Ode To Psychotropic Drugs

I can't help myself; all these Scientology videos that are making the rounds have my attention right now. I am all for letting people believe what they want and doing what they want (as long as they are consenting adults and not hurting anyone else) but I have a BIG problem with people telling me, or others, what we should or should not be doing. I especially have a problem with others campaigning against something that they do not have all the facts about. Without my psychotropic drugs I would not function, period, end of story. And I have no shame in taking them and telling others about it. I take a very high dose of these meds and I am no "zombie." If I did not have these meds I would not be able to live any kind of life. My depression is severe and all encompassing and I am not ashamed to talk about it. It is life and trying to hide it helps no one. But to try to take these away from me (or others) and tell me that they are "mind controlling" makes me so angry that if I could address those that say so, there would be no doubt that I am not brainwashed or a zombie of any kind. I would love to have these people walk a mile in my shoes and then tell me what I should be doing. All the auditing, vitamins and exercise in the world would be of no use to me without these meds. They serve a purpose and it is not to gain mind control over people. They are there so that we that suffer from depression can get out of bed and get back to life. Live your life the way you want, but do not tell me how to live mine. Okay, I am going to put away my soapbox now, I just had to get this off my chest.

Infirm Of Body Does Not Equal Infirm Of Mind

Today while grocery shopping my legs felt as weak as a newborn calf's (and probably looked it too). I was having a problem with stiffness and the ever present stagger that gives my gimp status away every time. Like most people with MS I have good days and bad days--today was just somewhere in-between--and I have noticed that people treat me much differently the worse I am. Not just like someone who has physical problems, but like someone with profound mental problems too. People take care to talk slow and loudly at me and mothers loudly say to their children, "She hurt her leg, huh?" If I do speak to someone I am treated like a child, smiled and nodded at, and any slight joke I make is sure to be met with too much fake laughter. If I say something that gives away the fact that I haven't been eating the lead paint off the house, I get shocked laughter that shows they didn't know I was so with it. I hate when people are surprised that I can say something funny once in awhile, or when I do see the surprise and see them do a double take at me when I say something above a 3rd grade level. On my list of T-shirts that I am going to make for myself I am going to put at the top the title of this post. I get tired of being treated like a simpleton who is as infirm in mind as they are in body.

Condolences: Best Served Silent

I was very surprised to hear about an old roommate of mine getting a divorce and was thisclose to giving her my condolences when I remembered being condoled to right after being diagnosed. It was still so new and I was still so bitter when an old man cornered me to tell me everything that had ever gone wrong in his life. He told me about surgeries and wives leaving, strange diagnoses and those being wrong and getting even stranger ones, every minor injury and ingrown toenail, how long it took to recuperate and the thickness of every cast. I couldn't get a word in; all I could do was nod and look for a way out. When he asked me if I felt better yet, I had to be honest and screech "NO!" in his deaf old ear. He said he thought that if I heard somebody else's problems it would make me feel better, but he thought dead wrong. I told my husband later that day that he (the old man) was probably just lying in wait for some one to come along to pull out his laundry list of things-gone-wrong to read to--he is probably haunting the same spot waiting for the next sorry sap to come by. Thinking about this, I decided to keep any sympathetic words to myself unless I could say them in person and say them quickly. I don't want to be the misguided old bookend to that magpie of an old man.