Being so abnormal in other regards, it’s hard for me to tell what’s typical in any sense of the word, but those in the know (for example, my shrink) say it’s not normal to work eighteen-hour days for a week running only to wake up one morning with barely the energy to budge from the couch for the next three days.
Er, really?
She furthermore says it’s not normal to be stressed out to the point that my entire body vibrates and the only thing that serves to soothe me is the complete unconsciousness of a two-hour nap.
Huh. I was not aware that other people didn’t do that so much.
In any case, I am now in possession of a bottle of the eenie-weeniest little white pills I’ve ever seen. They will work, so says the doctor, by moderating the extreme mood swings (up! down! up again! crashing! soaring! can’t fold the laundry! clean out every closet in the house in the space of one evening! sleep for 13 hours!) while not adding to the ever-present depression.
Cool, I said. Are there any side-effects?
“It’s very safe,” she told me. “Except for the one person out of every 9,000 who experiences a particular reaction,” the details of which she then explained in exquisitely vivid detail.
Are you fucking kidding me? I asked, only in not quite those words. Is this the best you can do?
She’s known me for eight years and takes none of my outbursts very seriously. “Years ago,” she said, “the way they dealt with these things was to wait until the client was on the verge of suicide before trying any medicines because they all carried a significant risk of death.” I chewed that over while she went on to discuss electroshock therapy and this charming procedure. I see, I said. I guess the potential side effects of this really aren’t so terrible.
Now I just need to watch out for my skin sloughing off. No problem! I can do this!
Right?
wowie they don’t sound like any thing I was given but that was some years going on a decade now. I am sure they have stuff that oh so much more slick and exotic now.
Carry Fisher / Princess Laya loves the electroshock thing. She says it helps her forget things. Yikes. I wonder about the suicide aspect that you mentioned as most mood adjusters/antidepressants seem to carry that risk at some level. It seems that they are just hedging in the nick of case you do… um… opt out… that way there is some plausible responsibility assigning back to you and not the pills so they can keep pushing them with a ‘clear’ conscience.
I thought every body lived like that… Some times I feel that I could self levitate with the nervous energy/tension in my spine at three o’clock in the morning… and my fiance… she sleeps even less. No we are not crack heads even if I sound like one…
I am sorry that things are this bad for you and yours.
Lamotrigine has worked for a person very dear to me, with minimal side effects. I hope it works for you as well.
I don’t take any of the stuff I used to get from my doc and I have over the last few years become very anti drugs for the fix… but sometimes it is the only way to get things back on track.
Good luck.
I’ve worked for a dermatologist for seven years and have never had a patient treated for TEN. You should be fine. Obviously the long term effects of your current lifestyle would be more dangerous, IMO. Take care of yourself, aag.
I don’t know Aag… one of the side effects is Vivid dreams… Do you really need sexier dreams then the ones you’ve been having? I Pity your poor bedsheets when you get up in the morning.
((now, I did say get up, not wake up, as for you that could be two very diffrent times completly if the dream was vivid enough *grins*))
Either way, I do hope it helps!
Vivid dreams I can handle. Skin falling off in sheets? Not so much fun. :(
If I can do it, you can do it. What’s a little sloughed skin in exchange for a normal day? I kow the feeling though. With the meds I have to take, I have more side effects than effects at all.
A little? Do a google image search. BEFORE you have anything to eat. This is scary stuff.
A woman in my office takes those pills (and has for a while) and I’m happy to report that she has all of her skin. And it really helped her feel better.
Good luck!
what exactly is abnormal about collapsing after working 80 hour weeks. That seems quite normal (I do it regularly as well)
Translation: “You’re fine! Buck up! Deal with it!
Awesome! I’m coming to you for my mental health care from here on out! This will be WAY cheaper than seeing my regular doctor!
Thank you!
I once scrubbed the mold off the entire exterior of my house, with hot water and scrub brush and an anti-fungal product.
The label on the anti-fungal product advised wearing rubber gloves and avoiding skin contact. Did I heed this warning?
No, I did not. I’m a man. Real men don’t wear rubber gloves, right? Right.
Long story short, starting the next day I learned all about that “skin sloughing off in sheets” business. It was more horrifying than dangerous — surface layers only, fingertips to above the wrist, not deep enough to be more painful than a mild sunburn — but the sheets! Big fluffy pillows of skin the size of Post-It notes!
