One hallucination no daily medication has ever been able to fully get rid of is that of flying insects. When I see flies, I’ve learned to ask the person next to me if they see the flying insect too. This is a seasonal hallucination. It always starts just before spring turns to summer. The hallucinations don’t settle down and go away until shortly after fall begins. Normally, it’s only one or two flies, nats, or unidentifiable black flying insects. I know I’m absolutely hallucinating when there’s more than five. When that happens, I will reach for my as needed visual hallucination medication. It just doesn’t feel like the summer months without this symptom of my schizophrenia.

I was recently visiting my mother-in-law with my family, when I noticed a fly buzzing around. I finally asked my husband and MIL if they saw it too. Both denied seeing the fly. I thanked them and sat there, trying to not follow the hallucination with my eyes. I tried to ignore it the best I could and keep up with the conversation. I was distracted though. There are moments I can laugh at such a minor hallucination but that day, all I could think about was how this was just another reminder that I live a life that isn’t normal. I try to live as normally as possible but there’s nothing normal about my brain. I take two powerful antipsychotics on high doses and yet I hallucinate. I almost started to cry as the fly was going in and out of my line of sight. I didn’t feel self-pity, I wasn’t thinking, “why me?” but my thoughts were, “where there ever be a cure?” and, “will I ever know peace?”

Medications have come a long way. My paternal grandfather had to suffer with his schizophrenia without any medication. It wasn’t that the medication at the time wasn’t effective, it was that there was no medication at all. I know that if I lived at any other time in history, I’d be in an institution or on the streets. I’m very fortunate for the life I have. The dreams I had in high school of being able to have a stable life have come true. I’m able to raise my boys just fine and be a productive member of society. I have a husband who handles his schizophrenic wife with such grace, he deserves a medal. He has always supported me and he pays for my doctors and medication. I have a MIL who is always there to help me the times I do need extra help. I sat on her couch, reminding myself of how blessed my life is, flying insects and all.

About an hour after we got home, my MIL called and said she did see a fly and now the fly is dead, so see I wasn’t hallucinating. I didn’t worry about whether or not she was telling the truth or just trying to make me feel better. I appreciated the fact that she was looking out for me. I know this post is a little bit of a ramble but I just had to ask my son if he sees the fly in my living room (he doesn’t). There’s still work for the scientists to do with research for schizophrenic medication but I’m grateful for how far antipsychotics have come. Sure, there’s not a fly in my living room, but I am. Because of modern medicine, I’m able to be home with my boys, enjoying their company. In this moment I’m full of gratitude.

Yes, it has been two years since I’ve written a blog post. A lot has been going on and I haven’t had the ability to write. Years ago, I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. I was tired all the time and often found myself sleeping or trying to sleep at least 18 hours a day. All the initial blood work yielded no answers and thus the diagnosis of chronic fatigue. I refused to accept that diagnosis as it’s simply the doctor giving up trying to find an explanation for the fatigue. Two years and 3 endocrinologists later, it was discovered that COVID shut down my Adrenal Glands. I was put on an adrenal supplement and within days, I was able to stay awake the whole day, no naps needed. It was a game changer. I felt like I had my energy back. Though, my cognitive function still felt low. I was blaming my inability to focus on my fatigue but it turned out to be a completely separate issue.

Unfortunately, before I could get to the root of my cognitive function decline, tragedy struck my husband’s family. I’m very close with my in-laws. I love them all dearly and thank my lucky stars to be blessed with in-laws as amazing as my husband’s family. I’m especially close to my mother and father-in-law. Ever since my boys were born, my parents-in-law have been my number one support system. They have always been there for me whenever I needed them and I’ve been there for them likewise. I have visited them at least once a week and more often than not, multiple days a week since the birth of my first son in 2013. They have done all the babysitting for me, which has been a lot with all the doctor’s appointments I’ve had over the years. They watched the boys when I was in the ICU for 6 days after my stroke, and when I had to fly to Northern California for my dad’s liver transplant.

