INTO THE FRINGE

I met my SHRINK last week. I told her about my recurring pain in the head and the ineffectivity of my medicine. She gave me a new one - Zyprexa. She said that this was the last drug on the list of mitigating measures to rein in my disorder. This drug is quite expensive for my means. P250 per 10mg tab. I am using it now, at 2.5 mg per day, slowly titrating it to 5 mg up to who knows what dose level it could go. So far, not so good.

It acts like a tranquilizer. I am really down in the morning. Down as in douwn and out. No sensible thoughts comes out of my head. I have to rethink everything I have to say. As if each word that frames a thought is a 50 pound brick that I have to lift and move into position just to make a sentence. Once the heaviness melts into the heat of the day, I become manic... and in the evening I come crashing down. Then my next drugged dose comes in, end of the day.

During my session with my PSYCHIATRIST, she told me that if this drug does not work, she would recommend me undergoing ECT or ELECTRO CONVULSIVE THERAPY.

I asked if this was the last option left on the table. She said that it was. I asked if this was proven to have beneficial effects. She said that Depressive persons showed very positive response towards the treatment.

I told her that I would like to have a go at it.

My decision to undergo ECT is final. I will be having the treatment towards the end of January 2006. This treatment will take me to the fringe of what I call, MY JOURNEY INTO MY DISORDER. The picture of a Nebula at the start of this blog is a fitting picture of how far my disorder has gone to disrupt my life. I am willing to go further to see to it that I regain control over my life.

From now on, this blog will serve as a record of my life. Before ECT and after ECT.

So in the coming days, you will be reading about my life before ECT. Way back into my memory banks. I will log those memories that I want to keep.

So keep on watching this blog.... as it grows.