Psych Meds I Have Taken

Someone recently  blogged a full list, I thought it was kind of interesting, so once again, I’m bumping a substantial post down the ladder for this one. Here is my list; feel free to add your own:

Prozac (when it was new and pretty  much the only thing on the market)
Zoloft
Nortriptyline (my wonder drug, which I [...]

Physical Versus Mental Illness

In an unpublished email, Milo wrote this comment to me:
Personally speaking, i passed a kidney stone last year, and being dead honest here, i’d  much rather the physical illness than having a paranoid episode… i really really do. i tell you one thing Sara, the pain was absolutely horrendous, but no one laughed at me. [...]

On mental illness and stigma in medicine

Today I saw a patient for a pre-operative evaluation. This is a consultation for a patient that needs surgery, but who has other medical problems that make the surgeon nervous, and the surgeon basically wants someone like me to sign that I evaluated the person so that I can be blamed if something goes wrong. [...]

My Answer to the Commenters

I started to put this in the comments and then just decided to post it as a regular post, because it was turning into one in length.
Thanks for writing, everyone. Thank you especially 5150 for reminding me that it will fade. I kept telling myself that during the worst of it…that it wouldn’t be forever [...]

In which I fall back into my life

I know, I know, terrible to tempt fate. But it seems that the lithium + Wellbutrin combo is working. I’m not 100%, not even 50%. But I am not bat-shit crazy right now, and that brings both tremendous relief and tremendous horror at how I have acted over the past year. All the flying into [...]

Why oh why can I not fire this shrink?

Thanks so much to everyone who commented supportively. It means a lot.
I was going to cancel the shrink, having hit such a low that I knew that I’m beyond help by anything human. But then I thought, “That’s ridiculous, to not go to the doctor because you feel too bad.”
I went today and laid out [...]

Sinking into a depression

It started really two weeks ago, was progressively getting worse. The last time I saw the (useless) shrink I mentioned it, to which his answer was, “The things that are bothering you are things that medication doesn’t treat anyway.” I am not sure what to say to something so unhelpful. Mostly because I know that [...]

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 [...]

Why did I even say it? Fuck

I had to say things were better. I just had to.
Now I’m with no sleep, constant suicidal fantasies and plans, writhing around in physical dis-ease, and nothing is working.
And I’m afraid to call the shrink because he’ll say this amped up state is from the desipramine and make me quit it. I think it’s more [...]

The No-Lithium Update

Physical comedy hijinx aside, I do feel about a million times better just a couple of days off lithium. In fact, now I think I’m getting the residual good effect without the hi-larious accidents.
The new med plan, which I managed to weasel him into, is desipramine. It was that or duloxetine, which to me looks [...]

The Great Experiment Ends

I’m sharing this story because it is funny, but also because, well, I was hoping so much that things would work out, that lithium and I would be a love affair that would last a decade. Guess not.
I quit taking it med altogether. I had a series of poor coordination accidents over the last [...]