They were set to watch the boys while I had my physical last year. However, the night before my appointment, my mother-in-law called to say that my father-in-law was sick and they couldn’t watch the boys. I talked with both my in-laws on the phone and my father-in-law indeed sounded like he had come down with a virus. The boys got on the phone with their grandparents and had everyone laughing. We ended the phone call with our usual I love yous. This was after I had discovered the cause of my fatigue but before the supplement had arrived to my house. I was still overly tired all the time. I made the boys a meal and then went to lay down on the couch. About an hour later, I woke up, with a sense that something was seriously wrong. I started pacing back and forth trying to shake the sense of dread. I kept checking my husband’s whereabouts on my phone and saw that he was moving around the warehouse where he works. Then my mother-in-law called. I immediately picked up and said, “what’s wrong.” She was crying and panicked and said that my father-in-law had an accident and that they were on the way to the hospital. I knew right then that he wasn’t going to make it and I was right. He died 20 minutes later at the hospital. I was in shock. The worst part was having to tell the boys that their grandfather had died. Their perfect world shattered. Life was never going to be the same again.

I held it together for about two months, but the sadness came for me in the form of hallucinations. I had a really bad schizophrenic episode and it took two months to get the hallucinations under control. The whole time, my cognitive function kept getting worse. I felt like I was going to have another stroke. My neurologist ordered a MRI of my brain and it showed that my left carotid artery had collapsed and my right carotid artery was only functioning at 50%. The MRI also showed that I had something called pseudo-tumor cerebri, which is excess fluid in the brain. I was in the exam room getting the results, when my neurologist picked up her cell phone, called the neurosurgeon who saved my life and told him about my carotid artery issue. He said to have me go to his office the next day. I was in danger of dying. He ended up performing another cerebral angiogram, which showed that the MRI was wrong. My blood vessels were fine. My stents caused the MRI to have an incorrect reading. That was a relief. However, my cognitive function was still low and there was the matter of the too much fluid.

My schizophrenic episode hadn’t really ended. I was still having hallucinations of all sorts but then my hallucinations got very specific. Demons started telling me that no one loves me and I should kill myself. I wasn’t in any danger of acting on their words. I’m not going to kill myself, but it was very hard to deal with. I had a follow-up with neurologist and we turned our attention to the fluid build up. She ordered a second procedure to drain the fluid. That procedure was scheduled and it happened two weeks ago. They pulled 11ccs of fluid from my brain. Magically, the demons went away. It’s been two weeks and I have my brain back, both cognitively and hallucination-wise. I feel the best I’ve felt in years. I feel like I can finally start living my life again. I just wish my father-in-law was here to celebrate with me.

It’s been nearly a year since my last blog post. This isn’t because my life has been uneventful. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. In my last post, I laid out all the physical health issues I had been experiencing. Well, it only got worse. Not only that, but I have had episodes to battle. This past year has not been fun.

The problem with my reproductive health became much worse, and there was a cancer scare. The cancer was suspected in my right ovary and my uterus. The whole process, from the discovery of possible cancer to my hysterectomy, started at the beginning of June and lasted until the end of October.

By June, I already had a year of physical health issues. The cancer scare was the second one in twelve months. In June, 2021 a lump was found during a routine mammogram and there I was, faced with the chance of having breast cancer. Several tests later, the lump was classified as a cyst. I still have to have a mammogram and breast ultrasound every six months. My next appointment is in two days.

All of my physical health issues finally led to an anxiety episode. For the prior twelve months of issues, my mind had been clear. It was only a matter of time before the stress caught up to me. The anxiety was so bad, I could barely function. My psychiatrist put me on Zoloft to help ease the anxiety. That turned out to be a mistake.

Shortly after starting Zoloft, I would wake up in the middle of the night not being able to breathe. It would take ten to fifteen minutes of walking around my room before my lungs went back to full capacity. This lack of quality sleep led to me being fatigued all day. In fact, I started sleeping twenty hours a day. After a few months of not breathing while sleeping, I decided to look up Zoloft and sleep apnea. What I found was that Zoloft can cause control sleep apnea but only in people who have had strokes. Yes, my physical health issues where impacting my ability to take psychiatric medication. I quickly went off Zoloft and was put on Effexor. My anxiety started to turn into depression. The Effexor helped a great deal and I started to feel relief. However, the fatigue stayed with me. Not as bad as when I was on Zoloft, but frequent naps happened during the day. I was eventually diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.

Being on Effexor didn’t stop the schizophrenic episode I had last month. At first the hallucinations were auditory but then quickly turned to visual. My medication was adjusted and a few weeks after the episode started, it ended. It’s been three weeks since my last hallucination and my mind is feeling stable again. I’m still tired most of the time. I have good days, where I only need one nap, and bad days where I need five naps.