I still shudder whenever I encounter beauty discussions that use the phrase “chemical peel”.
Oh god. I’m going to go barf now.
Ahh Lamictal. Welcome to the club. I started it about 7 months ago. At first it worked beautifully for me, now I’m having some issues- but I’m having issues with ALL my meds right now, so I’m not giving up yet. A surprising number of my friends are on Lamictal too. As long as they do the stepping up process properly for you, you should be just fine.
They are. It’s all very complicated and precise and I am once again massively thankful for the health insurance I have.
I’m massively thankful for the Bridges to Access programme for getting me my meds for free, because I have no insurance and no money. Whee!
I hope everything gets better. You do work so hard, and you do need to give yourself a break more often — you deserve it!
Lamictal is not all that bad, and the side effects are rare although they are bad… my significant other is on it as well as 7 other anti-anxiety/depression/bipolar meds and it seems to help her, at least it is not depakote, that was bad and the side effects were really bad, although not life threatening.
Try treating a person who is depressed and has a low self image with something that causes your hair to fall out in large clumps and massive weight gain and see if that helps the depression…
Hope it all works out for you.
I was on it and had a very rough time. It was not a highlight time in my life. Each persons chemistry is so very specific, that it can take a long time to find the chemical that makes your brain a pleasant place to live in. Best of luck in finding the one that works for you!
I completely understand the anxiety about starting such a medication. I started antidepressants a couple of weeks ago, after months of knowing that I probably needed them and years of hating taking anything stronger than ibuprofen or antibiotics. I was terrified about what it might do to me, whether it would make mood swings worse, whether it would trigger more self-destructive thoughts, whether I’d be groggy and in a haze all the time, whether I would have crazy vivid dreams, whether my memory would get worse.
But part of what finally convinced me to trust my counselor and psychiatrist and give this a chance was remembering your posts about your experiences with depression and medication. It helped me to remember that every person reacts differently to each medication, and that while side effects are possible, so is feeling better.
Your eloquence made me feel a little less frightened and a little less alone in this process. I wish you the best of luck in dealing with this right now, and hope that you don’t feel alone with this. And I thank you.
Thank you for the kind words. You’ll have to email me and let me know how it goes.
Ah yes… for years, my doctor wanted to put on lithium but I kept refusing because it brought up issues concerning my ex-husband’s late father. Nothing worked for him. He committed suicide. But then there wasn’t that much available back then.
Finally, I agreed to try the new drugs. One after the other. They worked great. One after the other. And gave me an allergic reaction. One after the other.
The mood swings got so bad that I gave in. I took the damn lithium. And it worked. It whacked out my thyroid levels but that was easily fixed. Now I’m stable. Relatively. I’m a writer. Too much stability in a writer may be a contradiction in terms.
Psychopharmacology is based in science, but its application is an art. And when it works, it is magic. Good luck.
Please please please, be very careful with lamictal. My husband took it and for a while it leveled things out and he got over the stress of a newborn in the house and being a stay at home dad and all that it entails. And slowly it began to rob him of his personality, his vibrancy, his humor and zest for living. I lived with an unfeeling uncaring robot for more than a year before his primary care doctor figured out that his shrink was giving him this drug specifically so she could “manage” him without him really caring what was happening. Getting him off that drug was six weeks of sheer hell, and worth every moment of it to have the love of my life back to participating in our lives and able to be happy. Make sure you have someone you love and trust who can tell you before it’s a disaster if you become distant, foggy, robotic and devoid of all the wonderful things that make you special… and good luck to you :)
Oh dear god. We should stop telling the chronically anxious person all the horror stories of skin falling off in sheets and robotic personality disorder!
(Actually I’m grateful for the information. Thank you Sweet. I will keep an eye out for it. :) )
This is what I’ve seen in many medications, with too high a dosage. I know a lot of doctors ramp up to 200mg default. My doc ramped me up until I felt it working, and then added another 25mg. I take a “weird” dosage but it works. The whole cucumber in a bowl full of jello type zombie life is what I’ve seen with meds that didn’t work right, and meds that were at too high a dosage.
better living through chemistry- it worked for me.
except rof htsi lillte isue wth nt speling rght
Looking at the better side of things, one of the side effects of Trazadone listed on the medication guide is gangrene of the penis.
Thank God I don’t have one!
Holy crap! If there’s a rash of gangrenous peckers in this country, we know where the idea came from.