The author has included a disclaimer for the essay below: Always talk with your doctor if you have concerns about medications. The National Alliance of Mental Illness is one helpful resource.
Neurons and synapses dart around the brain, like pinballs, when the pills are late.
We chronic cases know this phenomenon as brain zaps. Bzzt!
“Sweetie, that’s just your brain reminding you to take your meds,” says the nurse in a singsong tune, so as not to alarm.
It’s too late; the alarm has been ringing for years. Her comment is innocuous enough, but we’re not in the pediatric unit, and my brain isn’t an alarm clock. Admittedly, it is a nice way to frame withdrawal. Of course, we’re not allowed to say that word here. We save the word withdrawal to vilify abusers. We brand them as others who, at best, have a disease, or people who make poor life choices. Maybe they self-medicate, because who can afford healthcare?
Here, however, we call withdrawal discontinuation syndrome. A syndrome doesn’t point fingers. Discontinuation casts no blame. It’s simply an outcome of medications prescribed by specialists — experts who change their minds. If you compare them, mood stabilizers and antidepressants seem like cousins of narcotics, to me. Try to discontinue by yourself, or miss an appointment, then tell me it’s not withdrawal.
Discontinuation syndrome draws an image of a poor, sickly individual who comes down with a slew of unfortunate symptoms that could last for months — years even. How unfortunate for them. Maybe someone has made a misguided choice. We don’t say who, lest we find ourselves among the sickly.
They call my name to meet with the doctor. Ding! Sometimes, I hear a chord in a tritone dissonance. (I don’t tell the doctor.) When I turn my head to get up, the (too) familiar pinball joins in. It pops up on the rails, zooms around the corner, then back down the ramp. It zaps me on its way back, as it barrels down the center of the board. Smack! Reflexes, too slow.
“I think we better titrate the dose (again),” the doctor says, simultaneously documenting my chart. Outmatched, it’s best to comply. Insert yourself, and you risk dismissal with two weeks’ pills, for noncompliance. The doctor knows best, and the next could be worse — if you find one in time. Next stop — the pharmacy. They know me by name.
They’re so jolly to dispense — they call me sweetie when they decipher the new drug’s name or the dose change scrawled on the script. “Do you have any questions?” they inquire as they holler over the road noise at the drive-thru, like it’s Mickey D’s. They pass these meds through the window like prepackaged cheeseburgers.
I desperately want to ask from behind the zaps: Does anyone ever come off this stuff? How do they get through the “syndrome”? How do they find a new doctor when they’re deemed noncompliant when they want to stop the cycle, when released with only 14 days of pills? How do they keep their jobs while the new doctor experiments—prescribes something new? How do they conceal it from their boss, to avoid the stigma? Does thyroid function return? How do people afford this?
But my brain is reminding me again with the zaps, so I chirp, “No, thank you,” with my brightest smile. I rip open the bags like the others do, and—gulp. They’re not narcotics. They’re not narcotics. I’m not an addict, I convince myself, while my stomach churns in shame. The zapping stops in 15 minutes. It’s time to collect quarters for next month’s game, to keep the zaps at bay. The chords still reverberate, like a pinball machine coming unplugged in a dusty arcade, ever discordant.