All of this has left me with an inability to write and communicate in general. Conversations with friends and family became hard for me. Often, I did not return texts or phone calls. I didn’t have the energy to talk to anyone. I also had writer’s block when it came to my blog. I would just stare at the blank screen, not being able to type a word. I felt like I had nothing to say. Nothing I wanted to share anyway. My New Year’s resolution is to write more. I resolve to write more blog posts, finish my novel, and publish it. After that happens, I will move onto writing my second novel. With all of that in mind, here’s to a healthy 2023, in body, mind, and spirit.

With my new diagnosis and starting the different medications for my actual illness- schizo-obsessive ADHD disorder- my brain is something I never thought possible. It’s stable. Sure, I have a few hiccups here and there. There’s the every- now-and-again auditory hallucination and the rare moments when I feel like I’m headed for a mental breakdown, but for the most part, my brain functions quite well. Which is great because I’ve been dealing with a whole host of physical health problems.

Let me start with the beginning of it all. On October 8 of last year, I took my sons into a restroom do all do what one does in a restroom and on our way out, I slipped on soapy water and tore the ACL in my left knee 100%. I didn’t know that in the minutes after the fall. All I knew was I was in a whole heck of a lot of pain and I couldn’t get up. I had to have an ambulance come get me. Luckily my husband was just getting off from work, so he was able to come get the boys as I was transported to the ER. There they did an x-ray and found nothing broken. I was then told by the ER doctor to see an orthopedic surgeon as soon as possible.

The town where I live has an orthopedic urgent care, so the Monday after the fall (the fall happened on a Friday), I went there. I had to hire a health care companion as I could barely walk and could definitely not drive. The doctor there determined that I did tear my ACL but ordered a MRI just to verify his diagnosis. That was done and he was correct. He told me to first try physical therapy as there was a 50/50 chance of physical therapy strengthening my knee so much that I could avoid surgery. Surgery would entail me getting my ACL replaced with a cadaver’s. I didn’t want dead people parts in me, so I happily went to all the therapy sessions.

Three weeks into my physical therapy, I had my yearly woman check up with my gynecologist. She was feeling around down there and told me that it felt like my uterus had grown and that could mean one of two things. Either my uterus was diseased or I had tumors that could possibly be cancer. Whichever one it was, a hysterectomy was in my future. She ordered an ultrasound to see what was going on. I became depressed at the idea of losing my uterus. My mom had a hysterectomy and so did her mom. They both died from cancers that came from the hormone replacement therapy they went through after being forced into menopause. I didn’t want to go down that path and I also didn’t want to lose half of what made me a woman. I didn’t want to lose the body part that brought my boys to life.

The night before my scheduled ultrasound, I started throwing up. Then I got sick out the other end. I spent the whole night going between the two. By morning I was weak. I called and rescheduled my ultrasound, which made me frustrated. I’d have to wait another week to know whether or not I had cancer but I couldn’t drive. I called the boys’ school to say they were going to miss the day. Then I threw up blood and the next run to the toilet had blood in it as well. I knew I needed to go see a doctor. I called my in-laws and asked if my mother-in-law could watch the boys while my father-in-law took me to the ER.

While I was in the ER waiting to see a doctor, I watched the TV on the wall. The channel that was on was a classic TV show channel and the show airing was ‘The Lucy Show.’ I’m not the biggest Lucille Ball fan but I find her hilarious and her show was much better than the news, which is normally what’s playing in the ER waiting room. I was only half paying attention when Lucy said magic words. Her character admitted to being a big fan of Danny Kaye. I was suddenly alert and watching the show. Danny Kaye is my all-time favorite actor. In fact when I discovered him in 1993, when I was 14, I sat there and calculated how old he would be in real life and how old he would be when I turned 18. Then I figured I could seek him out so we could get married. The internet wasn’t readily available then so I went to my local library to read articles about him. It was there that I found out he had died in 1987. 14-year-old Meaghan was devastated. I got over it and Danny Kaye became my favorite actor. That fact hasn’t changed in the past 30 years.

