Nothing horrible happened
Surprisingly, nothing horrible happened over the holidays. A “Christmas miracle,” if you will. I’d been afraid that my brother would do something dumb, because he’d been saying all along that he was going to call his ex-girlfriend on Boxing Day and it never goes well when he calls her, but he didn’t call. Whew.
He’s on Seroquel. He’s gained forty pounds and he’s tired all the time.
“It can’t be making him tired all day, though,” my mother said to me. “His psychiatrist said that if he took the Seroquel around ten at night, he shouldn’t be tired anymore by the time he gets up in the morning.”
Maybe it was wrong of me to laugh at her, but I couldn’t help it. I have told her twelve million times that antipsychotics can make you very, very tired. This psychiatrist is someone who I kind of know (I know his family), so I’d thought he wouldn’t be dumb and he wouldn’t act like a jerk. But here he is, saying that the side effects that one of his patients is experiencing from a drug do not exist.
I had more faith in this guy than that. This is disappointing. It makes me want to scream. My brother is possibly the least motivated person in the world — I can’t see how antipsychotics are supposed to change that for the better.
Oh, yeah. They’re not.
December 29th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
oh my….I think most psychiatrists can only stand themselves if they stay in denial. Who wants to live with the fact that they are making people sick when they think they’re in the business of making people well.
I’m so glad you’re Christmas went well. I was surprised mind did too after a scary episode of chemical toxicity that lifted just in time for the holiday. That made me very happy!
cheers and happy, happy, New Year!!
December 29th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Oh, your poor brother. I just love (not) how these docs decide what side-effects a person “should” or “shouldn’t” have from a med. Does the patient ever get to define his/her own experience? Is it ever valid? Ugh!
I just added you back on my blogroll. For some reason, I couldn’t find your site at one point. I thought you were gone. I’m glad to see you’re still here. Maybe it was me that was gone ;0)
December 30th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Sounds like your brother has a great doc. We need to keep the mentally ill under control. We can’t let him run around killing people and such. Of course, he needs to be well-sedated. As for his lack of motivation…well, everyone knows how lazy the mentally ill can be.