NEW! My Violent Seizure Orgasm poem is making an appearance in Black Flowers!

 "Birds hold razor blades inside their mouths.

Chirps turn into screams." The first two lines of my short "Violent Seizure Orgasm" poem, which appears within the NEW Black Flowers Volume Twelve HERE - https://blackflowers.online/violent-seizure-orgasm-juliet-cook

Side Effects May Include

A few times in my early twenties and early thirties, I saw therapists primarily because I was having a hard time handling my own obsessive compulsive streaks, panic, and anxiety. I was never looking for a pill to fix myself or tone myself down. I didn't feel that my issues were severe enough to automatically dive in to a pill. I thought pills were too often over prescribed for the wrong reasons (such as pharmaceutical industry reasons).  I didn't want to tone down my own personality, my emotions, or other parts of the real me, especially since I thought that my strong emotions were a large intrinsic element to my natural creative process, passion, genuine communication, poetry, and art. Despite sharing those feelings with therapists, pills were recommended anyway, but I always declined that recommendation, deciding for myself that I'd only take them if I really needed them in order to live a semi-normal life.  I am grateful that I was always able to handle my own mental glitches without having to resort to a pill. I know quite a few people with more severe mental issues who have less of a choice in the matter.

Seven or eight years ago, when I unexpectedly started having seizures, I had less of a choice in the matter too, because it was either take a pill or have more seizures. I was initially very unhappy (borderline depressed) about it, because I had been an anti-pill person for years (again, primarily because of the pharmaceutical industry and pills being quickly and easily and casually over prescribed without much personal analysis of the brains they would be impacting), but the first few seizures I'd had involved suddenly passing out in a public place and peeing my pants and suddenly waking up in my own bed at home, feeling out-of-it, confused, and finding out that I had knocked down a bunch of stuff in my house with no recollection of how or when or why and I had banged the back of my head against something with enough severity that I had a welt and needed to go to the ER and get checked for a possible concussion. That's when I ended up being unexpectedly admitted to the hospital, undergoing various tests, and finding out that my brain was now prone to seizures. That's when I ended up having a seizure pill prescribed to me and feeling angry and out of control, because my choices seemed so limited and I don't remember them ever even being discussed with me.  A certain pill was just automatically prescribed to me.

Despite serious initial unhappiness about the situation, I did what I needed to do, and started taking my suddenly prescribed seizure pills. The generic pill I was prescribed had significant side effects for a month or two, the worst ones being that it toned down my energy, toned down my passion, drained my emotions, and made me care less about things that were usually important to me.  But thankfully, I acclimated myself to that pill within a few months and after that, for the most part, I had no major side effects for years.  

Unfortunately, near the end of last year, the manufacturer's version of the generic seizure pill I'd been taking for years stopped being available at my pharmacy or any other pharmacy near me.  My mom made a substantial effort to  help me by researching other manufactured versions of my generic pill and we chose the one that appeared to have the least complaints from people who were using it. I began taking it shortly before the New Year.

I had one seizure within the first week of the New Year  (which might be fairly common when someone switches from a pill with one set of fillers to a pill with another set of fillers). In addition to that, after years of being free from pill side effects, I'm experiencing side effects again and they're not very comfortable. I'll think I'm getting used to the pill and have a day or two of feeling close to normal, but then I'll have multiple days in a row that involve anxiety and/or panic and/or an entire day where I feel semi-randomly annoyed and angry.

It strikes me as uncomfortably ironic that some of the side effects I'm experiencing with this new manufactured version of my seizure pill are like more extreme variations on the mental quirks I chose NOT to take pills for in the past. My anxiety has increased.  My illogical panic has increased (various times I've semi-randomly woken up in the middle of the night, sweating, heart racing, brimming with terribly uncomfortable illogical thoughts, related to health and death - and then I have to stay up for an hour or so, so I'm not lying in bed with a pounding heart and weirdly throbbing bodily organs - and then when I do lie back down, I feel the need to keep a light on, in case the panic escalates again). I've also been feeling semi-randomly annoyed and somewhat angry more than usual. Things that usually bother me a little have been bothering me on a more irrational larger scale.  So far, it hasn't reached the point where I feel like I can't handle this, but there's been several occasions where it's gotten close.  I mean,  I feel like I can handle this TEMPORARILY, but I sure don't want to feel like this for the rest of my life - alternating between feeling like I'm on some sort of irregular speed pill then anxiety then panic then not feeling like getting out of bed (probably because my sleep keeps getting interrupted by panic), then random annoyance about life.

