Something's Gotta Give

I posted about my love/hate relationship with my medications a long time ago, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately.

One of the major side effects of taking my medications is a memory deficit. In college, when I was off the meds, I could memorize 60 pages of notes in 2 hours or so, verbatim. Now, on the meds, I need to study for about 15 hours to get the same effect. And even then I still struggle. I can look over a page once and completely forget what it said. That's not normal for me. And it's frustrating.

Now I know that people probably don't think that I have a photographic memory when I'm off the meds, but I do. At least a form of it. Some people with schizophrenia have been found to have great memory, even photographic. I even had a professor in college ask if I had photographic memory. One semester, I got 11 100's on exams and was working 3 part time jobs, so I barely studied. I also scored in the 99th percentile for perceptual reasoning skills (visual) on the IQ test last year.

Now my point is not really that I have photographic memory when I'm off the meds so I'm not going to belabor that, but my point is that sometimes something has to give if we want to survive. 

It was really nice having a great memory, especially in school, but if I want to survive and be stable and out of the hospital, then I have to take my medications, along with the side effects. I have come to the realization that I can either be schizophrenic with really good memory or I can be stable and out of the hospital.

Giving up my great memory in order to be stable has been one of the hardest things I feel like God is calling me to do.

The reason I do love my medications is that I've been out of the hospital for 5 months and I am able to function and be healthy. I am nowhere near where I was last semester. Can I just say that again? I've been out of the hospital for FIVE MONTHS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woo hoo! And that is mostly due to the medications.

Stability beats instability. Stability beats chaos and paranoia and psychosis.

So I am still taking the medications.