Things lithium has stolen from me, or the drug of forgetting

My love of aviation. I am too nauseous all the time to continue.
My love of reading. I can still read poetry or essays, but I cannot read a novel because I simply don’t remember what I read the last time.
If I weren’t so drugged, this could be a like a Borges story: The Drug of [...]

Lithium Carbonate Shells

It was a harsh night in the ER. A rate of something like three chest pains per hour between 3 and 6 AM.
The doc who went on after me last time was there. Of course, that patient had not had a stroke, so that was just my crazy.
One thing I am jealous of is how [...]

Doubt

I just got off one of those hellacious emergency room shifts. And now I am torturing myself. Did I miss a subtle stroke? Send away a 19 year old who fainted who will later go into cardiac arrest?
I am not sure how much of this is me and how much is the drug and how [...]

In somnium veritas

I thought this blog was getting too self-centered, but it seems like people are likely to visit any blog that is regularly updated. So here’s a dream update. Why can’t I listen to my gut, my dreams? Especially when they tell me something I already know.
It’s the end of an appointment with the shitty shrink. [...]

Dammit, lithium, again

Fell down the stairs to my house today. The lithium problems are back. I’ll take only a half dose today, but I just don’t know. The thing is, I’m actually functioning okay right now – not depressed, though not exactly feeling good. This could potentially be such a decent drug for me…if not for the [...]

Stimulus-Response

Dr. Rob, whose blog I have recently discovered and started to enjoy, asked me this question:
All of my non-psychiatrist doctors tell me that psychiatrists are a joke.  They say it’s the easiest residency to get, by far, and that they are the bottom-of-the-barrel of physicians, a pseudo-science.  Is there any truth to [...]

More hurtful psychiatry

I went to another appointment today, partly to get meds, partly to try to have some kind of useful session. I am in a shitty work environment now, and it’s bothering me, but I didn’t want to waste time talking about it because it is temporary, but he kept poking at that, and once again, [...]