Bipolar 2 From Inside and Out

Posts tagged ‘psychotropic drugs’

Abilify: The Next Chapter

I’ve been taking Abilify as an add-on to my other psychotropics for about six months now, and I have some pieces of good news to share.

Good news #1: The generic (aripiprazole) is now available! There was a slight delay between the time the FDA gave approval for the generic (April) and the time it went on sale. But now it has arrived in drugstores. (I understand that the same company makes both the brand name and the generic, which strikes me as goofy, but then what do I know about drug marketing?)

Good news #2: Between my insurance and my pharmacy, I now have to pay only $15/month for the generic. The brand-name Abilify was $800 without insurance and $125 with. My insurance is not cheap, though it is still less than the cost of brand-name Abilify. When you add in all my other prescriptions and doctor visits and tests and such – plus all my husband’s drugs and other medical expenses, the insurance suddenly doesn’t seem so pricey. (I got this insurance through the Affordable Care Act, and I hope the Supreme Court doesn’t screw it up for me.)

Good news #3: Despite my tiny dosage (2 mg.) I have noticed significant effects. After six months on the drug, I have more energy, better focus and concentration, and fewer down/useless days (unless I overdo and run out of spoons). (See http://www.butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/ if you don’t know what I mean by that.)

I’ve been doing major housecleaning/sorting, going out – actually outside the house – to run errands other than my shrink appointments, and I even went to a party – a reunion of people I used to work with. I wore my new skirt, navigated the social milieu successfully, and stayed an hour and a half. (The next day was one of my no-spoons days, though.)

This is only the third time in my life that I’ve noticed a significant effect from taking a new prescription. The first was Prozac (fluoxetine), which felt like looking at a color television after years of black-and-white. With static. Showing only commercials. The second was Lamictal (lamotrigine), which felt like a switch flipping and turning on my ability to think rationally. And now there’s Abilify.

Whatever side effects I may have, I’m willing to live with. (Unless I get the tardive dyskinesia. That would be a deal-breaker.) This feels like real living and I’m happy about it. I don’t think this is hypomania, either. I think I’m supposed to feel this way. I’m going to run with it.

Of course this isn’t the end of bipolar disorder for me, or the end of this blog. I still have plenty to say about my experiences with bipolar depression, mental health in general, and particularly mental health in the media and society.

Sorry if I sound sappy, but it’s good to be alive and functioning!

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Crazy Pills

Once upon a time in the land of Jublia lived a kind and powerful queen named Lunesta. One day the dragon Cialis and the evil sorceress Humira attacked the castle, but Jublia was saved by Lunesta and her faithful dog Boniva.

And the peasants rejoiced.

Honestly! The names that pharmaceutical companies give their drugs these days! It’s bad enough that the drugs have a list of side effects longer than the symptoms they’re supposed to cure. Not to mention the drugs where the side effects are the same symptoms they are supposed to cure, or the ones where the side effects are considerably worse than the condition they’re being prescribed for.

My favorite has always been, may cause death (excuse me, “increases risk of death”). That has to be the ultimate side effect. You’ll be dead, but your toenails will look great for the funeral. Leave instructions that include sandals.

I made a list of all the drugs that I’ve been prescribed in my pursuit of something resembling sanity. It’s quite long. I’ve tried almost every class of drugs there is – tricyclics, atypical, SSRIs, anti-anxiety drugs, and hypnotics – in various combinations and assorted doses, and even for off-label uses. (TIL that Abilify can be classed as an “atypical atypical,” which makes me feel a certain kinship with it.)

The only ones I know I haven’t taken are lithium and the MAOI inhibitors. which is a good thing, because I do so like red wine and cheese.

Here’s the list, as nearly as I can remember:
Abilify
buproprion
Desyrel
Effexor
Inderal
Lamictal
Lexapro
desipramine
Prozac
Sinequan
Tofranil
Topamax
Wellbutrin
Zoloft
Ativan
BuSpar
Ambien
Valium

I may have missed a few, what with the brand names and generics, the decades over which all this occurred, the memory deficits, and the ones I took for only a month or two before the side effects became too heinous.

The side effects I’ve encountered along the way include:
dry mouth
memory loss
nightmares
agitation
lethargy
weight gain

Not all at the same time, of course, thank heavens. Right now I seem to have dry mouth, residual memory loss, and weight gain. Given the alternatives, I can live with these. More or less. (That is to say, I have to.) The memories, I understand, are not coming back. I just hope I don’t lose any more, especially ones of the hot-n-juicy variety.

