After a short stint on gabapentin, I’m back with nortriptyline to hopefully get my migraines under control. For whatever reason, they’ve been increasing in intensity and, well, I’d kind of like to not be in pain on an almost daily basis. If you recall, nortriptyline was the most successful med so far, but also seemed to kill my creativity. What that has to do with mental illness when I’m talking about a physical problem, well… It hasn’t escaped my notice that some of my more prolific periods of writing are when my various kinds of crazy aren’t under control. Worse yet, people generally seem to prefer the writing produced during these periods.

Nortriptyline is an anti-depressent (although I’m not taking it in doses large enough to be used for that purpose). While my dosage is small, it does have enough of an impact on my depression and anxiety that it tips me into a mental state where I’m productive in ways that I haven’t been in many years. It also… kind of leaves my brain blank (see the post where i go into this in detail).

I have vague memories of a writer (or some other kind of artist) discussing about how various popular depictions of the tortured artist convinced him that he had to suffer for art. In this case, I think it was depression.

I don’t want this to be me. So what I’m going to try and do is see if I can figure out how to tap into my creativity while being a reasonably functional and not crazy sort of person (relative to me, of course). Ultimately, I still think that this is the path my ancestors want me to talk and I’m trusting that they’ll help me navigate this new territory.

(This post itself, is my first real attempt. Writing in this state isn’t easy exactly because I kind of space out on a fairly frequent basis. But… here’s hoping for the best.)