Too Much of a Good Drug is a Bad Time

I have the distinct displeasure, along with a lot of other folks with mental illness, of being super sensitive to psychiatric drugs. This week I was instructed to increase the dosage of a pill I’ve been taking for years by a quarter tab.

Day one, I got (1) the jitters, (2) irritability, (3) aggravation, and finally (4) full blown seething hate by 2:00 p.m. Day two I sequestered myself to protect my relationships.

Most people think that psychiatric drugs will just zonk you out. And some do, but you never know. (Another thing you never know.) And man, I’d take zonked over this aggro shit any day.

Taking mood “stabilizers” is a lot like spinning a wheel of fortune where every space is a different emotion or degree of emotion. And there are multiple arrows and infinite combinations. No wonder finding the right combination of drugs for any particular brain often takes serious perseverance.

On doctor’s orders, I am returning to my previous dosage as of today and will be on Xanax until the violence wears off.

(This was written the week of 13 June.)

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