Non-Alcoholic

When I was in hospital for alcohol withdrawal, I was put on a drug called Campral.  This is supposed to stop all craving for alcohol and assist greatly in creating permanent abstinance, if taken for 2 years.

For the first few months I think it helped greatly. Over Christmas I thought more about drinking than at any other time since I quit. Wine and beer were everywhere.  I got through that, without much suffering at all, and I have had no desire to drink whatsoever.

So I gave up the Campral.  Part of the reason was that I hated having to be on a medication regime that included nineteen tablets a day (Campral alone was 6 a day).  The other was that I needed to know if I could do this on my own.

And you know what?  I can.  A whole month and not one desire to drink.

I haven't gone to AA because I reject totally the notion of giving myself over to a higher power.  I am the higher power. I am responsible for what I do or what I do not do.  If I am going to beat this, then I must do it. I must do it. Not a higher power. Not medications to change my brain even more.

So I'm doing it.

How about that?

Seventy-five

Milligrams, that is.

Not even halfway to the therapeutic dose.

And I appear to be awake and alive and this wont do at all because there is the fetal position to assume and the intrusive thoughts about how unfair it is that I have kids, because now I can't not be alive and I am trapped trapped trapped and none of it can be undone.

My brain needs to be occupied so as to avoid those nasty thoughts because being in that spiral will only lead to more madness. But really, I have been reduced to reading dooce, for fucks sake. Next stop, Cornflakes boxes.

Bed Goes Up, Bed Goes Down

A Simpsons' reference for every occasion, including me losing my tiny little mind.

I wake to blankness. Probably what the big wigs would call "loss of affect".  I feel nothing. I want nothing. I want no one. Leave me alone.

I spend the day flipping pages of magazines, just to give me something to focus on. Otherwise I will go back to bed and stare out the window. I am so tired.  Eventually I feel so disconnected I cant do that anymore, and I return to bed. I feel panic. I claw at my own skin. The voices start, telling me how hopeless it is. This illness, this medication, my life. Panic heightens when I think of being like this for weeks as I get up to a stable dose on this new med. I am nauseous, I want to run, I want to scream. I do scream, but it is the scream in my belly that no one can hear.

And then I am calm. Like that. Nothing has happened to induce this change. I am feeling almost normal. But the racing thoughts, they intrude. A thousand different thoughts all at once. So many that I can barely pull them apart to think them clearly. I am awake. Wide awake. Awake and yet unable to motivate myself to do anything. I have a desperate need to communicate yet I do not want to see or talk to anyone.

I have ignored my children all day. They come to visit me and want to know why I am always in bed. "Mummy doesn't feel well" is so insufficient. 

Eventually it is time for sleep and by this time I am wired but still without motivation or desire. Temazepam I hope will be my saviour tonight.

Tomorrow I do it all again. This is the world of starting on Lamotrigine.

This Time Fer Shure

And now for the newest poison on the block, Lamotrigine.

An anti-epileptic, known overseas (and sporadically known here) for its kickass ability to knock the crap out of Bipolar Depression. Not known at all by my gp and she is letting me try it at my extreme insistence. 

Also known for its ability to give users The Rash, aka Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, which leaves the skin as if it had been badly burned, and it can be fatal. So we have to titrate veerrryyy slooowwwllly.

What this means is that the former anti-psychotic Zyprexa is no longer in my system and I am now on such a piddling dose of Lamotrigine that it couldn't cheer up a dung beetle in a pile of dung.

I feel like whale shit at the bottom of the ocean. I am walking through molasses. I hate everything. I don't want to be around anyone. Bed is nice. The drug has buggered my sleep pattern so I am awake at night and exhausted all day. I consider what it would be like it I weren't around anymore,  The whole being trapped fiasco is making the suicidal ideation recur. I see no point to anything.

How long am i supposed to just live with this? Slow titration is one thing, but living with The Awful Blackness as a consequence just ain't right. Should I be sucking this up and riding it out or admitting myself to hospital for some additional medicinals to keep me on the living side of this hell?

My brain is so adrift I cant answer that question.

The Drugs Dont Work, They Just Make Things Worse

I doubt The Verve were singing about Lithium, but they may as well have been.

Tomorrow I see my gp to tell her I Say NO to Lithium. 

I have only become able to write now through taking a Lorazepam about an hour ago. Prior to that, I was (literally) catatonic much of the day, unable to move or communicate, with strange thoughts like just getting in the car and driving off, taking all the kids' money out of the bank, and not coming back. Ever. (Slight problem: I cant drive.)  I dont want to see people, I dont want to talk to people. Especially my kids. Their incessant noise makes me want to scream and kill kittens.

I cant live like this. I have no idea what is going on. Reaction to Lithium? Has it tipped me over into some strange Bipolar 2 mixed state? Am I NOT Bipolar at all and Lithium is making me crazy?


This drug-induced nightmare, whatever its genesis, has got to end. I was supposed to see my GP next Monday anyway, but the way I have been feeling I cant be sure I would be around by then.  Life was a lot easier when I was drinking all the time. How is this better? How can these effects of medication be better than being mellow on wine?

Fuck. I have felt shit since I stopped drinking and now its worse instead of better.  Did I kill the baby jesus in my past life?

Has anyone else ever experienced horrendous side effects from the meds that were supposed to keep them safe and sane?

Lithium, Thy Name Is...um...(hang on, I know this)

I am cotton wool brain.

I am thoughts stuck in a whirlpool unable to get out.

I am words on the tip of my tongue.

I am apathy.

I am lead.

I am sleep.

I am nothing.