The side effects I haven’t suffered include:
death (obviously)
fatal skin rash (Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, which I wrote bout a while back: https://bipolarjan.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/saving-face-or…-die-from-that/)
tardive dyskinesia

I hope the drug regimen has settled down for a while. I must admit that I don’t follow the instructions to the letter. They’re simply too overwhelming: Take this one on a full stomach, this on an empty stomach, another with milk or never with grapefruit juice; something else at bedtime or half an hour before bedtime, or with the noon meal. And don’t forget the non-psychotropics (cholesterol, blood pressure, etc.), or the vitamin, fiber, and calcium pills my GP prescribes or recommends. Well, and the OTC Benadryl, Tylenol, and Immodium, as needed.

(Yes, I did once look up all my meds in a drug interaction database. Every one interacts with every other one. Maybe that’s one reason mixing an effective cocktail has been such a crapshoot.)

I knew a woman who took so many different drugs for her variety of illnesses and conditions that she had a kitchen timer that she continually set and reset every time she had to take a dose of something. Her meds were more precise than mine, though. If she screwed it up, the consequences would be dire. Her side effects did include death.

The regimen I’ve settled on is this: one set of pills when I wake up (whenever that is) and one set at 11:00 p.m. I eat whenever I’m hungry, and I don’t like grapefruit juice anyway. Anything more complicated than that I can’t be sure of remembering. It’s still complex, what with the only-in-the-morning pills, the only-at-night pills, and the take-twice-a-day things.

I have little tricks to help me remember the routine – daytime-only pills in a plastic bag, nighttime-only on the lamp base, twice a day on the tea cart. Turn the vitamin bottle upside down after taking morning pills. I suppose I should get one of those daily pill caddy things, but they never seem to have enough, or big enough, compartments.

Is this routine crazy? You should see me without the pills.

Well, no, you shouldn’t.

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Mental Health

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Mind Like a Steel Trap

Rusty. Unhinged. Not really good for trapping things.

Especially memories.

That’s not quite true. I have that uncanny ability that all depressed people seem to have to remember every stupid, clumsy, embarrassing thing I’ve ever done, as well as every trauma. It’s like a mental DVD that stores them up, then plays them at random moments. Or maybe not so random. Maybe just when I think I’m doing okay.

The memories can be as traumatic as the time other children threw rocks at me or as trivial as the time one person asked for a glass of water and I gave it to someone else.

Unfortunately, the recording feature only works for bad memories. A lot of the good ones are MIA. I don’t remember huge chunks of my childhood, except as stories that family members have told me. I don’t really know if the memories are mine or theirs. And I’m scared to compare notes.

My theory about these childhood memory deficits – and to tell the truth, all the way through my teens and early twenties – is that when you are profoundly depressed, memories don’t imprint the way they’re supposed to. Whatever synapses and neurochemicals are involved in memory are out of whack. I’m also afraid to do the simple Googling required to find out whether this is even a plausible theory. If it’s not, I don’t think I want to know. I have an explanation that makes sense to me, and the memories won’t come back if I learn my theory is wrong.

Later in life, medication has helped controlled the depression and, after it was diagnosed, the other effects of bipolar 2. But if I thought my memory was going to function properly, I was wrong. Some of the drugs left me with a memory like Swiss cheese.

My memory lapses seem more random now. Good things, bad things, neutral things, all disappear into the Pit of Unavailability. Sometimes they are embarrassing – I forgot a friend’s father had died and asked how he was. Other times they are more distressing – mere scraps left of trips I’ve taken. Sometimes they’re heart-searing – total nonrecall of a never-to-be-repeated sexual encounter.

Good and bad, gone.

(“Oh, yes,” said the doctor. “That drug will do that. You can stop taking it now.”)

I guess I’m lucky. If I’d had the electroshock, my memory would probably be as raggedy as old underwear. And about as useful.

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Sensation in the Brain

I know there is no physical sensation in the brain. It cannot feel pain. It cannot feel touch. Even in a car accident when the brain sloshes from side to side and bashes against one side of the skull and then the other, the brain sustains injuries, but feels nothing.

That notwithstanding, twice in my life I have felt physical sensations in my brain – or at least what felt like them.

The first time was at the dentist. I am terribly phobic about dentists, so even for routine procedures I need anti-anxiety medication. This was not a routine procedure.

