medicine

what I take:

lamictal (lamotrigine)
trazodone (desyrel)
clonazepam

these are all for my head.

what I have taken in the past:

valproic acid (depakote) (made me feel like i was being poisoned)
zoloft (wonder drug then stopped working)
wellbutrin (worked for a while, then stopped)
effexor (i could not eat or sleep)
remeron (made me feel like i was losing my mind)
buspar (made me super dizzy)

those were all for my head too. better living through science!

last year, in the summer, I stopped everything. I threw them all away. Nothing was really working; I was as depressed as I ever was, and it seemed silly to keep swallowing pills every day with no benefit. I told my doctor. He set up a schedule for me to stop. You can't just stop cold turkey; you have to taper off or something bad can happen, a short circuit of the brain or some such thing. At first I felt very odd. Then I felt ok. I went to the mountains. I was a wreck, so anxious and depressed that I could scarcely function. I returned to New York. I got nothing done. I tried to work, I tried to keep my head together. I resumed teaching, wrote a few short pieces to fulfill obligations, and attempted to practice the piano. I painted a bit. But I felt myself sinking. And it began to get to the point where I was scared of the direction I was heading. So I began a new regimen, this time with lamictal, because the other antidepressants tended to make me manic and that is a dangerous place for me to be. The lamictal leveled me off. I still feel generally depressed most of the time, but I function and I have spells of "normalcy" (energy, no anxiety). Swimming helps me a lot. I am obsessed with it. If the pool were closer to home I would be swimming every day, for hours. But it is probably better that it is not so close. I am not sure. I don't tell too many people about this stuff; it is embarassing, and there is still some stigma in some people's minds. But I know that if I had not started the medication back in 1992, I would probably not be here. It was very very bad. But now: better living through science! I was saved by that wonderful Dr. Miari, with the beautiful accent and the kind heart and the razor-sharp brain.