How do I know my meds are working?

People often ask me how I know my medication is working and how I know I will need it forever.  They are especially interested because I haven’t taken a medication “holiday” since the summer after my sophomore year in high school.  The answer is simple.  Every once in a while, a pill gets stuck in the pill container or I get distracted and don’t take a dose when I mean to.  The latter happened today.

I will post again shortly on how I manage my meds on a daily basis, but for the purpose of this post all you need to know is that my alarm went off at 11am today.  I was upstairs putting something away and when I came down to take my pills, I must have gotten distracted.  1:42 minutes later, I was
  • Generally lethargic, bored, and tired.
  • I was totally unmotivated to work out (even though it was on my calendar.)
  • I had also struggled to stay focused during a consultation at 11:30 and to use my working memory to schedule a session for next month. 
  • Today was the day that I planned to file my “To File” stack.  I got through my personal stack with great difficulty and quit before I got to the work stack.  And, I avoided making any new folders that needed to be made because It seemed like “a lot of effort.”
  • I ate lunch 3 times, because my brain was seeking stimulation in the form of salty yummy cheesy goodness.
  • I ultimately settled on watching The Following on the DVR, but even that wasn’t stimulating enough so I was playing Angry Birds Star Wars II while watching.
At 12:42 I realized I wasn’t medicated and took my pills.  38 minutes later, I mysteriously got off the couch and came in here to bang out the blog post I promised myself I was going to write today.  Coincidence?  I think not!
Off to work out!

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