If he’s not qualified, I don’t know who is
Actor Art Malik, who played Zubin Kahn for two years on the BBC’s hospital drama Holby City, is going to bless a mental health facility. Here’s Zubin’s bio from the TV show’s website:
“Professor Kahn was an outstanding anaesthetist and was the pivotal figure in the operating room. His colleagues had the utmost respect for him. Zubin left Holby following Paris’s death and his break up with Jess. He’s gone to America to spend more time with his daughter.”
Malik backs new mental heath unit
[BBC, of course]
liz | 11:53 AM | Uncategorized
I love my city
Last night, after watching The 40-Year-Old Virgin because everyone told me how funny it was and it would cheer me up, I suddenly felt overwhelmed by loneliness. True, the sugar gliders were there, but I see them differently since they cannabilized Little Moxie.
Normally my boyfriend is somewhere in evidence, futzing around with domestic chores in a way that makes me feel safe, but he’s away for business. So last night, with the Effexor sloshing uncomfortably in my stomach, I felt reality start slipping away in a neo-psychotic way, so I turned on the local news to reconnect.
The local news here is a source of great hilarity. Last night on Channel 3 Larry Mendte, a very nice man who happens to have a stupid job, said: “Coming up, weather, sports, and a sneak peek at heaven.”
What? I rubbed my eyes and stared at the screen. I started to worry that I was becoming delusional. A sneak peek at heaven? Was God going to be there? Probably not. They would have hyped that. “Coming up: arson’s on the rise, and a frank conversation with Yahweh.”
It was totally weird, and totally Philly. I couldn’t watch the rest of the segment. I was afraid it would be like looking at an eclipse, and my eyes would burn out of my head.
liz | 11:23 AM | Uncategorized
Least surprising celebrity revelation ever
Morrissey was depressed [Virgin.net]
liz | 4:14 PM | Uncategorized
Medication side effects: a response
Here’s a comment, from Nanina, in response to my mini tirade about putting up with medication side effects:
I always felt I’d put up with anything as long as a drug ‘helped.’ I felt this way about medication until 6 months out, a year out on a ‘new med’ I was still throwing up, still dizzy, still fatigued, still staggering around like a roach sprayed with Raid. Some people never can tolerate the side effects. Some people have irrepairable memory damage due to ECT. Some people with mental illness just have to tough it out with psychotherapy. I envy the people who get relief, improvement and hope from medication. I’ve never been one of them. But I’m pulling for you.
I appreciate what Nanina is saying here. I’ve gone through many, many years of hellish medication trials, and I’m also one of those people who has brain damage from ECT, so I know how tough it can be to find treatment solutions. Sometimes it’s impossible to stick with the meds—if the cure is worse than the disease, what’s the point? I know meds don’t work for everyone. How I wish they did.
liz | 4:05 PM | Uncategorized
Headlines: national
•Columbus Group Protesting Mental Health Cuts
•Mental health group battles DHR
•Mental health workers strive to meet African American needs
•Anti-Tax Author Claims Mental Illness
•Worry grows over rising suicide rate
liz | 3:23 PM | Uncategorized
Special Effexor: Day 6? Day 7?
Last night I doubled my dosage, and feared the worst. I woke up at 6 a.m., and grabbed a handful of Saltines—strategically placed on my night table before I went to bed—to settle my stomach, then washed them down with a gulp of club soda. It was hard to get back to sleep, but I finally did, for a half-hour, around 8.
The nausea is staying with me, but isn’t deterring me from eating gummi worms that came in the mail today as part of a promotion. (Sometimes, the swag you get here is so nice, you feel like you should mail it back to maintain your integrity. Other times, it’s a bag of gummi worms.)
So, yes, I’m having side effects, but I’m going to hang in there. You know why? Because feeling a little queasy is waaaaay better than being mentally ill. One of my enduring frustrations is when I talk to people who refuse to take medication because they don’t like the side effects. Most often these are people whose lives have been completely derailed by their illnesses, people who are out of work, who struggle to function on a daily basis. Yet they stop taking a medication because it gives them dry mouth.
You know what? You can stuff a bag filled with cotton balls in my throat, and leave it there, and I’ll still take the meds. Because what’s dry mouth compared to my sanity? I don’t want to gain weight, or feel sick, or be so tired I have to leave work early. But is it better than being psychotic? Oh, yeah. So much better. I’d rather lose my libido entirely than go through the crap I’ve been dealing with for the past few months. So bring on the side effects! If the medication works, I’ll deal with anything.
