Pills and Proclamations

I declared a New Resolution at 3am one sleepless night; a Proclamation made, I thought, in a moment of insight, a flash of inspiration. I was determined and ready, or so I thought, to turn my back on psychotropic meds and return to the long-abandoned practice of meditation to treat my insomnia.

I held strong and firm in this course of action for some time--about 6 hours, I'd say. By then, the anxiety I was staunchly denying was building into full-fledged panic and then poof! my proclamation disintegrated. I called my psychiatrist's office and desperately begged his assistant to tell him I must have a new med, preferably some powerful sedative, even if I'd only be allowed to take it for a couple nights. I just HAD to sleep. In my terrified state I lay frozen in the hammock, and everything was too much to bear--the gentle whispering of the breeze, the flecks of sand embedded in the back step concrete that I frantically examined, standing up, sitting down. I took 2 anti-anxiety pills that I was sure would never kick in before eternity came. I was nauseous and worried about what to do if I threw up. Could I take 2 more pills? All I felt was crushing dread; all I knew was that I could not survive another night of wakefulness. I was absolutely convinced of this.

When the call finally came from Dawn, my psychiatrist's assistant, the message was, "No new meds." (Read my lips.) I was to return to the med I had started and abandoned the previous week (doxepin) and give it a longer trial. Needless to say, I was devastated. Didn't they understand my agony? Yet by now the Klonopin (anti-anxiety med) was beginning to help pull me back from the edge and I had sobbed my story to a couple of supportive listeners so now I had at least a fragment of operative sanity. I reluctantly accepted that continuing the trial on doxepin was the best I could do for the moment, and I resolved to make full use of my increased dosage of Klonopin to get me through, if I needed it. The problem I had experienced with the doxepin was not that it was ineffective at night but that during the day I sludged through a dense brain fog that feared I could not withstand. (In retrospect I have a suspicion that the doxepin fog was partially or even greatly exacerbated by my unacknowledged fear of surfacing pain.) And so it was, to medication I would return for the time-being; meditation would have to wait until I could muster up a wisp of energy for it.

I had now somehow jammed the brakes of the runaway fear train that had been taking me deeper and deeper into unreality, and where was I? I can only describe it as the Nothing Place, where there are no ideas, no movement, certainly no fun, though rather than being utterly hopeless it's more like unpleasantly and wholly clueless. Maybe it's that the mind has paused in its frantic search for clues and conclusions. And maybe it has something to do with surrender, although that seems too graceful a word for my resistance-filled experience. Mostly I was sleeping lots, attending to the bare minimum, and wishing I could think of more interesting supper ideas than PB & J or pancakes. At least, I think that's what I was doing. I can barely remember.

As this week began, I felt like I was coming out of this patch of unknowing and into some clarity. Possibly I did, briefly. But then, and I can't tell you how this happens exactly, how I can appear to be on solid ground and then do these spectacular dives worthy of the Olympics only without the grace. So I did another one of those. But after a good deal of my usual clumsy thrashing, it would seem that I am back in the Nothing Place. Or not. Maybe in another post I'll explore my modus operandus, Dash and Crash, or Erratic Incarnate; for now, in the absence of any inspirational words of wisdom showing up in my brain, I will close with a favorite mantra: "Love is everywhere I am." Oh, that sounds like something I should pay attention to...