Back to the ER. As I sat there watching Lucille Ball ham it up with Danny Kaye, I felt like the universe was telling me everything would be okay. I was finally called in to see the doctor. It was the same doctor that figured out why I had a stroke. I knew I wouldn’t leave the ER without an answer to what was going on. A contrast CT scan was done and it was discovered that I had an infection in my colon. I was given strong antibiotics and told to see a GI doctor as soon as possible. I got a referral from my primary care physician and the GI doctor had an appointment the following week.

The ultrasound was completed and as I waited for the results, I saw the GI doctor. She looked at the images from the CT scan and said I needed to have a colonoscopy and an endoscopy. That was then scheduled for December 30. In the meantime I was still going to physical therapy but it didn’t work. My knee was unstable and it would give out and I’d fall. The orthopedic surgeon said surgery would fix all of this and by this time I just wanted a functional knee again. I didn’t care about having a donor ACL. The surgery was scheduled for January 6.

My gynecologist called and said good news, there were no tumors in my uterus. She didn’t have a reference for how big my uterus was so she wanted me to have another ultrasound with my next visit in a year. I told her that I had a complete abdomen ultrasound done in March at the same radiology group that did the ultrasound on my uterus. She said she’d get the results from that test so she could compare the size of my uterus from March to December. She would call me if something was wrong but if I didn’t hear back from here, everything was normal.

The end of December rolled around and I cleaned out my digestive tract in preparation for the colonoscopy. I showed up to the surgical center for the procedure and that’s when I was told that I had tested positive for COVID. They had known since the day before but didn’t bother telling me or the doctor. She found out five minutes before I did. She found out after she had arrived at the surgical center to perform my procedure. Both of us were mad but there was nothing we could do. I hadn’t been sick, so I felt I must have had a false positive. I went that morning to a rapid COVID test center and paid over a hundred dollars to find out within an hour that I was negative. So either I got a false positive, a false negative, or I got over COVID in one day. I’ll never know. Anyway, the colonoscopy was rescheduled for January 27.

I had my knee surgery as planned and when I woke up, I was in the most amount of pain I had ever been in. I’ve been through an emergency cesarean where my son was dying so my obstetrician didn’t worry too much if I was completely numb. I felt everything. I’m not joking when I say that I’d rather go through that again then to ever have surgery on my knee. The pain was phenomenal. It was so bad that when it came time to prepare for my colonoscopy, I had a panic attack about cleaning myself out while I was in so much pain. I rescheduled the procedure for the second time. It is now going to be on February 17. I’m going to now mention that food makes my stomach mad so I’m eating a lot of potatoes and chicken soup. I’ve lost a lot of weight. I need to have the colonoscopy.

Three weeks post surgery, my gynecologist called. It had been five weeks since I talked to her so I assumed everything was fine. Well, what happened was the radiology group took their sweet time in sending her the results from the ultrasound in March. My doctor told me that my uterus had indeed grown by quite a bit and that it needs to come out. The first words out of my mouth were, “can it wait?” She said it could but not a whole year. I have an ultrasound set up for June and I’m looking at having a hysterectomy the same month.

I’ve been having this terrible feeling that I’m not going to make it to 50. My body likes to try to kill me from time to time. The knee accident wasn’t my body’s fault, that was something that could happen to anyone. What concerns me is my colon and uterus. I’ll have the colonoscopy on Thursday, unless something else comes up. I really don’t want to lose my uterus but oh well. I’ve known this was a high possibility but it’s still not nice to be faced with the reality. I try to remember the moment Danny Kaye came on the screen and a calm came over me. Everything will be okay. Everything will be taken care of. My knee is fixed, I’ll have my colonoscopy, and I will be fine after my hysterectomy. I will defeat this episode of my body trying to kill me. I will survive.

A year ago, my psychiatrist put me on Remeron, an antidepressant. He felt that since I have OCD, an antidepressant would help control the symptoms. He had previously tried Lexapro but the very rare side effect of bleeding from the rectum started and I quickly went off of it. Prozac does the same thing. Remeron seemed like a good option.

I had my yearly physical in February, which was six months after I started the drug and my blood test showed that my cholesterol went up fifty points. My GP felt this was because I had gained some weight and told me to lose thirty pounds. I had just followed the Noom diet for four months and hadn’t lost a pound. My doctor suggested I see a bariatric nutritionist. Someone who specialized in people who had weight loss surgery, which I have had.

