A Miracle Occurs

I'm posting a picture of me and my brother at a beach. I find the picture uplifting, though at the time it was taken I was seriously depressed. Yes, I'm the brother who doesn't smile. I also post below a poem that's worth sticking on your refrigerator, though I think it's a cut above Blue Mountain Arts:I do this to celebrate the miracle of my mood change that began yesterday.


Tonic

I will love myself today.
Here are some fuzzy slippers
and a lollipop,
a warm hug and a wet kiss.
Let me tuck this
old familiar blanket
around my shoulders
and read this poem
before I nap.

Whatever I do today,
I’ll approve.
If I spill milk, I’ll clap.
If I button my shirt wrong
it’s a new style.
If I wet my pants
it was on purpose.

My, how well I walk!
How well I speak!
It’s so good to be
good to myself.
Where have I been
all these sad, long years?

(published in Tryst--there's a whole lot of my work in this issue.)


Unbelievable! After suffering a serious depression for nearly four months, I've felt well for two days. Medically I'm sure it's due to my increase in the Zyprexa dosage along with an increase in Wellbutrin. Truly, I was close to calling my old psychiatrist in Orange County for outpatient ECT, though lacking insurance that would no doubt be beyond my means. Even the medications below I can hardly afford. Lamictal costs about four dollars a tablet at Costco, the cheapest pharmacy I know. For me that means eight dollars a day, but I gotta have it. Prior to this depression it was the only medication I took regularly for my condition.

Here's the cocktail that turned me around, though I don't trust my footing just yet.

Zyprexa 15 mg. at bedtime.
Klonopin 1 mg. at bedtime.
Lithium 900 mg. at bedtime.
Prozac 40 mg. in the morning.
Wellbutrin 300 mg. in the morning, 150 mg. in the afternoon.
Lamictal 100 mg. in the morning and afternoon.

All the literature maintains that a manic-depressive's depression is the most refractory of depressions to treat, especially if it comes on the heels of mania. I post this list for the sake of other sufferers.

Them's a lot of damned drugs, but sometimes it takes a big combination to reverse the neurotransmitter deficits. I discovered the synergistic effect of Prozac and Wellbutrin in my last bad depression of nearly a year. My shrink had me on 40 mg. of Prozac, then switched me to Wellbutrin. There was still a lot of Prozac in my blood when he gave me he Wellbutrin. I remember my mood flipping just like it has now. Suddenly I appreciated flowers and the roundness of women's posteriors, something I couldn't do for 11 months prior to. My depression vanished in three days and I resumed taking the Prozac because the Wellbutrin only worked in conjunction with the Prozac in my case. Later I read in psychiatric journals of studies that confirmed this. But my experience predated those papers.

In medical school I was taught by neurologists, in treating seizures, to keep adding medicines until the seizures were controlled. I think the same applies to treating mood disorders. William Styron in Darkness Visible thought depression too mild a word to describe the condition. He thought "brain fever" more appropriate. Thus the model for seizure treatment I think also applies to serious mood disorders. Just keep adding the meds until something breaks. And when it breaks for me, as in these last two days, I go from minus to plus in a flash.

*******************************

Enduring the depression was soul-crushing, but I've now had two good days, amazing days. When Kathleen sent me to the store yesterday for fruit I had no trouble making decisions. That was amazing. And my anhedonia is poof! gone. I'm back in the wonderful world of color, freed from my black-and-white prison.

May my euthymia continue. Hallelujah and amen!

I should mention my beautiful and compassionate wife, Kathleen, who took excellent care of me during this illness. Having her near helped me endure the snow inside the fire of willful self-abnegation.


Keep your fingers crossed,

CE