I woke up feeling like I’d been on a 3-day bender with Hunter S. Thompson. I’m a little sorry for myself in places I’d forgotten I had but probably should be reminded exist more often. Get you minds out of the gutter – I’m speaking figuratively here though my hair did look very JBF. The kind of hair created by long drives along the coast of Amalfi with the top down on a red convertible. If only ‘eh?
Some people pay seriously good money to get themselves into this state. It usually involves snorting cocaine off the stomach of a hooker and waking up in the back of a Ute bound for Timbuktu.
No, none of that. I’ve just been playing alphabet soup with meds again. I added Zyprexa back into the mix, which means I wake up stoned – wading through mental molasses, a not too unpleasant sensation. It’s a state I know well and so perhaps that makes me more comfortable with it.
I quite enjoy this wide-eyed trance. I’m disappointed when it dissipates as the day passes. I don’t wake up feeling like I want to sell my soul to my friendly neighbourhood Satanist just to get some rest, and that’s a vast improvement.
So having paid my dues as a member of the mental defective league I’ve been granted an all-access pass to my own limbic system. Zyprexa opens emotional doors, in theory.
What’s behind door number 1 today?
An overly enthused lumberjack with tardive dyskinesia.
And behind door number 2?
That’s the mystery prize: a can of spam and a red herring or two.
And door number 3?
Nurse Ratched in her crisp white uniform with her little plastic cups filled with pretty pills. Medication time! Ding! We have a winner.
It feels like I’ve got dear Nursey grinning blankly inside my head as she turns my brain inside-out or right-side in, rather. She’s trying to fix a world that was hastily glued together by a semi-psychotic monkey.
I can feel her calibrating the unreality of my reality. That reality which is now carefully titrated by a new chemical filter. The action of these drugs is to reset the speed of things – it’s like having cruise control for your life.
In practice it’s barely restrained chaos, an organised mess without design. A high stakes, winner takes all lottery. It’s worth it, though – just on the off chance it really works. I mean, what else is all the therapy and medication for if not to give you cause to hope for that breakthrough moment -
Would you take the red pill or the blue pill? What would you do to know your truth?
You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
I took Zyprexa a couple of years ago and found myself eating cake for breakfast all the time. The sugar-cravings were terrible, and as soon as it became apparent to my doctor I was inhaling Safeway cakes like there was no tomorrow, he took me off it.
The red pill vs. the blue pill: it’s an excellent metaphor…I’ve used it before, too. The known vs. the unknown. Reality vs. dream. Comfort vs. discomfort. Dark vs. light. You get the drift.
Great post!
Yeah, Coyote, the weight gain/sugar issues can be pretty intense. I had a problem with that when I was on a much higher dose. The low dose I’m on now is easier to cope with. Makes me a bit hungry but that’s not so bad since normally I don’t tend to feel hungry at all.
Damn you make this sound good, well except for the whole weight gain thing and I do rather like rabbit holes. I wonder if one can do what it takes two to attempt to accomplish.
*unhappy face*
We’ll talk Matrix later
x
oh ck,
reading this, through the humor I feel how hard this is for you–to be stewing in this soup.
I have been there. Ugh.
What would I do to know my truth. That is a hell of a question. A hell of a lot, actually. I look at the things I’ve already done and it’s a lot. Seven years and counting of psychoanalysis. Studying with a Tibetan guru. Reading reading reading. Physical exercise. Bodywork. Writing. The list goes on and on.
The meds thing is hard because sometimes it cuts off the flow of what you need to access in order to stabilize you. I am trying to do my current round without meds for that very reason. The meds have saved my life, but they’ve also kept me from going into the rabbit hole as deep as I need to to get to the bottom of this shit. I am trying another way right now because I am not doing all this work just to stay above the very mess that caused my problem in the first place. I don’t know how well it will succeed.
If there is anything I can do to help you figure out what you need just let me know.
wily
Take the meds, don’t take the meds – GRRRRR! That question drives me crazy constantly. I am trying without but I can’t decide if I can deal with my issues better medicated or not. Sometimes without meds I am so emotionally all over the place that I just repress anything that I can’t deal with. With meds I am calmer but then why deal with stuff cuz I feel kinda okay?
I’m sorry this has been so difficult for your…medication changes suck. Finding the right balance and combination is such a crap shoot. Believe it or not, I would not take either pill. I want one that leaves me functioning and aware of what I am thinking and feeling even though this is the most painful route. It is the one toward wholeness and healing, so I don’t have to live in make-believe or Wonderland…those places are scary too because I feel ungrounded and disconnected from myself and everyone else.
Ah, meds.
The irony is that I *want* to become a shrink.
Yet… I’m not so sure that the drugs we currently use are _working_.
*sigh*
@Girlblue – Yeah, rabbits hole can be irresistible.
@wily – Thank you. Your care means a lot. It is a tough question but it sounds like you’re putting your recovery first which I can’t thing of a better way to go about it.
@Tamara – I go back and forth like that in my head too.
@CC – Fair enough. Whatever works to keep you moving towards recovery.
@Ash – A lot of broken promises there for many, I think – Like CC said, a crap shoot with very low odds.
Still, the best shrinks are careful and understand the precarious nature of the task they’ve set themselves so maybe it’s good that you have your doubts?
What happens if I grind both the red and blue pill up and snort it off the top of a dirty toilet tank? Would I experience dualistic comprehension or drop dead? Your sense of humor is stellar :mrgreen:
LMAO I dunno but it sounds like fun, Bobby!