side effect irony

from pts(d) expression series #111 – Feb 7, 2017 @ 08:00

ulcers and headaches

anxiety and depression

vertigo and hair loss

nausea and vomiting

night terrors and tremors

‘addiction’ and suicidality

don’t forget the panic attacks

and ptsd.

“Lets medicate and see what happens…”

dizziness and diarrhoea

anxiousness and drowsiness

a dry mouth

agitation and nausea

chest pain and sweating

insomnia and chills

a cough and difficulty breathing

forgetfulness and tiredness

sad and shaky

unsteadiness when walking

faintness and nightmares

hyperventilation and nervousness

light headedness and confusion

blurred vision and heart palpitations

sleepiness and disturbed coordination

epigastric distress and hypersensitivity

photosensitivity and shortness of breath

rash and hives

bleeding and mood changes

vomiting and trembling

headaches and panic

suicidality and restlessness.

****

“Think yous was better off

at the beginning of that trip!

#JS”

---

#throwback Aug 27, 2015 @ 11:44

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and there was tears and snot, and more snot and tears

I’ve been trying to remain calm about the pending doctors visit today … just calm; nothing spectacular … calm would have sufficed.

I was calm … ish … playing my music, breathing deeply … and then the sour puss which is my partner right now, decided to strike up conversation just as we reached the outskirts of town … just where I hate being … just where the lights are bright and the noises peak … just where I loathe being on the way to somewhere I hate being even more …

“[Moko 1] asked why you don’t come to see them, or come into town.”

“And what did you tell him” was my reply. I shouldn’t have even asked. I should have just ignored the whole pending conversation and continued breathing deeply … but what felt like a slight rage coupled with a deep disappointment overwhelmed my spidey senses …

“Told him you don’t like people … cos thats all it is ay” was his naive and sarcastic reply.

Thats where there tears and snot began.

Now those who have pts(d) … or any other disability, mental and/or physical; and have struggled with educating your families on said ‘disability’ whilst trying to manage your own personal hell … will know the deep sinking feeling that hit my gutt in that moment.

Nearly 14 fucking years its been … him and I … and the last 8 or so have been struggling with the ‘unknown’ ‘disability’ that plagues my being … the last 3 years of actively trying my fucking best to manage that shit. And while he has his most blessed moments … this was not one of them … and I am well fucking over it.

The doctor was late, as usual, even though I was the first appointment of the day. Waiting causes severe fucking anxiety for Me. I got through the appointment, in tears and a large splattering of snot, but was over wiping any of that shit away so I just let it rain!!

Oh ugly ugly … but that shit obviously needed to come out, and come out it did!!

So, I got drugs that I can’t take … I’ll write another post on that fuckery another day arrghh … along with a raft of other shit that is more of the same shit … get my feels.

He filled in the fucking forms and had no idea where to send them so I took them with Me and gave them to the receptionist … she’s gangstah … with strict instructions to make sure some Cunt at ACC got that shit.

I am tired. I am a red faced puffy mess, I’ve just finished sweating like a rapist … my daughter has just walked in the door with chocolate! Fuck I love her!

And after a rather late quarter of a sedative, I have found my calm.

The positive: I fucking survived. I didn’t assault the doctor.

I live to tell the tale and to survive for another day.

Fuck pts(d).

medication irony

There’s been

Fluoxetine and Paroxetine

Citalopram and Clonazepam.

The Tricyclic, Notriptyline

And the Noradrenaline

Venlafaxine.

Then Naproxen and Nurofen

and Ibuprofen and Promethazine.

Don’t forget the Metoclopramide

and the Metamide.

The Diazepam and the Alprazolam,

the Lorazepam and the Oxazepam.

Then there’s the Dexamethasone and the Valdecoxib,

Meclofenamate and Metoclopramide Hydrochloride.

The Sertraline and the Parozetine,

The Benzodiazepine, Aprazolam

and Zopiclone.

Meclizine Hydrochloride, Antivert and Diphenhydramine,

not to mention Dopress too.

Then there’s Omeprazole and Paracetamol,

Varenicline and Allersooth.

Not forgetting the

Surmontil and Aropax.

And where I wonder are the things

I ‘self medicated’ with?

Well there’s abit of coke, and weed

Plenty of Tobacco and bourbon.

Beer, a few uppers and downers.

A couple of trips

And some red wine.

IRONY?

I thought so.

First Published on: Aug 27, 2015 @ 11:24 ;)

health and shit

Oh how I forget so quickly.

