Field Notes of a Schizo-Affective Genius Under Heavy Medication Damping: Entry No. 1
Today it is a Saturday morning and I am feeling stable and not as incapacitated by physical or mental fatigue. Brain fog is uncharacteristically low this morning as well. In other words, I am feeling pretty good today so far and fairly clear‑minded, too.However, I am still unable to write any new poetry or even to feel inspired in any creative sense. Moreover, I still find it difficult to enjoy any of my usual or customary interests or hobbies because of the side effects of my heavy medications (which, from time to time, I shall refer to here as “polypharmacy”).
Because of the side effects of my heavy polypharmacy, I am experiencing cognitive blunting, emotional flattening, and an overall sense of anhedonia, which is the loss of any ability to feel or experience pleasure in anything considered normal or customary. Consequently, I do not read, write, study, or experience inspiration anymore, and it has been that way since about 2 to 3 months after being put on an extremely large dosage of Uzedy, which is a monthly injection shot of the antipsychotic Risperidone (aka Risperdal).
I am currently on the maximum dosage of this psychotropic drug that is allowed, which is 125 mg per month (or the same as 250 mg every 2 months). In addition, however, my psychiatrist has also prescribed for me 3 mg every night at bedtime of oral tablets of the same drug, due to my severe case of schizo‑affective manic‑depression (aka schizo‑affective bipolar disorder), to help me fall asleep every night.
As far as I can tell so far, according to the literature, the maximum customary dosage that a patient would be prescribed of Uzedy monthly injection shots is 250 mg every 2 months, or the same as 125 mg per month. That means that, over and above, I am receiving a dosage of 430 mg of Uzedy and oral Risperidone in combination every 2 months, or the same as 215 mg of Risperidone every month.
To anyone reading this entry, that is an illustration of the severity and degree of my mental health diagnosis of bipolar disorder type I and schizo‑affective disorder (with ASD and 2e, as well). Needless to say, I am at the same time on other psychotropics (i.e., antidepressants and antipsychotics) like Depakote (aka Valproate) and Venlafaxine. As a result of these drugs, I am kept stable and largely able to function from day to day—assuming that I get my sleep every night, of course.
However, there are drawbacks to taking these life‑saving medications—“life‑saving” for me, anyway—namely the side effects that reduce or even strip me of my ability to be lucid and to have energy, as well as to be able to remain alert during the day. Before, I was always more or less able to experience bouts or episodes of hypo‑mania. As a poet, these would be a part of my ability to become adequately “inspired” to write new poems and sonnets.
But because of the Uzedy injection shots which I receive monthly, and the tablets of oral Risperidone at bedtime every night, I no longer am able to feel any inspiration or motivation to write anything anymore. This concerns me. Hopefully, my psychiatrist and I will be able to work together to find a workaround or solution to these unacceptable side effects which are destroying my ability to be myself and to enjoy quality of life again.
Still, my thinking today, as a very high‑ability mind under dampening, remains the same as it has been since I have been on this extremely high dosage of Uzedy and Risperidone in combination. My ability to write new poems or to be inspired again is rendered absent and gone.
Therefore, the best that I can currently hope for on good days like today is to be rid of most of the brain fog and mental as well as physical fatigue that I experience most of the time since my existence as a confirmed mental health patient and consumer. Being able to think clearly and to write well are important to me. So, naturally, in the beginning I was very alarmed and in despair over losing my creativity and sense of being profoundly gifted with high IQ as well.
In the meantime, I have acclimated to my sense of loss by engaging in mindless pursuits like doom‑scrolling on YouTube or simply being a couch‑potato for hours every day, practically. But this is unacceptable for me. Because this person that I have become is not the real me—the “me” who finds pleasure in learning something new every day and in pursuing the life of the mind; the “me” who believes that being a student is a lifelong activity from which one never graduates.
Be that as it may, by writing these periodic entries as an attempt to journal what it's like to be profoundly gifted and creative but dealing with severe suppression factors from heavy polypharmacy, I hope to once more find myself and at the same time open a little window to my high‑IQ—but schizo‑affective and bipolar—mind for my readers to see and, hopefully, understand better by gaining insights from my contemplations and situation.
I also hope to leave this entry (and others) as a record of my mind, one that still feels and reaches out to others in the attempt to heal itself and possibly others who find themselves in similar circumstances of life and of recovering from impaired intelligence and IQ due to mental illness.
Diary by Ngoc Nguyen
Written on 2026-06-14 at 17:11
Tags Bipolar Gifted Schizoaffective
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