On the definite plus side, I'm glad my strong emotions still exist, even though they're a little too extreme - and I'm glad I still care enough to express myself, even though sometimes I don't feel like it.

I've been on this new version of the pill now for almost (but not quite) a month and even though I really wish these side effects would have stopped by now,  unless they get significantly worse, I'm planning to stick with the pill for close to another month, before I try another approach.

Because frankly, the only other approaches are to stop taking a seizure pill and be prone to having more seizures and damaging my body or snapping my neck - OR to try ANOTHER different manufacturers version of the pill and experiment with the side effects of THAT for a month or two. And what if the next one is even worse? What if it drains my energy? What if it tones down my real emotions and genuine passion? What if it causes me to feel like I don't really care about anything anymore? What if it makes me suicidal? At least this current batch, despite its unlikable side effects, isn't draining me into an unemotional zombie.  I still feel like the real me, slightly extremified.  I still have strong feelings; they're just exaggerated. My flaws and weaknesses are exaggerated. My neck feels weirder than usual. My boobs feel contorted and misshapen like they're blobbing themselves further to the side. I feel like nobody really cares. I feel like this is just the way it has to be, for no apparent reason. 

And I'll bet the pharmaceutical industry doesn't really give a fuck about any of this. I'll bet the main reason I can no longer acquire the generic manufacturer's version of the pill my brain had gotten used to and that was working reasonably well for me for years is because that generic version was overtaken by cheaper generic versions. And as for the original name brand version, I'll bet the average person can't afford it, even with their work related health insurance, because sometimes health insurance just helps with the generic pills.

The medical industry seems to just sort of automatically expect us to take the pills we're prescribed, the pharmaceutical industry seems to sell the cheapest pills they can acquire/get away with, and both industries seem to be lacking in the department of bothering to realize or care very much about how many people don't have many affordable options. For financial reasons, some people have to skip pills or cut their prescribed dosage of pills in half. Luckily for me, my health insurance covers the bulk of my pill costs and I can afford the part it doesn't cover - but that's only if I take the generics, so my options are somewhat limited - but my options aren't anywhere near as challenging or limited as some people's. I have it better off than some people I know whose pills are so expensive that even if there health insurance covers parts of it, there out of pocket expenses are still more than a hundred bucks a month. I have it better off than people who can't afford ANY pills.

I'm on one fairly low dose pill that I take twice a day.  What about people who are on multiple pills that they have to take multiple times a day? How are they able to handle the multiple costs/multiple pills, monetarily and mentally?  How are they able to handle the way the pills interact with their brain combined with the way the pills interact with each other? Especially if they're sometimes given different manufacturer's versions of their pills with no advance notice.  How is anyone just randomly expected to handle the side effects of generics that switch to different generics that switch to different generics?

In my experience, even generic pills with the same name that are made from different manufacturers, seem to have significantly different side effects. Heck, that's what most of this piece of writing is about. What I haven't mentioned yet is that one of the worst seizures I ever experienced happened less than a year after I had started taking my pill. I had gone to my pharmacy to pick up a refill, the bottle of pills they gave me had the same pill name as usual, but the pills looked different. Since they had the same pill name and since the pharmacy gave them to me without expressing anything different than usual, I just figured the color and shape of the pill had changed.  But a few days into taking that pill, I was watching something on TV and suddenly started to see red flashing lights. My TV is near my screen door, near the back of my house, so at first I thought there was a cop car outside and I was seeing its red flashing lights from the screen door. Then I turned around and looked in the other direction and the red flashing lights were there too.  It didn't matter where I looked, it didn't matter whether I looked up or down, it didn't matter whether my eyes were opened or closed, the red strobe lights were everywhere, flashing all over the place, and I couldn't see the details of anything. I thought I was dying. I thought I was having another stroke. I could see my cell phone, but I couldn't see any of the letters or numbers on it. I started to panic and I started to scream. I thought I was going to die. I couldn't see the fine print on my own cell phone because everything was infiltrated with red strobes. Then I just tried to press things on my phone, even though I couldn't see what I was pressing, and somehow I managed to connect with one of my sisters whose first name starts with an A.

