Well it’s been a while since I posted, and a lot of things have been going on with me. Probably the biggest thing is that I started having symptoms of my disability just at the time when I was starting to seriously think about moving forward with my life. This required a medication change which is always a worrisome and difficult process. I also got a new car, traveled in it to NY, and actually started moving forward with my life.
I’m usually very shy of telling people this, but recent events have made me think I need to be open about this. I have schizoaffective disorder. I know most people don’t know what that is, so let me explain briefly. Schizoaffective disorder is like a combination of bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Meaning that it combines the mood alteration aspects of bipolar disorder with the thought disruption aspects of schizophrenia in a particular way. No one knows what causes this disease or how to cure it. I am luckier than a lot of people with schizoaffective disorder. With medication, I am pretty much normal, (as normal as anyone is) but occasionally the medication can stop working even if you continue to take it faithfully, and this is what happened to me.
Going crazy (as I refer to it) is a scary, awful, draining, disruptive, and vastly misunderstood process. It is a terrible thing and something that I live in fear of. But, I’m looking at this recent experience as a positive because in the past I haven’t been able to recognize when things were starting to go wrong. It’s called ‘lack of insight’ and is part of the disease. Unfortunately, though I was able to ask for help, my doctor was out of the country. Thankfully, I was able to make it to the doctor’s appointment and get a medication change. But it was a close call.
Since no one really knows the disease process of schizoaffective disorder, treatment is sort of hit or miss. In this country, medication is the only offered treatment, which is a damn shame. Since each person responds to these very powerful drugs differently, getting the right medication – sometimes a cocktail of medications – is an arduous process. All medications have side effects, and the drugs used for mental illnesses can have particularly insidious ones. Again, I am lucky because I respond well to the newer medications which have fewer side effects, but it makes me a guinea pig. I can only hope that they will continue to research and come up with new medications so that when I need to change again, there is something new for me to try.
The first drug I tried seemed to be working well, but after a couple of months it was clear I was having problems. It can be difficult to tell what the problem actually is sometimes – was I depressed, or was I having negative symptoms? This is where the patient has to be the expert and tell the doctor what to do. Now, I am on a different medication which appears to be working well, but only time will tell.
In other news, I got a new car! It is a hybrid Honda Insight and I have really been enjoying it. At this point I’ve gotten used to it a little. I can find it in a parking lot, and I’m not trying to shift anymore. I decorated the car by putting the bead picture up top on a license plate on the front of my car. I didn’t even know that was possible until a friend pointed me in the direction of a place that did that kind of thing. I think it’s really cool, and have enjoyed it. I drove all the way to NY by myself to visit my father in my new car. I like driving, so that was fun. My father’s comment on the car was “I like your seat-belts.” Well, that’s something I guess.
Well, this post is pretty long so I’m going to leave off for now. If you’ve made it this far, thank you! Please leave a comment. I read somewhere that you should ask for comments, but I don’t know how to do that gracefully yet so this will have to suffice.
