The power of vitamins

[pameladean]

I always take Vitamin C, but I usually forget the multivitamin. I took one yesterday. I sincerely doubt that this affected the fact that I scraped slush off the front porch and sidewalks and took out the stinky trash from the back hall. That was because the weather is warmer. It probably also did not cause me to write 650 words yesterday. That would be Eric's patient nagging plus the salubrious effect of being consulted about the covers for my reprints.

But it certainly is what made me have a very vivid dream an hour before I usually get up. David and Lydy had gotten fed up with the crowding around here and gone out and bought another house, rather as one might finally in exasperation buy a shelf to hang on the wall. I don't mean they bought it just for themselves; they bought it for all of us, and then they showed it to me. It was full of all our cats and a large batch of stripey kittens. It wasn't particularly beautiful, but it had solutions to every problem the present house has. I was pleased to realize that I had to decide which semi-apartment I would take. I was a bit incredulous that they hadn't organized a moving party, and annoyed that they hadn't told me today was moving day, because I had a date with Eric. "Oh, well," said David, looking chagrined, "we really didn't want to mess with that." Whenever I protested about the vast deal of stuff we have, he'd just say patiently, "We'll all just carry some boxes." I suddenly started to wonder how in the world they had gotten a mortgage without me to write the excuses for the late payments on this and that, and then I woke up.

David told me he and Lydy were going to brunch and then attempted to engage me in political conversation. He will do that in the morning. It never works.

Today I really do have a date with Eric, and we are actually going to cook something. I feel no desire to cook, but I like working with Eric, and I do feel a profound desire for fresh vegetables.

Pamela

Comments

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Kind of depends on what's in the multivitamin, doesn't it? Exactly how "multi" are we talking about here?

B

[pameladean]

Bwahaha. Vegetarian multi.

Pamela

[dormouse-in-tea.livejournal.com]

I am a currently (mostly) deactivated semi-sentient unit who greatly admires your work. We've never met in person, even at a large and impersonal con; I followed a trail through friendsfriends ljs (most notably almeda, my roommate's), and took the liberty of friending you. Do let me know if I'm encroaching beyond your tolerance levels?

[pameladean]

Pleased to meet you. And no, you certainly are not. I chose, at least initially, to just make all these posts public. If I ever feel that I must write here, as opposed to somewhere else, about private stuff, I have the means to do so. In the meantime the whole LJ phenomenon fascinates me. I've ended up in some strange places myself, linking to friends' Friends lists.

Pamela

[papersky.livejournal.com]

I'm terribly superstitious about writing stuff and the way it sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, and I'd be inclined to take another multivitamin tomorrow Just In Case it was that.

[pameladean]

Oh yeah, I'm a convert. I feel about a hundred times better after taking the darn multivitamin three days in a row. I didn't think supplements were supposed to work that fast.

Pamela

[kiya]

brooksmoses told me that I should ought make a comment in this entry, and this looks like a place I could put one.

I apparently have B-vitamin deficiency depression. (There are something like three B vitamins involved in the serotonin uptake cycle.)

As far as I can tell, it takes about as long as it takes for stuff to hit the bloodstream for the vitamins to work, as confirmed by a horrible stress breakdown after forgetting the vitamins for several days which cleared up a little more than an hour after I took the vitamins in a, "I don't expect it to work, but I should take my damn pills!" state of mind. An hour later, I was still distressed, but I could actually deal, without any of the situation changing.

Scary to be that delicately balanced, I think. But I find it much, much less scary than taking other medications for it.

[pameladean]

Wow. And yes, certainly, I'd rather take vitamins than SSRI's, if they work.

I wasn't depressed, I was just very scatterbrained and had no energy. I do know it's the B vitamins producing the ability to remember dreams. Unfortunately sometimes I wish they wouldn't do that.

Pamela

[kiya]

There's apparently a significant minority of people with depression who have a digestive quirk that means they don't absorb B vitamins efficiently. It's not everyone, and overdosing on the things has toxicity issues, but I seem to be one of the people it works for.

I wouldn't be surprised if the energy-lack were related to the B vitamins too. I gather, though, that some of your dreams aren't really the sorts of things you want to remember?

[marykaykare.livejournal.com]

Never underestimate the placebo effect.

MKK