to help. The therapy helped immensely, the Kava and St. John's Wort significantly less so. In addition to my medication I use yoga, stress management techniques, japa/self guided meditation, massage, journaling and talking to loved ones to manage my conditions. I see my doctor regularly. She is v. tight fisted with all the "fun" meds and I don't think I could get a Vicodin out of her if it meant she could retire on a island of her own. But at the same time, she treats my conditions very aggressively.

Even with good coping mechanisms, good medication and a good support structure, I still have days where I'm anxious and can't sleep and occasionally have days where I am depressed for no reason, sometimes my fibromyalgia causes me so much fatigue and pain still that I can't get out of bed. Despite these aspects, I still feel the normal human range of emotions and generally only feel sad or stressed when I'm "supposed to". I've worked since I was fourteen, I pay my taxes, I write, I ran a con, I go out and have fun doing all the things early thirty-somethings like to do, I have loving relationships and I own a car and a condo. My medication makes it so that instead of being too depressed to be motivated or paralyzed with inexplicable fear and anxiousness or too bedridden with pain and fatigue on the regular, I can lead a fairly "normal" life.

Which is why at this point I get confused about why shame needs to be implemented for taking advantage of first world medical care in order to lead functional lives. Are there people who abuse prescriptions? Um, yeah. They're addicts like the people who are alcoholics and have other drug abuse problems. Is that the majority of people who take meds? No. There's this idea that bugs the shit out of me that there are all these people who take medication they don't really need and this medication *magically* takes away all of their problems and they don't need to deal with them. Last I knew, you needed to take like a fistful of Xanax or are shooting H to get that effect. Which . . .see: addict.

Medication (and therapy) helps get you to the point where you're not in a full blown chemical freakout so you can effectively solve your problems and live your life. If you can do that for yourself without meds, rock out, you have an awesome immune system and brain chemistry. If you can do that solely with homeopathic methods, rock out. If you feel taking meds makes *you* a lesser person somehow then that's your business. But I start to get *real* touchy when you try to lay your trip on me. I get *even more* touchy when you start to try to tell me what to do with my body because I have a real problem with that. Control over my body goes way beyond whether or not I decide to have an abortion, it's also about having agency over the decisions I make regarding my health care.

And this bullshit that some people in our community put on others about how taking prescription medication is selling out, supporting corporate evil and bringing our community down and how you don't "believe" in the pharmaceutical industry so neither should anyone else and positive energy/crystals/herbs/alternative therapies would work for everyone regardless of their brain chemistry and body systems and personal desires is just that- bullshit.

With all that out of the way, let's get to the nuts and bolts of the question asked. While I haven't been completely unmedicated in roughly ten years, there are times where I have a little time in between prescriptions due to various reasons (mostly due to the length of time it takes for my prescriptions to arrive to me via mail) where I am in a quasi-unmedicated state and/or if my fibro-flare is that impressive that it punches past my meds that I feel able to give my own take on whether or not my medications have affected my magical practice.

When I was unmedicated/quasi-unmedicated, it was significantly easier for me to be in touch intuitively. What that means to me is that Tarot reading was easier to "pull", getting random psychic impulses and having an easier time seeing what's going on with what I call The Tapestry. The Tapestry refers to everything that's happened in the past, everything that's happening right now, everything that will happen and everything that never happened. To me it looks like a huge tapestry constantly weaving and unweaving itself in bits and pieces. Typically I could see about like one billionth of the whole tapestry, it was mostly my little corner of the world.

However. And this is a big however, my magic has significantly improved since medicating. My spells are much more effectively, I have the focus to have a personal practice and my rituals are more effective and meaningful.

So while yes, my general fuzzy random psychic ability was better unmedicated, having the ability to cast better and have a better personal practice *to me* (and YMMV) far outweighed my unmedicated abilities. While yes, my unmedicated abilities were more "traditional" psychic aspects, the ability to get the perfect condo through my targeted magic work far outweighed the benefit of being able to say, "Gordon! I think something is going to happen to you on Wedne- Thursd- No, definitely Wednesday. No idea what though. Cheers!" So for me, being more functional in my daily life and being more effective in my targeted magical practice far outweighed being unmedicated.