It turned out I wasn't dying; I was just having a weird visual, pre-seizure side effect from a different manufacturer's version of my generic seizure pill that had just been  automatically handed to me without the pharmacist saying a word about anything possibly being different.

I don't want to take this too much further, because even though I think I've expressed valid points, I also realize they're nothing new, at least not to most other people on pills - and also, I don't know what to do about it. But instead of just silently sucking shit up, I at least wanted to share some of my thoughts and feelings and attempt to excavate some frustration out of my system (versus THE system), so it doesn't stay stuck in some panic alert in my brain. 

For those of us who have a personal experience or semi-personal experience with prescribed pills that we're supposed to take on an ongoing basis for health reasons, whether mental health or otherwise (or for those of you who don't have such an experience at this point in your lives), one fact of the matter is that many of us who have been prescribed pills can only afford the randomly changing generics - and many  members of the pharmaceutical industry and medical industry don't seem to think that's any big deal (because it's a deal that's overridden by monetary deals and it's just part of the system). This seems to indicate that in the larger scale of things, poor people deserve to suffer and die before rich people - and poor people with health conditions and/or mental disorders beyond their own control deserve to deal with more generic side effects galore.

semi-random little personal blog post about pills and the beginning of my 2018 and Tutti Fuckin Fruity

Felt and sounded negative much of last week, do to having a random back muscle strain followed by an unexpected seizure later that day, which was a real bummer, especially combined with the fact that I was starting to feel worried that maybe the new manufacturer's variation of my seizure pill wasn't working well for me.

Honest question. Why in the hell are pills prescribed for unintentional brain glitches, unintentional mental disorders, and unintentional heath issues derived from corporate entities and money based companies and the same generic brand name can be made with different fillers, Manufactured by a Pharmaceutical Company in China and Distributed by a Healthcare U.S. LLC brand, whatever that even means?

I mean, with the new manufacturer's version of the same low dose pill I've been on for years, I was too often feeling like I was on some damned pill, with these unnatural thoughts and feelings of ramped up edginess and nerviness and little bits of panic (on the brink of panic attacks) and a kind of energy that didn't feel like my natural kind of energy. 

But I guess that's no big deal for one low dose pill to mess with someone's brain? 

Heck, what about the many people who are on (more than) one higher dosed pill(s)?

Maybe the average person doesn't think it's a very big deal that the generic versions of pharma pills change their filler ingredients, which basically consists of suddenly putting your body and brain on a different pill with the same name?

I think maybe I'm someone whose body and brain doesn't naturally adapt well to pills anyway.  I've hardly ever taken any pills, other than aspirin and ibuprofen for headaches and menstrual cramps, and the few times I've been prescribed a pill for a UTI or a sinus infection.

It seems like even low dose pills affect me too much. I remember one time, years ago, when I took some sort of sudafed pill for a sinus issue or a cold, and the next thing I knew, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't think normally, my mind was racing, my heart was racing, it was like everything had been unnaturally, uncomfortably sped up, like I had popped some illicit illegal speed drug when all I had done was taken a sudafed pill that you don't even need a prescription for.

And now one week after starting this new variation on my seizure pill, I had a new seizure. The edgy, unnatural, uncomfortable feelings finally seem to be settling down and hopefully they will go away soon.

Fingers crossed towards hoping that I'm finally getting used to the pill a few weeks in, because I don't really have any other options, other than trying another different version, crossing my fingers again, and having another few uncomfortable mental/physical weeks to get acclimated and decide if I'm okay, while people who aren't on ANY pills are trying to convince me that I'm fine. Sometimes I feel like telling these people who aren't on any pills to take my pills twice a day before they feel free to offer me any personal assessment about the matter. I mean seriously you guys, how do you know how this feels? You can research it online, but it's not inside your own body and mind - yet parts of you still seem to feel as if your online assessment outweighs my own personal mental/physical experience?

I don't think it's anyone's personal fault if their brain can't easily acclimate itself to a new generic, semi-corporate pill in less than a week. Maybe I'm just stating/slightly explaining the obvious out loud.

As for my new Tutti Fuckin Fruity shirt, it was an Xmas gift from my main man. 

My first scary aura

Some people might perceive an aura as being a potentially exhilarating experience; perhaps even spiritual in some sort of way - but imagine how non-fun and un-exhilarating it might be when you unexpectedly experience it for the first time as a freakish brain misfire.

