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Saturday, April 16, 2011

Brain medicine

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I have taken various kinds of psychoactive medication over the past ten years. (I'm kind of, um, tense. And I have what are charitably called “moods.”)

 

 

I like my current medication. I am much calmer now, and much less likely to freak out over stupid things. I'm still irritated by idiots, but I'm not infuriated by them quite so much.

 

 

But – and here's the funny thing – I find that my memory (which used to be, frankly, amazing) is not so amazing anymore. (I read recently that my medication is prescribed for people with obsessive-compulsive disorder, which makes sense; the medication seems to take the urgency away from everyday situations, and makes everything fuzzy around the edges.)

 

 

But I am calmer now. And, as I said to someone recently, if this is how normal people feel most of the time, I'm sorry I missed out on it for so long.

 

 

I do miss the sharpness and focus I used to have. But I don't miss the nervousness and tension and depression and obsession over details.

 

 

Partly, I know, it's just the passage of time. I'm in my mid-fifties, and my brain is getting mushy, like a soft-boiled egg. My fuzziness and loss of memory may just as well be the progressive degeneration of my brain tissue.

 

 

Who knows?

 

 

Anyway, I'm not going to obsess about it.

 


 

 

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