Look, I love my psychiatrist. I think he’s a genius. He thinks he’s a magician, so he’s all right by me. In my opinion, you have to be crazy to be a psychiatrist in the first place–a good one, that is.
We’ve been riding this boat called my brain in more or less rough waters for, oh, twelve years now, with a few breaks for me to galavant across the country or the world. So he knows my inner clockwork pretty well, and I know his pretty well, and most of the time it works out.
See, I have always lived an inner life, and never much paid attention to my environment. I chalk that up to my considerable Aspergerian tendencies, and unless someone comes to visit and I am painfully reminded that I haven’t cleaned in years (you think I’m kidding?), I don’t even notice it.
My shrink thinks my essential disorganization is due to inattention. He thinks that stimulants will fix it. He’s had me try dexadrine in almost every form there is. In fact, he just mailed me an Rx for Dexadrine Spansules, which is what you give kids mixed in apple sauce.
So I have this whole amphetamine pharmacy that I can’t quite bring myself to take to the “medication recycling day” at the drug store. Hmph. I know what THEY do with it anyway. They get ripped, is what.
So last time he gave me the long-acting dexadrine I thought it worked pretty well, but never remembered to take it after that. You must know that I am the mother who had to give the school nurse my son’s bottle of Ritalin because I could never remember to give it to him and the phone would ring reliably at 10 am: ”Doctor, did you forget to give your son his Ritalin again?” Because without it, he was just like a top bouncing off of everything in the room and crying at the same time. Five milligrams of Ritalin, and the sun came out all smiles. So I had his doctor write the prescription for the school nurse to give, and life was good.
Ooooh-kaaaay, back to my story. Yeah. So I saw my magician on Thursday, and he encouraged me to try the stuff again, and he also prescribed a light box, 10,000 lux, for my persistent depression. All good so far.
Yeah. So yesterday I took a long-acting dexadrine 10 mg in the morning, which is what he said to do. Only, you gotta understand, my mornings start at around 11 am because my night-time meds take so long to wear off. So I took it as soon as the coffee kicked in, which might have been noon by that time.
About four o’clock I was sailing. I was literally cookin’ along, because I prepare a big family dinner every Friday night and so I was choppin’ and marinatin’ and having a general good ol’ time.
Eight o’clock and I was still buzzed. I started feeling a little cranky so I took an Ativan. No dice, did nothing. Ten o’clock, I took my usual night-time sledgehammer dose of Ativan, Clonipine, Zolpidem and Seraquel. That usually results in unconsciousness within half an hour.
Nope, not last night. Instead, I went into a state of half-wake, half-dreaming. I think that’s what vampires must do. It’s certainly not anything I would call sleeping. I lay on my pillow, eyes lightly closed, alternately shivering and drawing the blankets up to my chin, and breaking out in sweats and throwing the covers off. Haven’t had anything like that since I laid off menopause.
Finally at seven (seven!) I turned over and said to the dog, “This ain’t goin’ nowhere. I’m gettin’ up.” She opened one eye and shut it again. She’s a late sleeper too.
Noga, my Lhasa Apso PSD, getting her beauty sleep
I made coffee, drank it, and went to work deleting emails. If you knew how many thousands of unread emails I have in my many email accounts, I’m sure you’d think less of me. But anyway, that’s what I did.
Long about 11 o’clock, the sun came up over the mountain like it usually does. The dog stretched and yawned and demanded her morning petting session (kisses and hugs too) before she went outside to take care of business.
After she came in, I fed her, and then we both went back to bed and slept till it got dark. Now it’s 11 pm, and I’m waiting for the nighttime meds to kick in. I might try that stimulant shit again, at seven in the morning like you’re supposed to. Then again, I might not.