I was watching TV and suddenly red & green lights appeared to be spewing out of the TV screen - then spewing from my back door – then red & green lights everywhere I looked no matter where I turned my head. They were bright and strange and unsettling and I started to feel faint and afraid, so I crawled towards my bed, just in case I was going to pass out. Since I didn’t know what was happening and thought I might be on the brink of dyeing, I decided to call my parents right away, but that’s when the situation became even scarier. I could not see the letters or numbers on my cell phone and could not understand its shape or how it worked.

My right arm was starting to tingle and feel a bit limp; causing me to worry it might be on the brink of paralysis, which it was after I suffered from an unexpected stroke a few years ago. My right eye was not seeing properly or clearly and I was trying to hold my phone up close to my left eye and somehow figure out how to press a name that already had its number plugged in. It took way too long, but I finally somehow managed to call my sister who lives near me. At that point, I was having trouble speaking and could not explain the situation in any details, but could only say that something was wrong with me.

My parents soon made it to my house; while waiting I don't remember exactly what happened; but it involved weird sounds randomly zooming around the air. Once my parents arrived, I had significant trouble speaking/explaining/saying the right words. We thought about going to the Emergency Room, but I REALLY did not want to, because last time I did that, I was there for several un-appealing days, receiving all sorts of tests to see if I’d had a seizure – and even though the testing did not clearly indicate that I’d had a seizure, they prescribed me with a seizure pill anyway.

Guess what we think caused last night’s incident? I have been taking my seizure pill for quite a few months now, due to MAYBE having had a seizure this past August. Apparently sometimes people who have suffered from strokes are more prone to seizures after that, which is the main reason I was prescribed this pill even though the hospital testing did not prove I’d had a seizure. I had very recently gone to pick up my new generic batch of the pill I've been taking and they had switched it to a different generic batch pill with different side ingredients. My mom and I both questioned that, but the pharmacy people acted like that was nothing major or unusual and was just the way it was. Well, I took my very first dose of that new version of my pill yesterday - and yesterday evening was the only time I've ever experienced an aura in my entire life.

This is one reason why I dislike most doctors, pharmacists, and especially the pharmaceutical industry and how they handle pills (to make money). Do they really think it's no big deal to suddenly just switch someone's pill to a different generic version with different ingredients? The fact of the matter is they probably just don’t care. What do they care about one individual who for about a month after starting her first pill had serious sleep issues and less passion and less inspiration and felt far more like, 'oh whatever' about a lot of things then she had ever felt before in her life. I spent significant time napping and not caring as much as usual about most things. Then my body finally acclimates itself to that pill; I'm finally getting back to feeling passionate, artistic, energetic, productive and active again. THEN they randomly switch my pill to a new pill.

Fortunately, on the definite plus side, my mom did some research for me last night/this morning (I can’t research pills too much myself or I would probably freak out while reading about all their potential side effects and just stop taking them), found out I’d had an aura due to my sudden pill switch, and called a different pharmacy who seemed surprised that the other one had randomly switched my pill - and they agreed to give me the old version of my pill today - so I got it, took it, and feel fine now, albeit a little overly tired and achy.

It was sure a scary little unexpected episode last night though - especially when I couldn't see the numbers or letters or shape of my phone for an extended time period and thought I might be suddenly losing my eye site...then more of my brain...and then my life, unable to even make contact with anyone to try to help me. Hopefully something like that will never happen again, although if it does, at least next time, I will have an idea what is happening to a certain extent; thus even though it would still be very uncomfortable, unlikable and somewhat scary, I think I would be able to convince myself I wasn’t dying.

In any case, it sure felt like an oddly extreme, uncomfortable brain related mess last night, especially considering I had only taken half a dose of the new version of my pill thus far. It really makes me feel sorry for people who have to take higher dosage versions of that pill and/or a multitude of different pills and then experience a negative side effect and not even know which pill it’s coming from.

Seizure Horror Fest

At the moment, I don’t really feel like writing about this or doing much of anything, but if I don’t write/do things, then what is the point of existing, so I guess I will give this a try.

