Last night my eldest son was having a hard time sleeping so I gave him Mommy’s Special Blanket. It’s a blanket my mom made for me 20 years ago. He fell asleep blanketed in love. As I kissed him goodnight, I thought to myself, “I can’t wait to call Mom tomorrow to tell her the blanket brought her grandson comfort.” Then, like a ton of bricks, it hit me that Mom died over a decade ago.

Shortly after she died from cancer, I had a dream about her. I don’t put much stalk in dreams and with my disorder comes a symptom of dreaming two to three vivid dreams every night. I’m used to not feeling refreshed in the morning because I spent the night with my brain hard at work. However, this particular dream is one that I will never forget.

The dream went like this:

After Mom’s funeral, my grief brought me to the conclusion that I must bring Mom back to Earth, back to the land of the living. I hunted for a way into Heaven and finally found one. Upon arriving in the afterlife, I found her, of all places, at a beach party eating a hot dog. She looked healthy again. Healthy, before the cancer had riddled her body with disease and even the time before she had gained all her weight. Healthy like how her pictures looked before I was born. She also looked content. More content then I had ever seen her. I begged her to come home with me. I begged her to be alive again. She looked at me and said, “I don’t want to. See you when you get here.” She then turned her back to me and I was catapulted back to Earth. That’s when I decided to find a way to bring her back even if she didn’t want to come home. After searching for years, I finally found a book with the spell to bring her back to life. As I reached for the book, a voice boomed loudly, “That knowledge is not for you.”

I woke up. I cried. Mom telling me she didn’t want to come home was brutal. At the same time, I took comfort in the fact that my brain told me Mom was at peace.

She is stories to my sons. They will never know their Grandmother who would have loved them very much. I hope I do Mom justice in the stories I tell them. I hope they understand what an amazing person she was. It’s hard for me because all I have to hold onto is memories. Then once I die and everyone who knew her dies, will she truly die too? Will she just become a name in a genealogy tree? A name to add and not a story to be told? I want to hug her again but instead I’m trying to hug my memories. It’s not the same. I watch comedic movies she loved just to hear her laugh. I try to remember all the wonderful times we had together. She’s starting to fade in my mind. All I have now is how much love we had for each other. She may not have been a perfect person but she was my perfect mother.

As I watch my boys grow, I know one day I will be a memory to them. I know I will be the memory they’re trying to grasp onto. Then, once everyone I know dies, will I finally die too? Will I become a name for a genealogist to find. A name for a tree and not a living breathing person? These were the thoughts that filled my head as the realization that Mom was dead came back to me after the momentary loss of knowledge. These are not things I can worry about. Not now, not ever. I’m alive and shall live as best as I can. All I can do is remember her much as possible and know I will see her when I get there. Whenever that may be.

In case you didn’t read my blog post about having a stroke, I’ll tell you now that at the age of 36 I had a stroke. Somewhere in the process of my carotid arteries tearing to a near fatal point, my right vertebral artery up and died. That’s correct, I only have three arteries getting oxygen to my brain. Which isn’t a huge deal. I can function for the remainder of my lifetime with the three.

I had been on the antipsychotic Abilify since 2004. It worked to take care of 80% of my psychotic symptoms. The voices mainly stopped and my paranoia dampened down a considerable amount. It may not have completely taken away the issues but 80% is better than nothing. I took it. Then in the fall of 2018, one of Abilify’s box warning side effects caught up to me. Abilify causes the muscles in the arteries to weaken, making it harder for the body to pump blood through it. This isn’t good for someone with naturally low blood pressure and only one vertebral artery. I ended up having fainting spells. I ended up in the hospital. Again.

The doctor at the hospital had to run several tests before coming up with the hypothesis of what was causing my fainting spell. What exactly was causing the lack of blood getting to my brain. He ended up with the triple threat theory, one vertebral artery, low blood pressure, and Abilify. He put me on medication to raise my blood pressure and informed me to talk to my psychiatrist about Abilify because he didn’t want to change my psych meds.

Of course the first thing my psychiatrist did was take me off of Abilify. I finished titrating off of it in November. I was nervous at first. I had been taking it, for better or worse, for fourteen years. I seem to be doing okay. Latuda seems to be handling the weight of my symptoms all on its own just fine. Fingers crossed. It could all go downhill at any moment and one moment it will. When that happens, there is Saphris, my new comfort blanket antipsychotic. It’s good to have a backup. That makes it a little less scary.

Something bad is going to happen in my life. I just know it. Except for the fact that nothing will happen. I’ve had this feeling before and will most likely have it again. It’s a feeling I can’t shake but the feeling never comes to fruition. Instead it just makes me sad and annoyed.