The dentist was very understanding. He put me in the children’s treatment room, which had brightly colored designs of cactus, coyotes, cowboys, all painted on the walls in comforting colors and playful attitudes.

He also brought in a traveling anesthesiologist so that I could be unconscious during the procedure instead of terrified. My husband was there with me, of course, both to drive me and to give me moral support. (It also turned out that he had to give permission for one of my teeth to be removed in the middle of the procedure while I was unconscious.)

While the anesthesiologist was putting me under, my husband and the dentist were casually chatting. My husband made a remark and the dentist said, “Oh, she can’t hear us now. She’s already pretty far under and won’t remember a thing.”

“I bet she will,” my husband replied. The bet involved giving me a word to try to remember when I awoke. They selected the word green.

“You mean like the color of my pants?” I said. They were actually more like olive drab.

“Yes,” the dentist replied. “Green – the color.”

Just for the hell of it, as I was sinking into unconsciousness, I silently repeated to myself the word green in a slow and steady manner: green green green – until the drugs took me under.

An unknown time later I awoke. The dentist asked me, “Is there something you were supposed to remember?” I shook my head groggily.

As soon as I did, I felt an odd sensation in the back of my brain. It was like a little bubble rising up through liquid. When the bubble reached the surface of whatever the liquid was, it burst and released the word green. “Green?” I said uncertainly.

“See?” said my husband. “I told you she would remember.”

The other sensation in my brain came about six weeks after beginning a new psychotropic medication. I had gone through a long, miserable time of trying drug after drug after drug – tapering off on one and ramping up on the next – all with no effect, except unpleasant ones.

Dr. R. was ready to recommend electroshock for me. And after such a long time – I think it may have been two years – of trying and failing with different medications, I was ready to take the plunge. I admitted as much in one of my sessions.

“There’s one more thing I’d like to try before we do that,” said Dr R. “Here is a prescription for lamictal”.

“Okay,” I said. “How does it work?”

“We don’t really know,” he replied. This was our standard conversation whenever he prescribed a new drug. I was used to it, but I always asked anyway.

So I tried it. And felt the usual nothing for almost six weeks. Then one day I was in my husband’s study and we were talking, when I felt it.

It was the physical sensation in the back of my brain of a light switch being flipped. I thought I heard an internal click. When that switch flipped, suddenly something in my brain changed. It remembered how to think and to feel and to not be miserable.

“Oh!” I said. “I remember this. This is the way my brain is supposed to work.” Since then it has kept working – not continuously in the proper manner – but often enough that I consider the drug a success.

I know that in both of those cases nothing happened in my brain that caused a physical sensation. Both times, my brain gave me a metaphor for what was happening. In the dentist’s office the metaphor was a bubble rising to the surface to explain coming out from under sedation – and a little bit of self-hypnosis.

In the case of the drug, the metaphor was the cliche of flipping on a light switch. This time something had changed in my brain, something biochemical. I should not have been able to feel it, but according to my brain, I did.

It seems I have a clever brain. It gave me ways to understand what was happening in terms I could relate to. The fact that I know the brain can have no physical sensations did not matter to my brain.

Human brains are amazing – and sometimes even in a good way.

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Mental Health

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The Creative Bipolar Brain

Sun or shade
feel or know
safe or strayed
stall or flow

Thought or whim
drought or rain
sink or swim
heart or brain

Stop or start
bound or free
light or dark
bipolar me

I have a lot of friends who are creative – writers, musicians, singers, woodworkers, knitters, and other craftspeople. I also have a lot of friends who have assorted mental or emotional disorders – depression, bipolar, PTSD, OCD, autism spectrum disorders, and probably many more that I don’t know about. In many cases, the two categories overlap.

Common wisdom holds that there is a link between creativity and madness. Look at Van Gogh, for example. People have spent years debating what specific disorder he may have had, but nearly everyone agrees that he had something. The question is, would he have been the great artist without the mental or emotional disorder? Or, perhaps, would he have been an even greater artist if his brain functioned in a more typical matter? Science so far has given us no answers.

Many creative people realize that their everyday functioning is impaired, but they are reluctant to seek treatment for it. They fear that tampering with their brain or thought processes will somehow inhibit their creativity – make them less than they were in some fundamental way. When you start tampering with brain chemistry, who knows what will happen?

It’s a valid concern.

Throughout my life, my brain has been all that I have, or nearly so. My intelligence and creativity were the things I was most proud of. How could I risk losing those simply because I was eternally miserable? The question seems absurd now.

