Posted by Gracie2 on February 27, 2002, at 0:14:38
My last pdoc called me a "classic bipolar." I kind of got a kick out of that, even though it reminded me of an old El Camino with serious engine problems and the flatbed loaded with psychiatric baggage. It also reminded me of Richard Jeni, who joked about entering a relationship where he hoped that his new girlfriend had a small, carry-on bag
of emotional problems, and then it turned out that his new love was toting around a Beverly-Hillbilly truck-load of mental problems.I myself have been in the Beverly-Hillbilly class.
It took some time before I was professionally classified with bipolar symptoms (and as we all know, bipolar is the politically correct term for manic depression). Since I've been taking anti-psychotic medication, I've pretty much turned into June Cleaver. Although I enjoy sleeping at night and functioning around strangers in the appropriate manner, a great part of my personality has been wiped out.I used to paint, to attend college art classes, to be creative, to be a person that others wanted to meet, to write long and interesting letters, to move furniture on a regular basis, to draw and try new things. All of that was gone, but I had enough presence of mind to miss the Old Me. I started skimping on my medication and struggling to find my old self.
I relapsed completely tonight. I bought my favorite red wine for the first time in months(Ca' del Solo, or Big House Red), sat down in front of my drawing pad and put on a Sheryl Crow CD (Sheryl is from here in Missouri, but she doesn't like to admit it.) I was drawing and listening to her songs, thinking about how I used to feel like she did before June Cleaver took over, and my hand started to shake.
"All I want to do is have a little fun before I die," says the man next to me...and I wonder if he's ever had fun in his life. We are drinking beer at noon on Tuesday in a bar that faces a giant car wash. The good people of the world are washing their cars...well, they're nothing like Billy and me. All I wanna do is have some fun; I got a feeling I'm not the only one...until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard. I like a good beer buzz early in the morning...a happy couple enters the bar dangerously close...otherwise the bar is ours, and the day and the night.
This song opens doors that I had shut long ago; big doors. Twenty years ago, I was slamming cherry shots with a combat engineer in Berlin; today I am excited when the newspaper arrives on time. I don't really want to get upset when the muffins burn, I don't want to be the person I am on this medication.
I would be interested to know how others feel by the change in their personality due to medication.
-Gracie
poster:Gracie2
thread:18957
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020223/msgs/18957.html