medication

  • Dream a Little Dream of Me

    Dream a Little Dream of Me

    I could not sleep today. I take the meds, I make a bedtime ritual, I try hot showers and meditation and even masturbation but today I could not sleep. When I finally did, I had terrible dreams. I take a medication, prazosin, for bad dreams but it can only do so much. Pills only pack…

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  • Psychiatric Hospitalization, Fall 2023, Part 5

    “How are you doing?” “I’m good, I’m good. I called my brother; I need his help. I can’t do it alone anymore. I don’t know what I’m going to do about my living situation. I want to move out. I think I’ll move out.” “How about the meds, any side effects?” “Just from that artane…

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  • Journal Entries, Psychiatric Hospitalization 2023

    As I started to stabilize just slightly, inching a little closer toward cautious optimism, I had a terrible reaction to a medication that was supposed to help me with extrapyramidal symptoms. What follows is some of my writings while psychotic. I don’t remember writing any of it.

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  • Military Life

    My time in the military was simultaneously awesome and grueling. I excelled in basic training, earning squad leader for a time and exceeding standards on marksmanship, hand to hand combat, and attention to detail. This continued in AIT (advanced individual training) where I learned my job – signal corps. I was manning radios and using…

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  • Intensive Outpatient – Week 3, Emotion Regulation

    I’ve been experiencing an upswing, an increase in hypomanic symptoms. I am not lost in the sauce yet, but I am hearing voices every day if I don’t take a PRN seroquel for it, and my libido is insatiable despite meds commonly known to kill sex drive. In my psychologist appointment with Dr Black this…

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  • Psychiatric Hospitalization, Fall 2023, Part 4

    My first few days in the hospital passed in a blur, a fog of medication adjustments, sluggish pacing, and intermittent crying. I felt most suicidal, yet safe. At least that’s what I reported in my daily nursing assessments. It’s a strange juxtaposition of feeling – that given the chance, I would kill myself, yet in…

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  • Flashbacks

    Flashbacks

    Flashbacks are strong today. I can still feel the police grabbing me, pulling me out of my apartment and I can still feel the panic I felt in the ER, the overwhelming desire to run, and doing so. I can still feel the straps around my wrists and ankles when they strapped me down. It’s…

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  • Psychiatric Hospitalization, Fall 2023, Part 3

    I still remember quite clearly my first morning in the hospital. I woke up after restless, fitful sleep, in which I was frequently startled awake by room checks. I just wanted coffee, so I went to the dining room. The kitchen would bring a large carafe of coffee in the mornings and it would be…

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  • After a couple weeks of seeing Dr Black, I was starting to shut down and sink deeper and deeper into relentless depression and despair. My PHQ and GAD scores couldn’t get any worse. I was calling off work a lot, unable to face anyone or function within the limits of the job description. I made…

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