in living color

After a few stumbles here and there I finally broke down and was admitted into the lala hall of fame. You don't know what a lala is? Well let me tell you.

A lala is a term used by several generations of men in my paternal family to describe several generations of women. My aunt and my grandmother and her mother have on various occasions been accused of being nuts. Loony. Bonkers. You see, in my father's side of the family, the women were all a bit off. They fell over for no reason and were prone to dizziness and goofiness. My family tried to get my grandmother checked out but no one could ever agree on what was wrong with her. Actually, she was a bit of a drama queen and had always been so most likely she tended to add on symptoms of her lala-ness so that everyone trying to help was thwarted. Then she could go one being a martyr of the lala gene that was cursing the women in the family.

My Aunt Jane always believed that her mother was making all her ailments up until one day when she was in her mid thirties she fell over while jogging for no apparent reason. A few weeks later it happened again. Months later she was at the office when all of a sudden she became very dizzy and proceeded to project her formerly consumed breakfast all over her desk and floor. A few days later she had a word that was synonymous for lala: vertigo.

Like my aunt and grandmother, I have inherited the lala gene. Every so often I fall over, usually when exercising. When SB and I first started dating, I remember that we walked across the (in)famous Cornell suspension bridge together, like I often did on my way home. SB, being a kid trapped in a man's body, immediately began bouncing up and down on the bridge. As it swayed dangerously, I decided that it was a good time to tell him that I suffered from vertigo. SB, having only experienced vertigo as a movie, took that to mean that I would transform into a hot, blonde woman. I'm sure he was disappointed when all I did was turn into a green, pale woman and spend the rest of the day in bed with the blinds closed.

Recently I have changed medication. My doctor suspects that I do not have vertigo but actually something called epileptic vertigo. This doctor honed in on the fact that I fall for no reason and suspects that I may be having partial seizures. I am on a new medication and I have had no falls or lala behavior...at least during the day.

I have been experiencing the most bizarre dreams. I recently dreamed that I was a psychotic murderer, or at least an attempted murderer. For the entirety of the dream I was trying to kill someone but all my attempts ended in incompetence or futility. I was possibly the worst would be killer ever.

I also had a dream where I had morphed into a shopaholic. I was running from store to store, frantically trying to buy clothing for no apparent reason. At some point in the dream I thought to myself that this was ludicrous because I hate shopping and always have. Even my love of shoes cannot overcome my hatred of stores and until moving to HK, I bought almost everything online. So at some point I said to myself, "I must be dreaming because this is unbelievable," and then I woke up.

My most recent dream was that I cheated on SB with the ex who I dislike. I have no logical explanation for why I was with this guy back when we were dating and a year after we broke up I had to finally ask my friends to stop making fun of me for dating him. But in the dream I was all about hooking up with this character. When I woke up, even though I knew it was just a dream, I was disgusted at myself for having dreamt about him and couldn't look SB in the eye. I felt horribly guilty and irritated at my lapse in judgement and sanity.

I feel goofy about going to my doctor and telling her that the meds may be causing nightmares but I don't think that I want this to continue. I have enough wild dreams without the meds.

Comments

Jennifer W said…
Wow! I am glad they might have diagnosed you but I would definitely call my doctor. If your dreams are that vivid and interrupting your life then that is an adverse side effect and you need your medication changed. Good luck!