Medication and the Limit

I believed I could carry everything on my own.

Photo by Christine Sandu on Unsplash

For many years, I believed I could carry everything on my own. I believed that willpower was enough. That suffering was simply a matter of endurance. That if others could bear certain burdens, then I should be able to bear them as well.

For decades, I pushed my nervous system beyond its limits. I did it out of responsibility, pride, fear, habit, and also out of love for those closest to me. Every anxiety crisis was followed by another effort. Every emotional collapse became yet another obligation. I learned to keep moving forward even when my body was pleading with me to stop.

That is why, when I look at the medications that accompany me today—sertraline, quetiapine, sulpiride, diazepam, and lormetazepam—I try not to see them as a defeat.

For a long time, I struggled to accept that I needed psychiatric medication. A part of me still believed that I should be able to recover on my own, just as I had always tried to do. But reality was different. I had reached a point where my suffering exceeded my capacity to endure it. My body and mind had simply run out of reserves.

Medication did not solve my story. It did not erase the lack of emotional support I felt for so many years. It did not bring back the people I had lost. It did not heal the wounds of childhood or the family conflicts that shaped my life. Nor did it remove the profound sensitivity with which I was born.

What it did was something far more humble—and at the same time, far more important: it allowed me to remain here.

It enabled me to survive days that would otherwise have been unbearable. It helped contain an anguish that had grown beyond what a dignified life could sustain. It gave me the opportunity to rest after decades of relentless struggle.

Today, I know that the real question is not whether I will need this medication for the rest of my life.

The real question is: what can I learn from everything that led me to need it?

Perhaps the most important lesson is to accept that I, too, have limits.

I am not a machine built to endure pain. I am not a hero destined to save every situation. I am not the child who must constantly prove his worth in order to deserve love or recognition.

I am a human being.

A person who suffered far more than others could ever see.

A person who fought for far too long without asking for enough help.

A person whose nervous system finally said what I had never known how to express with clarity:

Enough.

If one day I am able to reduce my medication, I will be grateful.

If I need to remain on part of it for many years, I will try to accept that without shame.

Because dignity does not lie in never needing help.

Dignity lies in acknowledging the truth of what one has lived through.

And the truth of my life is that I reached the limit of my strength.

I am still here.

Written at 07/04/2026
© Jesus Jordan Parra