Over Medicated, Under Care, and Beyond Words

It's been a while since I've complained. I think I'm going to complain today.

Yes, surprise surprise, there is something that I'm not totally satisfied with, and, surprise surprise, it has to do with those lovely pills that I take two times a day. Oh wait, just kidding. I've been given MORE drugs. I pop pills thrice per day now. (Did I use "thrice" right? I don't care, it's staying.)

Here's how it all went down:

Me: I feel like I'm over-medicated.
Doctor: *look of total confusion*
Me: Like, I sleep 10 hours a day, and I'm still tired and I have zero energy. Zip. Nada. I can't function like this.
Doctor: Sometimes people over-sleep when they are depressed.
Me: Yeah, but my mood is fine. I'm just super sleepy. Like, SUPER sleepy.
Doctor: You are depressed.
Me: I'm really not. I know what depressed feels like, and this is not it.
Doctor: Here's some Prozac for your depression.
Me: *Screams, pulls out hair, and throws chair across the room*

Fine, that last part didn't happen. But that's what I felt like doing out of frustration. These doctors don't listen.  It's not like I'm speaking in code or asking them to read between the lines. I am point blank letting them know what's going on with me and how I think it should be fixed. Now, I know I'm not doctor, but I am the expert in myself. I know exactly how these drugs are affecting me.

Honestly, I believe that consumers of mental health services have a much better idea of what's going on with them than the doctors do. I mean, we spend 24 hours a day with ourselves. We know how we feel before the drugs and after the drugs. We know what we want, and more importantly, we know what we need. And then these doctors, because they have their fancy education and titles, spend 5 minutes half-listening to us try to sum up our entire mental state and think they are God's right hand man when it comes to fixing us. Bullshit.

Now let's fast forward. I comply. I take the Prozac as prescribed, but I still feel like shit. I feel slightly more fluffy and fuzzy, which, not gonna lie, is pretty nice, but still tired, almost paralyzed, in the morning.

Last Monday: Leave Message #1 for the doctor:

Last Tuesday: Leave Message #2 for the doctor

Last Wednesday: Leave Message #3 for the doctor

Last Thursday: FINALLY get a call back. From the nurse. The nurse who didn't have a freaking clue who I was but still has the balls to tell me that I should have talked to the doctor before switching up my meds. It's not like I left three messages and tried in person at my appointment to get this doctor to put down the prescription pad and listen. Listen!

So in conclusion, yes, I messed with my meds again before talking to my doctor. Shame on me. I now take a smaller dose at night so that I don't wake up drugged and foggy every morning. And you know what, I was right. I knew what I needed from day one, and only suffered by trying to wait to get the go-ahead from the doctor.

What's the message that I am unsuccessfully try to make in this post? It's not to fuck what your doctor says and adjust your meds daily as you feel necessary. It's to be a little, or a lot, more pushy than me. Sit that doctor down. Make them listen. Make them hear and comprehend before you walk out of their office with your head down and anger flaring.

I'm going to put that in to practice as I'm just about to head out to go to the doctor now. I'm prepared to get yelled at for self-medicating (or self-unmedicating), but I'm also preparing to dish out a little rage of my own. Wish me luck.

Where do I go from here?

When I started this blog almost 5 months ago, it was an outlet for all my crazy. It was a way for me to organize the racing thoughts and let some air out of my balloon that was on the verge of popping. But even more than that, I wanted to help eliminate some of the stigma associated with mental illness. Looking back, I don't think I did that. Maybe I didn't hurt the cause, but I also don't think I helped it. I give myself props for openly admitting what most people want to hide, but I didn't educate anyone. I don't know. You tell me.

Now I am in more of a position to focus on making a positive change, but how? My blog can't be all about my psychotic episodes because those are few and far in between. It can't be all about my great progress because that's boring as hell. So I need a new direction. A fresh start. A blank page, if you will. So where do I go from here?

Here are some of my ideas:

• Articles about mental illness in the media
• Highlighting coping mechanisms
• Overviews of certain mental illnesses
• My work in the mental health field
• Book and movie reviews

Wow, those all sound pretty dull in comparison to drunk posts, anecdotes about anorexia, and startling confessions of cutting and suicidal thoughts. Well, maybe if we're lucky, my potential medication change tomorrow will bring about some good stories to blog about. If not, what do you guys think? Where would you like to see this blog go?

Bonus question: Does my writing suck now? I feel like my posts have become dull dull dull since this medication.

I retract my previous statement.

Blast from the Past: http://zoloftandcoffee.blogspot.com/2013/02/so-cycle-continues.html

"Remember that class I mentioned...? Yeah, I fucked that up already. Who was I kidding? Thinking I could pretend I wasn't a failure long enough to drag myself to a class three days a week for two whole months....The stress of this class is killing me.

The class is about to start. I'm sitting here. Shaking hands. Hyperventilating. Face soaked in tears. Bottle of wine beckoning me. Regretting that I dumped my arsenal of pills over the weekend. Those fucking glimpses of hope ruin everything."

I don't have the time to write a well thought out post. And I don't have the privacy to get emotional in what I write. But there is something I need to say: 

I retract my previous statement. I am not a fuck up. I thank god I dumped those pills. And I say this as a certified peer support specialist. Yup, I finished the class I thought was beyond my capability.

Those "fucking glimpses of hope" may have given me a higher fall when shit hit the fan, but being raised up for that moment gave me a chance to see past the current hell I was in. Past the suicidal ideations. Past the cutting. Past the racing thoughts and psychotic episodes. I saw beyond to a future that included me, a productive me, a happy me. 

And now I'm there. I proved myself wrong. For once I can honestly say that I'm proud of myself. 

Short and Sweet.

Uncomfortably Numb

I should be happy. I am happy. Well, I'm not sad. OK, maybe I'm a little sad. I've been doing a lot of thinking lately, and that never ends well for me. Topic of the Week: I hate my meds.

• I feel flat all the time. I can't get excited about anything. Anything. And it takes something drastic for me to feel more than just uncomfortable. It takes someone dying for me to feel sadness. It takes a total escape from my life for me to feel happiness. I'm always uncomfortably in the middle.
• I blame the meds for the 10 pounds I've gained these past 6 months.
• My motivation is dead. Which means my house is never as clean as I want it to be. Which means I don't get off my ass to exercise. Which means I am not making as much money as I used to. Which means I am not happy with myself.
• I've lost my creativity.
• Every morning, I wake up like a goddamn drugged zombie.
• I don't think I would make it through grad school, or even a full time job, with this attitude.
• Again, I miss my creative streak. It defined me. It described me. But it's left me. So what am I?

Like now, I can't even get out the words to describe how I'm feeling. I feel like every word I'm saying is dull and meaningless. I feel like no two sentences flow together. Writing used to be my thing. And now it feels like another language. Maybe not a foreign language, but one that I'm no longer fluent in.

Dull and meaningless. Yup, that pretty much covers it.

But what do I do about it? Go off my meds, and pray I don't end up in the hospital again? Start the awful process over of experimenting with different drugs? Wait it out and see if this uncomfortable purgatory passes? 

Those all sound like lovely options. Ugh. But I won't do any of them. I suppose I'll do it the right way. I'll talk to my doctor about it while I begrudgingly swallow my pills twice a day. Maybe I'll see a ray of light after my appointment next week.

Is there anything in between going crazy and being flat?