a short report/March

I’ve been taking Zoloft for almost 2 months now, and it seems to be working, although it brought me a very disturbing thought. I live on the 8th floor and have a balcony. I got in here because I was in a car wreck in 1998 and was badly injured. After the wreck, and when I could, I tried to rebuild my life with fewer materials than I needed, but I was TRYING and focused on getting better.

I came back to the US in 1996, determined to finish my college degree, but I wasn’t able to start school again until 1997, taking classes at night, after my job. In April of 98, I crashed the car and lost that term’s classes, and it wasn’t until the summer of 99 that I could re-start the classes. By that time, after the brain injury, I could only take one class a day, but by 2000, I had enough credits to graduate, and did that summer, finishing my classes that winter term.

Finished! I did it! I got a college degree! Yahooo!

But, I still had the brain injury, and it held me back, and Oregon had slipped into recession in 2000; no one gave me a job.

I had done it – survived a bad wreck and recovered enough to live by myself… and so what? I was POOR, broke, and purposeless.  That 8th floor balcony began to make itself known to me – if I jumped off the balcony, I could stop the pain and misery and finish the job that the car wreck started.

On the one hand, I was like, ok, but on the other, I was like, oh shit, ya know?  so I got some mental health help and started taking Zoloft, and came to see that if I did jump off the balcony, I likely survive in worse, far worse shape, and how bad would I feel then, eh? I didn’t jump and the balcony shut up (the voices in my head shut up), and here I am, 12 years later, on Zoloft again, and am not tempted to kill myself.

Still very poor, still brain damaged, but still alive.  I thought about it, and still do, sometimes, but now my vision has changed to that instant, that step or jump off the balcony.  It would be one of those irrevocable things, and I’d have time to think about it before I hit the ground, and I’d feel terrible and really really stupid.

I hate that feeling, and have no wish to see what its like, so, in that way, the mental health drug is working.

***

THIS time around, the head doctor prescribed something to help me focus my attention.  I guess the tests I had done last summer show me as having a kind of ADHD.  I was given Ritalin, at first, but it had sort of bad side effects, and my prescription was changed to Adderal  (sp ?).  I asked for the generic when I ordered the script, and the generic is amphetamine.

Holy shit – amphetamine???  Seriously?  How many people do you know with a script for amphetamine?

No real side effects, but it’s way more costly than the Ritalin was.  No wonder people like that drug – it feels good.

***

I stopped dreaming a long time ago, and I am very happy to report that that I’m dreaming again – a really good one this morning, that kept me happily asleep (but aware that I was dreaming – kinda fun, eh?).  Not bad dreams either – but processing the days, like dreams are supposed to do.

I have ideas written down to write about too – I suppose that the amphetamine is working.  Ha ha, I feel like things are going too slowly now.

(I sure hope that Disability gets approved this time)

*****