Day 239 – The mastery of the chemistry
I know it is not the best idea in the world to self medicate but when one has been suffering from depression for a time it is a temptation to try a hand at controlling one’s fate. I get so sick of swallowing pills, accessing side effects and the unclear instructions from a psychiatrist I will next see in November. I am left with a million questions at the moment the least of them all being which of these innumerable prescriptions is going to bring this bitch of an illness under control? Sometimes I feel like a guinea pig. At the moment I am unsure of whether I should be on Lamotrigine at all or if I am meant to be whether the dosage is right. The psych is the one to make the decisions on these things but he is at the top of a tree which I will not come to see until the last leaves of autumn fall.
The one tablet that they keep on the prescription pad and on all their computer screens is the magic pill, the one that works every time but that has a naughty habit of making me, heaven forbid, happy. Excessively happy, apparently. When I started to feel the fall last week I wondered whether I should start to take it again, the Duloxetine, the one that got me through the times before, but I didn’t. I wanted to wait, not to have to get better with just another pill as I was doing okay the week before, why then did I need another prop?
The logic was all good and well but by Wednesday I was desperate and with no clear sign in sight of a doctor I swallowed the magic pill and hoped to Christ it would kick in soon. It didn’t of course, the crash continued anyway, but here I am four days later back on my feet even if a little shaky. It’s confusing because I get so much advice from so many different people, professionals and amateurs alike that I get a little lost about what’s right.
Maybe I should have waited till I saw a Psych to go back on the Duloxetine but the last crash, just over a month ago, it worked and it was one of the Psychs that recommended it. I could have waited, but I was running out of time. Perhaps if I hadn’t I would have come back up on my own, slipped out of it and been able to crawl out of bed and even stop the bloody crying all by myself. Maybe I could have done, but I didn’t like the odds and it felt a lot better choosing to take the pill than the looming alternative of having it forced into my hand in another emergency ward.
- Today’s dress does not have a label in. It came from the Polish Princess and possibly from a charity shop but there is no label. I chose to wear it today as it looks very similar to the usual Joules jockey fare and as the boy and I were spending the day at the Arts Fresco, an event they sponsor, it felt like an appropriate choice. I wore my most beautiful pair of Kurt Geiger shoes because I fear the summer is coming to a close and their just too pretty for the cold and dark of the winter.
