Victory is Yours, It's in the Way You View Life

Happy November to you all! Can you believe that it's November already? It seems like yesterday was summer. Time goes by quick, almost too quick for my liking. Before I know it, I will be applying for nursing and then medical school.

I am relegated this fine Tuesday morning to wait for the 7:30 bus, so I have some time to burn before I have to leave for CCU for my counseling appointment. I thought I would update everyone on how I've been doing these last few weeks. The change from the medications I'm on is starting to become noticeable. Here are the things I have noticed most:

1) No more thoughts of suicide: This is really important and great, since antidepressants can increase these in children, teens, and young adults especially during the first few months of therapy. The question that my doctors have been asking the most has been if I have had any suicidal thoughts, and frankly it kind of makes me annoyed. I went on antidepressants to keep from feeling this way, why on earth would I be thinking about these things? Then again, I realize that they have to ask these questions to make sure that the medications are working, which is the only reason why I don't say anything about these questions or act particularly perturbed when it has been asked for the seven millionth time it seems.

2) More confident, natural flow of conversation and interaction with others: This was a big problem for me. My schizophrenia made it difficult to trust others and because of that,  I wouldn't talk to others readily. I feared their rejection. Now I feel like I can talk to other people and that they genuinely care about me. I have no more doubts about whether or not they will shun me. I know that they love and care about me and won't do anything to purposely harm me. If they do turn me away, I feel confident that I can voice my concerns and be heard without feeling like people are totally and irrevocably angry at me for all eternity. I also want to mention that my primary care doctor commented that my conversations were more natural and not so strained, like they were in the past. She hardly knows me and even she noticed this, which means that this is more noticeable than I once thought.

3) My thoughts are organized: I can actually stay on one topic and complete a thought without jumping all over the place. This makes writing papers a whole lot easier and I am getting higher marks because I'm not going on tangents, which makes me a lot more confident in my own writing abilities. As you can even tell in this post, I am able to focus for long periods of time on one topic, which makes me incredibly happy.

4) I can remember things easier: I thought my memory was good before I went on the medications, but now it is better than ever. During my morning workouts, I would often space out on what number rep I was on because I had so many thoughts swirling around in my head. I now don't have this problem. I also can remember facts, statistics, and what I read a lot easier than I was in the past.

5) I no longer have the delusions of being a horse: For once in my life I feel human and know that there is no possible way that I could be a horse. Granted, I still love the wind blowing through my hair, I believe that my hands are hands and not hooves. There will still be that love for horses, but there will no longer be that prancing around, neighing like one.

6) I can concentrate on my schoolwork for long periods of time: This was becoming a problem and was one of the main reasons that I sought out professional help like I did. I felt like my grades were starting to slip because I couldn't concentrate long enough to get anything done. I wanted to either pretend to be an opera singer at Carnegie Hall or I wanted to prance around like a horse, both of which were not conducive to what I wanted to accomplish in life.

These are all the good things I have noticed, but there are a few bad things I have noticed as well:

1) I can't drink alcohol: This is a huge bummer for me, depending that my 21st birthday is coming up in a few months. I was looking forward to getting a drink on that special day, but I won't be able to do that now. In place of getting a drink I have planned a night of bowling with friends, so this should turn out to be an excellent night, even though I won't get to drink.

2)I can't take NSAIDs (Aspirin, Ibuprofen) with the Prozac: This is a huge downfall for me, because I had nothing but NSAIDs to get rid of my headaches. What will happen if I take an NSAID with Prozac? Nothing immediately noticeable, but depending on the NSAID, it could render the Prozac ineffective or could increase my risk for bleeding. Prozac thins the blood, and so do NSAIDs, so the two combined could be fatal. The only thing I can take for my headaches is Acetaminophen (Tylenol), and even with that I have to be careful to not go over 3,000 mg (3 grams or 6 pills per day) or I could damage my liver. Lucky for me, most of my headaches respond to two Tylenol. I have only had one that didn't respond to two Tylenol, but what I did was take two more, and it went away until later that day when I needed to eat. Then it responded to food and caffeine and two Tylenol. I guess it's a small price to pay to feel in touch with reality.

3) If I don't get enough sleep, I end up tired/with a migraine: I, before going on these medications, would get a migraine after several nights of cutting on my sleep. Now it only takes one and I will have a migraine. This sucks because my rhythm is one where I go to bed at 8 PM and wake up at 5 AM, and if I skimp on that, I am either running on empty or feeling like my head will split apart.

4) I clean the house and count my pills constantly: I don't know if this is necessarily a bad thing, as we desperately need to keep the apartment clean most days, but I have put it in the bad category because I normally would hate to clean. I also count my pills every time I take them to see if I am still on track with them and to make sure that I haven't taken more than I needed. So far so good! However, this tells me that I have some obsessive-compulsive tendencies, but I don't necessarily think that they are all bad.

5) My emotions are dulled down a lot: This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but my emotions have been really dulled. I can still feel emotions, but they don't drive me as much as they did before. I loved being able to feel emotions deeply, but some days it feels like I am dead in emotions (these are also the days that I end up tired/with a migraine because I haven't gotten enough sleep and I haven't had my cup of joe). I guess there is a price to be paid though, and the dulling down of my emotions will help me focus more on what I need to do rather than on what I am feeling. In the past, my emotions were crippling, and now they are dulled down to the point where they are no longer this way. See, there's always good in something that's intended for evil!

So far, I am satisfied with what I have been experiencing on these medications. While I may experience headaches every so often, it's never something that a few Tylenol can't take away. I am on the mend and can feel it in my heart and mind.

I wanted to end on this note. No matter what your family may communicate to you, they do care. My father, after learning that I had consulted a psychiatrist, is starting to spend more time with me. The lack of time spent with my family was the one thing that drove me into depression, so this is a very good thing for both me and my dad. Granted, I haven't told him my diagnosis yet (I plan to do so this Friday, because I wanted to tell him when I was a little more stable on my medication), I know that I have the confidence to tell him and the courage to accept what may come (it will be good). Your family loves you and doesn't want to see you go down the wrong road. If you don't have a family, you do have a makeshift "family," a group of people that genuinely care for you and want to see you succeed. Me, I have both, and I genuinely believe that there are few people that want to see my destruction. I hope you feel the way I do and if you don't, I pray that you will feel the way I do in the end. Victory is yours, it's all in the way that you view life.