Eventually I decided that I had plenty of brain cells to spare, and that if taking Prozac took away a few of them or lessened their ability, I could live with that. (Just in case, I took up pursuits that are supposed to strengthen the brain – math puzzles in addition to word puzzles, music in addition to writing. Not everything I tried was a success, but I hope they stretch my brain muscles.)

My experience with that first psychotropic med convinced me that Better Living Through Chemistry is not just a chemical company’s slogan. It turns out that – surprise, surprise – thinking more clearly and feeling more well-adjusted actually empower one’s creativity. My output changed from poems full of young adult angst to creative nonfiction, personal essays, and the occasional short story. I now make my living doing freelance writing and editing – an unstructured process that I couldn’t have made a go of before having my mood disorder treated. The ability to concentrate – to focus – is what enables me to sustain a creative effort.

So to all those people out there who wonder if they are sabotaging themselves and their creative impulses by seeking treatment, I say go for it! You have nothing to lose but your immobility. You have everything to gain – the ability to create, to express yourself and do it clearly, and the possibility to create something truly wonderful.

Sylvia Plath was a poetic genius. But she could have given so much more of her talent and vision to the world if she had not killed herself. Perhaps her poetry, had she been treated for her mood disorder, would not have been as searing and powerful. The point is, we will never know. Would she have become more ordinary, or more extraordinary? Dying young obviates the answer.

I believe – for me – that psychological treatment, appropriate medication, and more stable moods have expanded my creative process. And I try to prove it every week when I post in this and my other blog. Whether I succeed is for you to determine.

Have I lost a step? Maybe. But two forward and one back beats the hell out of one forward and two back.

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Not Waving but Drowning

Consider this a trigger warning. The third section is going to talk about some difficult stuff, although in mostly general terms.

Here’s a list of how I know how bad my mood disorder is at any given time. Being bipolar, I cycle in and out of these phases, along with periods of reasonably competent functioning and even, occasionally, contentment or even happiness.

There are basically three stages of increasing dysfunction.

Starting to Sink
My sense of humor takes a hike.
I need more alone time.
I take mega-naps.
I forget that music can help.
I snap at my husband.
Noises irritate me.
I can force myself to work.

Floundering
I don’t want to eat.
I turn off my phone.
I sleep up to 14 hours a day.
Attention span is one hour (or one average book chapter).
I can trick myself into working.

Going Under
Can’t sleep.
Can’t work.
Can’t read.
Attention span: 15 minutes max.
Thinking “Maybe the plane will crash and I won’t have to deal with this anymore.”
Regretting I flushed my stash of pills.
Urge to cut.

Fortunately, I am well-medicated enough that category 3 doesn’t happen nowadays, though I remember it clearly and am appalled. At that point, the only things I can do are keep seeing my doctors and taking my meds. And remember to thank my husband when I come out of it.

(The title of this post is from a poem by Stevie Smith. The last two lines are: I was much too far out all my life / And not waving but drowning.)

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The Universe vs. Me

I set out Friday to drive from Ohio to Michigan – about a 3-4 hour drive, depending on traffic.

Five miles out, the Saturn stopped working. Called husband and AAA. Towed to local mechanic. Probably bad clutch.

So we switched my luggage to my husband’s Blazer. About 30-40 miles away from home, car stopped working. Called cell phone emergency road service. Towed to nearest garage. No idea what’s wrong with it, or if the random mechanic is any good.

So my husband picked me up and put my luggage in the back of his ’84 pickup. Halfway home, the radiator blew. I had a meltdown. Called AAA. Towed home. Had pizza delivered.

That’s it on the vehicles. Not even a bicycle left.

Also, there is No Money, except maybe enough to pay the mortgage and health insurance for February.

I have my Abilify, but it hasn’t kicked in yet.

A couple of friends suggested that this was the universe’s way of telling me not to go to Michigan, thereby avoiding something even more heinous that would happen there.

My questions regarding this theory are:

Did the universe really want us both stranded at home, with no way to get to the store or pharmacy, or for that matter, to the other cars?

Did the universe really want Dan to miss more work and lose more pay, especially since he lost nearly a month’s pay going to stay with his mother while she recovered from surgery?

Did the universe really want us to invest yet more money in the cars, when we just bought two of them new wheel bearings?

My answer: No.

The universe is not conspiring against us. This is not divine retribution for a life of sin. This is not bad karma because I was a cannibalistic serial killer in a past life. This was not caused by some higher power that knew I shouldn’t go to Michigan because the place where I was going to stay would spontaneously burst into flames in the middle of the night.

