In my last blog (which hardly anyone read) I wrote about my bipolar disorder. I have always thought crazy people were interesting, but people don't seem to think I am. I'm not sure what my problem is. Maybe they are tired of me trying to sell my books. I'm not going to quit trying to do that, I'm sorry to say. Sales are slow. I wish some of the people who have bought one or the other would write a good review if they liked it so that I could write a blog and quote what wonderful things people believe about my book. On the other hand, I might also have to accept the fact that both of them suck. That might be true too. However, that is not the main reason why I am writing.
I have been very worried lately because several scary symptoms had been hitting me all at once. I'm not usually a hypochondriac, but these were really getting to me. For one, I could not dig myself out of a depression I was in. My doctor had even doubled my dose of my antidepressant, but it just seemed like, if anything, I felt worse. Nothing interested me whatsoever. I looked forward to very little every day. I've never been suicidal, but there have certainly been several days when I didn't care about anyone or anything.
The second problem I had was a severe tremor in my hands that was so bad I couldn't even hold them still long enough to open things: bread bags, cheese sticks, candy bars. My hands shook violently. I was so frightened I began looking up the symptoms for Parkinson's disease. I thought I truly was in the beginning stages of it.
The last problem I had was severe insomnia. Every night I would fall asleep after tossing for a couple hours and then awaken at two in the morning to just sit there until the sun came up. I was more than a little nervous about these symptoms.
I expressed my concerns to my doctor. One of the things she did was prescribe a sleep medication. The problem was it had the exact opposite; my sleeping was worse after I took it than it was before. But she did something else too. She slowly changed my medication from Prozac to Lamictal.
I feel as if God has performed a miracle in my life. I am not depressed anymore, and one thing I've noticed is that my mind is sharper and I don't feel so much like I am in a fog anymore. Not only has my depression left but a lot of my creativity is coming back. I've even noticed I feel a lot more alive and energetic in my ITV class. It is as if I have experienced a resurrection. I've gone back to doing the things I love like reading and writing. I am completely redoing Fall of Knight, and I like where it is going. I've had some good feedback on the first few pages, and I went into my Final Draft outlining program and started to outline the entire novel. I know exactly where it's going to go and how all the pieces are going to fit together. I'm proud of my work even if the novel never gets published. I only regret that I didn't change my medication when I was about ten years younger. Best of all, I regained my all-night sleeping as soon as I stopped taking the new message. I don't know how or if all these things are related, but it sure seems that way to me.
There's a lesson here for anyone who might be taking medication for mental illness. Sometimes, you just need to change what you are taking. I have been taking Depakote and Prozac for years. Fortunately, I have had other times in my life when the combination of meds seemed to stop working, and I recognized it this time. I thank God sincerely for revealing this to me and for introducing me to my doctor here in Poplar Bluff. Don't be afraid to talk to your doctor if you notice changes in the way you feel. Frankly, I don't know how much longer I could have gone on the way I was going.
As I said earlier, I am not going to quit trying to sell my books. Below are links to each one. If you have already bought one, please leave a review on Amazon. If you have not bought one, give me a try. Thank you.
Deliver me from Evil is actually a Christian thriller/horror novel. If you have ever read Frank Peretti, you can understand where this one is coming from although I am not saying that I am anyway as good a writer as Frank Peretti.
Walt Michael Is a Weenie has a "Sandlot" flavor if you remember that film. It also resembles the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. Actually, Walt Michaels Is a Weenie came out once before, and if I'm not mistaken it was published quite a while before the Wimpy Kid books.
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