Discuss among yourselves.

Panic, Meditation, and the Dilettante

Many parties on my blogosphere talk about how meditation is the cornerstone of their practice. And I really respect that, but it's not the cornerstone of mine. And at first I felt like a complete dilettante about that. What? Sit quietly for an hour? What kind of girl do you think I am? I don't *do* that!

It's not that I haven't tried. I have, meditation was part of my ADF druid dedicant program. The issue, the real issue, that took me years to get to the heart of is that I can't do traditional meditation because of my panic disorder.

I've done what I'm supposed to do, I've sat on the couch, I take meds (delicious, delicious meds! O how I love thee!), I've found god(dess)(es), I've come to terms with the things that caused that in me. But here's the thing, it doesn't go away. Some people think that's what therapy/meds is supposed to. Congratulations! You're healed of years of abuse, bad relationships, bad decisions, and living with a debilitating condition! Go! Be free! Live a normal life!

It would be kick ass if it *did* work that way, but it doesn't. I get better at living with it, at managing it, so much so that people who've only known me as an adult (especially past the age of 25) forget how damaged I am, which is flattering. But it's still there. And real, true, emptying my mind meditation triggers a panic attack in me every time. I don't know all the hows and the whys, but I do know some, just like I know some of why going to the movies at a theater does the same and drinking caffeine. At the end of the day, this isn't something you can always logic your way out of. Your body is reacting in a real, visceral, primal way and it doesn't care if you say, "Oh no body! We're not *really* in danger! It's fine, really." Because often, your body's response is, "OMFG!!!!!!!!!!! ARRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! OMFG!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" until it's done.

Some magic users have gone so far as to say they didn't think you could be an effective magic user without meditation. I've asked what should I do due to my body's chemical reaction (also? Fibro? Not the greatest for long term meditation) and no one had any kind of answer for me. This was devastating to me. I wanted to be a real live girl and no blue fairy had any sort of answer for me as to how to get past this.

So for a while I gave up. That's right, I gave the fuck up. It was exhausting enough trying to lead a "normal" life, if I couldn't ever do this, well it's unlikely I'll ever run a marathon either or be president.

I don't have the answers for everyone, I can only speak for myself. But I don't think really many people have talked about what to do if you have a disability(ies) that prevent you from having a full, rich meditiational life. So, let me tell you what I've found for myself.

How to be Magically Delicious Without Emptying Your Mind Meditation


Why can't you meditate? If you don't know why, really know why, you're not going to be able to figure out the actual heart of your magical practice so do some serious soul searching to figure out why. Even if your reason is "I don't want to", go deeper than than and think about why you don't want to.

Redefine meditation for yourself. My japa practice has been something I've done every night without fail since late December. It gives me the benefits that meditation is supposed to give people - relaxing, focusing, clearing my mind, etc. My brain/body can handle a full 108 every night and it's really helped my personal practice. Guided meditation such as the IPM and visiting my own internal hearth can really be helpful for me. When I am not strong enough to clean my actual hearth, cleaning my internal hearth really helps keep me sane, I can also visit with my god/desses there. Other things that help me: cooking, cleaning, baking bread. Don't discount those practices, they can really help you develop your magical practice if you treat them as meditational practice.

What is it you're trying to accomplish with magic? I have to be blunt, I'm not looking to talk to angels. I'm not looking to call in any kind of super serious spirit that needs to be confiiiiiiiiiined by my dark aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarts! I like having an occasional meditation chat with my god/desses, I like trying to build a better me on my path - to be faster, stronger, sexxxier. For me that really equates to: having a magical practice to call my own, having enough money to pay my bills and occasionally travel and buy a ridiculous purse, get in better shape, writing, and crafting. All of this can be accomplished with low magic. So if I personally don't need or really even want anything that can be accomplished with higher magic, why do I keep torturing myself? It's ridiculous. I personally have yet to go into any situation that could not be solved with mundane means or low magic. It could happen, but . . .it hasn't. So why am I preparing for some kind of magical apocalypse if I don't need to? For me, it has been far more beneficial for me to stop torturing myself about things I wasn't trying to accomplish in my practice anyway and get better honing my practice to accomplish the things I *am* trying to accomplish, none of which require a huge meditational practice.

