Posted by Peter on November 4, 2002, at 13:22:17
In reply to Re: PLEASE HELP ME PETER, posted by polarbear206 on November 4, 2002, at 8:15:10
Thanks for all your help, everyone. But I gotta say that I still am having sort of an internal tug-of-war about the meds issue. On the one hand, I feel very dependant on meds, and I get the old 'I'm sick, I'll be on all sorts of meds the rest of my life, this sucks, etc...." But other times, I say to my self: '" You know what? you're on a lot of meds, you're body might be dependent, but you're accustomed to them and you're a lot more productive, creative, and social on them, so what's the big deal? Don't fix it if it ain't broke!" Now, when I'm in the first mindset, I tend to default into extreme thinking - 'all or nothing at all.' I get this sense of urgency that I either have to take a whole new cocktail of drugs, or I have to stop ALL drugs forever. On the other hand, when I'm in the second, more gentle and self-accepting mindset, I'm willing to stay on the current med regime and concentrate more on prioritizing and acting upon the the important things in my life, like music (I'm a pianist and composer), my relationship with my fiancee, endeavors that will spritually and psychologically enrich me, etc.. You see, the irony in all this, is that I find that my negative, 'extreme' attitude is kicked up into full bloom when I've been directed to change doses and/or meds, because these are the times that my mind becomes anxious and obsessed with the whole subject of meds and I start again doubting my need for them, etc. But once I've reached a period where I am physically and psychologically adjusted to whatever med(s) I'm on, I find I can then more easily put the whole med issue aside and concentrate on these other crucial dimensions of my life.
All in all, I think I'm beginning to learn how our attitudes are so important when it comes to taking psychiatric medications-how we see ourselves is crucial. And we can choose to either accept ourselves and the lot we've been given in life (including mental illnes, no matter how 'mild' or 'severe,' and our need to be taking meds), or we can allow negative thinking and obsessive confusion to get the best of us. In my particular situation, as I've metioned, I've been on a bunch of different meds over the years like many of you. As a result, I've gone through many periods of both of these 'mindsets' I mentioned above. I've realized I can either see this as a huge, life-or-death situation, or just accept it. To maintain such a consistent, positive attitude is obviously easier said than done, and I'm sure I'll continue to waiver, as we're all human. But I think my acknowledgment of my attitude tendencies is at least a step in the right direction.
Now, specifically regarding my current meds: lamictal, depakote, klonopin, adderall, zoloft, temazepam. I've been on 25mg of the lamictal for about 2.5 weeks, so I guess it's gonna take longer, if I continue to slowly increase it, for it to do whatever it's gonna do. I can probably live with slightly lower doses of klonopin and temazepam (3.5mg and 30mg, respectively), as I tend to wake up each day stumbling and feeling hungover. The depakote doesn't bother me one way or another-I've been on it so long, I have no pressing problems with it.
Here's where we come to the main drug in question for me-the adderall. I have found that, at the current 50mg dose (in synergy with the other meds), the adderall is doing me more good than harm. While I might get a bit hyperfocused at times on it and irritable when it wears off, it's been the first time since I can remember that I can wake up and be productive, active, alert & focused-and that I can go outside without my head down feeling like everyone's looking at me. Now, I can choose to start shuffling the adderall doses because of the few 'cons' of taking this dose, or I can begin to implement ways of 'directing' my adderall-induced energy and focus in healthy directions. For instance, sometimes I find that I was just getting so hyperfocused on trivial things that I would neglect important things. But now that I'm learning to prioritize and be selective about what I spend my time doing, I find that I can divide up my day in ways that are very conducive to my stability and success. This is why I'm having so much trouble reducing the adderall as my pdoc says; he told me to go to 45mg. He said he believes my mood will worsen over time on my current dose: yet, he came to this conclusion as a response to hearing me talk in one particular session when all I said was how miserable I am, etc..See, that's what's so annoying! The pdoc only responds to what we tell him during our sessions; we might be just having an off day and looking at things negatively, thereby giving the doc an inaccurate description of our general moods. This is what I believe occured my last session. So I tried the adderall reduction for a few days, but I just felt lazy, irritable,anti-social, and depressed. And thinking about what it would be like to taper off EVERYTHING made me very overwhelmed and frightened-not only for myself during such a process, but for those whom I love who will be subject to it as well. So is it that bad to stay on everything as it is , accepting myself, and beginning to make a real effort to maintaining a healthy attitude and not turning to extreme 'I need a fix' attitudes when I have off days? I'm doing yoga, composing, praying, etc..all of which is helping my attitude and directing it in the right place. And I just think changing things chemically, whether it's incremental dose changes or full detox, might not be the best idea in terms of where I am now in my life. Sorry for the length of this post; but for anyone who did get through it, what are your opinions?
Thanks,
Peter
poster:Peter
thread:126191
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021101/msgs/126411.html