The nutritionist put me on a plant-based diet that I followed for five months. I didn’t lose a pound. I thought if anything, my cholesterol would decrease. My GP ordered another blood test for August and my cholesterol hadn’t gone down. In fact it had raised by another fifty points, to dangerously high levels. I’ve had a stroke. I can’t afford to have high cholesterol. I thought back to what had changed in the last year and realized that’s when I had started Remeron. I looked up the side effects again and one of the top effects was that it raised cholesterol by a considerable amount. I knew that it would increase my appetite but I failed to fully recognize the cholesterol side effect. My GP also felt it’s the Remeron that is causing the inability to lose weight because I tried two solid diet plans for a good amount of time.

I’m now in the process of titrating down from Remeron and have started Wellbutrin. An antidepressant has really helped with my OCD symptoms but I can’t be a walking ticking death bomb. So far I’m tolerating the Wellbutrin. In three months my blood will be tested again to see if my cholesterol levels are headed in the right direction. If not, then I get to go on a statin, which is hard on one’s liver and I have liver disease in my family. Great.

Side effects are real but so is the battle for my mental health. I hope Wellbutrin works for me. I’ve been on it before, about seventeen years ago. I had to take it three times a day and the pills were big and round and scraped my throat so I asked to stop taking the medication. The pills today are nice and small and I only have to take it once a day. Much better. We’ll see if it all works out. With every new drug comes the possibility of side effects but I have to try to live the best possible life I can.

A few weeks ago, I had my semi-annual mammogram. I get to have one every six months because they are always finding clusters of cells somewhere in my breasts. My doctor wants to keep an eye on me even though I tested negative for the BRCA gene. I have a very low chance of getting breast cancer but there’s these cells they keep finding.

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I sat in the dressing room waiting to be cleared to go. Then the lady who did my mammogram said they needed to do an ultrasound. The ultrasound was done and then the lady said they needed another mammogram of my right breast. I started to panic a little. After the mammogram was done, I said I had to leave to go pick up my son. I was told they would call me with the results. I left and fifteen minutes later I got a call saying that a lump was discovered and I needed to come in for a biopsy. That was a Wednesday and the biopsy was scheduled for the following Monday. I spend five days trying not to freak out. I did my research on breast cancer. I tried to rationalize that breast cancer isn’t the death sentence it once was.

Monday came and I showed up for my biopsy only to discover the doctor who was set to perform it couldn’t and that it needed to be rescheduled for the following Thursday. Ten days later. I was a ball of nerves. I called my gynecologist and she sent me to a breast cancer specialist. That doctor could see me on Friday, just four days later. By this time I’m to the point that I can’t properly function. My anti-anxiety medication became my best friend and then I started to see people out of the corner of my eyes. I started to take my medication that helps with visual hallucinations.

Finally, it’s Friday and the very lovely oncologist tells me that temporary lumps are a side effect of the COVID vaccine and since my mammogram was seven weeks after my second shot, it falls within the range of just being a COVID lump. She set up a mammogram for three months just to make sure that it’s gone. If it isn’t, then a biopsy will be done. I don’t know how to feel. Part of me is relieved and a little annoyed I didn’t know of this side effect. The person who administered my vaccine could have told me this. However, there’s a chance I’m walking around with breast cancer. Three months is a long time to wait for an answer when the stress is causing me to hallucinate.

It’s been a couple of weeks since I saw the doctor and the hallucinations continue. Not everyday but enough to bother me. I can’t handle stress now, because every stressful situation leads me to have schizo-obsessive symptoms. I’m trying to take it as easy as possible. Just to rest. To be still and to get past this episode and live my life. I’m trying. I’m trying to relax and not worry about the situation. It’s not easy but I’m doing the best I can.

As a schizophrenic, facial expressions are hard for me to make. In fact, my face is naturally blank and I’ve had to practice in front a mirror to know how to form a smile or anything else that remotely resembles emoting emotion. The world we live in demands that I properly communicate with the outside world and that includes my face making the right expression. Not for a minute do I feel the world needs to know I’m schizophrenic. There’s enough stigma that comes with having a mental illness, I don’t need to make matters worse by walking around with an expressionless face. My plan of practicing in the mirror mainly helps with that. There are times I make mistakes but, oh well. However, this has all changed with the mask mandate.

