But the Drugs Like Me...

Remember my last post, when I complained that my antidepressants didn't work? I wrote that (while on them):

...mostly I just feel like I'm in a fog. I'm cloudy-headed, numb, anxious, despairing. I think of death and mortality every day. I'm the living dead. I'm not suicidal--I'm far too Catholic and, frankly, cowardly for that. Besides, I seem to prefer a slow death by tobacco, sugar, and hope. 

I should note that I've been off work for the past week and off my routine; I've forgotten to take my antidepressants more often than not...And skipping the meds, though inadvertent, doesn't really seem to have made things any worse so I may just go off the stuff. I mean, maybe.

Yeah, about that...

I forgot to mention a pertinent fact--I had actually called in a refill at my local mom'n'pop pharmacy. I don't normally get my prescriptions filled there but back in November I was a day away from a business trip and needed my two happy-pill 'scripts pronto. My normal chain pharmacy didn't have one of them, another chain didn't have the other. I was desperate and short on time. (Story of my life.) While I like supporting local businesses, I don't like their store hours, which don't jive with my commute into/out of Manhattan (there's a Rite Aid in Grand Central, my usual joint because it's pretty damned convenient but it didn't work out for me that time around).

Anyway.

The local pharmacy's supposed to be open on Saturdays. I went to pick up my meds December 30--closed. With a fucking sign taped to the door saying they were closed for the weekend and thanking customers for their "anticipation." How the hell could I have anticipated that?

Tried again the following Saturday--also closed! No reason given! What the fuck?!

So I'd been rationing the few pills remaining from each prescription but was done with them a few days into the new year. "OK, then, motherfuckers." I thought to myself. "I'll just go commando." So to speak.

I started getting headaches. I think had headaches maybe 4 or 5 days in a row. Sleeping was bad. Had a few nightmares. Didn't snap out of my fog, in fact, things worsened--by Wednesday of this past week I felt confused, I couldn't concentrate at work, a sort of hysteria seemed to rise around and within me. I'd been feeling stressed anyway, from my day job, but that day was...well, I was frightened. Close to 5 I went to my boss' office and closed the door, gave her an abbreviated version of the above, and asked if I could go in later on Thursday to see if I could catch the fucking pharmacy open on my way into work. I'd never wanted to talk to her about this, and not because she's a horrible person or anything--this shit's just too...how do I explain it...raw, personal. Painful. I protect my pain. Does that make sense? Writing about it here is different, somehow. Apart from the safety of being behind a screen...

Well, she was perfectly decent about it, as I had every reason to expect, and so I was able to pick up my stuff the next morning. Both remaining refills, as it happened, so I don't have to worry about dealing with these folks again. Funk them and their anticipating asses.

Meanwhile, I'll not go off a regular pill regimen on my own again, not if I can help it. If coming off the stuff's the right move, I'll do it under the doc's orders. For now I'll just keep doping myself up and I guess just try to be more patient...(?)

The State of Me

This is the combo vanity/writing desk I bought from Ikea earlier this year. It amuses me that a Swedish company made it in Portugal and that it was ultimately assembled (poorly) in the U.S. by a chick of Portuguese decent (moi). Gave it a brisk neatening just a little while ago, as a hot mess of crap and dust and whatnot littered it. In addition to the requisite lamp and writing utensils I've plopped down some items meant to inspire me (star-shaped clock for a wanna-be superstar; a framed note from a fan--which does touch me every time I see it; a pic of me as a little girl before I'd learned to fear life).

I've been mainly using the vanity aspect of this thing, to help me ready my carcass for my day job and because I'm vain. Maybe I'll use it for writing in 2018. I'm using it right now to tap out this post so that's a good sign...?

Getting up in the mornings is harder and harder. I'm angry all the time; like, I simmer and surge with the slightest provocation but internalize everything because I don't want to hurt anyone though I don't seem to mind destroying myself. So many times I've bit my metaphorical tongue to keep from ranting out a blog post on stupid shit--though I am pretty fucking tired of people and their "I was laying down" bullshit. Unless you were setting a motherfucking table for dinner you were not laying down, you were in fact LYING down, God damn it. See what I mean? It's stupid shit and I get riled up by it and who knows if ranting out a blog post on the reg wouldn't be better than nuking my innards by holding back but I'm embarrassed to reveal my ick so I simmer.

I know what it means, that stupid shit's getting my goat--it means I feel that life is completely beyond my control. It means I feel I'm battering my head against an impenetrable wall of NO and that I'll never reach my full potential as a human and will never, ever know true comfort or joy, because I'm simply not meant to.

The drugs don't work. Or if they do, they just keep me from a final slide down to God knows what, because mostly I just feel like I'm in a fog. I'm cloudy-headed, numb, anxious, despairing. I think of death and mortality every day. I'm the living dead. I'm not suicidal--I'm far too Catholic and, frankly, cowardly for that. Besides, I seem to prefer a slow death by tobacco, sugar, and hope.

I should note that I've been off work for the past week and off my routine; I've forgotten to take my antidepressants more often than not and, moreover, am getting my period, so I'm feeling especially dark today. But all of this is still perfectly true. And skipping the meds, though inadvertent, doesn't really seem to have made things any worse so I may just go off the stuff. I mean, maybe.

This year I hid my birthday on Facebook and no one there hailed me on my so-called special day. That was the desired outcome--dozens of people wishing me hyperbolic happiness is a burden that has made me break down in tears in recent years. You'd think I'd be cheered but each wish weighs on me more heavily than the last because I can't live up to any of them. A few folks reached out to me in other ways, and that I could take. But nothing more. I'm even disabling comments for this post because I can't bear anyone's hopes/wishes/expectations. Emotionally I'm a 3rd degree burn victim and the slightest brush, of anything, feels awful. I'm just posting because the lid on my seething pot of angst finally shifted a little--the words needed to go out but I don't need or want any in return.

So that's the state of me as the last grains of 2017 scurry down the hourglass. May 2018 be better, God willing.