Update on Strategies against Architecture

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

Stream of consciousness today — I apologize for the bad style. I fucked up big time when I  tried 10mg ritalin knowing I had skipped one dose of anticonvulsant. I had just run out and thought Seroquel was strong enough everything else was just an add-on. I think it’s a full hypomanic flip-out. I do know Ritalin competes with Seroquel for receptors. I’ve already taken six miligrams of clonazepam — which sure did chill me out — and two susie-Qs, and I’m still insomniac. Usually one 100mg seroquel will knock me out for 10-12 hours. 

I do hope the extra antipsychotic stops this on its tracks. If it doesn’t  I’m upping the anticonvulsant. But I don’t have the time for that, I’m supposed to function as a normal human being or get fired. 

On a second thought, I should up the anticonvulsant right now.  Maybe a Depakote, but if I’m depressed tomorrow I won’t be able to function. Lamictal has that antidepressant effect which could get in the way of stopping mania in its tracks. Maybe Risperdal?

Jesus, self-medicating is hard. I should have gotten an algorithm in case of a manic flip-out, but I wanted the Ritalin enough that I downplayed the pro-manic effects of it at my last season. 

What’s worse, as soon as I feel stabilized — no chaos attracting my brain even if ultrafocused on ritalin — I’ll still take ritalin, though in much more moderated amounts.

If the pre-psychotic “chaos attracting my brain” is the problem, I think I might do half a 2mg Risperdal. Seroquel is way too expensive to keep one-upping it in hopes of getting okay. OTOH a full 2mg Risperdal steals my entire soul. But hey, 1mg Risperdal plus 200mg Seroquel might be way too much antipsychotic and might numb my soul far worse than 2mg Risperdal did — even though Seroquel is much smarter.

Strategies against architecture

Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008

I’m at the diametrically opposed state of mind as of the last post. After two hours of sleep, a moderate (5mg) dose of Ritalin about seven hours ago and a small (1mg) dose of clonazepam right now, I’m focused, sitting straight, eyes focused at the screen — I feel like a robot.

I’ve just been given strict deadlines to complete a strictly defined workload. There’s next to none creativity involved, so I should be able to complete it no matter how sharp my cognitive skills are at the moment.

Instead, even when at the ritalin zen ideal of being calm, emotionless, focused, I keep looking for complexity — I keep expanding the scope of the report I’m supposed to be writing.

Even at zen state, my brain seeks chaos.

I am not actually emotionless. I’m dazed and confused, somewhat depressed over my apparent incapacity to perform normal tasks, afraid of utter general failure in life. I also need to talk to someone over coffee. Coffee, not alcoholic drinks. But emotions don’t seem to surface. I’m calm and focused, as in that Radiohead song spoken by a voice synthetizer. Insulating outside noise with Einstürzende Neubauten’s “Silence is sexy” — the album. I’m fucked up big time as far a seric levels of medications go, and I need a plan to go back to pax seroquel and yet be able to use moderate amounts of ritalin to get this project done — or I’ll get fired.

The plan right now is to clonazepam myself out of hypomania — the fire within that seems to seek complexity and return tonight to the normal schedule. I’m hoping the anticonvulsant dose I missed caused the big disruption and I’ll be able to reach pax seroquel by tomorrow, and microregulate my mood/productivity on ritazepam.