The Medication War

The last thing I want to do right now is blog. So it's probably the first thing I should do. Typing is just taking so much effort.

They can't seem to find a medication or mixture of medications that will work for me. I've been on Paxil since September. It worked alone for awhile, until about December. Then the psychiatrist at KMH put me on Abilify as well because the Paxil alone wasn't cutting it. Abilify did all sorts of lovely things to my body that weren't actually too lovely. In fact I hated it. For one I could not sleep. If I slept more than two hours at night I was feeling lucky. I'd be awake for a couple more hours, then I could sleep for a bit more, and on and on like this all night. It was the worst. So a couple weeks ago they finally took me off that and put me on Seroquel. Now all I do is sleep. Wtf. I am constantly dragging and find it hard to move. I don't want either of these! I just want to feel a sense of normality. Not one extreme or the other. Neither is good, neither is helpful.

I struggle so much with being on medication. I know it's needed. I know there are imbalances in my brain that need fixing. It's nothing I can do alone, I know that. What isn't okay is having to guess at which of hundreds of possible drugs and drug combinations there are to find the right one for just one person. What will be a good fit. That isn't right and it isn't fair. You don't tell a migraine sufferer to take a random pill and hopefully in 3 - 4 weeks you'll feel better. So why do we tell a person with depression, possibly a suicidal person, to take two Tylenol and hopefully you'll feel better in a month or so. But until then fend for yourself. That's not ok. This time around I'm seeing that a lot of the drugs act much faster now, there isn't necessarily the month long wait to see if a certain drug will even affect you. But! It's such an imperfect science still that even a fast acting drug might be the wrong drug for you. And then we're at the guessing game all over again. It's just not ok.

I also struggle with being on medication because of the awful stigma they have. Do you know how many times I've heard it said "You shouldn't need a pill to be happy." Or, "If you need a pill to be happy we can't be friends." The hell people?! Well then maybe you shouldn't need a pill to control your diabetes. If your appendix bursts we can't be friends. People's ignorance and intolerance of mental illnesses and their medications makes me physically ill and outwardly angry.

On the other hand, it's not ok to just assume a person dealing with depression just needs to pop a pill to make it all go away. This is what I got a lot growing up. Anytime I even resembled a bad mood, or having a difficult time, it was "time for the medication". Absolutely not. It takes hard work and determination, support and love, before ANY medication will work at all.

So I am just really frustrated. I am exhausted from the struggle and just don't even want to keep trying right now. It isn't ok to keep playing with my body like this. Finding the right medication certainly does not just affect the mind. Your mind and body are so deeply intertwined to assume one does not affect the other is ridiculous.

But I suppose that's a rant for another day. Thanks for listening.