Functionality Thresholds and Medication

So I saw a psychiatrist through an online urgent care service after remembering that it was an option, and started on a new antipsychotic. 

I had a lot of mixed feelings about going back on meds. At first, I felt like it was a cynical move—the action that confirmed the thought that I wouldn’t get better without meds, that I was dependent on them again, that I was worse now than I was back when I got off of them or at any point in between. 

Then I started to look at it a little differently. 

When I got off the meds, I wasn’t working, in school, volunteering, being a great housewife, or honestly being productive at much of anything. My standards for functional were a lot lower.

I think what’s happening now is more that I’ve hit a threshold. I have a lot more things I want to do now.

I’m deep into multiple writing and other creative projects (I recently won Camp NaNoWriMo with writing over 50,000 words in July), I read several times as much, I happily handle nearly all of the domestic responsibilities, I take classes now and then, I do property management and investing, I go on walks, and when there’s not a pandemic, I volunteer at the library once a week. 

I think that if I wanted to do what I was doing when I got off of meds, I absolutely still wouldn’t need the meds. 

But I want to be doing a lot more—and I’ve hit a ceiling. I can’t do all the things I want to do now without the assistance of meds. 

It is less that my abilities are that much worse and more that they are being pushed for so much more. 

So I’ve had almost a week on the new med. It knocks me out at night; I sleep like the dead for now. I had thought my sleep had been largely okay for a while, but it seems the quality was lacking in a way I couldn’t measure, because during the day, I comparatively have so much energy now I find myself confused on what to do with it. I dissociate much less and less strongly, and haven’t had a super noticeable hallucination since I started. 

So I finished Camp NaNoWriMo, then wrote some more. I started reading several new books, including some on AirBnB management. I got back to crocheting; I socialized; I got the house in shape; I experimented with my new instant camera. 

I feel much better about the med decision.