A creative writing assignment & a true story:
As someone who has found recreational drugs to be exciting, but has also prided myself on being fairly chemically independent, the idea of being medicated sounded like it could be fun, but it also sounded a little scary. After three years of emotionally instability, panic attacks, extreme impulsions, transient life changes, and my career as a sex worker (the only thing that afforded me this kind of life style), I knew the medication would probablybe necessary if I was ever to commit to going back to school, having a ?normal? job, and a healthy relationship.
After weeks of struggling with the insurance company to get the information needed to move forward, I finally found a psychiatrist with an opening the next week, a day after I had scheduled my first appointment with a therapist. Finally meeting the doctor and explaining my day to day life, I walked out with three prescriptions. Lamictal, a medicine they prescribe to people who have bipolar or epilepsy (both of which I do not have), Klonopin two times a day, and Ativan. Hopefully these would curb the symptoms of my personality and anxiety disorders.
The first week was grim. I met the psychiatrist the week after for my scheduled follow-up and was a complete mess. When I wasn?t feeling completely comatose, I was incredibly sensitive, irritable, and emotional. I could hardly keep my eyes open and when I saw the doctor, I kept my glasses on, barely able to communicate a sentence to him without starting to ball my eyes out. It was not what I signed up for. I?ve never even considered myself to be an emotional person. Most people who know me remark on how positive and sparkly my personality is. Literally, people call me ?Sparky?, a nickname given to me by a porn director that has stuck with me for the past two years. I may have had extreme anxiety, moved around too often, never kept friends, but I was never a wreck like this.
It became crystal clear that getting on the right medication required a dedication on my part to work through the negative side effects long enough to experience the positive ones. I walked out of this appointment with a fourth prescription of amphetamine salts. A generic version of adderall which is known for it?s speedy-like qualities, but not without a warning that I would need to be very careful as I had a history of drug abuse. The amphetamines would keep me awake as nearly everything I had been taking were tranquilizers.
Nearly a month and a half later and my lamictal increased 500%, I?m functioning fairly normally, though not without a handful of side effects that I?ve learned to adapt to. I always
carry chap stick and a bottle of water for my persistent dry mouth, dry lips, and dry throat. I
guess this is also sort of a blessing because I never drank enough water until now. I sometimes wake up sounding like I?ve smoked a pack of cigarettes right before I went to bed. I use eye drops through out the day caused by the lamictal and the amphetamine salts. I also have a travel sized bottle of extra strength tylenol for frequent headaches. For the extremely sore gums attributed to the Klonopin, I take on average 5-10 tylenols at 650 mg a day. Sometimes my stomach is really upset by all this and so I take antacids as well. Occasionally I lose my balance which is another side effect of the lamictal.
These are just the physical side effects. What scares me the most are the psychological and intellectual ones. Already doomed with a bad memory from the personality disorder and years of constant pot smoking, the lamictal not only makes me occasionally forget words and numbers, but also has a dyslexic effect. Just the other day I needed to give out my social security number and I had a hard time remembering it. Then when I gave it, I completely switched around all the numbers and couldn?t remember which order they went in. Thankfully my license was sufficient identification. It?s a number I?ve memorized since I was 15. Giving out my social security number was like second nature. I?d given it out a millions times!
I?ve never been a person who feels comfortable making excuses for myself. And so I?m trying to accept that I may not be as bright of a student as I used to be, that I am going to have to put in more effort this time around. When I was 17, college was a breeze, I could get by without hardly studying. But now by the end of my day, my brain feels like mush. I forget words more easily, and I become much less articulate. I do not find it acceptable to tell the world, ?Excuse me, I?m on medication! I can?t help this.? so what I feel when I cannot remember my social security number, or when I have trouble answering a question I know simply because my brain can just not put together the sentence, I just feel it in the form of a hotness in my cheeks and I feel embarrassed.
I used to have much trouble sleeping, but now I look forward to it because it gives me a chance to restart my brain and give it a rest. By the time I lay my head on the pillow, it is so tired and so exhausted. It feels heavy and dense and there is a small pounding that tells me, ?You are no longer able to use your brain at the moment. It?s at full capacity right now. Shut down and try again later.?
Sometimes I feel that it would be better for me to just deal with the anxiety and the panic attacks, to have my mind back, and to feel normal again. But then I realize that I wasn?t really doing any better then, and I wasn?t really feeling any more normal either. I was thinking that there are sometimes where you have done a drug and it just lasts too long,and your done and you want it to be over. Like an acid trip that?s been going on for 14 hours. It was fun for maybe the first 8, but there is a point where your brain is tired and you want everything to stop moving. I feel like that now. I feel like I?ve been on a drug trip for far too long, and I want it to stop.
I also know that nothing seems to last for me for longer then 2-3 months and so if I want to see any kind of results, I need to be strong and force myself to see things through long enough for me to make the proper decision of whether this is even right for me. I technically won?t be on a regulated dose for another 1-2 months, and the prospect of having to turn back and start something else if this doesn?t work, sounds particularly horrible.
I?m not really sure where to end this as my brain is done for the day, and I have no real conclusion. I don?t really like writing about things that are sad or negative in nature, but it?s
consuming my world and it needs to come out. I tried to continue writing a thoughtful closing
but it doesn?t even really make sense and I?m starting to trail off and the screen is getting
blurry so bed time it is.
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