<< Question your medication >>
2004-04-19, 8:16 a.m.

1st entry of the day

Yeah, I question my medication all the time. First of all, despite the fact that it's pretty obvious that I shown symptoms of being bipolar as early as age 7 or so I did not take any medication at all untill I was 22. Sure they tried to RX me prozac at 14 or so, but my parents were opposed so I never took any meds.

At from 18-21 I used st. johns wort for about 8-9 months at a time a couple of times. It did help me to an extent. The lows were a bit more managable. but really it helped with the "blues" but it can't really chip at the hard core crap.

So at 22 I ended up so messed up that I saw my doc for meds. At that point my life was a mess mostly becuase of a roomate that made me miserable. I was seeing a counselor about it too. One day my transmission went and my car, my way out was Kaputz. I laughed and went inside and planned to kill myself. But instead I called a friend to pick me up. I borrowed her car, and the next day went to the doctor becuase it was that or death...so I thought.

We we find out I have a thyroid problem and fix it, and start me on zoloft that inhibits all sexual pleasure (for me) and makes me a zombie. So we go to effexor (evil!!) and I end up fine and swell for a long while. WEll...a short, long while. Things began to decline after about 8 months on Effexor.

10 months after starting effexor I begin to become terribly depressed. My life at the time should have been great! however, I was terribly depressed over NOTHING. Then the visions started. They began in scotland. I was laying in bed and suddenly in my head I saw myself committing suicide by hanging. AHH! It freaked me out. I had to wake up b to hold me. The thoughts continued though mostly in stabbing forms or slicing. keep in mind that I am not a stabbing sort of girl. I am not a hanging sort of girl either. (sure I was a slice and dice type girl when I was in highschool...but even a shrink will tell you that self injury/ self mutilation is different and not always even associated with suicide or even a need to kill ones self.)

Thought continued, depression worsend, and about 13-14 months after starting effexor I check into the hospital. They up my dose give me a "mood stabilizer" (I guess if they numb your mind you are safe huh?) and I'm okish. I quit the mood stabilizer (it was like always being drunk) and of course stayed on the effexor. NOW get this. 5 months after upping the dose the thoughts are f*cking BACK!

yeah, you heard me, the thoughts are back. I don't even friggin want them. Hell, I wouldn't even say that I am "depressed" either. I have low moments here and there, but probably no more than anyone else I know. How is it that I can be in a good mood yet spend time rationalizing my own existence? this is frigging stupid! I shouldn't be wasting any time in my day thinking these things.

So what is it that goes through my head? there is the frequent thought of stabbing myself repeatedly. THen there is just the general thought that I may as well just be dead. Isn't that f*cked up? I DON'T want to die. Sure parts of life are complicated and suck....but I am not interested in death. Yet these thoughts come in and take over. NEVER before did I have this when i wasn't depressed. Now on so called "antidepressants" I get them again and again.

So if I go to a doc, what can they do? UP my meds? Give me more meds? Switch meds?

I really question these drugs quite often. They are messing with brain chemicals that they don't understand. They don't even know exactly how and why all the brain drugs work. WHy? Becuause the human brian is so complex. Once upon a time a person like me or any of my other dear bipolar friends might have been institutionalized as "inmates" at Bedlam. Or in later times sent to a hospital and treated with devices like this:

So now they give us pills and send us on our way. One day people will look back on us with pity, the way we look at those that may have had to sit in that chair. They will think to themselves "well, I guess the doctors did the best they could with what they had."

But here I am, in my own damn version of that tranquilizer chair and I am being attacked by my own damn mind.

Grr.

-PB

<< welcome >>


current | archives | profile | links | rings
email | Something to Say?
| notes | host | image | design