To Med or Not to Med…

I’ve written a lot about my meds. My book is Yes, I Took My Meds. I still have to figure out the balance with the meds.

Recently, I went without my meds. It was a pharmacy issue. Not due to a medication noncompliance issue. They just wouldn’t fill it or they were out. I don’t know. But I was left hanging without my meds for about 16 days.

I have been super proud of myself as of late. I made it through Christmas without incident. No mania to really speak of. I had a few buzzy moments but not super buzzy, just a couple creepy crawly moments. I think that might have been because I couldn’t get out of bed due to the broken ankle. I was forced to sit still. I wouldn’t or couldn’t focus on the TV. I would just lay in bed and try to hover over the sheets in a hum like a magician doing a trick with the lady. The next thing I needed was someone to pass a hoop around me. Nobody came to do that.

I wasn’t hovering really, and it didn’t last. Just a few days of being tied up in bed connected to a water pump that cooled my ankle down with ice water to reduce the swelling. I was tied to the bed. The hoop wouldn’t have gotten around me anyway.

The buzz didn’t stick around.

Like I said, I’m proud of myself. I got through this moment of the broken ankle with no drama. It’s been fine. No mood swing of feeling sorry for myself or anything. I feel very level.

I have felt level all December, minus the magician hover trick for a few days. The calm before the storm is the lack of sleep or the interrupted sleep. And that started happening during mid-December.

I still felt great. Was I feeling great because I was hypo and not sleeping or did I really feel great because I was great. I’m going with I was feeling level. I really wasn’t sleeping well and only getting about five hours of sleep a night. That is not good sleep.

Then the pharmacy said they couldn’t/wouldn’t refill my meds for two weeks. I just went on with my life. Nothing changed. My mood stayed the same. No fluctuation. The same thing with my sleep. Short slumbers and interrupted sleep. It was the same with and without the meds.

I really had to ponder whether or not I needed to continue taking the meds. This is the thought that occurs to most people.

When do you stop taking your meds? When do you reduce your meds? When is it safe? What will happen if I do it? What if I could live without it? What if…

The day I finally got my meds refilled, I fortuitously had my doctor appointment with my psych. I spoke with her about my concerns and about dosing down. She calmly listened to my proposal.

She then told me that the meds I’m taking stay in my system for a month and that I may still be having the residual effects of the meds in my system but we could try a dose down to see. She was worried about my sleeping pattern.

She said, “When patients tell me there is a sleep disturbance, I know there is something going on.”

I know myself well enough to know that with my sleep there is a connection to the mania.

We still decided to dose down and have a little bit of meds set aside for some rescue meds if needed.

I’ve been feeling really good for a long while now. Which tells me, the meds are working. Why fuck with it? I feel really good, so I want to be like, why do I need these meds or need this dose?

It’s a balancing act. I’m a libra. The scales never stop. I’m in constant need of adjusting the balance of things. Everything seems fine. Why am I trying to fuck with it? Two weeks off meds, and I seemed fine. But was I really? Or was that just rosy colored glasses?

One pill at a time. One dose at a time. Dose up. Dose down. I’ll take what’s needed to stay healthy. Right now. I’m okay. Tomorrow, next week, next month, who knows? Mental health is scale. I’m putting my pills on it and weighing the odds in my favor.