This past week was an unexpectedly unfortunate, bad week for me. It was supposed to be a uniquely creative week, involving my first time being a part of the extra-special Kerouac Fest at the Grand Midway Hotel in Windber PA. Part of the festivities were going to involve me & Margaret Bashaar introducing Margaret’s new poetry chapbook, ‘LETTERS FROM ROOM 27 OF THE GRAND MIDWAY HOTEL’ , which was inspired by the haunted hotel and published by my Blood Pudding Press. Unfortunately, I did not get to go and participate in that.

The day before I was to leave, I was working on packing my attire and took a quick break online. A few minutes after 3:00, I wrote a comment to Margaret on facebook. The next thing I knew, I woke up, was lying on my bed, and was gazing upon my new manikin with confusion, not remembering where it had come from. Even my older headless manikin seemed confusing. Even all the clothes lying on my bedroom floor and the passage of time seemed confusing.

As soon as I got up, it got worse. I felt nauseated, dizzy, faint, and as though I was about to pass out. I immediately become afraid that I was dying. About a year and a half ago, I had suffered from a sudden, unexpected carotid artery dissection which led to a couple aneurysms which led to a stroke. Was I having another stroke? Was I about to die? I felt like I was going to faint and collapse. I called my mom. As I glanced at my cell phone, I saw that it wasn’t quite 4:00 yet, so it’s not as though a lot of time had elapsed since I was online, but what had happened since then?

My sister and parents arrived to my house shortly. I was still feeling disoriented and dizzy – and we soon found out that I must have fallen down hard, because the back of my head was terribly bruised and painful. I later found out that the bottom of each elbow was also bruised. Within about an hour, most of my memory came back to me, except for the memory of when/how/why/where I had fallen down. I figured I had suddenly passed out but why? That is not something that often happens to me. I had been feeling fine that day, eating healthy, drinking plenty of water. I wasn’t drinking any alcohol or doing any drugs. What the heck had happened?

We decided I should go to the emergency room just to make sure I did not have a concussion. I wasn’t lucking forward to doing that; I was worried it would take several hours, when I still had packing and other last minute preparation for my trip, for which I was scheduled to depart via Megabus the next morning. Unfortunately, I did not end up departing. Even though my CAT scan did not indicate a concussion, they suggested the fact I couldn’t remember what had happened made them feel as if I could have had a seizure, so they wanted to send me to the hospital for more testing.

Next thing I know I’m inside an ambulance, talking with the man behind me. I wasn’t in a terrible mood because I was thinking that my hospital testing would last a few hours, then I’d be home and even though I would be rushed, I’d still have time to prepare for leaving the next morning. Well instead, I ended up being in the hospital from Tuesday night until Friday night, receiving multiple tests and lying around on a hospital bed with an IV inserted and a heart monitor plugged in. Instead of being part of an artsy extravaganza with poet and photo artist friends, I was a hospitalized, disabled, out of control old lady.

And then even though none of my testing indicated that I’d had a seizure, they still decided that I should take seizure pills, twice daily, just to be on the safe side. Well I have always been an anti-pill person; the last thing I want is some pill changing my personality, my passion, my sex drive, my interest in life, and/or making me fat. Blah blah BLAH.

I've not had a seizure before in my life; I don't have epilepsy. BUT sometimes people who suffer from a stroke then start having seizures, due to how the stroke affected their brain. BUT my stroke happened more than a year and a half ago, so why would seizures suddenly start overtaking me after all that time? After a rather crappy (sad, depressing, difficult) year or so, things were finally becoming so much happier and better - and now I'm going to start having seizures? I'm hoping it was just a weird fluke.

But even if it was a fluke, the pill I've been given is a seizure related pill – and research indicates that some people have bad side effects from it. I'm really quite nervous about it. Again, I don't want a pill to change my personality, my energy, my poeticism, or anything like that.

I don’t want it to zone me out or make me unemotional. I don’t want it to make me uninterested in poetry, uninterested in art, uninterested in knee highs, uninterested in almost everything.

I don't want a pill to change me. I don't want to be lacking in passion.

I’ve started taking the darn pill but have also started taking notes and will share some of those soon.

I could go into more detail and perhaps I shall later, but being in the hospital for four days and then feeling out of it and depressed my first few days home have put me behind, so for now I need to get to work on publishing and promoting the chapbook that I was supposed to have available live at a haunted hotel while hanging out with its scrumptious poet lady, but alas. Instead I’m all worried about seizure medicine. Blech.