Self medicating

I have the bad habit of not finishing books, but the good habit of being willing to come back to them over and over.  The result is that I sometimes take decades to finish books, literally.  It took me over ten years to read Crime and Punishment as well as Fellowship of the Rings.  I kept starting them again and again, probably at least five times each.  And in the end, I loved Fellowship, read the rest of the series quickly, while I hated Crime and Punishment.  So I can't judge the merit of the books by how many times I put it down.

One of the books I have started many times is Listening to Prozac.  I think it is a great book, but around the 4th chapter, I start having a hard time going on, too many names of doctors and chemicals, I guess.  (Prozac Nation I finished in a week on my commute to work, which is totally irrelevant, because it is an entirely different book).  I picked it up again, and am a few pages further than I have ever gotten.  I think I came back to it this time because of painting my kitchen - it reminded me of the case study who was very flustered by indecision on decorating her son's room, until she realized that she couldn't find a bedspread she liked for the room because really she hated the wall color - once she painted the room, the rest came easily.  (For those of you who haven't read the book, the story is quite trivial; don't dismiss the book because of this dumb small passage.) 

One of my sons, when he was about 5, asked something like, "Why is mommy holding a mask on that book?"  I thought it was very telling that he associated the picture with me.


I said in a much earlier post that I could be the poster child for hysteroid disphoria, but rereading the definition, I see that is clearly not correct - I don't have any of the extrovert characteristics.  But I am certainly overly rejection-sensitive and applause hungry.  And just in general, all the female patients characterized in the book resonate with me.  So I have a bottle full of old medication, and I was VERY tempted to go back on.  The major reasons against (which do not at all include any objection to self medicating) are 1) If I like it, I will have to go to the doctor fairly soon and say "I have been self-medicating, and want to continue, so will you write a prescription for me?" which probably won't go down so smoothly, and I will probably have to end up taking time off work, and paying money out of pocket to visit with a psychiatrist.  But you never know, maybe not - maybe my doctor will just say "Yeah, you know yourself, and I'm willing to give you a prescription and monitor you myself, for this fairly innocuous drug."  2) The meds made me unbearably sleepy the last time I was on them regularly.  Which is ironic, since when I was nursing my babies, oxytocin never made me sleepy, like most mothers, but instead made me severely depressed.  I always thought I would be a great lab study (milk down=black cloud of depression; 10minutes later, finish nursing = cloud drifts away), if only I could find a lab to take on the project .  Anywho, sleepy was hard; hard enough to make me dump the meds before.

But it sounds so good... It was so good.  Maybe I should go back to the yogurt - that just hurt my stomach. but it doesn't make me that exciting "better than well" of Prozac.

BTW, just thinking again about the prospect of dating - I am obviously telling the world that I was on anti-depression meds.  Oh well, if a prospective guy couldn't handle that, I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be the right guy for me.  And again, I will try to get back to that subject soon.