[Photo of organic cotton from The Kids Window]
liz | 1:54 PM | Uncategorized
But the good news is…
The art of parody lives on. Thanks to Mike for sending this link, as TTWS is clearly on a dolphin kick:
Study: Dolphins Not So Intelligent On Land [The Onion]
liz | 12:55 PM | Uncategorized
In Memorium: Little Moxie
This morning I awoke to discover that my sugar glider parents had eaten one of their babies. She was so tiny to begin with—the runt of the two-joey litter—and her back legs were kind of underdeveloped. While her brother was able to thrive, she continued to seem more fragile each time I looked in on her. I went online to see what I should do, and got more conflicting information than if I went to look up medication side effects. Hand-raising her, which a surprising number of people do, was impossible, as it involved feeding her every two hours and keeping her in a Kleenex in my bra all day. (Are a high number of sugar-glider owners unemployed?) I can imagine how well that would go over here. Oh, don’t mind that bump on my chest—the third one, I mean—it’s just my baby marsupial. Very professional.
Now, for the elegy: Last night, after the parents threw her out of the nest several times, I picked her up and held her close. Her tiny claws clung to my finger, and she made a pathetic crying noise, which is sort of like a wheezy hiss. Her little head wobbled, and I tickled her soft little ears. When I put her back in the cage, she struggled to find her mother, though she didn’t even have eyes yet. I thought, “Gee, what moxie.” And I decided to name her that if she survived.
I had a feeling she might be dead this morning because she seemed so weak, but I had no idea the parents would eat her and leave such sad remains. I put what was left of her in an Ann Taylor gift box, and placed it gently into the trash.
Happy gliding in, er, sugar heaven, Little Moxie. Hope there are lots of mealworms and yogurt drops for you to eat.
[Photo from Sugar Glider University. Clearly, I've got a ways to go before I get my degree.]
liz | 11:32 AM | Uncategorized
Throwing in the towel
For whatever reason (I blame the Effexor) it has become clear to me that I can longer remain vertical. Thus I’m going home and falling into bed. Tomorrow I double the Effexor, thereby (I guess) doubling the fatigue and the nausea. Fabulous. I’ll see you then.
liz | 3:08 PM | Uncategorized
Special Effexor: A reader shares.
This is from a blog reader named Liam, vis-a-vis Effexor withdrawal and other pharmacological cocktails.
Honestly, for all the horror stories, Effexor withdrawal is a little scary, but not all that bad, if you need to go off it. The “shocks” that get reported on all the websites will scare the shit out of you the first time or two they happen (I was convinced I was having an epileptic seizure or a heart attack) but aren’t dangerous or painful, and as long as you aren’t driving or operating heavy machinery, they’re not incompatible with leading a normal life for the 2 or 3 weeks you get them. (It’s interesting to note that the antidepressants which people complain the most about withdrawal from, Effexor and Paxil, both have extremely short half-lives.)
Also, I would hope that down as you’ve seemed to be the last few weeks that you wouldn’t just stop taking Effexor– if you get switched to another drug or drugs, as long as they’re hitting both receptors (norepinephrine and seratonin), you should get few or no withdrawal symptoms. That means an SSRI and Wellbutrin, or a tricyclic or tetracyclic, should do the trick. I’d place Effexor withdrawal just below Paxil withdrawal for unpleasantness, but both of them of are an order of magnitude less unpleasant than Klonopin or Adderall withdrawal, both of which I’ve done as well.
I can’t take Prozac either– I’m the only person in four generations of my family who’s unipolar/dysthymic (though I’m still in my early 30s, so who knows?) rather than type 1 bipolar, but the genetics are there, so docs have always been afraid to give me Prozac, which can take a week to get out of your system if you start getting loopy on it. Zoloft I’m on now, but in almost homeopathic doses– more than 75mg a day, and I get all of the most unpleasant SSRI side effects. (My current cocktail is a mix of Zoloft, Pamelor, and Adderall. Worked so far for a bit more than a year.) Over the
years, I’ve been on Paxil (pooped out, but great while it lasted), Effexor (ditto, wouldn’t have made it through law school without it), Pamelor (tough side effects at doses higher than 75mg/day), Wellbutrin (doesn’t agree with my stomach), Celexa (made me unbelievably sick), Strattera (did nothing but give me dry mouth), and the aforementioned Zoloft, in addition to the lithium and Depakote I was on as a teenager when everyone was concerned I’d get manic if I was on antidepressants. And the usual variety of benzos for anxiety, but I think I’ve been happier off Klonopin than on it, and Atavan screws with my memory, bad.
I find hearing from people like Liam very helpful. Write to me or post a comment here about your own experience.
liz | 12:56 PM | Uncategorized
