The Māori KETO-nic

In it, instead of jewellery, or makeup, or silk scarves, beanie babies or tiny plastic unicorns which smell like an assortment of berries, I keep drugs. 
 I keep all the drugs I have been prescribed and subsequently had to stop taking, since 1997, when I was first diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder.
First, you have to be aware, that if you are under the care of the Mental Health Service in New Zealand, you get a different Psychiatrist every six months and they are usually fresh faced, earnest, lovely people who want to do amazing things.  Also, my file is as thick as an elephants thingy.  So I have no clue if they read the entirety of my medical file before prescribing or not.

Te pūroi Pakeha

At the bottom of the pink box is Eplilim, a drug also used to treat epilepsy, a drug that was prescribed to David, my late husband, when he developed epilepsy after his accident.  I watched this drug turn him from a lithe,  thoroughbred racehorse to an overweight, cart dragging bullock in a matter of weeks.  It was prescribed to me by a very ‘Freudian’ looking American; against my wishes. This drug made me pack on 30 kg in a matter of weeks,  I also got tremors like a junkie, slurred speech, and I kept walking into things like walls and lamp-posts. It did not stop the voices or the visions that scared the crap out of me. I don't think it helped me, in fact I am certain it made me much worse, but what do I know, I'm not a health professional.
The next little miracle was Aropax which made me even fatter.  (See, this is why people want to do drugs like cocaine, you might freak the fuck out but at least you’re skinny when you do it) 

Lady fecking Gaga

I lost the ability to hold a thought and somehow ended up covered in mysterious bruises, which made me wonder if I was getting beaten up in the middle of the night. I wasn’t (well no one admitted giving me the bash) but then I couldn’t really sleep as my brain wouldn’t stop racing.  I was hallucinating and I was sweating like a pig, way-way before hot flashes were meant to arrive.  
I have to insert Seroquel here, an anti-psychotic which was meant to stop the hallucinations, it didn't, and it  caused a fog that descended on my brain that made me as dumb as a bag of rocks. The Aropax also gave me heart palpitations, which got so bad and painful, I once had to stop the car on the motorway, with my daughters in the car and ask if they - one was fourteen the other ten - could drive us because I thought I was having a heart attack.  Eventually I had to put myself and my girls at risk and pick up a hitchhiker so he could drive us home.  
Then we have the sweet little devil Tegretol, which amongst other delights took all the light, joy, creativity and physical coordination out of my life.  I turned into a drooling, shuffling, moron but it did affect my appetite so I didn’t want to eat for months. This was the only upside to the experience, but then of course they switched me to Clonazepam, of which a single dose could have knocked out a dozen elephants.  My brain felt as if someone not only turned out the light, but slowed down the speed of everything, especially your eyes, ears, arms legs and body.  It is like being filled with concrete.  Also, I ended up covered in a rash.  
Oh no, I forgot to mention Zopiclone, my constant companion since 1997,  to which I am physiologically addicted and which I have spent the last ten years trying to get off.  
Yes folks, there is no real happy ending to all this. Not yet anyway.  

The real world

 I weaned myself off all the anti-nut-job drugs in 2007, as I was trying to complete a degree, which is quite difficult when your cognitive abilities are set in plaster of Paris. I got a degree in Art and Design, and then an advanced Graduate Diploma in Creative writing.  
But, then like all miracles, there is a sting in the tail end of this tale.  
I have absolutely no stamina, nada, nothing. The weight gain caused by the drugs, refuses to abandon me, so I’m a fatty, and lumping it.  It also caused PCOS, which means my hormones are a menace and I ended up with a period that lasted 5 years, which increases in intensity when I’m stressed.  
Also the years of prescribed drugs may or may not have caused ‘Graves disease’ which I have, causing my thyroid to whizz off out of control and which has meant a whole new cocktail of drugs, Carbimazole for two years, and then after they fried my thyroid with radiation and killed it dead, Thyroxine which I have to take in ever increasing doses. 

The Pink Box

So now I keep my pink box in the top of my wardrobe so I can bring it out every once in a while, like Long John Silver’s treasure and run my fingers through the boxes, bottles and sealed foil topped blister packs and wonder at how I could have put one foot in front of the  other...