A Prescription for Vicodin

I have a huge distrust of medicine. Although Blake's addiction to prescription pills amplified this, I've felt this way on some level for as long as I can remember. When someone offers me Advil or Ibuprofen for a minor ache or pain, I always decline. It's not that I don't think they work, as I'm sure they will, I just don't like putting random chemicals in my body. Something about that has always felt weird to me. Unless something is seriously wrong, I'd much rather let my body heal itself. 

For the past couple weeks, I've had a pretty bad ear infection/ailment of some sort. I'm actually not quite sure what's wrong because the doctors keep telling me it's something different every time I come in. At first I was just going to wait it out like I usually do, but when I told my parents about it over Thanksgiving, they insisted I go see someone. So I saw someone, she looked in my ear, wrote me two different prescriptions, and that was that.

The whole thing felt really rushed to me. When she gave me the prescriptions she said, "These might help, let me know if they don't." Might help? So I'm going to pollute my body with pills that might not even help? And if they don't, you'll chalk it up to trial and error and send me home with another set of prescriptions? This was just too much.

But with the insistence of my parents that I need to get better at taking care of myself, I've been taking the prescriptions exactly as directed. I've been waking up each morning with three pills, taking four more throughout the day, and can't fall asleep until I remember the last two. All the while I've been waiting for my ear to feel better, but it only seems to be hurting more. 

When I went to the doctor this morning, he said he saw no signs that I ever had an ear infection to begin with. But even though I don't need the antibiotics I was originally prescribed, he advised me to keep taking them to avoid the potentially bad effects from cutting them short. Ugh. After he prescribed me something else to attack the ailment he thinks I actually have, he told me he was also giving me Vicodin.

My stomach dropped. "Are you sure I need Vicodin? That's a really serious pain killer. I don't think I really need that one." He was confused, as if he'd never had a patient question his decision to give them medicine before. He explained that if the pain is making it hard for me to sleep, a pain killer could really help. He told me that I don't need to suffer; these pills can mask the pain. 

I don't need to suffer; these pills can mask the pain. 

As that sentence continued to echo in my head, I wondered if it's the mantra of every addict. I wondered if it's that kind of thinking that leads to the justification of coping mechanisms that only serve to hide a problem instead of fixing it.

I let these thoughts carry me away. I wondered if it started out like this for Blake. After his accident, his doctor harmlessly prescribed him Oxycontin. He told him he didn't need to suffer; as he healed, these pills could mask his pain. And they did. They masked his pain and then started to mask everything else. Created a disguise so encompassing that it ended up numbing him to all pain, not just from his injury. A feeling so addictive that the suffering of a real life seemed too unbearable. 

After crawling down the rabbit hole for a while with that thinking, I had to ask myself: will I take the Vicodin? It has been pretty horrible staying up until four or five in the morning wondering if the pounding in my ear will ever cease. The doctor is right, I don't need to suffer. If there is medicine out there that can help me dull this pain, it would be silly not to take advantage of it. So I won't deny myself the help if the help is what I need.

But the difference is being in tune with what exactly I mean by "I need." I know that pain killers like these have a way of tricking you into thinking you need to continue taking them or at a higher dosage or more frequently. What you "need" can potentially change because pain killers make you feel good. And who doesn't like feeling good? If you could get the feeling of peace, ease, and weightlessness instantly from a pill, a pill a doctor told you to have, who wouldn't want to? The lines between what you need and what you want begin to blur. 

I see the pros and the cons, the benefits and the hazards. I can't spend another night up until 5 AM, but I also can't allow myself to believe a cure lies simply in a white tablet either. I am still uncomfortable with how readily doctors hand out prescriptions for pills, based on surface level guesses at what's actually going wrong. But even though I've always had a huge distrust of medicine, I also understand that it is necessary in some situations. What other choice do I have than to put my trust in a doctor? The only thing I can do is take this medication with a critical eye, from a position of ever present self-reflection.

Insomnia of Grief (A Poem)

The dark between the hours

2 AM and 5 AM

is a little bit colder.

The minutes in those hours

somehow can feel longer.

The silence:

heavier.

This time of night is reserved

for unfortunate people

whose minds are rejecting rest.

With hands rubbing weary eyes

that are refusing to shut.

With loud hearts:

pulsating.

Their thoughts hold unchecked power

mixing sleep deprivation

with unfathomable hurt.

They are burdened completely

with ugly truths and fears.

Their struggle:

unyielding.

The only hope that exists

flickers in and out of view

fighting to stay in focus.

Deficient sleep or morning

is the only promise.

A new day:

approaching.

