medication and my non-compliant mind

I have a rap sheet of psych diagnosis's.  Topping the list is depression. Its so common any more that people assume its no big thing. You take a pill and get happy, right?

For me its not that easy. First attempt to medicate my depression was in my twenties. It caused cardiac side effects. SCARY cardiac side effects. I would wake with a resting pulse of 140+. My face would flush in weird geometrical patterns. Like one 1/2 of it, or circles and strips.  It was many years before I attempted another medication trial.

Depression can be a fatal illness. Make no mistake about that. When mine again turned to the "I'm going to kill myself" end of the spectrum in my thirties I again tried an antidepressant.

The results were awful and the medication amplified the depression and I attempted suicide. Thankfully all that hard work I did in therapy paid off and I was able to pull myself out of that spin.

I simply can't take antidepressants.

ummm...that is what is prescribed for depression.

Yeah I know.

Great gravy trains.

Its awful to have a treatable illness and not be able to tolerate the medication.

To accompany the mental parade of illnesses and such, I have an equally impressive rap sheet of physical issues. Topping THAT hit parade are the numerous orthopedic injuries and resulting arthritis and nerve pain.

Last November I cracked. My tolerance for being in chronic pain coupled with the winter depression sent me crying to the doctors office to beg for help. I am not taking any thing for my chronic pain. The majority of the time I take aspirin or nothing at all.

I was prescribed Neurontin for the nerve pain.

and holy bleeping cow....it worked!

It eased my pain off the IMAGUNNAKILLYOU level down to the range of i'mgunnaannoythepoopouttayou. That level I could deal with.

Neurontin has a curious side effect. It can cause you to have "exaggerated feelings of well being."

Guess what? that simple side effect balanced out my depression and WOOHOO I started to feel like a human. I was waking up and instead of fighting my self to get through the day I was living. I had energy for the first time since having my thyroid radiated 4 years ago.

I thought I had found the cure for all the complexities of me.

Neurontin dulls your nerve endings. ALL your nerve endings. And as my hormones did there normal annoying female monthly thing I was having issues with my gut shutting down. The painful bloating and my intestinal tract basically stopping, forced me to stop the neurontin each month for a week.

Why can't I have a normal body/mind?

I had to stop the neurontin 2 weeks ago because I felt a shifting in my mind....a scary shift from the usual daily day to day "i want to die" to a very peaceful,  It's time to die thought pattern.

I will not, CAN NOT have those thoughts running amok in my brain with my history of suicide attempts. I came off the Neurontin and within two day the nerve pain was again in the IMAGUNNAKILLYOU range.

Sigh.

Whats truely disheartening about this is this:

Neurontin is THE drug for treating nerve pain. The only drug.

AAAUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

So you add mental pain and physical pain together and guess what you get?

A whole heap of $&^%&^$% that makes getting up each day and being a wife/mother/employee/human/ect really hard some days. I do not like who I see in the mirror each morning. Matter of a fact lately I really hate her.

Found this picture yesterday.

That happy smiling mama is missing in action. I am not sure where she is. I wish she would come back. I really wish she would come back. We all miss her.

I need to find my balance and peace within my messed up self again. It will probably be somewhere along the lines of finding humor in the fact that I am such a messed up freak that modern man has yet to find a cure for the common Paja.

Until then I will get up each day and keep living.