I have been

I have been

I have been asked time and again, who I am, what am I about, what makes me tick. I also am asked about the medications I am on and the choice I make on occasions to not take them for a day or two. Let me tell you about it.

One of my first memories when I am asked that is being touched by a 16 year old when I was 9. I carry my scars on my body, my soul, my heart and my mind. I have been a child, a toy, a sister, a girlfriend, a pregnant mother. I have been a lover, a hater, a friend and an enemy.  

I don’t hide from my background or my life. I have made my mistakes and I have made others mistakes. I have run head long down dark tunnels and been lead threw doors. I have run away from  myself and others. I have kicked the gift horse in the mouth and opened the door to the Trojans. 

I have fought for others while leaving myself open for attack.  I have walked away from things that I should have run from and run faster than hell from the things I should have embraced. 

It’s a familiar story in fact in one way or another I am betting it is the same one everyone has or will have. When I began my medications, I was at the lowest point a life can go. I had nothing left to lose because I had nothing left that I valued. 

To be honest to this day I do not know why I steeped from the  brink of suicide and decided to give it one more try.

I gave each new medication “one more day” each one making me sick. Months and then years I took the drugs the Doctors kept telling me to take. I have lost count of the number of medications I have tried.  Though I can remember clearly spending years of life with my head in the toilet bowl “getting use to” yet another medication. 

At one point I had a real ass kicker. I sat down to balance my check book and I reliized that I didn’t know how to do math anymore. That’s right. I couldn’t remember how to add, subtract, multiple or divied in fact when I looked at that checkbook I couldn’t even recognize some of the numbers. 

I suddenly realized that the “right meds” had not been found that I had come across a cocktail that made everyone happy because it kept me calm. Big problem was I had become to calm. I was a medicated zombie.  Everything I did took me 4 times the amount of time to do that it had originally and I was even slower than “normal” people.

2 years, 24 months that’s how long that particular cocktail had kept me from relizing that I didn’t have a life anymore because I was nothing but the side effects of a drug. I spent another 3 months agruging with my therapist that there had to be better medications. I had gone from suicidal to a walking corpse.  Where was the quality of life in that trade?

I finally had to get another therapist before I could start working on getting yet again new medications. Again I spent years going through combinations. This time at least it was more monitored and I wasn’t allowed to go without constant medical care to make sure that I wasn’t being sick all the time or being buried alive in my own skull.

It took over 10 years from the time of diagnosis(I was 30 at the time) before I found the “right” cocktail of drugs. This consisted of a combination of medications and cognitive therapy and damn good friends. The side effects now are “livable” what that means is that I am willing to go through the side effects to be able to lead a “normal” life.

A “normal” life.  Now here is where we get to the real meaning of perception.  Once a week I pull out 15 bottles from their spot on the top of a barely used TV that I use occasionally. I grab my pill box and open up all the little boxes 4 down 7 across. The days of the week and the time of day has pretty much warn off the box but it’s not too hard to figure out how it works. It takes me about 15 mins now to collect my meds, set them up in the box and go over what needs new prescriptions by the end of the week.  

 Some weeks I have to have help to fill the box as my fingers can’t hold on to the pills long enough to put them in their boxes. My hands shake.  My joints are arthritic. Sometimes I just have no strength in my hands and they just plainly do not work. Some meds I can only take in the morning others only at night. About every 4hrs or so I am taking some combination of medications all timed out for optimal performance. Some control my sugar, some control my moods, it seems there is always something to control something. There are times my legs don’t work. I don’t even feel them at times. I fall down for no reason other than I can’t feel my legs at least once a week now.(btw this is a good thing it used to be almost daily). 

I monitor my diet carefully as some foods and meds just don’t get along. Also I have medications for my stomach as I have gone through so many medications that I cannot keep anything down without medications to cover the damage made by the other medications. Let me break it down real easy. I have to take meds so that I can take meds because of other meds I have taken.  Got all that yet???

I haven’t held a job in over a decade. It really stinks (though I can think of a much stronger adjective) to not be able to work. It can eat you alive as easily as slurping a slushy. But I do work.  I work every single minuet of every single day to just be me.  It use to take a lot more out of me then it does now but its still a daily mission. I have worked to the point that I am in college and I have been since March and I have gotten nothing lower than an A- in all of the classes I have taken so far (that’s 6 done and 2 more this term)

In the month of November (2011) I have lost three people who were all very dear to me. And I haven’t been able to focus.  My grades as of right now, I will be lucky to pass with a C.  I need to get focused and I need to be OCD(obsessive compulsive disorder. I deal with that issue also) about getting caught up.

To do this I am going to have to cut back on some of my medications. I am reducing the “may cause drowsiness’ meds which include pain meds, anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxants that keep my pain from my back injury in check. The pain will increase my chances of bringing on a manic attack. I also risk major insomnia, which also increases the already negative effects of being bipolar. 

So let’s discuss the quality of life issues here. I spend a few days in a little more pain with a little less sleep eating a lot less food but in exchange, I catch up with my classes and actually have a chance to make sure that I do pass. To me this is an acceptable trade off. After I catch up, I go back to my regular dosages and back on an even keel. I have the support of my family and they understand why I will do this.  They understand quality over quantity.

Well that’s me. You can make up your own minds on who I am, what I am and all those burning questions that keep coming my way. I can’t tell you any clear cut straight answer to those questions. But just remember when you look around you really do not know what a person goes through to be the person you see every day.   

I am not looking for praise or criticisms I am just damn tired of trying to explain that altering my medications for a few days does not mean that  I am going off the deep end. It just means I need to feel a little less of the side effects so that I can create a life worth living and leading. Everyone needs something to value or life will have no value.

Quality over Quantity every day in every way

Amy Minckler 12/12/11