Smokin' in My Little Room

I fired up the heater in the little room my father built in the garage for smoking cigars in the last few years before he died. I now use it in the winter for smoking cigarettes- as I live at home with my mother and soon-to-be step-father, I cannot smoke inside, and my little smoke room is the next best thing. It reminds me of where I was at mentally when I last smoked in there, at the end of last winter.

I was just starting to come out of my idle days of laying on the couch and staring off at the ceiling or at the pictures on the wall. I had been sleeping at least 12 hours a day, had completely lost my sex drive, and had no energy, stamina, or motivation, and generally just didn't feel like "myself." I was experiencing what is considered to be the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, such as lethargy, apathy, lack of motivation, and lack of emotion, causing me to become much more withdrawn and reticent.

When I was in the hospital in California, they started me on a medication called Risperdal. Fortunately this drug quickly eliminated the positive symptoms I was having (the paranoia, delusions and hearing voices), enabling me to be discharged and taken back to New Hampshire to live with my mother. However, I suffered from the negative symptoms of schizophrenia, in addition to dealing with the side effects of the medication- which are actually hard to distinguish from the illness.

Finally, near the end of last winter my new psychiatrist (who I am very grateful to have in my life) weaned me off of the Risperdal and started me on a medication called Abilify. After some time the new drug started to assuage the negative symptoms and I started having more energy, my sex drive came back (although still being without a sex life) and I started reading and reading and reading. I would read for eight hours a day, punctuated by trips out to my smoke room. Sure, I was still sitting around the house all day, but my mind was starting to become more active, I grew more talkative, and laughter and smiles came back into my life.

Thoughts of all this came back to me as I sat smoking a cig in the little room.