Friday, August 15, 2008

Medicated Me

I'm on my third day now with the little pink pills.

I'm not sure yet if I can feel a difference. I know it commonly takes a few weeks, so I'm not concerned. I feel good, but I had felt good for a couple days before starting them, so who knows? I could be in an up cycle, or it could be a placebo effect. Don't care. I am not one to look a gift placebo effect in the mouth.

Wha??

Also, night before last, I was having trouble sleeping and thought, "Well, this is what he prescribed the anxiety meds for," so I took one.

I have tried twice now to explain how mind-blowing the effect was on me, but so far have failed. All I've managed to come up with is this:

I felt like 90% of my brain had just been shut off. It was the most unbelievable silence I can ever imagine experiencing. All of the voices were gone. And I don't mean voices in the multiple personalities way (yeah, yeah, get all the Cybil jokes out of your systems now, people). I mean that I normally spend a good chunk of my time and energy trying to keep my anxiety at bay because when I let down my guard (like at night, when I'm trying to sleep), all the unspeakable worries come streaming in and form a giant downward spiral that sucks me into the bad, dark places, and I can't fight my way out.

But that was all gone. I was 100% in the present for, I think, the first time in my adult life. I have never felt so there. For the sake of academic experimentation, I actually tried to come up with something to be anxious about and couldn't.

But I didn't feel drugged. I didn't feel spacy or out of it or medicated or sluggish. Well, I was sleepy; I was trying to go to bed, after all. So I'll have to see what it's like some time when I take it during the day.

But what I keep trying to figure out--again, as I had to clarify for Ouiser, not because I'm worried about it, but just out of academic, dorky interest and curiosity--is that what all y'all "normal" people feel like all the time? Or did my medicated pendulum swing past normal all the way to the other end of the spectrum? If that's how the rest of the world gets to live all the time, y'all are dang lucky. It was pretty sweet.

5 comments:

die Frau said...

First of all, none of us are normal, so please don't think of yourself as abnormal.

Second, if you're talking about sleep, before I go to sleep, everything just slowly shuts down as if my brain's winding down for the night and suddenly T's taking off my glasses and telling me to turn off my light. If that's how you felt, yes, that's pretty normal sleepiness.

Third, I do sometimes wake in the middle of the night with my brain racing about something I have to remember or do. When this happens I do have to tell myself mentally not to worry about it and to turn off and go back to sleep. I'll write the thing down to make this happen sometimes.

Things will even out one way or another. I think some of it probably was psychological because you're doing something clinically proven to help yourself. Just remember to give it time to work and don't get frustrated if and when you still have those old feelings. Glad things seem to be working!

Sarah Berry said...

I don't know if this will provide perspective or not, but I would say that I have a quiet mind - the way you describe yours was post-meds. I've never had that horrible experience of the non-stop worry and anxiety chatter that you seem to have, so I'm glad you got to see what life can be like when your brain operates in a different way. Just imagine how much easier it would be to deal with things.

Leslie said...

My mind is never quiet, and I have my own evil sleep demons (they're around when I'm awake too, but I agree that I'm also more vulnerable when I'm tired). I need to fall asleep with the tv on (sleep timers are the best invention ever!) to distract me. Then I'm usually ok.

Wonderland said...

I'm with Greenlight and amazingly jealous of Scarlet. A quiet mind?! That is amazing to me. Congrats FeatherNester. You're doing it. Love!

The Reid Family said...

feather nester,
what me? worry? actually, i can say that i hardly ever worry. that might just be my downfall and why i want four kids. :) i probably don't worry enough. take care my friend and enjoy my brain for a while. you might just move to franklin & enjoy hanging with us crazies for a while.