Life right now is calm. This feeling of doom doesn’t only happen when life is calm and whenever life is calm this feeling doesn’t always visit my brain. What can I do? I’m sure this will pass. It always does. It’s frightfully annoying because of all the times in my life where tragedy has struck, it’s caught me off guard. Right now I’m on guard and I’m sitting here trying not to freak out. I’m sitting here knowing I can’t see the future but really, to be honest, if something were to happen, I’d feel like I had psychic powers. This melancholy of doom is eating away at my good mood. Maybe that’s what’s going on. Right now my brain isn’t allowing me to sit back and relax. My brain hasn’t relaxed in almost two years. It kind of doesn’t know what to do with itself.

I also doubt this is specific to my disorder as I have a sneaking suspicion everyone feels this way every now and again. That is something to take comfort in. Not only am I not alone but this is a common thread in the psychology of humankind. Sure it’s making me sad and annoyed but I’m not being crazy. I’m being normal.

It freaks me out when I talk to my car while driving but I can’t be fiddling with my phone to choose Nina Nesbitt’s playlist. There I am driving telling my car to play Nina Nesbitt and my car (Anne) will ask me if I want to hear the artist or the playlist. Now as some as you may know, one of my first cars (a 1982 Toyota Corolla Tercel) told me her name was Peggy Sue and she became one of my best friends. I knew it wasn’t normal to hear actual voices but I also didn’t think there was anything I could do about it so I had fun with my disorder.

However, I currently take medication to stop inanimate objects from talking to me and now technology is creating inanimate objects that talk. I don’t like it. I have Siri turned off. I refuse to buy Alexa and as much as I like not changing the playlists I’m listening to in my car manually, I kind of wish it wasn’t a feature Anne came with.

I’m grateful to be living in a day and age where medication is decent. It affords me the quality of life I lead. I just worry one day I won’t be able to tell if the machine is actually talking to me or if it’s all in my head. Welcome to the world of a schizophrenic in modern Western society. Yay me.

About six weeks ago I had a rare-for-me depressed episode. I started to think the world would be better off without me. I’ve never felt that way before and it freaked me out. I thought the episode would pass and I could go back to my manic, mixed, and schizophrenic episodes. The feeling didn’t go away, so I called my doctor. Both him and I agreed I needed to go on an antidepressant. He wanted me to start taking a particular antidepressant but one of its side effects is weight gain. I absolutely can’t gain weight. I asked him if there was a medication that doesn’t have that side effect and he mentioned Prozac. I’ve never taken Prozac in all my years of trying to find the right medication regiment. Since Prozac has been on the market for over 20 years, I figured why not?

I haven’t had an episode since starting Prozac which is great. I feel like this is what most people feel like. To have calm in my mind is something to celebrate. It’s just that even though my brain simply feels ordinary, the part that is creative went into hibernation. I don’t feel like myself. Instead of being a little intense and someone prone to episodes every week or so, I’ve been taken over by another Meaghan. I feel muted and I don’t like it.

I’m left with a tough choice to make. Do I go off of Prozac and face the possibility of having another depressed episode or stay on it and just live with the grey in my mind that comes with Prozac? I’m not sure if I can handle life without the colors of my thoughts. It also has brings out a truth I never thought would be true. I kind of like being full of chaos in my mind. My mental disorder has been with me my entire life. I’m used to living that way. I’m used to my brain betraying me on a regular basis. I’m used to the dissociations that cause me to lose time. I’m used to being a bipolar schizophrenic. I miss the creativeness that comes with my illness. What my next move should be is unclear. Don’t worry, whatever I decide I’ll be okay. I always am.

Last night I watched the latest episode of Elementary (aired July 30, 2018). As I was fast forwarding through the commercials, an ad caught my eye and I backed up to see it. The ad was for the drug Vraylar. The commercial listed three different ways the medication can kill you, along with the all the horrible side effects that can happen, including two of the extreme side effects I experienced. I was shocked that two years after I stopped taking the drug, it was not only still on the market, but being advertised on TV. Let me tell you why.

Before you read the next paragraph I will state that this is my experience with the drug. It must work for some individuals and that makes me happy. It’s good to have a medication that helps one with symptoms of schizophrenia and bipolar 1.

After the birth of my second son and shortly after my stroke, I developed postpartum psychosis (again). I asked my doctor if there was any new medication on the market to help me out and he mentioned Vraylar. The medication was for schizophrenics and bipolar people whose common types of episodes were mania or mixed. This sounded like me in a nutshell and the drug seemed to be too good to be true. It was.

