I usually think of about 13 things during the day that I want to blog about. unfortunately, I usually forget them within about 8 seconds. I'm sure if I thought about this long enough I'd convince myself that this was a early-onset Alzheimer's or some rare "brain cloud". Fortunately, I've just been too busy.
I did get to go back "home" this weekend with the wife and kid. This, as you may remember, was the site of my last complete melt down. This was Christmas morning this past year. I still think it had to do with a medication change but, I always fell extra anxious when I travel. Not sure what that's about.
Its also worth noting that my wife has anxiety problems. Hers mostly focus on new people or places. It got me thinking about two things. The first being the perception of what an "anxiety issue" is. It used to be called "nerves" or "the vapors" (please, note, "the vapors" is pronounced "tha vahpahhhs" in your best southern drawl). I remember as a child how I was considered "hyperactive". Of course, now that's ADD and I'd be drugged up for it.
That got me to thinking about "better living through chemistry". I'm not a big fan of taking drugs (the legal ones) without good cause. I've done my best to limit my need for drugs to the smallest dose for the shortest time. Obviously it doesn't work all the time (I take 3 drugs a day) but its a goal. I started thinking about how I and many others frown on the idea that everyone has to be happy.
This is the idea that people get depressed and you (we) should just deal with it. I used to believe this. I used to believe (much like Our Lord and Saviour Tom Cruise) that people who took drugs like Prozac were just weak. That people who took Lipitor and BP medication just weren't willing to commit to exercise and a better diet.
My the difference a few "heart attacks" and "strokes", or at least, imagined ones, makes. I've now started to realize the fault in that logic. The fault is that its actually the reverse. What is so wrong with being happier than we were made? If we could take a pill that made us happy all day everyday, even when things went bad, what's wrong with that? If I can take a pill that keeps me from dying of a massive heart attack at 40 (here's hoping) instead of having to eat right and exercise, what's wrong with that, too?
This of course ignores the financial implications of pharmaceuticals but that's a topic for a different post. The point here is that I've come to see nothing inherently wrong with taking 2 pills a day, every day, for the rest of my life. Especially if those pills provide a long and happy life.
It just occurred to me that I can rename my medication. I take one pill to have a long life, and another to make it happy. Seems like the two should be inseparable.
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Well, you can count me in as one of the skeptics of drugs, not that I've ever taken any (legal ones, of course). I like the notion of people being happy, all day, everyday; it sounds good on the surface, but I don’t think it’s feasible.
It reminds me a lot of Friedrich Nietzsche’s “last man,” where humans become tame animals, contemptible, indistinguishable from one another, and loose the capacity to achieve greatness. In addition, as Rousseau pointed out in his first and second discourses, the more advances we have in medicine, the more diseases we get; it’s an endless cycle.
Negative emotion has its constructive side too, think of how much passion, (positive and negative), goes into art and the masterpieces that are the result. If you never taste the sour, you don’t know the sweet, and the sweet ain’t that sweet without the sour.
All that being said, I would rather leave the stormy, passionate, artistic life to someone else and taste the sweetness all day. So tell me, do these pills really work? I’ve considered them several times, (especially after major breakdowns), but always back out afraid of the risk. I just know I’ll be one of those people who goes on Prozac and ends up on the six o’clock news for killing my boyfriend and myself…
Do the pills work? That's a good question. The quick answer is, yes. The long answer is, sorta. The pills, at least for me, even things out. They don't affect my mental state (that I can see) but they make me focus less on the anxiety.
For example, this morning I read something about a guy who had a sharp pain in his right chest and went to the doctor and ended up with 4 stents.
Without drugs it would have been "I have pains in my chest, maybe I need stents! What if while I'm getting them I die on the table? What will my wife do? Who will raise my son?" Ad absurdum.
With drugs its "I have pains in my chest, maybe I need stents! Or, maybe its the fact that I landed a fall really hard in my last Aikido class".
So the initial panic is there, but its manageable.
Hey Leila...
I agree with Dave. "Do the pills work?" I'd say a big fat YES. I take Paxil 40 mg to deal with the panic attacks, severe anxiety, hypo episodes. Without it, I go in cycles of about two months where I'm a-okay, and then, like clockwork, I have a wig out wherein I believe I am dying because my left pinky twitched and signaled my ultimate demise.
It definitely (it being the drug) brings you to a place where you can more easily handle the irrationalities. I struggled against it for a very long time, until I realized how peaceful and enjoyable life was when I was dopin' *wink*
Someday I may try to wean off again, but if it works, I'm not gonna break something that seems fixed.
I come here every day, and where is my new post? Nowhere to be seeeeeen! *sigh.
I'm so selfish. I want a daily post from you Dave. :) You are just that interesting.
I know...I suck.
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