Overcoming the Drugs

My dear fellow bipolars,

Did you wake up this morning a little groggy? A little resentful of the day? Or did you leap from your bed with utter joy, throw on your clothes and say, "Umm hmm. Am I hot! I wish everyone could see me look this good" (and you're not thinking that because you're manic. No, you really are the best).

Since I entered perimenopause, my sleep has gotten really sketchy. I never sleep through the night, and sometimes after that lithium-induced bathroom break, I can't get back to sleep. Now I don't know about you, my Bipolar Friends, but I have to have some shut eye of the purest sort. Not the type city bus drivers need so they don't roll their long vehicles. No, I talking about the kind of sleep that keeps me from thinking I'm going to be the next Vice President of the United States. THAT kind of sleep.

So last night, as I struggled to return to Dreamland, I caved into taking a klonapin. I hate the stuff, but it does give me some quality pillow time. The problem is that if I end up taking two pills during the night, I awake depressed. Depression is worse than thinking you've got a job at the White House. Luckily, some experiences are more like a passing episode of the blues. I can usually dig myself out of the klonapin haze by morning or early afternoon. It's when the effects of the drug have evaporated and I'm still stuck in the muck of despair that I know I'm going to need to do some emotional excavating.

Back in the good ol' days when I was sane and the world was crazy, my psychiatrist prescibed lithium and stelazine. The ensuing meltdown of precious neurons was criminal. Of course a woman would toss her pills. Not once, but twice. I missed the hallucinations that told me I was destined for great things. I missed the power of my mind quickly firing. Nothing in my life boosted my self esteem like mania did.

Enter my husband and two small children. The mists of fog parted as I saw what I would lose if I kept going into the hospital. In time, the stelazine went by the wayside, and other pills joined the line up. I don't even remember what it feels like to have white-hot intellect. The rest of me is whole, ever vigilant, chasing happiness of the most moderate kind.