Soup

Posted on November 17, 2005 in Psychotropics

I’m in the middle of a med change: the combustion engine within my skull ran too rich in mania, so I am on a lower dose of Effexor. Changes go with the treatment. Outsiders and patients wail about how psychiatry as a “voodoo science” which means that they want something smooth and uncomplicated like “chewing on banana peels while sniffing hamster dung will cure you.” Or better still: “this mental illness thing is an product of your psychiatrist’s imagination.” I hold to the metaphor that the process is cooking and it’s all about the spices. Too much of this? Remove it. Add that. As long as the soup simmers we check and check. My psychiatrist is the Grand Chef and I am the pot, bubbling over, burning, boiling until the two of us get the flavor and the temperature just right.