Today has been a good day. This morning, I was finally able to drive for the first time in around three months and while I was a little bit rusty to start with, I soon started gaining confidence. I've probably done around sixty-odd miles today and I'm feeling confident enough to drive without my mum sat beside me like she did today.
I also saw my GP today. I have been gradually coming off all my meds and on Tuesday (all being well), I will have my first completely med-free day in five-and-a-half years. I am completely off the lorazepam now and am having no problems from it anymore. My GP was the one to guide me through the lorazepam reduction and I am so grateful for his advice about it. The reductions he guided me through went smoothly and I'm glad that I took his advice rather than listen to my psychiatrist, who didn't believe me when I told him I was addicted to it.
The meds I am currently taking are amisulpride (an antipsychotic), lansoprazole (for nausea) and procyclidine (to prevent side effects from the amisulpride). I will be stopping the lansoprazole either tomorrow or the day after and I will stop the procyclidine the day I stop the amisulpride, which will be on Monday night.
Anyway, as I said, I saw my GP today in an appointment which lasted about two minutes. He simply asked how the medication reductions have been going and if there have been any problems. As the reductions have gone well with no problems, there was no real reason to stay any longer. So my GP told me that he would see me in two weeks and said that if there have been no problems with the final reductions, he won't have to see me anymore. This is a good step because my last few appointments with him have been almost as brief as today's appointment. They're wasting my time as well as his so I'm glad that all being well, I only have to see him once more.
This blog post is another improvement. Admittedly, my last couple of blog posts have been things I wrote last year. I haven't done any writing for over a month. But tomorrow, I start attending a creative writing group and I'm hoping that this group will help kick-start me back into writing. In February, I wrote that I was being published by SZ Magazine in May; they've asked me to write a second article for them, so I'm hoping that if the creative writing group gets me back into writing, I'll be able to honour their request. The group meets every first and third Thursday of the month and I'll be attending with one of my support workers.
So finally, things are starting to go back to what's normal for me. I am definitely through the worst of this relapse and everyday I'm gaining mental strength. I worry that things could start going wrong again quite quickly, but as I'm taking things easy, I hope that I am worrying for nothing. I'm trying not to think negative thoughts but they sneak into my mind very easily!
One last thing, if you're on Twitter, you may not have noticed that I changed my Twitter account. I am now @KatyGraySZ and have deleted my old account. My email address has also changed so if you want to contact me, it's now katygraywrites@gmail.com
Bye for now!
I saw your Twitter, and I'm happy to see that your first med-free week went well. I can especially emphasize about the appetite. I haven't been off of medications since my first psychotic episode a year and five months ago, but I remember when I got off of Zyprexa that it was amazing. I could actually feel full, without also being hungry, for the first time in months.
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