Posted by proserpine on March 15, 2005, at 22:36:12
In reply to Re: topomax=living in outer space?? » proserpine, posted by headachequeen on March 14, 2005, at 23:12:49
thank you so much.
i can turn this into an almost funny story, & one about both taxes & suicide at that.
it does not, however, start out that way.
last year my exquisitely benevolent father croaked (in the dictionary definition of the word "exquisite"), after making absolutely certain i did not have -quite- enough money to live on forever. it wasnt -his- money anyway; it was my mother's, who earned it. he, otoh, earned enough to support his own self, then ran off w/ the housekeeper, no, insert the same NOT 'quite,' as he stayed around & they both lived in the house, holding hands, as my mother (the doctor) went thru her last bout of chemo, & i took care of her all the way thru the time we both lived, until the day she died, 5 weeks in the hospital (usc/norris). it was 12 years ago now, & i can still say: tired here.
tired here.
gratefully, he did croak, at long last, in december of 2003 & is now either -broiling- or gravel at the bottom of an aquarium, w/ hope one containing rather large fish-- or perhaps he is whatever lies at the bottom of the ocean, beneath everything, beneath us all. who knows. in the next life, if there is one, he has not gotten far.
i have said before & will note here: i inherited 2 things from my father & 2 only-- upper body strength & manic depression. i have used them both for a lot more good than he ever used his. until his flagrancy w/ the housekeeper the worst he ever meted out were beatings & plenty of these-- but that was the 70s & battery was not considered the way it is now. & my mother was a psychoanalyst, almost famous-- oh heavens, oh heavens.
i promised this would be funny, too. usually i get there. i can tell funny stories about my father (he painted the piano orange, he knew people deeply involved w/ the manson family), but i am just not in the mood. perhaps it is the taxes, perhaps it is the topomax, which, thank you so much for yr recommendation, i have cut down to 50 mgs.
i suppose i should now go into the reason i went into the reason for what amounts to such an endlessly long predicate (?) clause.
about 3 weeks ago, thinking i would actually not have to do my taxes (which i do not understand) this year, i decided i would instead eat 100 klonopin --i am fond of this particular vitamin k-- & not bother w/ any of it, or, really anything else.
i actually, & apparently quite sillily (which is not a word, but fits), thought eating this amount, along w/ a bunch of yoghurt drink was going to work. this is a warning to anyone else out there who has a horrible father, a horrible partner & nothing else in his or her (in my case) life that matters to them other than a tax headache; 1 glider; 3 parrots; 1 old & suddenly out of nowhere reappearing love of ones life who one doesnt know what to do about along w/ a variety of other guys, all frightening (ibid); 60 pairs of platform shoes; 4000 books; a book one is supposed to write but cant along w/ a website one is supposed to make in the same condition; awful neighbors (just the WORST); an apartment that one seems unable to clean; utter confusion; an entire dead family & many dead friends, i could go on but i wont--
100 klonopin WILL NOT KILL YOU. not even if you wash it down w/ yoghurt drink.
so i called my partner. he washed his hands of it. i mean, he wanted to surf the 'net or something. i dont know, watch tv. he has only known me 14 years. so he called some friends of mine. one took me to ihop & we had chocolate chip & banana pancakes after i fell down half the stairs whilst wearing a pink fake fur coat. i mean, i am an old Rock Chick. one must look presentable during an o.d.
old Rock Chick, old grad student. old lots of things. still terrified of doing the taxes (even though i am an Old Bookkeeper, but not for Old Investments. scary). VERY med resistant. have a list of old neurological illnesses not quite as long as anyones arm, but have made the merck manual (pseudo tumor cerebra, due to allergy to tetracycline).
at any rate, to shorten an even longer story-- my psychiatrist -gave- me an excess dose of topomax. he told me to take 50mg a day. i decided to double it. i should have looked it up. MY FAULT, MEA CULPA.
i had not understood that ANYone actually believed what i told him (or her) about being med resistant, or even that he (or she) had to look beyond the obvious w/ me (see the 4000 books & not just the 60 pairs of platform shoes).
it was ME that upped the dose too fast. i am used to doing that sort of thing-- i was chased out of a neurologists office as a junkie once only a little bit before being diagnosed w/ not only trigeminal neuralgia but near-death from an abscess by a dentist (of course), of all people, of all things.
so-- mea culpa. i can drive now. i no longer think i know everyone i see on the street (it was when i thought i saw my landlord in my therapist's parking lot that i realized (no, not that i was hallucinating or paranoid, strangely but) that topomax works by cutting down on the number of ones perceptions. say i have a billion sensory inputs coming in. instead it will give me a million, so peoples faces look more similar than they would ordinarily. i hope that makes sense. this was on an o.d. (mild) of topomax, & the end of one, but i am -certain- this is how it works & also how it changes ones sense of taste. anyhow).
i have cut back to 50mg-- & it was you all who convinced me, which gets me back to the ~ridiculously~ grateful part.
poster:proserpine
thread:5053
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050312/msgs/471538.html