Every time I get too happy I swallow a pill that makes me sad again
Notes on antipsychotic medication from a newly recruited agent of paranoia
Look I’m determined to post once a week so for the short-mid term you guys are just going to get wet slop content.
Enjoy.
You ever had a manic episode? I recommend having a manic episode. It’ll make you throw bombs at all your relationships, you’ll become so paranoid everyone is out to get you that you get them first before they can hurt you (because the man who sat behind me on the bus is defffffinitely a part of a large gang stalking operation that is targeting me and only me for some unknown reason), you won’t eat or sleep for days and you will get psychic visions from the future that tell you if you don’t count all your teeth in the mirror and verify there’s an even number of them (24) then WW3 will descend on the world and it will be YOUR FAULT!
So I found out last summer that I’m not a suitable candidate for antidepressants. Mood disorders (ie Bipolar/Schizoaffective/PMDD) run in my family. When I went to the doctor this time last year about my depression, I tried to say that I was scared to take antidepressants because they’ve made members of my family delusional and crazy before and I didn’t feel like having a bout of depression turn into a bout of delusional and crazy. As you probably already guessed. I got put on antidepressants and then went craaazy.
I was prescribed them RIGHT before my university course started and had to drop out because of my actions during the semester. I was genuinely convinced if I didn’t do my work the administrators would just pick up on my cool chill vibes and let me pass the semester with NO WORK DONE. I messaged half a dozen people walls and walls and walls of text (a mixed bag of “never speak to me ever again you’re the worst person on planet earth”, “Please don’t leave me”, “I think you and only you have been the worst to me and I deserve all your time and attention”, “I know we haven’t spoke in multiple years but you NEED 40 text messages from me right now”) like god bless everyone who had to deal with me like that for MONTHS because I was fucking not right. The thing with mania is I would convince myself I was having fun, and despite the multitude of crash-outs I had over text I still didn’t realise I was fucked up ;_; One day that stands out in particular was I emailed one of my exes MULTIPLE TIMES DESPITE BEING NO CONTACT and then promptly forgot about this, then ran a 5K, picked up from my dealer and went on a night out, stayed up after drinks and just kept drawing and painting until my lights went out (forgot to pay the leccy bill). A few days later the ex sent me a very nice email basically saying “Hey man. Sorry things are rough right now. I think you need a reminder… WE ARE NOT FRIENDS! YOU FUCKED IT! SORRY! GET WELL SOON!” The joys of retrospective shame and embarrassment over this period of my life aren’t lost on me.
When I eventually was given the correct medication for my condition it took me a few months to actually piece together what the fuck had happened and in what order. It’s a bizarre feeling coming out of that intense state and just having to keep calm afterwards and not have another brand new meltdown due to the aftermath of the months and months I spent psychotic, unable to control any impulse I had at all and having to deal with everything I’d lost because of my mental state. (I definitely deserved to lose the people I lost because of my actions, but it still sucks reconciling with the fact that I can’t take back anything I said or did.) The worst part in my opinion is that my medication gives me super vivid dreams and I KEEP HAVING DREAMS ABOUT ALL MY PALS I BURNED BRIDGES WITH. Can’t even enjoy my time unconscious without getting unwanted psychic damage. Life is fucking relentless and I’ll tell you that for free.
I really hate how my medication makes me feel. I feel like I’m just watching my life wash over me and I’m just standing in the ocean as the water crashes into my legs, retreats, and crashes into me again. Usually the water is supposed to prompt me to DO SOMETHING, to swim and thrash and step on something slimy and play around. I feel like I’m just observing it all and am unable to actually alter the trajectory of my day. This has its benefits… work is easy because I clock in clock out and remember none of it after I leave. I enjoy this aspect. The drawback is when I’m actually trying to do my hobbies and tasks and such that I WANT to do I don’t feel the same passion and ego about it that I used to. My writing is dogshit and my art is dogshit. I’m trying to care less and do more, and just quantity over quality it so I have something to show for my day. You gotta get out 10,000 bad pieces of art before you produce good art or some shit. I’m just going to speedrun it for the time being.
My personal theory on why I hate the feeling of my meds so much is because being too sad OR too happy is bad for me, the medication’s job is to just keep me entirely completely neutral about everything no matter what. It’s hard to process bad emotions because I just feel SO BEIGE. ABOUT EVERYTHING. I know I feel bad but I don’t feel like I feel bad? My physical body gets a tight chest and my thoughts are a little more negative but the me that is me, my actual consciousness that is separate from whatever the fuck else is going on in my head is just. Fine. Not good not bad. I’m just fine. I just don’t feel like I’m all there because my emotions are blunted so much I don’t have the capacity to react to very much, both positive OR negative, because I’m just constantly fine and nothing better or worse than fine.
The worst part is when I forget my meds for a couple days. It feels great. I’m more clear headed and feeling my actual real emotions again is nice. Even when they’re not nice, having the capacity to CRY, to actually cry, feels nice. And then I get a bit too much. I say things I wouldn’t normally say, I can’t stick to a routine anymore, I’ll stay up for over 24hrs to play a game or to draw/paint, eat less in the name of “getting healthy”, stress over every single little speck I see because I think it’s a bug and have obsessive thoughts about all my wrongdoings and evils I’ve plagued others with. A lot of these things I always thought were just parts of my personality. And they are, you can’t really separate yourself from your illnesses because it’s all you in the end. It’s your body, at least. The pills just have to suppress parts of me or else I’d never be functional enough to have a job and feed myself and not cause devastating conflicts all the time. It just sucks having those moments where I feel on top of the world and like I have boundless energy to create and move and talk because I have to just accept that this means there is something wrong happening to me, and for the foreseeable future I’m not allowed to like having any energy that strays away from “being fine”. And I know what happens if I come off my meds (see: Having No Friends Left and Making Devastating Life Decisions I Can’t Go Back And Fix) so I do my due diligence and take the neutral pills that make me feel neutral about everything again.
It’s weird being neutral all the time. For me it translates into being sort of sad but too far away from my emotions to actually go through the labour of being sad. I DO have good days and I DO feel alright some days, but again there’s a chemically induced barrier to being able to access the rewarding parts of feeling anything. So it’s THERE, the actual chemicals that say “this feels good” is in my brain swimming around. I just don’t have a way to interface with it or do anything with it. It’s like when your laptop screen goes black but everything else still works. Works great! You just have lost the ability to see what is actually going on and which applications you’re opening.
It’s better than the alternative which is feeling my emotions to the absolute extreme limits. Don’t get me wrong it is FANTASTIC not wanting to splatter my brains across the carpet every waking moment. It’s good I’m normal enough to stick to a routine and go to work and not sob my eyes out after every shift for some mysterious unknown reason. It’s good that when I do feel happy I don’t immediately slide into delusional thinking and reckless behaviour. I just wish they could invent a pill that works and removes the mental illness and leaves all the good parts in tact.
I’m sure one day they’ll invent a brainchip that for the low low price of seeing adverts in my FOV and in my dreams that I’ll be able to feel happy AND not take it as a sign to blow all my money and be hysterical on main. Won’t that be something.