I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the use of medication and whether or not I really need it for these darned seizures of mine, and this annoying epilepsy, for I have to tell you, it seems to me that I am a heck of a lot more productive when I am off of this medicine and that I write more coherently, more intelligently, and just plain more, and while I am well aware that quantity should never be sacrificed for quality, I do know that some of the best pieces I have ever written were written by me, cold, straight, no anti-convulsant coursing through my veins, no drug of choice, du jour, etc. Just me. I also know that some the world’s greatest literature and art was created by others like me who were what they call in the biz “non-compliant” with our “meds.” We are the bad boys and girls of the seizure world, or the bipolar world or whichever world you happen to inhabit. Mine is neurological, and because of this, it affects the brain and therefore, one could argue rightly, influences my thinking. The question remains, then, when I think of getting off this nasty stuff they call Phenobarbital am I thinking right or wrong? Am I thinking of the enormous creative output I could have, the novels Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Woolf, and others wrote when they were off of their medication. Am I thinking I want to have the huge success of Lewis Carroll or Tennyson, both epileptic and both dear friends and neither of them once mentioned it except somewhat elliptically because epilepsy, friends, is our dirty little secret. it is the thing they tell you not to be ashamed about while calling you a “mouthing idiot” behind your back and saying you have “fits”, a term that went out of vogue with the bustle and Freud, so stick that in yer fucking pipe and take a look in the mirror. Who really is the idiot here? Well, I’d be the last to know because I have to tell you a little story, a true story, and one that any could say I truly brought upon myself because I was so sure and so self-righteous that I decided that in order to be truly authentic, it was a requirement that I be completely off of anticonvulsants. Did I mention I’m epileptic? I am.
If you ask me when it began, I could not say. Perhaps it began a few weeks ago when I notice d the twitch of one eye and chalked it up to a nervous tick. After all, I had just received a big promotion and so it would make sense. I often got funny ticks and things that came and went quickly, so I didn’t worry about it very much.
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