Everybody Has a Story

During orientation for my grad program, it was drilled into our heads that the 13 strangers in my cohort were about to become my family. Over the next four years we could expect to study together, learn together, argue, cry, be pushed to our wits end, lift each other up, and be each other's greatest support and motivation. I looked around.

Knowing that we need to form a cohesive unit to get through this journey, we decided to get together for a pot luck on Wednesday night. As a bonding activity, each of us was asked to bring an item and share a story. This item was supposed to represent an experience that helped shape us into the people we are now. The story needed to be something personal, a way for us to really get to know each other, to understand what we've been through. So with that in mind, I knew my item and story had to have something to do with Blake.

I've really grappled with the questions of "if/when/how much" I should share with new people about what I'm going through with the death of my boyfriend. Does everyone need to know? If I tell people too soon, will they be blinded by their pity for me and not really get to know me for who I am aside from it? Will telling them too much make people afraid of me and back away from getting close to the mess of a person that I am right now? But in the spirit of allowing these strangers to become my family, I knew this was something I needed to share with them. I needed to share it now and I needed to share as much about it as they were willing to listen to. I put Blake's cologne in my bag, and walked out the door.

When it was my turn for show and tell, I immediately started crying. The first couple of minutes I looked down into my lap at Blake's cologne, insuring that I wouldn't make eye contact with anyone. I didn't want to see their eyes fill with sympathy. I didn't want to watch as I transformed in their minds from the bubbly, smiling girl they met at orientation to a broken, lost soul in pieces in front of them. I blacked out as I started talking. I'm actually not even sure what I said. All I know is that the more I talked, the more I was able to breathe.

I finally looked up at the strangers around me. As I saw their faces, I realized maybe it wasn't just me who was changing in their minds, but also them in mine. But this wasn't a negative thing like I originally thought. They changed in the sense that they didn't feel like strangers anymore. And suddenly I wasn't a stranger in their eyes either. By sharing this personal piece of my life, we became familiar.

One by one all of the strangers took out their items and talked about their lives. And each time, that stranger became a person, someone who was real to me. The stick figure on their page in my book was colored, shaped, and detailed into their own unique form. When I looked around now, I saw friends.

Sometimes I trap myself in my pain by thinking I'm the only one who's ever been hurt this way. In a way I'm right, because no one will ever truly know how it feels to be me in my exact situation as I'm experiencing it now. But it would be foolish for me to think that just because that's true, it means I'm alone in my pain. 

That night with my cohort reminded me that everybody has a story. Although there are a million different ways a person can experience pain, it all hurts. We are all united in our struggles because we know there is no cure for them; pain will always exist, and it may even increase. But every time I turn a stranger into a friend by sharing a piece of my pain, I can breathe easier. And when they share a piece of their pain with me, they can breathe easier as well. The beautiful thing about pain is that it bonds people. And that bond turns strangers into friends and friends into family.

Recent Photographs (A Poem)

Where there once was a twinkle

Sheer joy, a spark

Snuffed out is that glow

A gaze vacant and dark

Eyes like pools of despair

So deep you could dive

With a tiny hint of hope

Fighting hard to survive

You can tell she attempts

To produce a natural smile

Strained and dishonest

Hurting all the while

But there’s truth in her eyes

Although a dim glimmer

At the bottom of the darkness

Is a light yet to shimmer

If you look deeply enough

You’ll see hope fighting through

It’s broken and buried

But it’s existence is true

Although her smile is artificial

And her eyes look dejected

At second glance I see a girl

With a pain she has respected

The unwavering joy  

He made shine from her eyes

She knows can’t be faked

So it’s not like she tries

She puts on a good face

And smiles with her friend

Making the most of the moment
While hope is on the mend

Suicide Attempt

Last night, the friend I described in this post and this post put up a picture on her Instagram account that was meant as a suicide note to her followers. It was a picture of a syringe full of heroin and a caption that said this:

She and I recently started using the messenger Kik to communicate, so when I saw the picture I immediately tried to see if she was online. I looked at the time stamp on her picture... 47 minutes ago. Was I too late? Please answer, please respond. 

I sent a frenzy of messages. I saw the "D" pop up next to the check mark, indicating that the message was delivered to her phone. Please turn into an "R"! If it turned into an R I would know she read it, she was alive, and that I had a way to talk to her.

After what seemed like hours of staring at the messages, willing them to change to "R"s, they finally did. I responded excitedly that I knew she was there, she was still alive, and that she read what I sent her. She told me that she was alive, for the moment, but to please not try to talk her out of her decision. That nothing I could say would change her mind. She had enough pills and heroin to make sure that she wouldn't make it and could die in a painless and blissful way. So I didn't try to talk her out of it. Instead, I just listened.

