Tuesday, July 3, 2012

All Kinds of Crazy

For the record, I don't enjoy being crazy.

I've worked damn hard for this. Also, penguin.
That's why I take Prozac. It keeps my brain chemistry from forming volatile compounds.

This is my brain on lack of drugs.
Here's how Prozac works: It doesn't make me happy, or relaxed, or euphoric, or confident, or put a song in my heart.

That's why we have alcohol.
Prozac makes me not crazy. It keeps the dark places in my brain safely locked away so I can function at the baseline of normal. It strings bright-yellow caution tape across the rickety pathways that lead to irrational thoughts and bad choices. By protecting myself from myself, it keeps me from having to warn everyone I meet that they're walking into the nutso zone.

Although this would also not be a bad idea.
But here's the funny thing about Prozac: When it's working, I sort of forget why I need it to work. And so maybe I start to skip a dose here and there. Or, say, for a month. And then, out of the blue, I remember why I take it.

Right, right, the exploding-head thing.
So I don't do that very often. I've learned my lesson from the times I've ridden the crazy spiral after a few weeks off my meds. Hint: It's not as fun as it sounds.

But there's one other rule about me and Prozac, and that is: I absolutely, positively must take it right after my monthly visit from Aunt Flo. I'm not 100% sure of the clinical explanation, but basically I'm freaking apeshit at that point in my cycle.
Perhaps this scientific diagram will help.
And if don't take my Prozac during those few days when my hormones and chemicals and other noxious fluids are running amok in my system, then...well, let's say that bad ideas can take hold.


Not a real thing, unfortunately.

Thoughts and feelings that are best kept to oneself - that normal people keep to oneself - find their way out of my head and into the glaring light of day where, cranky and disoriented, they proceed to make a ruckus.

This is what they look like.

Like, say, the notion that the Eagles' "Peaceful Easy Feeling" should be eradicated from the Earth and its creators punished. That whole blog post was just unmedicated free-floating neurosis made manifest. Uncontrolled impulse on the loose. On Prozac, I never would have written such a thing.

I would have said "Lyin' Eyes" instead. Totally.

Also, I get a little paranoid and lash out at people I love dearly for not (I imagine) loving me back.

You know who you are. Uh...sorry about that. That was the voice of the Prozac void speaking.

It sounds sort of like one hand clapping, only more apeshit.
Anyway, I picked up a fresh bottle of happy pills last night and took more than the recommended dose. Just playing catch-up. I feel a lot better now. Yes, it happens that quickly. If there's one thing I know, it's how to manage my personal brand of crazy.

It's funny because it's not my problem.
And that whole thing about kicking Don Henley's ass? Oh, that's still on. Maybe next month.

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