Dreams and Disappointment
Common side-effects of brain trauma are depression, anxiety, PTSD and many more delightful disorders that change how one processes things. Then, of course, there are the side-effects from the medications one takes to address the side-effects of the brain trauma. Confused? Let me clear it up. I am a walking, talking side-effect. My cheese has slipped slap off my cracker, not that it was on there all too securely to begin with, but now that cheddar is on the floor somewhere or maybe the cat ate it. I don’t have a clue.
Several months into seeing a Psychologist to help me with uncontrollable rage and sadness, the fine Doctor asked me what I was taking for depression. What?? You’re the Doctor! I’m taking nothing for depression. You haven’t prescribed anything. Needless to say, “Mother’s little helper” and Prozac were added to my pharmaceutical cocktail.
One of the things I’ve clung to since brain tumor surgery is dreaming. I’m skiing in Colorado, snorkeling in Hawaii or jamming’ on guitar, writing songs...being my “normal” self. Waking up brought dread and pain with the realization of a broken me, always feeling disappointment that I wasn’t the woman I once was. Well, Prozac knocked that right out. Now, my dreams are so disturbing that I don’t want to dream at all anymore. Yes, another wonderful side-effect!
I’ve since found another shrink who is actually helping me to accept things, not just doping me up. While I am still taking Prozac for the time being, (mostly for extreme hills and valleys) she is giving me tools and teaching me how to quiet my mind. It’s not easy at all. I am a talker, thinker, writer, poet, highly creative and a big ass baby. I have been in the midst of a toddler worthy temper tantrum since the dim reality sunk in that I would never be the same after surgery...neither physically nor mentally.
Together, my shrink and I are working on my letting go of guilt and sorrow, which are the disturbing emotions that lie just beneath my smiling, laughing surface. Yes, yet another side-effect: The disappointed tears of a clown.