If what you are trying to accomplish does require it, it's going to be a difficult path so make sure it's worth it to you. You may want to start looking up Rinpoches who have experience with disability and meditations.

You still need a cornerstone in your practice. If meditation isn't your cornerstone, what is? Really stop and think about it. My cornerstone is my hearth. My magic happens in the kitchen, in the dining room, in the bedroom (if you know what I'm sayin!), using household tools. It's my chantry, my sanctuary, my safe space, my temple. So I need to focus on making sure my hearth is in order, which is where the majority of my magical practice lies with offerings being a second and spellwork being a third.

Wheel of Morality Turn, Turn, Turn. Tell Us the Lesson We Must Learn!

So last we left our intrepid dilettante, she was having a complete crisis of faith.

So it started happening again - I'd start to get better, decide to take it upon myself to have a Tiki Party with a massive amount of help from the bfs and gf, take down a heroic amount of shots and . . .start to get sick again.

Slowly, it started to dawn on me that maybe, just maybe this was not fibro related. Maybe I was just . . .sick (inconceivable! I always Cast Doubt about that because I feel being such a lemon physically that I should get a free pass, n'est-ce pas?) or had an infection or something.

It's been more than three weeks of this low grade . . .thing. So finally, I cave about going to see a doctor (I'm insuranceless or my ass would have been there like a bat out of hell week one).

Being insuranceless, my *ideal* doctor's appointment would be: you have a minor infection, here is a script for cheap or free antibotics.

Because! If it is:

You just have fibro/a cold/allergies/nebulous stinky cat syndrom - *rage!* because I had to pay a lot to hear that.

You need some kind of procedure - *rage!* because I don't have money for that.

I was *going* to go to the MinuteClinic but Mothra acted like I was going there for a back alley abortion*, all, WHAT! ARE THEY EVEN DOCTORS! WHAT DO THEY KNOW ABOUT FIBRO! So I was like, oooooohkay, I'll go to my usual doctor.

So, I did and it turns out I have a bronchial infection and have been put on a five day dose of Zelasomething and sent home after the appointment. So, it went according to plan, basically. I am going to take it easy this week and look forward to returning to my usual state of feeling sort of like ass instead of flat out like ass. She also said that even a low grade fever is going to fuck up my fibro like whoa. Which means I'll be plotting, commenting, writing, and other mischievous acts again v. soon.

I picture the conversation between my deities to go something like:

Yemaya: I've been trying to tell your daughter this for weeks --
Crow: My daughter? Why is she always my daughter when she gets crazified? I've been trying too, I've sent crows everywhere to tell her to get her ass to the damn doctor--
Yemaya: She never listens.
Shiva, Durga, Parvati: Srsly. Not even a little.


* The closest one to me isn't v. close anyway

You have limitations, don't go chasing flies/ I must be protective/ You cannot be reckless/ That's what is expected/ when you are infected . . .

Gather round, kiddies. I haven't been writing as much in the last two weeks or so due to my fibro. Apparently, my body has now decided it's great fun to let me think I'm holding the leash, only to be reminded in the morning who the bitch is.

It's hard. Mostly, I don't talk about it, because I'm busy living and doing and being a good little match girl. But lately, if I do (1) "out of the box" event, I'm paying for it for a week. When I'm dancing on tables and shot gunning caffeine and booze down my throat in equal measures (what? Isn't that what you do at a sci-fi/fantasy con?), I know that the bill is going to come due and I'll sign my name and take the hit to be low grade ill for a week.

But when it's smaller events that simply require getting up early, or staying out late, or being outside when it's a little cold and the bill comes due, demanding similar tribute as a weekend of debauchery, it's more than dispiriting.

This is also where I tend to have trouble interacting with others, even loved ones. Because I don't look sick most of the time and can put on a pretty decent act about being a real girl, it's easy for many to live primarily in Denial Island. When it gets bad, the reaction often shoots over to Ohmigod It's Like You're Dyingville, which is also completely exhausting in other ways. Getting only one of two of those reactions often feels completely skitzo to me, because I live with this every damn day whether I want to or not.

