me and january 03
it is either the depression or the lithium that has done this work and at eleven p.m. i am a man who is in his bed and in darkness and my stomach might be eating itself out of hunger or confusion or boredom and i’ve grown tired of this medication and just what it does to me, which is nothing good and all bad and it’s not worth the lethargy and the apathy and all the other things that end in ‘y,’ and i take notice that ‘happy’ does not appear on this list and for that reason alone i need to just break down when i visit my doctor and really ask him if there is any point in doing this dance any longer.
do i keep trying medications – or different combinations or medications because eventually we might hope to kind of perhaps stumble upon a rare cocktail that actually doesn’t give me the side-effects like the shits and shakes and erection-less evenings and the feeling of walking around all day in some kind of weird nauseating fog where i start to not give a damn about anything else beyond my cigarettes and crossword puzzles?
and understand, these are the side-effects of the medicine that is supposed to be making my life better.
this is no quality of life, people.
this is somebody who is just tired of taking pills every day.
eventually the world will run out of drugs and i will find myself pouring orange juice into my eyeballs or masturbating with cactus plants or singing the alphabet backwards while i hop on one foot in the middle of the street every night at 8:32 p.m. wearing nothing but argyle socks and baking soda on my eyebrows.
and for some reason all of those things are beginning to sound less ridiculous than thinking i am ever going to find those medications that work – or that my body can handle many more years of pills that are doing a fucklot of nothing but hurting me.
i know i sound so negative right now, but oddly enough, my mood is stable. at least for the moment.
must. type. fast. keep positive?
oh yes. i also got this neat little guy!
while my blog did not win, i was super psyched to be nominated with the others, and in addition to a whole lot of new visitors, i also received some wonderful praise from those who have recently started reading.
and it’s really made me smile.
alltheavenueslookugly 
Grr it’s tough. I know a lot of people in the hospital that are also suffering with the same side effects from the meds that you are having.
I really hope you can get your meds sorted out so that it can both help you and not give you such horrible side effects.
Fight on Sean. X
it is times like these that i would give anything to be back in the hospital and let them detox me off of eveything. i jusss wanna love again.
miss you A. email me summtime. sorry, falling asleep. you takle care of yourself my awesome friendss,
ugh, that is me trying to respond while medications are kicking in. 😦
Here’s a question…and you can reply by email if you’d prefer 🙂 but…I’m getting to the question…how intolerable is life without meds?? Could it be “better” riding out the highs and lows?
it’s okay, nataly. 🙂
i remember it being bad, really bad some days, but at this point i don’t remember it being it worse than i feel now. i’d rather just feel this depression and not the depression + numerous bullshit side effects.
i see my therapist on monday, and i am going to bring that up to her.
we’ll see what happens.
Yeah, ARGH!!! The trial-and-error period of meds was the 2nd worst time of my life, and it lasted for 7 months. Of course, when I finally found the right medications they didn’t really have the effect that I expected:
They made me feel normal-ish (but neither happy nor content, and still kinda depressed). But the important thing is that they totally stopped me from wanting to harm/kill myself. Seriously. I know meds aren’t for everyone, but the right combination definitely saved my life.
Good luck, it’s a long and horrible process. But, eventually, you’ll get there, and it will be worth it.
❤ Ems
thank you for your well-wishes, ems.
i have been going through the trial-and-error period since i started with the medications…some almost 18 years ago. after awhile, it’s hard to have any hope for any of them…
i am glad you found a cocktail that works for you. really. i have yet to find anything that keeps me from wanting to really hurt myself and i think the fact that i have been able to is a matter of me talking myself of the ledge.
you are right. it really is a shitty and awful process. maybe someday i will get lucky…
thank you again. it’s always a bit comforting to find people that can relate to this mega-fuck of a problem.
Yeah, there’s definitely hope. I’ve been hearing a lot about “personalized medication” (pharmacogenomics) for the past 5 years (through analyzing DNA and something else I forget), and—according to my family doctor and my psychiatrist—it should be ready to go within the next 5 years and will be particularly important for people with psychiatric disorders. (My psychiatrist is convinced that I would be a good candidate for that; so perhaps you’d be too?)
I know that they’re doing major research in (at least) 2 places and they’re having (reportedly) good results and still looking for guinea pigs … but I’d have to call my mom to ask which centers. I guess one is at the mayo clinic.
I mean, I know this is probably not new to you, and you probably know that they were saying the same thing about pharmacogenoics 5 years ago, but it really does seem as though significant advances are now being made.
Let me know what you’ve heard about this, talk soon Ems xoxo
this is actually the first i have heard about this! wow. i don’t know how it got by me. do you know where i should start as far as reading up about it? i googled it, but didn’t know if you knew of any particular articles or sites i should check out. if so, could you please email them to me? alltheavenuesareugly@gmail.com
thanks for mentioning it. it sounds really interesting!
Will get back to you soon.
http://www.camh.ca/en/research/research_areas/genetics_and_epigenetics/Pages/pharmocogenetics.aspx
http://mayoresearch.mayo.edu/mayo/research/gene_unit/about.cfm
Okay, the first link is for CAMH in Toronto. They are definitely taking subjects, but, i think, only if in Canada (pays $90). Double-check. Dr. Daniel Mueller is running the study.
I don’t know much about the one at Mayo Clinic, But I’ve attached the research bio of Dr. David Mrazek who is running the study there.
I will get more precise information (it is being mailed to me), but I think those are two good leads on where to start looking.
Keep in touch, Emily