But sometimes it sure feels like it.

I believe there is no larger “because.” Just the fact that we have crappy vehicles and can’t afford the upkeep.

I have no idea what to do, except go to bed, finish having my meltdown, and stay there till the Abilify revs up.

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Why I’m Not Like Sheldon Cooper

Obviously, I’m not a man or a theoretical physicist or a character on The Big Bang Theory. But also, I can’t say, as he often does, “I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested.” I’d like to have that t-shirt, but it would be false advertising.

I am crazy and my childhood was entirely free of psychological testing.

It probably shouldn’t have been, because the crazy had taken full hold during my tender years. Crippling depression. Massive anxiety. But both my parents were ordinary folk from Kentucky transplanted to a bland Ohio suburb. They stayed true to their roots and never considered testing or counseling for me or my sister. According to their upbringing, having crazy relatives might be upsetting or embarrassing, but that’s just the way it was. You tried to shelter them from the outside world – and vice-versa – but you didn’t involve agencies or doctors or hospitals.

My crazy got too obvious to ignore when I was in junior high school. I developed a nervous tic – my head would jerk up and to the left uncontrollably. This was very distracting, not only to me, but to whoever was sitting behind me in class. It got me noticed.

It did not, however, get me to a psychologist or other mental health professional. I didn’t want to see one anyway, because I had the irrational notion that being “shrunk” would go on my permanent record and I would never get into a good college.

Instead, I was taken to our family doctor. He prescribed Valium, which did stop the twitching but did absolutely no good for my depression.

Later, during my college years – at a good school, I might add – I had another run-in with Valium. This time my symptom was pain like a railroad spike being driven into the side of my head. Naturally, I thought it was a brain tumor.

I went to the doctor, who said, “I can do any test you want, but I can tell just by looking at you what your problem is. Your jaw is crooked.” He diagnosed me with temporomandibular joint (TMJ) disorder, explained that tension made my muscles contract unevenly and cause excruciating pain in my temples. He sent me away with a prescription for Valium. Which helped with the stabbing pain, but again not with the depression. (Also, I was self-medicating with wine, which just made the crazy train run faster.)

It was not until years later, after college, that I got half a diagnosis – depression – and a non-Valium prescription – Prozac. And many years after that until I got the more accurate diagnosis (bipolar 2) and an appropriate regimen of drugs, which does include Ativan, but not prescribed alone or with wine.

And that’s another thing I don’t have in common with Sheldon Cooper. He’s not taken any psychotropics (or wine) and is happily stuck in his supposed non-craziness. I’ve accepted my craziness, gotten help for it, and am slowly rising, if not above it, at least to where I can peek over the top of it.

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The Abilify Saga Continues

It turns out, Abilify works for me. Except now I have to work for Abilify. To afford it, I mean.

I now wake up around 7:30 or 8:00 instead of 10:00. I can concentrate long enough to read whole chapters of books, and am enjoying that immensely. I am able to get showered and dressed and go out to run a few errands. I can decide what to eat and even recognize when it’s time for me to eat.

And I can work. I have taken on a mega-project, which has required my attention up to eight hours a day, researching, writing, editing, and proofreading. I don’t know how well I’m doing (there are some differences of opinion about that), but I’m doing it, goddammit.

I may be pushing myself a little too hard, despite the new energy and focus. The other day I had to force myself, one pitiful step at a time, to address a dozen Christmas cards. “You have the list, you can put the addresses on the envelopes. You’ve got enough stamps, you can surely put them on the envelopes. (Don’t call me Shirley.) Better put return addresses on. You can do that much, then stop. You can slip the cards into the envelopes. How hard can that be? You had them printed with your names, so you don’t really have to sign them if you don’t want to and won’t have to fake your husband’s signature because he’s not here. That would be too much. Now lick the envelopes. All you have to do is stick out your tongue. Might as well take them to the mailbox. You need to get cat food out of the car anyway. Okay, now you can crash. Egg sauce, Ted.”

Many’s the year when all that was Just Too Much. According to the Mystic Law of Reciprocal Cards, we get about four nowadays, and are very grateful for those.

And grateful for the Abilify. Except it’s $800 a bottle, even for the tiny dose I’m taking. I got one free month and one discounted month ($650) from the manufacturer and have spent a lot of time since worrying and seeking solutions.

There will (we hope) be a generic in April. Yay.

I know someone who was taking it and has some left over.