Now I don’t have to contort my face anymore because it’s hidden by a mask. I don’t have to smile at the cashier or the stranger talking to me. In fact, social distancing has kept strangers from talking to me. I no longer spend time in front of the mirror because I don’t have to be “on” for the public. I can just be my stone-faced self. I do try to add inflection in my voice to offset the fact that my face isn’t moving a muscle. That’s much easier than smiling. I’m slightly dreading the day when I don’t have to wear a mask anymore.

Who knows when that will be. I live in California, one of the states with the most restrictions placed on the citizens. When the mandate is lifted, I know I will have to retrain my face. I’m not sure if I want to do this but I also don’t want to walk around with it being incredibly apparent I have something wrong with me. You could say there is nothing wrong with having a mental illness but I live with one and I will tell you that I would do almost anything to be cured. I would love to live my life without this burden. However, there probably won’t be a cure in my lifetime so I shall take my medication and try to seem as normal as possible to strangers. For their benefit and mine. There’s nothing quite like a stranger treating me differently because I’m incapable of changing the look on my face to match the mood of the situation. The COVID numbers are declining in my state and it looks like the masks will be a thing of the past sometime this summer, which means I need to start training for that day now. It’s just, I kind of don’t want to. I kind of like being able to walk around not worried about the appearance my face gives off. I didn’t realize how much I would get used to being “off” and part of me wants to rebel but I remember too clearly the conquences of my day to day interactions with an expressionless face. With a sigh of sadness I will start standing in front of the mirror to practice my game face. Here I go.

It has been brought to my attention that I love to complain about the medications that don’t work for me on this blog but never praise the medications that keep me functioning. Here I shall talk about what I do take and how they help me. Here goes.

Latuda (80mg)- Latuda is an anti-psychotic that is now being used to treat bi-polar disorder along with schizophrenia. I was first prescribed Latuda when I had postpartum psychosis eight years ago and have been on it every since. The drug has helped me a tremendous amount. It has helped curb my grand delusions, and has taken away my major paranoia. It’s only on a rare occasion do I believe the driver in the car behind me is a serious killer who wants to murder me. I still have a schizophrenic symptoms and episodes but Latuda has made them better. It’s still a brand name and expensive but it’s worth it to me for my improved quality of life.

Lamictal (400mg)- Lamictal is a generic and costs me $10 a month. It’s the gold star standard in mood stabilizers with very few side effects- none of which I have ever experienced. Without Lamictal my mood swings were all over the place. The ups and downs were unbearable. I’ve been on Lamictal for the better part of eighteen years and I recommend to anyone having issues with their moods. I take a very high dose of it because that’s the therapeutic dose for me. I believe I will be on Lamictal for the rest of my life.

Saphris (15mg)- Saphris is a newer anti-psychotic that finally became a generic this year. It went from costing me nearly $300 a month to $10 a month and the generic doesn’t taste as God-awful as the brand name. The pill dissolves under the tongue and is reeking havoc on my gums. However, it helps with the smaller schizophrenic symptoms. It helps stop the voices. I need two anti-psychotics to function. Both cover different symptoms. Without Latuda and Saphris I’d be in a mental hospital on a permanent basis. These two new medications have saved my life and I haven’t experienced any of the adverse side effects (saving for the gums, but I brush my teeth before taking it and that helps) that come with the drugs.

Remeron (30mg)- Since my new doctor diagnosed me with OCD, he felt it best to combat the symptoms with an antidepressant. Prozac and Lexapro both made me bleed from my rectum so I can’t take those. Remeron is a different sort of antidepressant and I can take it. The main side effect is an increased appetite but I haven’t experienced that at all. I don’t feel any happier but I have noticed a decrease in my visual hallucinations. People with schizo-obsessive disorder (schizophrenia and OCD) have visual hallucinations and the hallucinations would become hard to deal with before I started taking Remeron. For the most part I don’t have horrible hallucinations anymore. There’s the odd day where I see demons but it doesn’t last for days on end. Remeron is also a generic and costs me $10 for a month supply.

