Let me explain. A decorator chooses paint colors for the walls and fabrics for the couch and chairs, and gets a feel for how his client will feel living in this space. Will the inhabitant feel cozy or too cold? Is the room too uptight? Then the decorator can make changes - - he can warm up the paint color, add some fabrics or some pillows or some antiques to give a different feel to the room. So, ultimately, the 'patient' will be able to live in comfort. A bartender, too, has to get a sense of what his customer wants. Does he just want to drink a few beers through the night and get toasted, or does he want to get blasted within the first hour with a strong few shots of good Mexican tequila?
I was on my same cocktail for about two years and stayed relatively even-keeled. Last week, my new doctor thought he’d tinker with the cocktail and upped the dosage of one of my mood stabilizers. In two days, the new mixture had knocked me flat on my face - - almost as if I had downed a whole bottle of gin in one sitting. I couldn’t get out of bed. Let alone form sentences. Like the old days of being sedated and coming out of recovery after electroshock, I got him on the phone and slurred to him about my need to quickly come off the dosage. I was perfectly happy with my little 'night-cap' and I was going to be the one to make the decision this time.
"I'll have another cocktail," is a common line you’ll hear in a bar. But it’s also one you’ll hear around a psychiatrist’s office, because psychopharmacology is a science of trial and error. It takes quite a few attempts to find the right combination of meds - - the right cocktail to stabilize people with psychiatric illnesses. In my case, it took nearly seven years to stabilize my bipolar disorder, and by the time we had dealt with that successfully we had a new issue to deal with - - an illness referred to as schizoaffective disorder, which required finding the right anti-psychotic that wouldn’t leave me with crazy side effects such as shuffling feet and twitching.
I’ve finally found a brand new cocktail. I take it once a night and it’s only one pill. I guess that wouldn't even be a cocktail -- maybe just a shot. I'm much happier on this one pill, much more stable and able to function productively and effectively. In my next article I'll tell you about this new drug that has really changed my life.
Andy Behrman is the author of Electroboy: A Memoir of Mania, published by Random House. It is now available in paperback at your local bookstore as well as online retailers. He maintains a website at www.electroboy.com. The film version of Electroboy, starring Tobey Maguire, is about to go into production.
