There should be an internet database of prescription medications and their side effects, etc., compiled by real people reporting their own experiences. CrazyMeds.us is great for psychiatric medications, but that leaves out too many of what I like to call “brain soup drugs”. For example. Anti-convulsants like Lyrica and Neurontin? We literally don’t know how they work, and yet people are I am taking them.

1. I got up and took my morning meds.

2. Went to my cousin’s house for Easter.

3. Had a few glasses of wine. I know you’re not supposed to do this, but when i was only taking one pill a day it didn’t end the world.

4. I remember my cousin walking me through the garage to the car. (I was not driving.) They keep beer in the garage and I wanted one but she told me that I’d had enough. 

5. I distinctly remember getting home. I ate a piece of bunny-shaped cake with jelly beans in it. 

6. I have no memory of going to bed, but I must have because I woke up in my regular pajamas. 

7. But apparently I did because I woke up in my regular pajamas. In Bean’s bed. At 10PM today.

8. Also, there’s no way I slept last night, because Ron tells me I was texting and calling him until noon today. 

9. Let’s not talk about the orders I placed at GoDaddy.

10. My brother says I was up this morning too see Bean off to schol, but again, I don’t remember that. 

11. I missed my appointment with my therapist. 

12. Tomorrow I’m going to have to beg for an appointment for my doctor, and then I will go to her office and sob, like I always do.

13. I don’t have a psychiatrist because my old one retired. 

14. I don’t remember fourteen but editing fourteen is how I lost the original post. I am SO not speaking to 14.

The moral of the story is my brain is TOTALLY on top of SOME things.  

this is the most sick I will ever be in my life. 

Forget vertigo. Forget that fibromyalgia episode from hell that felt like a 96 hour panic attack. Forget laying awake at night wondering what my neurotransmitters are plotting next. 

It’s over now so we move on as before, yet gingerly. With more deliberate care. I’ll be fine.

Mostly thanks to Ron, who is the best boyfriend of all time, I’m sorry I’m not sorry, he’s mine, you can’t have him.  

Anyway, hi. What’s up? 

My dad asked why I haven’t finished my disability application yet

trouble typing on my phone AND my keyboard, extreme difficulty of ocular and mental focus, and these are side effects, not symptoms. 

The final straw was when it took me 10 minutes to dial the cell phone number that I’ve used to reach my father since 1999. 

Bad drug side effects. Clumsy. Cloudy. Unbalanced. (Literally.)

Fixing now, but not, apparently, before I trip over every single one of the motherfucking things in this room and then cry, individually, over each incident, especially the time in the CLOSET.

“MOMMY? IS THIS HOW STUPID PEOPLE FEEL ALL THE TIME?”

1. I worry that I’m a jerk. I hope that means I’m not a jerk, because jerks don’t worry about being jerks, right? 

2. I’ve been taking gabapentin for a month now, and it’s really helping my physical symptoms. My chronic pain has quieted to a dull roar. I am slow to anger. I am becoming a better version of me. 

3. But I’ve also been sleeping my face off. Like, six hours of sleep at night and then another six during the day. Maybe my body just needs the rest. Maybe my nervous system is finally calmed down enough that I *can* sleep. For that, I am grateful.

4. For missing so many hours of every day, hours when I could be DOING THINGS THAT MATTER? For that I am not so grateful. 

5. I should be working. I have a translation deadline tomorrow. Three thousand words into Spanish. And then French. This project is my dream gig, you guys. And I’m so going to suck the marrow out of it.                                                                

Right after I take a nap. 

My hands don’t ache. I don’t remember the last time my hands didn’t ache. (It was 1994.)

Still feeling kind of “wut?”, but I also had an amazingly productive morning; solved a design-related work problem that I’ve been chewing on for a week. Today, the solution was obvious. 

This afternoon I slept like a rock for four hours; woke up ravenous and rested. 

This is unusual. 

Something is happening. 

“Oh, so this is what it feels like to be stupid.” 

How I said it on Facebook: 

So. I was diagnosed yesterday with fibromyalgia, which is actually SUPER AWESOME NEWS because 1) it explains SO MUCH, 2) I have a clear treatment plan and a doctor I adore supporting me, and 3) all these years I’ve assumed I was just a short-tempered, high-maintenance, prickly and difficult person, but maybe that was never me.

How I’ll say it here:

So. I was diagnosed yesterday with fibromyalgia, which is actually SUPER AWESOME NEWS because 1) it explains SO MUCH, 2) I have a clear treatment plan and a doctor I adore supporting me, and 3) all these years I’ve assumed I was just an ASSHOLE WITH ADDICTION ISSUES.