Once Upon a Time, I Barely Used Advil

I started taking Concerta for my ADD this past summer.  Yeah, I was the pills-are-bad-for-you-and-the-planet-and-your-unborn-un-conceived-child-and-you're-already-over-medicated-and-your-liver-will-fail-and-then-you'll-die sort of person.  But then, I heard a little voice in my head ask,


Where is your medical degree, Maria Teresa? 
I don't have one? I said.  
Oh, well, you're going to get it soon, right?  
Um.  No.  
Wait, wait... do I remember correctly, or are you an artist?
Yes...
So, how has your background made you so knowledgeable about the dangers of medicine?
Uh... it hasn't.
Yeah.


So I decided that it wasn't fair to make everyone around me suffer from my constant state of confusion.  And I got a prescription.  And now I don't lose things every minute of the day.  And I can work for more than 20 minutes straight.  And I can have a conversation without taking a mental vacation.  It's like I'm on a different level of reality now. Gosh, I'm at a level of reality, whereas I used to constantly dance off  to Wonderland.

It's not all fun and games, though.  While my liver hasn't failed yet, my little pill has its side effects.  The sight of food makes me want to throw up, it takes me most of the night to fall asleep, and I've turned into a witch.

While I can force myself to eat, sleeping isn't so easy. I have insomnia to begin with, but the extra energy from these amphetamines keep me up until dawn, man.  I mean, I'm motivated. At 3 in the morning.  I'm not motivated for New Year's. Yet, I stay up in bed wondering, what comes next???  Do you want to go for a run?  Want to get ahead with your schoolwork?  Study for your SAT''s?!?! Write a book, practice guitar, learn French, save the whales?!?!?!?!!


It's weird.  I take melatonin so I don't end up jumping off the roof because I convinced myself I can fly.  

Then there are those those mood swings... I'm generally the nice sister.  Snapping at my brothers because they asked for a pencil is highly unusual-- and it made me cry.  I thought I would get over it in a few weeks, but I didn't. By the time I found a bottle of St. John's Wort, I was pretty desperate.  I take three little green pills a day, and I'm pretty mellow now.  It took  a few days to really stabilize my emotional crisis, and I'm not exactly the Dalai Lama, but it helped a lot.

Now I actually remember to take my vitamins, which I'm supposed to take four of every day.  Really, I only take two.  This brings my actual pill count to: 7 per day.

I beat my grandparents.