Whose brain is it anyway?
.
Bloody hell, this brain of mine just doesn’t shut up.
I’d forgotten that, but now I have to find a way of getting used to it again.
Over the past 6 weeks my tiredness moved up a level, to the point where large parts of each day were like wading through treacle, both physically and mentally. I was sleeping 2 or 3 hours a night more, though still feeling unrefreshed; if anything it was taking me even longer to completely wake up in the mornings.
The amitriptyline the doc put me on worked, insofar as it stopped the sudden and crushing mood drops, but it was like coating me in a large roll of cotton wool to the point where it was steadily getting harder to move or to think.
So when, on Monday, we met to review whether I should stay at the 25mg level or up to the more common 50mg, I told him of the side effects and said that it felt like I’d exchanged one form of non-functionality (the mood drops) for another (cotton wool – or treacle, depending which analogy you prefer). So I asked if there were any other options.
So now I’m on 10mg of citalopram instead.
Now while it will still be too early for the citalopram to have started kicking in yet, coming off the amitriptyline seemed to have a profound effect virtually overnight.
Suddenly my mind is bouncing all over the place - I am making connections and seeing patterns between bizarre and unlikely things; if someone suggests an idea, I can run it through empire building scenarios, which if followed would result in global domination within 3 years; and even the Sudoku puzzles are looking simpler.
In other words, it’s back to normal (excluding mood drops, general tiredness and any normal definition of normal).
But because it hasn’t been like this for several weeks, I was slowly adapting to a brain which needed to take its time, and overheated if it thought for more than 10 minutes without a 2 hour break.
Consequently for the past couple of days it’s felt like I’ve got a wildcat by the tail that I can’t let go of and isn’t going to give me any peace.
I daresay I’ll adapt to it, in the same way I eventually got used to having a new tooth I’d got used to not having (see But if feels so big), but for the moment I wish it would sit down and shut up for at least a few minutes a day.
.
Bloody hell, this brain of mine just doesn’t shut up.
I’d forgotten that, but now I have to find a way of getting used to it again.
Over the past 6 weeks my tiredness moved up a level, to the point where large parts of each day were like wading through treacle, both physically and mentally. I was sleeping 2 or 3 hours a night more, though still feeling unrefreshed; if anything it was taking me even longer to completely wake up in the mornings.
The amitriptyline the doc put me on worked, insofar as it stopped the sudden and crushing mood drops, but it was like coating me in a large roll of cotton wool to the point where it was steadily getting harder to move or to think.
So when, on Monday, we met to review whether I should stay at the 25mg level or up to the more common 50mg, I told him of the side effects and said that it felt like I’d exchanged one form of non-functionality (the mood drops) for another (cotton wool – or treacle, depending which analogy you prefer). So I asked if there were any other options.
So now I’m on 10mg of citalopram instead.
Now while it will still be too early for the citalopram to have started kicking in yet, coming off the amitriptyline seemed to have a profound effect virtually overnight.
Suddenly my mind is bouncing all over the place - I am making connections and seeing patterns between bizarre and unlikely things; if someone suggests an idea, I can run it through empire building scenarios, which if followed would result in global domination within 3 years; and even the Sudoku puzzles are looking simpler.
In other words, it’s back to normal (excluding mood drops, general tiredness and any normal definition of normal).
But because it hasn’t been like this for several weeks, I was slowly adapting to a brain which needed to take its time, and overheated if it thought for more than 10 minutes without a 2 hour break.
Consequently for the past couple of days it’s felt like I’ve got a wildcat by the tail that I can’t let go of and isn’t going to give me any peace.
I daresay I’ll adapt to it, in the same way I eventually got used to having a new tooth I’d got used to not having (see But if feels so big), but for the moment I wish it would sit down and shut up for at least a few minutes a day.
.
Post a Comment