Those close to me want to hear my usual Pollyana attitude, that I will push through this and I will be better again on a cocktail of meds, sunshine, and wishes. That this is just a rough patch. I will be normal again and no one will have to worry anymore. I will be drinking champagne and wearing too much jewelry and laughing again.

And here's where my crisis of faith always happens. I can't promise anyone that. I don't know when and if I'll get better again or if I'm at another dip in the road.

Words that are meant to be encouraging like, we'll get through this, aren't. I'm getting through it right now, thank you. I want my fucking life back. I don't want to just get through this. Digging my claws into my job and being able to write >500 words a day and being able to spin >1 oz in a day (and not both together, let's not get crazy!), trying to socialize for a couple hours, and trying to manage making dinner isn't my fucking life. It's substandard. It's unacceptable. Attempts to find the magic scientific equation (if I just do x amount of work in y day, I will have z energy . . .) are equally frustrating.

I'm sure you'd like this entry to feel a little more occultish and a little less lj. It's the thought I am afraid to even have - what is the point of this? What is the point of my fibromyalgia? Who am I when it rules me? Who would I be if I were without it? Is it a matter of, oh sorry kid, we live in a random ass universe where random ass shit happens and you shot craps? Is there a purpose to it? To make me more magically delicious? To make me stronger, faster, harder, more appreciative, more introspective? Because let me tell you something, days like today, I want to give that fucker back, if it's some kind of so-called "gift". And let me tell you, while my magic is effective and while my character sheet dots have been balanced in other ways (that I always have loved ones, that I always have enough money, etc), nothing I've ever accomplished has frankly been impressive enough to warant this level of what's been of late constant suckage. I wish I were more deluded, that I was constantly fucking around on the astral, thinking I'm pew! pew! pewing! my way into some kind of huge bit of arcane power through my sacrifice.

And if it's not for some divine purpose, or not in my gods control, why is it happening? And if it is in my gods control, why do they let me live like this? I mean, I know, starving children in Africa, someone always has it worse, blahfuckingblah. Other people having it worse is often at best an intellectual concept to me when it gets this bad for me.

I keep thinking, that somehow living with this is something I can just power through and overpower through sheer force of will, and that's what most of my days are when it's not this bad. In the last 21 . . .I keep failing. I don't even fail better. I. Just. Keep. Failing.

Two crows are sitting at my window, their backs politely to me as I sniffle at my desk at work. Always there. Always watching.

I just feel . . .lost. Because, what if I don't get better again this time? What if this is it and it's just a slow steady decline?

If I were a Catholic still, I would believe that my God had a plan and a purpose to this. If I were a mage, I would believe my magic could make me better and I could return to at least my former sick self through my will. But I'm neither. I'm just another lost dilettante with no answers.

No, *really* you shouldn't have!

After discussing before bed how I was pretty sure that we were becoming the Miracle Max and Valerie of the blogosphere, with him shouting getting back witch and me shouting I'm not a witch I'm your wife and I'm not even sure I want to be that anymore and what about true love! Jow asked me, what have I done personally magically about the fibromyalgia. It was that lovely time of night where I had watched a satisfactory amount of Judge Judy, malas had been said, and pills had been taken rendering me more dreamily contemplative than ornery and we were lying in bed in the dark where all truth is born.

Reiki, I said finally. And that's all. I don't know why I never did more than that. But . . .I haven't.

Do you think it's because of shamanism?

Maybe? I was always to understand that having this nebulous condition meant that you were special, that you were chosen. I mean, other things too. But to my mind it's like I can think that god turned his back on me or I can think that this makes me more magically delicious. It's a lot easier living with b. than a.

Some gift though. No, really you shouldn't have!

I know right? Okay thanks for my -1 difficulty on all my magical dice rolls, but the +2 difficulty to daily life leaves something to be desired.


But before I went to sleep, I wondered what I always wonder when it comes to my fibromyalgia, I am who I am who I am who am I/ Requesting some enlightenment/ Could I have been anyone other than me? More specifically, who am I without my pain? Where is my power? Where is my sacrifice?

I don't know. I went to the ocean in my head and laid there until I fell asleep.