Cream Cakes and Lithium

The paracetamol plan didn't work. I'm been prescribed Lithium instead.


When I think of Lithium I think of the 1950's, a chemistry lab and a lobotomy kit, so I freaked out, obviously, just a few days ago when Mr Upstairs explained to me that my regular dose of Lamotrigine (lactimal) wasn't working, which I feel partly responsible for as it's taking me five years of being on this to point out to him what psychological side affects these have on me, which I've always thought were the psychological side affects of WHY I take them in the first place.. acute anxieties, deep depression, obsessive intrusive thoughts, distractive (and destructive) mania etc.. whether it's the pixels in my brain or the powder in my pills I don't care anymore, I just want a clean white, fresh start.


So in a couple of days, pending on blood results I start the new treatment. Several things concern me..


1) Blood tests - these are in my top five list of things I hate along with headless bass guitars and mackeral pate, and I need to have blood tests every four days for up to eight weeks.


2) Lithium is commonly linked with weight gain - I've never been overweight which I find hard to believe as my eating habits portray something like a bulimic who skips the throwing up afterwards bit. Yesterday my friend reminded me of a story I told her about my last day at school where cream cakes were laid out on trays in the classroom and I silently ate in the privacy of my own desk, six, without a care in the world, to be interrupted my the chanting "Eat!.. Eat!.. Eat!.." and I turned to see the class circling the two biggest boys in school having a cake eating competition and the winner painfully folded the last of, er, six cakes in his mouth whilst the other doubled over at four and a half. The class stomped and cheered, the winner couldn't move, and I silently shocked myself silly.


3) Lithium can stunt emotions and creativity - now this concerns me the most. If I can't write, think, make sense of, or make my dolls, play the drums, any other activity which involves impulse or improvise I'll feel a) numb and b) someone else has hijacked my body. 


4) Lithium can cause tremors - How the f*ck am I gonna put my make-up on?? Or explain myself to other people; I have a choice of saying that a) You make me nervous, b) I'm withdrawing or c) I'm on Lithium. My doll making requires detailed sewing and I also have a photography exhibition coming up.


I'm going to go on some forums now and find some fellow lithiumees to put my mind at rest. I'll keep you posted.


SSP x