She went on to explain to me that after 15 years of using heroin, she didn't want it to come to this, but she had accepted that at this point the only thing keeping her alive was sick and disgusting. She needed heroin to live. Her life consisted of using every day or trying to stop using, getting so sick that her life was hell, and being reminded over again that heroin controlled her, that she couldn't escape her body's toxic and unyielding need for it.

She asked for my email address so she could send me the final goodbye letter she wrote for me (which was going to be the last entry of the blog I encouraged her to start writing). She never got a chance to finish it because she wasn't able to stay sober long enough to get her thoughts out correctly. 

Here it is:
"I've learned quite a bit in fifteen years of living older than my age. The most important, which I carry close at hand always? Never judge a person by their appearance, by first impressions, or by a singular piece of information about them without giving them a chance to let their true selves be known. 

Had I not learned that lesson, this blog would not exist. I never would've started writing again after years of silence. But because I didn't shy away from a person on Instagram who initially inspired nothing but the desire to backpedal and run and hide for fear of adding more pain to her already heavy load, I write now. I let it out. I don't duck into shadows or bottle this up anymore. I still keep it away from the light of my now defunct professional life, which I discussed in vague terms in my last post, but I don't hide away anymore. And I do it because someone of the most unlikely to speak to a junkie background did just that. 

Briana spoke to me. She asked questions, seeking understanding and self education about heroin addiction. She encouraged me. Other than the other addicts and recovering addicts on Instagram, she has been my only true follower. And also one of the people that through commenting back and forth, plus reading her blog, I feel I've grown closest to. She also gave me a gentle and needed push to start writing. She also writes a blog, found at www.xamountoftime.blogspot.com Incredibly powerful and so raw and eloquently written, I don't think there's a person on earth who wouldn't grow at least a smidgen after reading X Amount of Time. 

But that singular, solitary piece of information about Briana that made me want to backpedal and hide again at first? Before I forced myself to stand and follow what I've learned about judging? That is the basis of her blog. Her boyfriend, Blake, overdosed and left this realm less than three months ago. Her blog is one of her healing tools. Same as this blog is my outlet for what I kept hidden so long. 

Briana chose to educate herself and perhaps answer some of her own questions one day and on Instagram, typed in the hash tag "heroin." It must've been the second or third day my Instagram was in existence because it wasn't private and was graphic. I don't sugarcoat. I don't lie. Don't minimize. I'm honest to a fault (what now lost me my professional capacity) and don't hide if I don't have to. I just simply cant stand to keep it all inside anymore, where it is eating me alive. So I let it all hang out on Instagram (now private for various reasons.) 

Briana, rather than do what I'd found many Instagram users like to do to junkies- poke fun, call names, try to beat a soul already injured- asked me questions. She wanted to learn. Wanted to know more about the drug that took her soulmate. I'd never in my life encountered someone like her before. Someone who was a "normie" having never been addicted who not only didn't judge me, but treated me like and absolute equal. Briana never once talked down to me. She respected me and where I was at in a long battle and didn't try to reason or rationalize me out of my disease. She"

I was at the Orange County Fair when I read this message and immediately fell into those silent tears I talked about. Why were they silent tears and not angry or confused tears? How could I keep this quiet to a point where the people I was with had no idea part of my heart just got ripped out of me?

I have no idea why, but I felt Blake's presence as I finished reading and went back to my conversation with Detroit Hyena. For whatever reason, as ridiculous as it seemed at the time, I knew in the back of my mind that she wasn't going to be successful at her suicide attempt. I knew she wasn't going to be able to die. She had unfinished business- with me, her family, her best friend Lepurd, and the rest of her followers who have grown to find a twisted sense of hope through learning about her life and struggle.

I told her she wasn't going to be able to die tonight, no matter how much heroin or pills she took. I told her she needed to finish my note, and write notes to her mom and sister. I don't know why I knew this, but I just knew it with all of my heart in a way that I've never felt before.

My messages to her stopped showing "R"s and returned back to those infuriating and confusing "D"s. Did she die? Did she get a chance to really hear what I was saying before she started nodding off? I was a mess, but there was nothing more I could do. 

This morning I woke up and sent her a hopeful "Good morning! Today is a new day."

Check mark "D"

10 minutes later...

Check mark "D"

10 minutes later...

CHECK MARK "R"!

"A new day, but not a good one though"

As I fumbled to reiterate to her all of the things I said the night before, she told me she couldn't talk because she needed to find somewhere where she could charge her phone.

She's alive. Today is a new day.