Pills. Pills. Pills.

This entry is all about pills. I am on 3 different types of pills: Sertraline, Prazosin, BusPirone. I take the BusPirone up to 3 times a day. Some times less. I take everything else once a day, Sertraline in the morning and Prazosin at night.

Here is a breakdown on what each pill does for me. (Although I have posted something similar before)

Sertraline, aka Zoloft, is for PTSD symptoms including reexperiencing (intrusive thoughts, nightmares, flashbacks, images, or memories); emotional numbing and avoidance (flattened affect or detachment, loss of interest and motivation, and avoidance of any activity, place, person, or topic associated with the trauma); and increased arousal (startle reactions, poor concentration, irritability and jumpiness, and insomnia or hypervigilance). So... it's helping a little I suppose. I am less on edge, my flashbacks are nearly gone, It's not a miracle drug though so I have to take these other pills to help keep me balanced. I have posted before about what it's like to miss this pill. It's something I don't want to reexperience. This is my most important pill!

The BusPirone helps me stay calm. It stops my panic attacks, as much as it can. It makes me stay levelheaded when a loud noise triggers me. It's almost instantaneous. If I take it before a stressful event, at least 30 minutes before, I should be fine. No panic attacks, no crying, just me being calm cool and collective. 

Prazosin is the new one. It was supposed to help me sleep better, by taking away my nightmares. I think I can officially say that the nightmares are just about gone. I cannot remember the last time I had a dream about a shooting. It has to have been at least a week since a shooting nightmare. Maybe a little less than a week from a regular nightmare. So it took about a month to see any benefit from this one. I am not sure if that's average or not.

Video Jessica pretty much says it all. I have to take all of these pills to have the illusion of being normal, when my thoughts are anything but normal. When my instincts tell me to do something completely different like scream or run away or quit my job... It keeps me grounded. These medications are my new normal. This life is my new normal. That incident that happened in January will forever be apart of me. I just have to accept that pills will also be apart of me until I am ready to live life without them.

Now that you have my take on it things, here is a video by The Mighty about Medication for Mental illness.