// μ = m // dayvan cowboy // music is math

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.

All the drugs I’ve taken for most of my psychiatric life — except for that brief contact with bupropion — have been anticonvulsants. And I’ve actually been okay, oscillating between mild hypomania and no hypomania at all. Remember, I started psychiatric drugs because of depression, which hasn’t happened for more than a night or two since I started treatment.

Then somehow I got into the (hypo)mania that wouldn’t stop. I’d take 6 or 8mg of clonazepam and still be awake all night. Spending massive amounts of money in luxury stuff like $250 headphones or a 160gb iPod. So we finally entered the strange world of atypical antipsychotics. I had learned a lot about anticonvulsants, but this is brave new world to me.

For a while I though they were horrible drugs that silence the chatter inside your head. 1.5mg o risperidone made me smart — as in shutting out all other stimuli that made it difficult to concentrate on the smarter stuff. 2mg made me a bot.

We’re phasing risperidone now and introducing Seroquel. Like with risperidone I’m quite liking the effect — which is very different — but I’m not at the final dose yet. OTOH, I’m still on risperidone, so I might be on the right track regarding antipsychotics.

I’m getting pleasure waves around 6PM everyday, and my first theory was that that could just be the Seroquel (which has a half-life of 7 hours only) wearing off and leaving the 4mg clonazepam that’s still on my daily cocktail. But, hey, I’m on minimal doses of Seroque, and that’s supposed to hit your H1 receptors first, which could mean I’m only getting a sedative — or maybe it’s enough for the antipsychotic effect to kick in — and no one in the world can tell. And I’m on risperidone as well.