Adderall (10mg 3x a day)- Adderall has changed my life. My new psychiatrist correctly recognized my ADHD, which my old doctor never did and he was my doctor for eighteen years. The difference in how well I manage my life from day to day has drastically improved. I don’t feel so sick all the time. I feel like me. If I could go back and talk to my twenty-year-old self, I’d tell her that she has ADHD and Adderall would make her/me functional. There’s a lot I could have accomplished if I had this diagnosis early on. I’m fairly happy in my life, for all my complaints but there are some unfulfilled goals that now feel like it is too late to chase after. It would have been a game changer all those years ago. It’s a game changer now. I’m very happy to be on this medication. It makes my brain easier to handle from day to day. For being as highly addictive as it is (it’s a controlled substance that I can only fill every 28 days and it’s locked up so only the pharmacist can access it), it’s also a generic and costs $10 a month.

Yes, it takes five daily drugs to help me have a normalish life. I also take Ativan for anxiety and auditory hallucinations when they happen. I take Vistaril for visual hallucinations. So I have a team of seven drugs total that keep me going. They are all worth it. Each and everyone of them. It took two decades to find this perfect team and I’m glad I toughed it out. As a teenager, I had hope that my life wouldn’t always be plagued with mental illness. The medications are by no means a cure but the daily struggle to remain afloat is no longer there. For that I give thanks.

I don’t know what’s going on. I’m not exactly depressed but I’m not motivated to do much. I’ve been this way for almost a year now. I’ve had moments of productiveness. However, for the most part, I’ve lost interest in participating in life. I’m running on stress and nerves and blah, blah, blah.

It’s hard to defeat this feeling. I just have to hope it will pass. It’s not a new feeling but this is the longest it’s ever lasted. I hesitate to blame the pandemic but being locked in my house for a year has taken a toll on my mood. I also assume I’m not the only one who is feeling this way.

It doesn’t help that I have no local friends. My last remaining friend moved back to her home country last summer, leaving me with no one to have a girls coffee with. I’m bad at making new friends. I’m painfully aware that I’m odd and have a sense of humor that no one really finds funny. Then there’s the elephant in the room. At some point I will have to tell this new person about my mental disorder and that’s always a gamble. I tried to go on as many play dates as I was comfortable with and only one ended up in a lasting friendship and she’s the one who just moved away. I have friends but they all live out-of-state. I just need someone I can physically have breakfast with.

So here I am, a year full of blahs. I need to snap out of it but isn’t that the single most useless advice you can give someone with a mental disorder? To just snap at out of it. If only it was that easy. Until I can turn this around I will just sit here in my blahs.

The first time I learned the lesson that time moves on was when my mom died. Time kicked me dragging and screaming away from the world in which she was alive. I remember clearly counting how long it had been since she died. In the moments after she passed I started the clock. It began with, “thirty minutes ago, Mom was alive.” Before I knew it I was saying, “twelve hours ago, Mom was alive.” Then it was “twenty-four hours ago she was alive.” Soon the days turned to weeks that turned into months and now it’s been more than a decade. I don’t like it but now I’m used to this world where she is no longer alive. I’ve accepted this reality in which time has shown me that it continues without consideration of tragic events and how the people affected by the situation feel.

The next event that proved to me that time moves on no matter what, the reverse is true. It’s been positive. Five years ago last weekend, I walked out of my bathroom and had a stroke. I spent six days in the ICU experiencing a medical issue that should have killed me. I should be dead. When I got home from my time in the ICU, now with metal in my left carotid artery keeping me alive, I felt this overwhelming sense that I should be dead and I wasn’t. I saw my sons and had a vision of my three-year-old dressed up to go to my funeral. My younger son was only five weeks old. I broke down and cried. I still view the event with the thought that I should have died not that I could have died. I started the counting clock. “This time last week I had a stroke” became “this time a month ago.” Now it’s years. I hope to be able to say my stroke was over a decade ago. Maybe I can get to a point where I can say “my stoke was more than thirty years ago.”

It’s wonderful to be at a point point where my stroke was half a decade ago and time is moving on. I’m in this world. I’m alive. Time keeps going and for that I’m grateful. I want time to keep going for me. I want to see my sons grow up. I want them to know me. If I had died five years ago, they wouldn’t have any memories of me. I’m starting to grow more confident with each passing moment that I won’t die right now. I have a newfound appreciation for my birthday. I don’t take any moment for granted. Not everyday is a good day but my overall arc is great. I love being in this world. One day my boys will say, “this time twenty-four hours ago Mom was alive.” Their clock will start for a world without me in it but that time isn’t now. Time continues for all of us, good or bad.