i am not so fond of constant stimulation

So my dad was admitted to the ER complete with ambulance drama and everything, which is one of the few things that make an ER visit bearable; at least you get to do it in an awesome vehicle. A medical batmobile, if you will.

There was chest pain and x-rays and everything and my mom called to check in four times, once to tell us he was admitted to the hospital and the last time to say she was going home, when originally she'd planned to stay the night.

I'm terrible at these sorts of things, to be honest. The comfort thing, I mean. I am. I'm good at getting things done; give me tasks and the awareness that no one else can do it and I'm there. It's the one exception to my natural state of extreme laziness; if there is an emergency, for the most part, the more people that panic, the calmer I get. I'm pretty sure if I was ever involved in a plane crash, I'd be the one looking like some kind of sociopath droning put your head between your knees and buckling people into seatbelts as the ocean comes into focus behind me.

If one person however, looks capable of handling the situation--they don't actually have to realistically be able to do so, a visual assessment will do it--I'm utterly useless for anything more important than walking in randomly designated paths looking desperate. No one sane would give me a task; I will barely understand the words they're saying. I don't trust me, is the thing; my brain sees anyone else around and assumes, instantly, that of course they could do it better, why do I think I could do anything about this? I'm not sure how that works, to be honest. It's not a conscious shucking of responsibility because I don't want it, but more because there is no possible way in creation that I could actually be a preferred choice for anything.

I am told knowing this about oneself is half the battle. The rest of the battle is on hold for the foreseeable future, but I'm going to say this; self-awareness is so fucking overrated.

So my dad went to the ER by ambulance and every one of us was preternaturally calm, like watching L&O: Criminal Intent where a family of sociopaths go about their daily tasks. We're still pretty much there; Dad was admitted and mom's coming home and it's raining, and my task was to get the number of the cab company. I'm really calm about this and I find it worrying because so is everyone else and I can't work out if it's because I'm actually not worried, in denial, or explanation unknown. Or it's complicated with my dad is not in great health and he's not exactly contributing toward getting himself better, and while I don't wish chest pains on him or anything admittance to the hospital might help for reasons unrelated to whatever reason he went in. It's like getting a wish in a very questionable way; if I was sure teh chest pains were just indigestion but now that he's there, someone who isn't his personal doctor might do something instead of giving him a mix of medications that is slowly but thoroughly moving him into a sedentary life that sometimes isn't entirely here.

I know what he takes, I keep lists, I blinked at the combinations they were using, the amounts, fixing the side effects of one by adding another and another; beyond blood pressure and physiological and hydrocodone and tramadol, the psychiatric, xanax, paxil, zoloft, prozac, the anti-anxieties and the anti-depressants and the combinations thereof, some of which I can't even remember but we live in the age of computers and I can find them all again if I have to, and it's not that I don't get people do in fact need those, he started them around the same time that his more serious medical conditions hit and he's diabetic for God's sake and yet.

I don't believe there is a culture of doctors who are trying to medicate people in lieu of treatment; I'm not sure what to think of his doctor, though. I'm not a medical professional but I know my Rx and combination side effects and I'm not sure it's overmedication but I'm also not sure his doctor was following up carefully when you're giving someone a free pass on an entire family of seratonin-inhibitors either. And God knows my flist is a veritable encyclopedia on the psychotropics and I pay attention.

I couldn't argue this with him or my mom, who is alive due to Prozac/Paxil and my standing is shaky since I won't take antidepressants for personal reasons that have nothing to do with not knowing they work, because hey, I know they do and heavily support my mother and younger sister continuing their current regime. They see it as me being anti-medication, which no. I'm just anti-combination of anything that's doing that much chemical manipulation of his brain and whose combined side effects raise the chances of some seriously iffy stuff before I add in the pharmacy he takes for diabetes and high blood pressure and whatever else there is, which is a lot.

I don't trust myself here; the hospital is better qualified to figure this out. And I still want to say, to a doctor, to someone, look at this list. Look at this list for the last ten years I've been tracking this. What were they thinking with this? His degeneration in health is based on his not so great habits, but I'm not entirely sure being given that everchanging cocktail of psychiatric medications didn't contribute to the bursts of anger and lethargy and hopelessness and numbness and depression and that's just what I can admit to myself I've seen. There was this time with a gun and this time with a breakdown and this time this time this time this time. I have so many of these and some of them I don't even think I remember because I didn't want to. He's never been violent, or monstrous or a zombie or cruel, nothing easy I can point to and say, this, this, this. It's all in the spectrum of neurotypical response, though never consistent on where it will fall.

I'm ridiculously angry, because the over-reactionary reaction to overmedication has created a reactionary culture that makes it hard to find ground where the goddamn question isn't a political statement or a philosophy. Even asking the question is a statement that never is heard the way I'm trying to ask it: you gave my dad prozac and xanax and paxil and x and y and z and sometimes all of them and I'll cop to my lack of psychiatric experience if you cop to the fact he's changed in a way that's not personality but the ability to express that personality. I do not need to be told I have no idea what I'm talking about--that part I get. That's why I need to know.

Some of this he's been on for years and years and I don't think he's ever seen an actual psychiatrist, whose word I'd trust more if they said, yes, there are good reasons for that combination, for this one, here's why. This comes from an GP and they are many wonderful things but they aren't by definition someone who lives and breathes treating the chemistry of the brain.

Maybe that's how I feel right now. I'm scared that I'm glad he was admitted because maybe it's serious and I'll hate myself for the faint hope that there, surrounded with some of the best medical care we can get, somehow, someone will accidentally answer my questions, because God knows that's the only way it will happen. There's so much that's impossible to say because it makes it too true, but I know time isn't an ally.

Disabled comments; this is for everyone's benefit. I don't know where I am precisely and I'm fairly sure I shouldn't use my flist as experimental ground on my emotional state.