The Scarlet Pimpernel

I came across The Scarlet Pimpernel when tidying my bedroom yesterday. I have never been able to read it and yet I count it among my favourite books. Soon after I got ME I was put on Amitriptyline, I was on it for three years (recommendation is for only three months). This was not because I was depressed because at that time I wasn't it was because at that time ME was thought to be a mental illness, it also is meant to help with pain relief. I was on 50mg a day for most of it.

It made me very zombie like, I got very bad insomnia, I lost my appetite and became very bloated and gained weight and in the last year year became very depressed. It didn't really work, I was still in pain and I was on the highest dose. In the last year we tried to decrease my dose with varying degrees of success, in the end we couldn't go further than 25mg. We had been told that it wasn't addictive but I would say that it was physically addictive, my body through a tantrum every time we tried to reduce it or come off it. It masked my senses and so coming off it meant that I had to face the full reality of what I actually felt. The doctors were not particularly helpful as they wanted to keep me on it.

Eventually Mummy and I decided that I would come off it no matter what it took and I went cold turkey.
What followed was the worst two and a half weeks in my life. I didn't sleep, I was in incredible pain, I was sweating and feverish and couldn't get out of bed. There was one night where I was in the most pain I have ever been in and I never want to feel that again. It was horrible, my parents tried to get a doctor to come out and give me a painkiller shot as the Co-codamol and other painkillers I was on were not making the remote bit of difference.

He refused when he found out I had ME, so to help me my parents stayed up through the night and read in shifts The Scarlet Pimpernel to me. They got me through that night, changing my sheets, getting the pills, constantly refilling the hot water bottle and just being there with me. Whenever I doubt that my parents love me I remember that night and it completely banishes that thought. It was the worst night in my life but also the most memorable due to my parents actions.

That night also cemented my wariness of doctors from that point onwards as well. We stuck it out though I think if it had lasted much longer I think my mother might have relented but it worked and there was a huge improvement. It had though destroyed my sleep patterns and it took us two years to sort those out and I still have to be quite rigid about them. I became quite depressed in the years after as well, but after an increasing amount of suicidal thoughts I went on St. John's Wart which was very helpful.

I saw a nutritionist that summer who took me off wheat, sugar, dairy, caffeine and citrus fruit and that combined with coming off the pills made me loose a serious amount of weight. So munch so that I had to eat a certain amount of potatoes each day to try and regain it. My appetite still swings but is on a much even keel but the main thing is hat the only time I am not switched on is when I have brain fog, I am not zombie like each day. I can appreciate life and my senses are all switched on and working. And most importantly I can hug my parents in thanks for that night and many other times that they stuck by me and fought for me in the various battles that have occurred.

But I have never been able to read The Scarlet Pimpernel since because the memories of that night take over.