Posted by West on September 18, 2009, at 10:31:27
In reply to Re: From Pristiq to Effexor, increased exhaustion? » West, posted by Reggie BoStar on September 17, 2009, at 23:31:19
Reggie,
In some respects I do harbour a degree of envy towards you (soft) bipolars. The idea of completing projects, maintaining flow, is as absent as the presence a future tense in the arabic language, when I'm down/deep on down/in my personal hell.
My intuition is there are more 'light on/light off' moments in the course of a day or week say, in this subsect which must also translate chemically: less/episodic periods of uncontrollable stress = less chronic cortisol release = less brain atrophy and hippocampal shrinkage = (in my baseless theory) less memory loss and subsequently, greater preservation of 'self' or character (memory being central to identity).
In my experience of what is a cosmically cruel joke (note: any theists reading - and there can't be many- bow your heads now), the final process described earlier characterises the whole, and carries on in this unrelentingly rude style until eventually treated. And though it has admittedly grown progressively more slippery a beast to pin down over the years, I have found it is usually resolved with liberal application of an SNRI, actually scrap that, Effexor. This obviously has its disadvantages and I am trying to fend off tome cognitive brain cloud that has come part of the package. I do however think treating anyone within the BP spectrum is more difficult, and potentially contains greater personal sacrifices on the part of the patient.
Actually I often see a correlation between intelligence (and what does that word mean at the human scale? I would like to see it replaced with 'sensitivity') and BP2/1/atypicals, certainly a taste for the arts- something perhaps to do with all the books thrust under the white heat of your gaze, while simultaneously organizing in reverse alphabetical order by genre and tempo your music collection AND mentally rearranging the rachmaninoff concertos playing full tilt from the roofs of your houses.
How about style in writing? What of style? Should you for example find my writing write too dense, convuluted even, rest assured it is simply the result of a lifetime having read next to nothing, the ongoing struggle with not reading despite the pleasure gained from it, and the consequent frustration felt by that. Classic insecure male compensatory behaviour. Maybe, just possibly, I am drawn fatally, like moth to flame, the rhythm of things too much - at the cost of other existing realities. What if life is just a set of rhythms played at the same time, most jarring, but in momentary richness, gloriously harmonising, like the sun breaking through a low and stormy sky and bathing the land in a pool of of winking golden light, before dissappering again behind the clouds..? (pretentious a bit!)
You say you are have nearly reached the mellow age at which you are eligible for senior medicare, I'd say that puts me only just comfortably over a third of your years. But on the subject of the meds, I'm sure you'll work it out. You sound eminently capable (:
There you go, an message to match yours in length, if not in detail.
poster:West
thread:914590
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20090912/msgs/917562.html