When I turned twenty, I started taking Prozac, and it lit my world on fire. It would be two and a half years before a doctor would take the time to realize that when you go from depressed to ecstatically happy in a matter of minutes after taking a pill that takes 6 weeks to start working, something is wrong. I know now that I became bi-polar, probably at the age of 19, courtesy of life events and environmental factors that created a perfect storm of chaos in my life and in my head. Prozac ignited a manic episode that lasted 6 full months, and allowed me to be the man I had always dreamed of being, who could charm anyone, be the life of the party, and party constantly without suffering repercussions. And then suddenly, the effects started to wear off. My accelerated metabolism coupled with a burgeoning drinking problem took me out of the mania and launched me into a void that transcended depression. My life began to fall to pieces around me as I struggled to figure out what was happening. After a few short months of struggle, I conceded to doubling my dose of prozac, hoping for the best. As promise, another mania ensued.
This began a two year voyage of increasing doses of anti-depressants simply to fuel my drinking and allow me to be functional. There comes a day for every alcoholic where you have to be honest with yourself and those around you that there is a problem, and it's your drinking. At this point you either get yourself help, or you begin a path of destruction that never ends, and you never stop drinking. I lucky chose the former option, and sobered up entirely at the age of 23. But my psychological state was still distended. I felt verbally and emotionally crippled, and was tired in every way. My first ever visit with a psychiatrist lasted an hour, and she quickly, easily diagnosed me as Bi-Polar, cancelling the prozac and prescribing Seroquel in its stead. But I was done with pills for that moment. I went cold turkey from 80mg of prozac/day to nothing, and had a distinctly bi-polar year. The first six months I was manic in a way I remembered, but was sober and had a girl at home to keep me in check and keep me sober. The next six months I slipped into a depression that had me sleeping 16 hours a day. So, in January 2007 I started seeing a psychiatrist again to figure out how this could be dealt with.
The next few years of my life would be subject to so much carnage and chaos courtesy of doctor's who make you their guinea pig. There goal isn't to cure you or optimize your quality of life, their goal is to offer you a minutiae of increased happiness with every visit, never letting you know just exactly what you need, as that would simply lead you to be better, and not have to come in for appointments. Which, of course, is how a doctor pays there bills.
So a string of doctors tried EVERYTHING. Depakote, Celexa, Lamictal, Lithium, Lexapro, Paxil, Zoloft, Ability, Seroquel, Wellebutrin, Trileptal, Zyprexa, honestly the list just goes on and on. Eventually I stopped the doctors and told them what I needed for right now, and they gave it to me. It left me just stable enough to build a life for myself that couldn't withstand a 1 mph wind. So when a huge gust of life's crap came roaring over the horizon, I fell farther than I ever could have fathomed. I'll come back to that more, but hitting rock bottom again and again actually did me a favor I couldn't have done without, it led me to defy conventional wisdom.
In '09, after the injury, I decided to start playing around with my anti-depressants and mood stabilizers, and just get the doctor to prescribe as many of each as possible. I made changes whenever necessary and for the first time in my life, instead of slipping into a depression with no way to halt it, I was in control. My decision to regulate my prescriptions on my own is without a doubt the one decision that ultimately saved me. And it continues to save me. Not to mention the fact that now, more than ever, every day I wake up happy I know it's because of my own choices and accomplishments.
No comments:
Post a Comment