Make Psychiatric Medication Sexy

Jesus christ, but Lamictal’s a horrible tasting pill.

Can’t they coat medication in tasty chicken or something?  Tasty Lamictal chicken for mains, chocolate covered Seroquel for dessert.  All I need is melon flavoured Seroxat for starters and I’d be set.

I hate the taste of them. Lamictal tastes like paracetamol and I feel sick to my stomach for hours after taking it.  Seroquel is disgusting, and about a half hour after I take it, when the swaying, slurring drowsiness kicks in, I get cravings for food, any food.  I’ve been stood naked in my kitchen eating Weetabix from the packet, and come to bed squirrelling smoked ham.  Sometimes when I “wake up” (that is, come out of my drug-induced coma), I sleepily order Rob to get me some ice-cream, or a Snickers, or some jelly sweets.  In my day to day life I rarely eat crap, but when I’m drugged, I’ve sleepwalked to shops and come back with a Pot Noodle and a big bag of McCoys.  The next day, I awake to a pillow of wrappers and a throbbing toothache.

It can’t be a coincidence that American literature is dotted with tales of glassy eyed housewives sprinkling the vile tasting Lithium over iced desserts.  Taking it on its own, at least in my experience, makes you retch.  It’s a salty, bitter type of pill.  And Depakote is massive and looks like a blamange coloured lilo (the 500mg ones).  You choke about ten times before you finally swallow it.  People sniggering at the back there, shush.

Everybody knows that psychiatric medication is the pits.  The side effects are terrible, they make you sleepy and weird-feeling, your hair can fall out (as mine did on Depakote)  and they are credited by at least, ooh, a billion writers as killing their imagination.  It’s entirely understandable that I and many other of my Mentally Interesting brethren fantasise about flinging our pills into a river.  They should make medication a pleasure to take, then more people would take them.

Take note, AstraZeneca!  You could:

• Manufacture Seroquel as a delicious, nutritious, juicylicious beverage.  Call it “Sero-Qwell- Qwell Your Thirst!”, then, in tiny writing, …”and your schizophrenic/bipolar psychosis.  Do not operate heavy machinery, light machinery or even a mobile phone while taking this medication”.
• Have the option of all drugs being a chocolate-tasting bar, like Ex-Lax.  I have eaten an entire bar of Ex-Lax because it was tasty.  True, within the next second everything I had eaten for a year rushed out of me, but it was worth it.
• For drug addicts and alcoholics who need anti-anxiety medications or drugs such as Campral, simply manufacture the drug as a) a drink or b) something they can cook up with a spoon.  Hours of fun!
• To take the stigma off antipsychotics, call them “Promarvellous”s or a similar fluffy, “Well done you” name.  Or “Schizbegone”.
• And with antidepressants, call them, “Prohappiness”.  Everyone will want one!
• With every box of medication, get a free puppy!
• With every Lithium prescription, include a booklet on, “Lithium- The Drug It’s Cool To Take”, which contains the lyrics of “Lithium” by Nirvana and Tony Soprano’s experiences with Lithium.  (Let’s face it, Lithium is the bad-ass drug.  I’m slightly regretful that it made me so ill because it means I can’t smugly declare, “A BIG BAG OF LITHIUM PLEASE” when I go to the pharmacy.  The hush of awed respect is most rewarding).
• Medication should be like Love Hearts.   They should have cute notes inscribed on them so that when you rattle them out of their box, a veritable cascade of compliments flows into your hands.  For example, I take 400mg of Seroquel.  It’d be lovely if they said:

Or if I was suffering from delusions of reference…

…or delusions of persecution.

• They should list false side effects.  I know for a fact that a few of my friends who take Prohappiness pills secretly want the “excitable” side effect.  Rob took two of my Zopiclone in the hope that he’d hallucinate.  So, for antipsychotics, instead of weight gain, just list “weight gain may be concentrated around the penis or breast area”.  And instead of, “this medication may cause impotence”, write, “not taking this medication may cause impotence”.
• And in the patient information sheet, under WHAT THIS MEDICATION IS FOR, add the caveat, “…and to increase your IQ, creativity and capability”.
• On the same track, for antipsychotics, instead of warning, THIS MEDICATION IS FOR YOU.  DO NOT GIVE THIS MEDICATION TO ANYBODY ELSE, appeal to the paranoia of psychosis and say, “THIS MEDICATION IS FOR YOU.  BUT EVERYBODY ELSE WANTS IT.  IF YOU DON’T TAKE IT, THEY WILL TAKE IT”.
• Every time you take your medication, a tenner is deposited in your bank account.  Every time you don’t, a tenner is taken away.

Alternatively, if none of that works and people still don’t take their medication, include a small bomb embedded in the pill casing that explodes after seven days if the pills haven’t been popped.  That’ll work.