Taking the Prozac Plunge

Well kids...it's that time in life to face the music. I have been battling my moods now for decades without the help of entering a pharmacy. But now...I have this Multiple Sclerosis gig going on and things are a little more "interesting." At a time when there seems to be this backlash against mood medications...I am finally ready to take the plunge. You know me...always late to the party.

I am not anti-meds. I was in the helping profession. I saw how very necessary they can be. I suppose I was just anti-meds for me. I couldn't imagine myself taking something which could potentially alter my brain functioning and mood. My brain is all I have you see...and I don't want to be messing with it.

Too...there is my childhood history of growing up with a mother who has schizophrenia...and seeing the multitudes of pills she had to take...each one extracting the life from my mother. She suffered from vision loss, tremors, confusion, and more from her daily pills. And they seldom helped. It seemed nobody cared about her...about us...except to give her more pills. I began to hate them as they were a poor substitute for real help.

So here I am years upon years later....staring at a pill on a paper plate. I ate my breakfast and sat and comtemplated this blue (generic form) entity before me. I sat there for about twenty minutes...carrying the pill to my mouth and then placing it back upon the plate.

It seems a defeat to me in some ways. And I know this is the wrong way to look at things...and realize I am only talking about me...and what this personally feels like for me...nobody else. I just...hate this. I hate needing help. But I will state here today that yes I do need help.

So I took the damn pill.

I wanted to tell you all so that I could report first hand...what this is like to a mood medication virgin. I will leave out no detail.

I will leave you now with the lyrics to the old rolling stone classic...Mother's Little Helper. Except...mine isn't yellow...it is blue. :>)

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What a drag it is getting old
"Kids are different today"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day

"Things are different today"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Cooking fresh food for a husband's just a drag
So she buys an instant cake and she burns her frozen steak
And goes running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And two help her on her way, get her through her busy day

Doctor please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old

"Men just aren't the same today"
I hear ev'ry mother say
They just don't appreciate that you get tired
They're so hard to satisfy, You can tranquilize your mind
So go running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
And four help you through the night, help to minimize your plight

Doctor please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old

"Life's just much too hard today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore
And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose
No more running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
They just helped you on your way, through your busy dying day