Another Med Roller Coaster

When I went to my shrink for the first time I told him that my problem was that I had a wonderful life, Kenehora poo poo poo, and something was keeping me from appreciating it. I was worried about my daughter, and about how mean I was to her. For some reason, all my craziness channeled itself in her direction. I couldn't bear the idea that I would damage her. I have a little marker that tells me when my meds aren't working. When I lose it with Sophie, when I scream at her, when I grab her and drag her up the stairs, when I toss her into her room, when I slam her door, I know that things are bad and I need to get my ass into the doctor's office for an adjustment.

I always tell her that it's not her fault, that it's mommy's fault. That I'm sick, that my pills are screwing up, but how often does she have to deal with this crap? Those shoulders are awfully skinny for such a heavy burden.

I'm on a new regime again. Lucky for me I'm back on the skinny pills (Topomax). The Trileptal wasn't supposed to make me fat, but it did. It also wasn't supposed to make me as stupid as the Topomax, but it made me stupider. These meds all make you lose words, proper nouns in particular. Terrific side effect for a writer. I spend a lot of time leafing through the thesaurus looking for words like "individual" or "omelet." Those are two words that I actually found myself unable to remember within the past few weeks. Egg-thingy doesn't cut it when you're writing a novel.

But what can you do. It's either stupid or evil. I'd probably choose evil if I lived alone, but with four kids, I've got no choice but to spend my life in a little bit of a medication haze.