The case study for the medication was only three week long. When I read that in the pamphlet that comes with the medication (I encourage everyone to read the literature that is included with any new prescription), it set off a red flag but I was willing to give it a try anyway. I felt great for the first four weeks I took Vraylar. Then the confusion set in. I blamed the stroke I had a few months before as to why I was confused. Then it felt like my thoughts had become fluid, like liquid. My spending became out of control as I stopped tracking my money. I bought everyone’s Christmas presents and it was only August. This isn’t normal for me. I do my Christmas shopping in October. The liquid thoughts and confusion became so intense that I stopped driving. As I was also experiencing postpartum psychosis, I blamed that for the spending. I was too confused to really understand that this wasn’t how I felt the first time I had postpartum psychosis. That brand of mental state was known to me and that wasn’t what was happening. I just was having a hard time believing I was having such a bad reaction to a drug.

Then early September brought on the stroke like symptoms. I was feeding my son in his high chair and suddenly I felt like I was going to fall off my chair and I did. I couldn’t move a muscle. My husband freaked out and called 911. After my neurologist ordered a contrast CT scan and the test came back negative, he strongly felt it was the Vraylar that caused the loss of muscle movement. I went home after a just-in-case night in the hospital and proceeded to lose complete control of my muscles several times a day for three weeks.  The side effect lingered long after I stopped taking the medication. I kept falling randomly for another month. Now you may be asking how I took care of my children during this time and I shall mention I have fantastic in-laws who watched the boys while the side effect was running it’s course through my system. I’m very fortunate in having awesome in-laws. Let me continue with the Vraylar story…

I’ve had bad reactions to medications before and have gone through several drugs trying to find the right combination. However, Vraylar takes the top spot in being the worst I have ever taken as far as side effects are concerned. According to my psychiatrist, I have taken all the anti-pshycotics on the market. I currently take three anti-psychotics and one mood stabilizer to lessen the severity of my disorder. Like I mentioned, this drug may work for other people, and that’s great, but the lesson for me is to not take a medication that was only studied for three weeks. Any drug can work for a few weeks. It’s been two years since that bad experience and I vowed to be more careful in taking a brand new medication that come with so little evidence of being effective.

I seem to always be going into an episode, having an episode, or coming out of an episode. With medication, the episodes can be less severe and the time between coming out and going into an episode are usually longer. I can now have weeks of calm, which is something I never imagined growing up would happen.

About a month ago, I had a straight up schizophrenic episode where it felt as though I was covered in flesh eating bugs. There was peace in my brain after it ended. However, my brain is starting to feel agitated. It feels like I’m barreling down tracks towards a cliff on a runaway train. The only thing I can do is brace for the fall. I can tell I’m about to have an episode, I just can’t tell what type I’ll have. The beginning always feels the same and that is how I’m feeling today. I’ve been feeling this way for days and it’s a guessing game as to what I need to prepare for.

When my diagnosis was simply bipolar, there were only three sorts of episodes I had: depressed, manic, or mixed. Now that schizophrenia is part of the equation, there are a few more ways for my brain to go. On top of the three types of bipolar options, I can now experience hallucinations, grand delusions, or both. It’s interesting to me that going into any of the episodes feel the same because each type is vastly different. I’m used to them all and I know that each one will pass and I’ll hopefully get a bit of a break to catch my breath before the next begins.

If a cure happens in my lifetime, how long would it take me to adjust to having peace in my head at all times? I can’t dwell on that hypathetical question for too long. I have more important things to spend my brain power on. My brain is warning me that it’s time to bunker down and concentrate on not going completely over the edge. Knowing that an episode is about to happen comes with the knowledge it will pass. With every beginning there is an ending, and then a beginning, and then an ending. The time in-between will last however long my brain feels like letting the episode last. Whatever type of episode it will be, I’ve been through it before and it will go through it again. As vague as my brain is, I’m glad to have the warning. Now it’s time to brace for whatever’s in store for me next.

After the birth of my first son, I developed postpartum psychosis. Everyone on my mental health team assumed postpartum depression would come knocking on my door. About three weeks after the birth of my son, I found myself hiding in the closet holding my son tight because that’s where the government couldn’t find us. I knew right then that my mental state was way beyond depression. It was psychotic.

As I began the treatment for the disorder, an interesting symptom came about. I started to believe with all the fibers in my being that people could hear my thoughts. There was no place safe for me. I had a hard time getting out of the house because of the paranoia that evil would somehow ruin my day or my life. I believed drivers behind me were serial killers trying to kidnap my son and me so they may kill us. When I could manage to talk myself back into sanity, another paranoia would strike. People knew what I was thinking. I could think about how much I needed to pee and a couple next to me would laugh. Yes, the two events have nothing to do with anything but there I was knowing that they were laughing at the mother with an infant child, who needed the toilet. It became worse because then thoughts that I had never thought before would enter my mind. I would think about a murder I didn’t commit and then I would have a detailed description of where the body was buried. I knew I was going to be arrested and hopefully let go when the place I “buried” the body turned up nothing.

The antipsychotic Latuda went a long way in helping this type of paranoia. It took a couple of months but I went back to a 90% confidence rate that my private thoughts were just that- private.