I felt like Alice in Wonderland

So I went from four medications to two in a short span of time due to health reasons. All seemed fine. Until I was in Michael’s Craft Store. I was looking for frames and couldn’t find exactly what I wanted. To get out of the store there’s an option to walk through the fake flower section. It’s one of my favorite things to do. This time wasn’t so pleasant. All the flowers started talking in their own voices. Voices that became louder and louder and less and less intelligible. I literally ran out of the store and only stopped when I got to my car. I couldn’t hear them in my car. I was like Alice running away from all the obnoxious talking flowers. I sat there trying not to hyperventilate. It appeared like two medications wasn’t enough. I did the enviable: I called my doctor. He put me back on Saphris.

The ‘Alice in Wonderland’ moment was a month ago. Sometimes it’s nice to pretend I’m not mentally ill, or that I might be able to get by on two medications. My illness always brings me back to the stark realization my brain doesn’t function normally. What is it like to not need a mood stabilizer and two antipsychotics? What is it like to have calm in the brain? Sure, right now I feel okay, but skipping a dose or two makes it all to clear my brain is diseased. That’s what it is: my brain has a disease and it is treated by strong medications. I could sit here and wallow in a pity party. I could ask “why me?” What would be the point? It is what it is and for the rest of my life I will go from episode to episode. From psychotic moment to psychotic moment. I will go my whole life needing to take medication. Sometimes I will feel like Alice in Wonderland.