I hate taking my medication.
When I was in the fourth grade, I had my first epileptic fit. I was quite young at the time, and I really wasn't sure what had happened. I was sitting in class drawing some pictures, and the next thing I knew, it was 2:00 AM and I was in the hospital. My parents were standing next to me when I woke up. I was scared, very scared.
My mother and father told me that I had a little thing known as epilepsy. I had no idea what that meant. The doctor explained what it was, and that I would have to take pills every day so that it did not happen again.
Let's cut to the chase. That was almost thirteen years ago, and I am still on the same medication. Valproic acid, I fucking hate it. It is used to treat more than just epilepsy. I hate it due to the side effects I almost always encounter when I take it. About an hour or so after I take my first dose in the morning, I begin to see black or yellow spots before my eyes. I also hate the way it makes my mind work.
Depakote is also used by people who are manic depressive. I am not manic depressive, but the medication thinks that I am. It causes me to think about some very weird stuff. I often find myself zoning out and drifting away into some alternate universe. When I was fifteen years old the drugs began causing me to hallucinate. I was in the car with my mom on our way to the gas station, when she noticed I was talking to myself. She said that I was asking someone a question, but there was no one in the car other than my mom and I. I really do not remember, which brings me to the one thing that I hate the most about my medication: Memory loss. I have a very difficult time remembering a lot of things. My girlfriend gets angry with me because I often forget what she tells me on the phone. My parents will ask me to do something like clean the house while they are at work, and I totally forget. To combat my forgetfulness, I write myself little notes. Like in that movie memento.