I felt like crap today and I chalked it up to just coming back from a very laid back vacation in the Florida Keys, a 14-hour day yesterday, the sudden announcement today of a massive reorganization of the corporation I (still) work for and fiddling with a 2 gig database that kept locking up my computer all day. Oh yea, and 15 of us are going to be laid off in the next two week, but we don’t know who.

By the time I got home my brain felt nauseous and a dull headache was building. The back of my eyeballs started to ache. Weird. I had never felt like this. And I felt so good yesterday. I just wanted to crawl into bed. So, I got the coffee maker ready for tomorrow, laid out my mug and my pill container. I take two pills every night – a mood stabilizer and an antidepressant. I opened up the Tuesday container and there were my two pills.

Except it’s Wednesday. Ruh-roh. That means I skipped Tuesday night’s meds and Wednesday morning: about 18 hours without any medication. That had to explain it. I realized how powerful these medications – two antidepressants and one mood stabilizer – really are. I forget because I don’t get high or feel anything magical when I take my meds as prescribed. I feel normal and level – the bubble is plumb.

I can’t imagine the hell of a cold-turkey withdrawal. Why, or why would anyone do that? Then I remembered an article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine a couple of years ago written by a guy who did just that.

“But then my symptoms became more physical: the chills at night and the cold sweats continued. I felt tingling in my shoulders and hands, spasms in my legs. These came and went, seemingly with no reason. And then one night as I lay back to go to sleep, I felt a quick spasm in my head as if an electrical current had suddenly been sent through a circuit somewhere inside my brain. Two more followed in quick succession. With each came a wave of nausea. I sat up. They seemed to disappear. They returned. I realized these were the brain zaps, and over the next few weeks they would come, with no distinguishable pattern, several times a day.”

What the heck is wrong with this guy? Why would anyone deliberately do this? It got worse.

“Coping with the ever-changing and seemingly capricious symptoms was beginning to exhaust me. I couldn’t stick to any sleep schedule. I couldn’t think clearly. I was becoming unfocused, agitated and unable to sit long enough to read or work. The stress of anxiety and sleeplessness that I’d almost forgotten seemed to be returning. And that scared me.”

I bet. The writer continued on with his little experiment  and endured other horrible withdrawal symptoms. I finished the article with a firm belief that the author was not very bright and that I would never, ever stop taking my meds without consent and supervision of a doctor. The last thing I need in my life right now are brain zaps. Today’s little inadvertent experiment confirmed that.

So, I’m going to bed. My pill box is next to my coffee mug. Tomorrow is Thursday, right?

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From Psych Central's website:
PsychCentral (August 20, 2009)

    Last reviewed: 19 Aug 2009