[As you know already I’m very glad to be on medication now.]({{< ref “My-message-to-Kanye-West-is-to-take-your-medication” >}} “About Us”) I have been using medication for a year now, and had also used it for 2-3 years before. So the timeline is first episode which led to medication for 2-3 years then around 2 years off it and now a year back on.
I have a strong and clear understanding of what it does to my body. It gives me a better quality of focus, which may be because it reduces my overthinking/anxiety during studying, and I generally feel a lot more relaxed mentally and emotionally. Things feel slightly more numbed/dulled. I feel like I need to eat more food to be satisfied, and might spend more time watching tv, and I have much less of a drive to be radically focused like not having whatsapp or a smartphone. I sleep a lot more and often wake up feeling tired, even if I have slept 1-2 more hours than what I usually do off medication. Life kinda feels like I am using a cheat code, I don’t feel as though I need to constantly stop myself from getting angry at people. I feel like a romantic relationship is actually possible for me, as when I was on medication I felt as though it was impossible.
To point out the key ideas, my medication makes me sleep more and eat more, and coffee makes me sleep less and eat less. It feels like a good solution to stop me from feeling like I can’t socialise after studies because I sleep too long. I’m not sure I can communicate how annoying it feels when I want to wake up early in the morning and do some self care, as well as socialise in the evenings, but feeling as though it is impossible to do that. And I’m also not sure that I can communicate how difficult if feels when you are going through 6-12 months of depression and you can feel yourself destroying your friendships.
You’re going to have bad days when you have schizo-affective disorder. Although I have been trying to perfect my care plan and my routine, and my experimentation with coffee is a part of understanding how caffeine affects me, in my current state.
It was about half an hour before I had to take my medication. I’m unsure as to whether it is psychosis exactly or it is mania, but there was this general sense of unease, and panic that was setting. That day I was incredibly productive, I did pretty much what I would want to have done in a day. I usually set quite a high standard for a good day of studying, and the days I had coffee I was a lot more satisfied with my work. It’s hard to see why mania is just as bad, if not worse that depression for your body, as it is just really fun. I took my medication, this time I let it dissolve in my mouth in hopes that the effects of the medication would happen quicker. I got the productivity down, but I knew I had to set a standard on never drinking more than 200mg (even though I’ve seen that the negative effects really start to show at 600mg). With medication and caffeine as well, it is best to use as low a dose as possible.
The changes in my mood were something substantial. It felt like it could change a bad day into a good day.
Say if I don’t drink coffee on the weekends, I end up feeling the withdrawal effects. I end up waking up feeling tired again. However, coffee does seem to be something that fits into my lifestyle very well, as long as I can control the anxiety effects. There were days when I would feel too overstimulated to study, but at the same time that feeling wasn’t as bad as when I am without coffee. Let’s say without coffee on a bad day I might be able to do 15-25% of work, with it I might be able to do 50-60%. On a good day with coffee I end up doing pretty close to 100% of the work I want to do.
I’m going to need more time understanding how caffeine affects me. I’ve done a bit of research, but not a lot on how caffeine effects people with psychosis-like mental illnesses. I am taking a risk, but for now things seem promising. I am making the gates of a psychotic episode weaker, but by doing so I am able to do the things I wish to do.
I need to be more methodical, and really think about things. It’s good for me to be off coffee over the weekends to allow my body to recover. I also feel like my body and mind is a bit dulled after then second manic episode, I really need to prevent another.