Posted by bleauberry on October 8, 2010, at 17:22:24
In reply to any Musicians on meds?, posted by former poster on October 5, 2010, at 2:31:37
Composing and performing are two totally different scenarios. I think performing on most psychiatric meds make it hard to be good and sharp on stage. My experience anyway.
While playing a rock worship team in a church on a horrible depressing reaction to aweful Lexapro, I was in pure survival mode. Somehow the deep emotion I felt came through my fingers. So many people commented how touched they were by what I played. But it was a nightmare to me.
A single dose of Savella can help me do a better performance as long as I don't do too much. If too much, there is a norepinephrine adrenaline nervousness that gets in the way of concentrating. Scatterbrained.
If you have found one that works for a few hours or a day and you are comfortable with it, it can be helpful to get through the moment. I have never cancelled a show for any reason, not even the flu and not even suicidal depression....I rely on some med to get me through the same way someone would take a cold medicine for a cold.
For example, the only one that fits that description for me is Amisulpride. On a horrible day, it can lift me out of the dumps, cut the worst of the edge off of anxiety, sharpen my mind, warm me up, and have me deep into the performance with creative flare on stage. With continued use, it is useless to me. It's a one day thing, only as needed.
Ritalin can lift me from the dumps fast, but leaves me scatter brained and I have to struggle to remember details I've rehearsed hundreds of times. Not cool.
All antidepressants and antipsychotics make me so that I don't really even care about much of anything, and thus the performance lacks any flare. The lack of emotion on the inside shows on the outside as well. And in fact I don't even have any desire to compose or perform or to even open a guitar case or touch a keyboard except maybe out pure absolute boredom.
Tramadol made me deeply depressed and dark. On that day I wrote a song many consider their favorite...Moon Candles, on youtube. But I never ever could have performed it under the same circumstances.
Ritalin I find helpful once in a great while when I am determined to somehow get a new song written sometime in the day ahead of me. It has flopped too and the day ended with nothing to show, so it's not a for sure thing. If the song isn't really good, forget it, it goes in the trash. I don't want anything mediocre or amateur associated with my name. And I definitely cannot do a performance while on Ritalin.
But some people do indeed find something that could be called remission or near remission on a med or cocktail. In that situation, they can probably compose and perform very well and no one would even venture a guess they were on psych drugs.
As with everything in the psych world, it is purely trial and error with significant individual variability.
I hardly ever do drugs any more. In a dire emergency, the toolkit includes a small list of standbys such as Amisulpride, Ritalin, Vicodin, Savella. But these are only to get through the obligation, not for any longterm use because they ALWAYS make composition and performance worse with chronic usage.
In a strange kind of way, musicians who suffer psychiatric illnesses might even find some comfort in embracing their illness, because it makes them capable of producing special music that a normal healthy person could not. Kind of a cruel twisted gift, but a powerful gift. With me it is sort of a cruel choice....music or drugs. They don't mix, so make your choice.
That's probably one reason I am one of the lone wolves on this board that focuses more on FIXING the problem rather than drugging it.
poster:bleauberry
thread:964740
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20100926/msgs/965108.html