I know someone in Canada.

Will my doctor prescribe a higher dosage so I can break them in half and stretch them (and the cost) out?

I may have at last solved the problem. After hours on the phone and hours more on hold, we finally have new insurance. It costs about as much per month as a bottle of Abilify, but the drug benefit kicks in before we’ve paid the deductible (which is way lower than previously). So our many, many other drugs will magically shrink to $15 per – or less with mail-away – and we’ll come out ahead. A little. Probably. If I can keep up the pace on work.

Plus, now we have dental, and oh lord do I need that. But that’s another story for another time.

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Happy Humbug

It’s a truism that holidays are difficult, not to say hazardous, for those of us with mental disorders. But there are a variety of reasons and a variety of reactions and – dare I say it – a variety of coping mechanisms.

First, let me say, that despite the fact that I was already depressed or bipolar as a child, the holidays were marvelous. Our granny, maiden aunt, and uncle lived a few hours away and we spent Every Holiday there. (My uncle drank, but not when we were kids.)

On Thanksgiving, we’d arrive, the adults would eat themselves into a coma, and then nap while we kids were sent of to the movies.

Christmas was similar, except that we’d get up, open presents from our parents (and “Santa” for the biggies), pile into the car, and head to granny’s. The adults would eat themselves into a coma, and then nap while we kids were sent of to the movies. (I specifically remember The Sting and The Andromeda Strain, during which I saw my first picture of a naked male butt.)

There was no tension involved – no grand dining table, no fancy dress, no distant relatives, no formal manners. We’d simply fill a plate with home cooking, perch on a sofa (which was called the davenport) or chair, and chow down.

My birthday falls between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but poised well enough between the two that it was never combined with either one. Back then, birthdays were simple – cake and frosting from box mixes, four to six neighbor kids, presents (no gift bags), and maybe a couple of party games. (It was at someone else’s birthday party that I was traumatized during a game of Pin the Tail on the Donkey.)

How could anything in later life measure up to those?

Well, it couldn’t. My first Thanksgiving away from home was when I was at college, and we ate lasagna, not turkey. I believe it was the first time I had lasagna. Ever.

Since then all the holidays have gone downhill, or I have.

Any more, they’re a chore, a relentlass gray blob from November through January. (Halloween starts it off. I can’t get with that either.)

For years, I kept up some of the traditions for my parents’ sake. My mother in particular loved everything to do with Christmas – the Macy’s parade, the tree with my father’s favorite old smudge-faced angel on top, crocheted holiday sweaters and snowflakes and handmade ornaments from her foreign penpals and neighbors and church friends.

.muzz3

My first Christmas in my own apartment, I had a small fake tree. When I got married my husband and I tried to get into the spirit with surprise gifts and selecting and decorating my mother’s tree and inviting a divorced friend to dinner with us.

But I was sinking rapidly. At various places I worked, all the ladies sported store-bought Christmas sweaters and sweatshirts (Halloween ones, too) that I thought were just awful. But one year, in a desperate attempt to fit in, I bought holiday sweaters on sale in January to wear the next year. Of course, by then I had lost the job.

Dan and I continued the tradition of dining with our friend John, but our venue changed to Chinese restaurants, where we were kept company by Jews, pagans, atheists, and, no doubt, other depressives and bipolars.

One year Dan was visiting his mother and I was on my own. I tried. I really did. I trotted out a festive holiday sweater and little wrapped-present earrings, and went out to a buffet that offered turkey and beef and ham. But I sat by myself and listened surreptitiously to my iPod. And not holiday music, either. By then about all I could stand was the Christmas jazz from the Charlie Brown TV show.

This year, we ate out on Thanksgiving – but not at the swanky hotel buffet we sometimes took my mother to, or any of the other mega-buffets. We went to a diner that John used to love. I had pork chops and lemon pie. On Christmas I’m likely to be by myself again and may just get festive with a Stouffer’s mac-n-cheese.

Comfort food seems appropriate, and the cats like to lick the dish. Then for dessert – Zoloft and Ativan and Lamictal and Abilify and Ambien. Yum. Visions of psychotropics dance in my head.

 

P.S. I wrote about a Thanksgiving with John on my other blog. If you’d like to see it, go to http://janetcobur.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/thanksgiving-ratatouille-and-a-near-death-experience/

And if you’d like to see my rant about the “War on Christmas,” go to http://janetcobur.wordpress.com/2014/11/09/lets-call-a-truce-on-christmas/

 

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