Saturday, October 07, 2006

Where Is The Yardstick

Once I went down the road of beginning treatment, I forever lost my yardstick, or ability to really determine how well I am.

Before beginning treatment, I had a baseline. I knew what was a "normal" day, and could base the good and bad days from there. Granted, many of the days, normal or otherwise, were obscured by self medication. But self medication didn't last forever and those affects went away and left me at my "normal" baseline again.

Right now I'm so fucked up I don't know what's good or bad. I can barely remember how I felt yesterday, let alone how I felt un-medicated. Increase the dosage of this med, stop that one, start another one. Yesterday I woke up feeling better than I had for MANY months. Today I'm in a funky cloud. Depression, lethargy, irritability. The bouncing around makes it difficult to do a job. Makes it difficult to relate to the family. Makes it difficult to live.

And, unfortunately, it may never change. I'll likely never be off meds. And one med begets another. You start fixing the problem with one med using another. And fix a problem with that one by using yet another. As my body adjusts to the medication it becomes less effective, so I go with larger doses or something different. Before long I'm worried my hands will be trembling, I won't be able to work, and will need 8 or 10 pills to make it through the day.

Fucking depression. Fucking bipolar disorder Fucking society where I feel the need to become a round peg.

5 comments:

Bleeding Heart said...

I could understand this post. i am thinking about you.

Jon said...

Thanks to all. Sorry about the profanity, but it fit my mood at the time.

Kiley said...

I don't see it so much as feeling the need to be a "round peg" as to just be a functional one. I feel your pain on this post and am going through the same things msyelf, but the "round peg" concept doesn't fly: I just want to be able to make it through the day, be happy, and able to work. :-)

Anonymous said...

Hey Jon, have you thought of trying one of the "natural" alternatives like I have? Once I changed, my weird moods went away, my hands stopped shaking, I lost the weight I gained, and my hair stopped falling out. I'm using the vitamin and mineral supplement I bought at http://truehope.com (along with some other stuff that I talk about on my blog).

Haven't seen you in a while, sorry my mom pissed you off. I, personally, attempt to be less, uh, rude and offensive. I fail a lot though.

Jon said...

Thanks all for the comments.

Ari - you're right on the functional. That's the day-to-day issue.

Sharla - your mom didn't piss me off, I enjoy nothing more than a good debate. I was worried I'd pissed you off.