I was feeling tip top the other day … full of energy (for me anyways) and ‘shiny’ and bright ;) So I decided to reduce my meds again.

It’s a long slow process, but I want off’ve the antihistamines; which I’ve been taking now for nearly 7 years. Apparently they’re not designed for everyday use. And that would’ve been great to know back then … along with all the other drugs they tried pumping into my system … but lets not go there!

So, back to the awesome day … I reduced the antihistamine; now I’m at a 1/3 a day, and have been for the last week.

Enter the shits, itchy skin, swollen eyes, sneezing, headache, muscle ache and increased heart rate and anxiety.

Yes thats right, I forgot that last time I reduced those bastards the same things happened.

So no time is a good time to feel like shit and at least I know how to deal with this now, and how to ride it out. It takes about 2 weeks for shit to balance out; quite literally.

Next round, I think I may wait at lest a few months before reducing.

Anywho … yah Me ;)

Me: addressing … sadness?

I’ve been ruminating on this for a while … I’ve written about it a few times in the past; from my point of view of course.

I’m at it again, because there is a disturbance in the (my) Force and it’ll come tumbling out all slightly messed up as usual … but oh well ;)

We’ve had a few more suicide attempts within the family; a couple of deaths; couple near misses; the earth (Paptuanuku) has been flexing her muscles which sends unease throughout the masses;  … Theres grief and perplexity abounding all round. Not obvious; but it’s there.

So as the Suicide Hotline numbers are topic 1 on the family Newsfeeds at the moment, and there’s an outpouring of “I’m here if you want to talk … anytime” sentiment tagged onto these Hotline messages; and Topic 2 is Depression and what you should do if you think your depressed  … *not feel ashamed *talk to someone *get help … being the top 3 suggestions            …. I am left wondering the following:

1. If we really gave a shit about people / family / those in grief / those struggling; why do we offer assistance only after the fact?
2. Why is the go to anecdote have to do with how sad we once felt and how we ‘chinned’ up and ‘soldiered on’?
3. Why is the reason to anything we don’t really understand, to do with sadness, have to be labelled as “Depression”?
4. Does the title Depression make Us feel more comfortable, rather than Sadness?

Don’t get me wrong, Depressive Disorder / Depression in any sense of the word / label is a bitch, no doubt. I was raised around plenty of depressives … I get it.

What I wonder though .. is, were they really depressed? Or is that just the clinical term given to those who then have a legitimate reason to be drugged? By labelling them as such, do we then get to tuck them all neatly away in the corner, drugged up, still rocking … but labelled, so at least we know what ‘that’ is?

From my own groove; I’ve been given more drugs for Depression than I care to remember. No-one actually did a blood test and said … Yes, your whats’its are low and a good dose of this shit will increase those whats’its and you should be all tip top again in at least a decade. No, they questioned me. They ticked a few boxes and because I ticked the ‘depressive’ category, they prescribed.

The problem with questions, from one perspective, or an ‘anti-wholistic’ perspective – is they only ‘fit’ a generalised populace. And generally, that populace, depending on what it is … is white, mid age, mid class … not, indigenous, not sensitive, not artistic, not unique. Generalised, is just that. Unfortunately, generalised is not really the ‘norm’.

So, back to the drugging aspect of this all … the drugs ‘they’ have prescribed for me over the years include most on Wikipedias List of Antidepressants excluding those that aren’t available in NZ and Lithium.

Fast forward to 2016, and after nearly 2 decades on, some clever fucker decides to look a little wider, noticing that there might be more to this than meets the naked eye … that Me doesn’t display all the A Typical symptoms of Depression / Depressive Disorder …. Whoa … brilliant … we label this one with PTS(D) instead. Now lets try medicating this bitch with other shit …

Hold the fuck up I say … No more medication.

If they misdiagnosed, mis-medicated for nearly 2 decades; like fuck will I let them continue doing that! Because somehow they got brighter and smarter over the last 20 years?? Well, thats what the last lot said.

Now, I’m not bashing the medical System (well, not completely) … my point is …

I know ME … if I’m left to figure it out … I know ME. Therefore I know what I need.

Which brings me to where I’m at now.

But slightly of track with the rest of my ramble …

Back to the Newsfeed Depressives and Suicide peeps.

