Category: Emily is neurotic

I know this is technically not a limerick. It is, however, autobiographical.

*ahem*

Liquor before beer,
Never fear.

Wellbutrin before liquor,
Never sicker.

What do you think? Ok, I won’t quit my day job.

I first discovered this little equation a few months ago, when after a night on the town, I was sick the next day. And by sick, I mean I wanted. To. Die. It was awful. I had, however, imbibed a couple dozen drinks the night before, so I figured it was a run-of-the-mill hangover. Except it lasted all day long and I wanted to die. And it was Christmas Eve.

So I recovered eventually, and a month or so later we had friends over and I had a couple drinks. I’m not under-estimating that – I had two! Or maybe two and a half. But again, the next day, I was sick. I felt awful the entire day until I went to bed.

After that incident I recalled having read cautions about drinking alcohol while taking my anti-depressant of choice, Wellbutrin. I started to think that maybe, perhaps my illnesses were so pronounced because of the medication. That made me a little nervous about drinking at all, mostly because I was scared to feel horrible all day again but also because I wondered what the heck the combination was doing to my body if it left me feeling so bad. In fact, I was so nervous that when we went to Blissdom, I was afraid to get my drink on!

The irony of being unable to drink in a room full of teetotalers holding two free drink tickets a piece was not lost on me.

It was rather tragic.

Fast forward to tonight (or last night, what time is it anyway?). I met a group of friends after work for dinner, and then we went on to see Wicked. Not thinking a thing of it, I joined the rest of the girls (except the preggos, of course) in having a Wickedtini. Dinner was delicious, the company was great, and the show was fantastic.

But as I started my drive home, I realized I wasn’t feeling very well. My head hurt. I was a little nauseated. I was frickin’ HUNG OVER. From one drink! I drank water and took Advil and ate McDonald’s super value meal (ok I didn’t but it certainly would have helped). My husband laughed at me.

I’ve never been super-skilled at holding my liquor (although in comparison to Jenny I have the tolerance of a house full of frat guys), but this is ridiculous. It’s gotta be the medicine.

Either that, or I’m not as young as I used to be.

Yeah, it’s definitely the medicine.

Between the two of us, Jenny and I have been on five different kinds of birth control pills in the last year, and all five of them have been horrible. Do you know why? Because BIRTH CONTROL PILLS SUCK.

Until a week ago, I was on Yaz. However, it turns out Yaz has a special kind of hormone that tends to kill women. So call me crazy, but I went to the doc and asked for something else.

So I’ve been on Loestrin 24 for four days now, and call me crazy, but it is making me CRAZY. I am sure you’ll concur by the time you finish reading this post. Or this sentence. Whatever.

Anyway. Pumping hormones into our bodies? It makes no sense.

The feminist in me will always be thankful for the fact that we have any options at all, but why is it that decades after the initial invention we’re ok with the fact that in order to prevent pregnancy, we have to risk blood clots and strokes and general insanity?

This is 2010, for the love of God. We can make sure all 84-year-old men can have erections, but we can’t come up with any options for birth control that don’t have the potential to kill us? Seriously?

I can only imagine what kind of magical prophylactic pills and potions and fruit smoothies would be available if men were the ones who got knocked up.

All I want is to find something that won’t kill me, make me crazy, or make me fat. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently.

The worst symptom of this current hormonal cocktail I’m ingesting on a daily basis is that it’s making me angry. Can you tell?