Finding the Right Cocktail

It’s been a while. My last post was about the beginning of quarantine! I have decided to dust this old blog off and see if I still got it.

“Finding the right cocktail” isn’t referring to jack and coke or a sex on the beach (I think I got a hangover just typing that). It is the loving term given to the medication that you are prescribed and use to stay stable and mentally healthy.

I had a good friend reach out to me yesterday regarding a medication that she was recently prescribed and she said that she was feeling more anxious on it .. that it wasn’t helping but making things worse and she asked if I had any experience with this. Boy do I!

Being prescribed medication and hoping that it will work and it doesn’t is one of the most difficult parts of walking through life with a mental illness, especially if you are in crisis. There is this really fun dance that you do with your prescriber that goes a little something like this:

Step one: Put your left foot out.
Step two: Apologize for the awful joke.

The Medication Tango
1. Meet with your prescriber and tell them of your ailments
2. Get prescribed something that may help
3. Wait 2 weeks
4. Figure out if it works. If you’re feeling better .. great! Keep on keeping on. If not …
5. Back to stage 1

It’s easy to get frustrated when something doesn’t work. I remember crying because I didn’t want to go back to step one. I wanted to just be okay. Why couldn’t I just be okay?

Here is the story that I shared with my good friend yesterday that made her feel a little better and maybe it can help you too:
When I was at my lowest and was beginning my journey of going to inpatient care (see blog entry a few down from this one) I was grasping at straws. I went and saw my prescriber and he prescribed me Abilify. Dear lord did I need this to work. It didn’t. I got all of the side effects. I woke up shaking, more confused, sick and scared than ever before. Damnit. Back to the drawing board.

The drawing board in this particular case was me going to Butler where all of my medications changed. I had a medication overhaul which was scary but I have been mostly stable on this cocktail ever since. You’re always going to have some breakthrough symptoms but that’s when you use tools in your toolbox to get through. I’ll eventually go through a list of things that help me (hopefully it won’t take 2 years).

The bottom line is that you are always going to be okay. There is always something that will work. You just have to be patient which is way easier said than done. Just keeping being honest with your prescriber and therapist about how you are feeling. Never stop talking. Take your medication as prescribed and don’t stop something without consulting your prescriber. Make sure to keep all appointments with your prescriber so that you always have refills of your medications and don’t allow yourself to run out. It may be a difficult dance but its worth it.

Run like an antelope out of control.