Whether they’re truly depressed or not, I’m uncertain. I know they’re sad; that much is clear. So they toodle off to the doctors who prescribes one of a trillion possible anti-depressants. ‘Go home, take these .. back to work Monday’. Couple years later, after a dozen or more ‘trials’ of medication have unfolded … but they’re still living a ‘productive’ life … they try and Top themselves … and we all sit back and go, Fuck … didn’t see that coming … ???!!!

Why? How? How did we not see that coming?

I believe medication isn’t designed to cure us, just placate us. If it placates us, where does everything that caused the sadness go??

It got me wondering, what my tipuna (ancestors) did, pre-colonial days, when someone was ‘sad’.

And heres what I found out:

When someone was deemed to be sad, or depressed … unable to engage or talk … they were taken into the whare or community house … where everyone worked and met and talked … the ‘sad’ person, was able to rest / sleep, on a mat in the centre … they were surrounded by their loved ones, who continued to go about their daily business … but would also feed the person, touch them, tell them stories, laugh, cry … love them. And this went on for as long as it needed to. It went on for as long as the ‘sad’ person needed it to.

And you know what … I dig that way of doing things! And i guess, it’s what I’m doing for myself now.

….. Lastly, the suicide topic … ….

Why?

I don’t think i agree with suicide, but I get it. Been there, done that and I get it. Is it preventable?

Fuck yes.

Most of Us want the fight to be over … we want the sadness to be over … we want acceptance … just to be left to be who and what we are … what ever that form may be.

The only way I can see for any of us to find that … is to create it for ourselves.

I’m still pissed at those that have left me; taken their own lives … but I get it! And those that have tried and been ‘unsuccessful’ and look like they are getting better but are just actually waiting for an opportunity to try again … I get that too … and I can see it on You.

To those that I love … If you do, I hope you find peace. For those that don’t, I hope you also find peace.

There … think I’m finished that for now …

For now ;)

twitchy eye …

I’ve been weaning myself off’ve antihistamines for the past couple months. I figured my diet is pretty boss now and I’m feeling relatively ‘good’, so now was as good a time as any.

Now, I’ve been taking antihistamines for longer than I was taking the other concoctions and I stumbled upon them way back when, after the colonoscopy and the other invasive thingy that gets shoved down your throat. My weight was plummeting (54kgs by then) and I couldn’t hold anything down. I had gone to the docs and specialists and none of these geniuses had looked at my history, and I was too far gone by then to realise what was happening – STRESS – aka PTS fucking (D). Along while after all this they discovered ulcers in my gutt but by that stage I was banging back antihistamines faster than I could breath.

And they worked. They calmed all the itching, the nausea, the vomiting … and I could hold down food. Which meant I could slowly gain weight again.

Note: It’s not a nice feeling losing weight so rapidly that you feel like your fading away – and not by choice!

So, a couple of years ago I decided I needed to lower the amount I was having (2 per day). And the itch returned, the nausea returned. I persisted and managed the reduction to 1 per day. And that’s where I’ve been for the last couple years.

After a slight reduction recently I thought I’d be able to stop completely. But turns out, there are crappy side effects (not listed on Google or on the antihistamine box I might add) to having popped these bastards for the past 6 or so years.

My system crashed and I was sick for a few weeks … itchy as fuck … and nauseous as fuck.

I bumped them back up to 1 per day and decided to do the slow decrease, like I’d done with the Benzos.

Enter – twitchy eye syndrome!

I Google it and whats the recommendation?? Take an antihistamine! Fucks sakes!

I’ve decided to persevere at the dose I’m at for a couple more weeks before decreasing further, which is 2/3rds of a tab. My skin is slowly settling down – lots of aloe vera applied! But my fucking eye is still twitching like I’ve had a line or 2 of speed!

Not to be put off though … and I think its bloody good progress, for Me :)

progress…and what?

Thought I’d better document my progress, before I forget I’ve actually made progress.

I went for a walk…without the beepy bits and the medication bag. Whoop.

I sat in the front seat of the car…for the first time in…ages. Without my blanky, and beepy bits…I had everything else though…sunglasses, music, medication bag. Whoop.

I stayed in the front seat of the car all the way to the next town…and only freaked out a couple of times…and didn’t take any medication. Whoop.

I went into three different shops…freaked out in one and almost hit the ground, but didn’t. The third one I actually enjoyed…it reminded me of Nana and Granddad’s. Whoop.

I did therapy…mehhh.

It’s all progress…apparently.

Yes, I’m feeling sarcastic and not to bloody positive today.

Tomorrow…here’s hoping for a little ray of princess sunshine to warm up my extra crappy mood.