immortality

they prescribed me wellbutrin– an antidepressant, and risperidone, an antipsychotic.

i’m not psychotic. I just have a neurochemistry problem. schizoaffective disorder, maybe– “disorganised thinking comorbid with mood disorder”. i was in the hospital for six days this october, on the behest of my school psychiatrist. oh it was just like “Girl, Interrupted” except I didn’t have the manipulative roommate. I was put on seroquel, then they added abilify. mild numbing and mild despair. oh on the 4th day Dr Bashir actually got to listen to me for 20 mins and I got taken off abilify and was put on wellbutrin. my school psych replaced the seroquel with the risperidone.  I came out with a sense of well-being and I felt cured.

then they came back.

like little creatures that prey on your consciousness at night; and nap with you in the afternoons when the sun sets; and daze you in the mornings.

for psychologists, there’s a constant tug of war in your brain. oh Freud would feel so at home. replace “id” with “limbic system”  and “superego” with “frontal cortex” and there’s would be my therapists’ theories in a nutshell. as a fourth year biochem student, it makes so much beautiful sense, more than pharmaceutical companies’ “chemical imbalance” theories ever did, if you adopt the abstract perspective of outside looking in at yourself.

the risperidone will inhibit dopamine receptors in the limbic system mostly and inhibit the inhibitory serotonin receptors the limbic system projects onto the frontal cortex, so this “inhibits the inhibitor” and excites the frontal cortex so it can gain some control over the irrational urges and disorganised, tangential, scattered thoughts …  then the wellbutrin will boost dopamine reception, primarily in the frontal cortex but not so much in the limbic system, so overall mood is boosted and executive function is enhanced.

(according to the medical literature, so my doctor hopes)

so the background rhythms of morbidity disappeared for a while …and then they slowly crept in. I learnt not to trust them; I learnt to push them away. they’re irrational of course. I can come back from an awesome party or have had the most loving weekend with my girlfriend but ohh they’re sometimes so seducing, and I would have flirt with them just for a few seconds.

but oh the pangs of despair– what a lovely terrible mix — they’re my thoughts you see. I came up with them. That part of me which claws out trying to murder the other one– despair! despair! life is terrible — there’s no use denying that this is not true — and the catecholamines rush into my system; my chest clenches — there’s no use trying to fight to breathe–why not end the suffering now — oh but mortality is terrible — imagine your consciousness ending, never to think again — I don’t want to die, I don’t– I don’t want to be smothered– but it is all inevitable, there is no helping it — your chapter will close just as meaninglessly as it started; never will it be read again — oh someone please end this someone please help — despair, despair– there’s no use–