Medications

8 May 2011

Yesterday I got a bad migraine in the middle of dress rehearsal for my upcoming belly dance show.  I had my migraine meds with me, but still had to lie down through part of the rehearsal.  Although I’d taken the meds right away, which is crucial, I could still feel the pain while I was trying to fall asleep.  And this morning when I woke up, it was still there.  I feel like my brain is wrapped in a thick layer of gauze, even I took the meds right away, which reminds me I need to take my bipolar meds.  I forgot them the last two days.  For years I took them automatically without ever forgetting, but for the past few years I’ve really been struggling to take them regularly.  I’ve tried all sorts of tricks: putting them in front of my computer where I can’t fail to see them, putting them next to my tooth brush, putting them in weekly pill boxes, and now thinking about them when I journal.  But that means I have to make sure to journal every day.  Okay, I’ve just taken them!  A friend who is also dual diagnosis alcoholism and bipolar, said that not taking your meds is the same as relapsing on alcohol.  It’s that serious.  When I go off my meds or take them erratically, I risk plunging right back into a depression or swinging up into a manic phase.  The last time I took my meds erratically, I swung up into hypo mania which shifted into mania, got involved in a big project, and then was hit with the symptom of “poor judgement,” and ran myself into a huge debt.

I think the period when I took my meds regularly corresponded to the period where I was delighted to have a diagnosis—to finally know what’d been going on with me, and what to expect.  But as the years went by, I gradually came to realize how handicapping this illness is, and how much it was preventing me from doing.  I slipped into denial: I started making current and future plans as if I were “normal,” which meant the plans just weren’t realistic.  At times while on an upswing, I made grandiose plans for catching up on lost time—as if such a thing could be done.  Now when I think of the future, it’s just to hope that someday I’ll be able to move out of this tiny room into a larger space, and similar goals: my dreams are smaller and more realistic.  Thanks to my alcohol support group, I’ve finally learned to stay in the day, and manage to do so most days.  In the past, on a day like today I would’ve pushed myself to go through my plans for the day, and ended up exhausted and in excruciating pain.  I really wanted to make a meeting today, and I won’t be able to do my photography homework, but having to back off and take it easy is just the way it is.

Copyright © 2011