Vigilence

I was sitting on the couch studying when an unnerving thought crossed my mind. As I stared at the Vicodin bottle on the table that I was prescribed for my ear problems, I started to wonder how many I'd need to take to pass out. My mind wandered to the kitchen, questioning if I still had that bottle of wine I never opened. Maybe if I had some Vicodin and wine together the mixture would knock me out. Maybe I could lay in bed all day in a groggy haze and leave this life behind for a while.

Just as the elaborate spider-web of thoughts was woven into potential plans, I swiftly knocked it down. WHAT?! I retraced my trail in an attempt to figure out how my brain got me to that point. Did I really want a drink? No... I don't even like getting drunk. Was I feeling depressed about Blake? Not particularly. Is suicide anything I'd ever considered, even in my darkest days? NO.

I freaked out! I felt like I had lost complete control of my body. The four days since I started taking medication for my ear, I had been eating non-stop, feeling anxious, and having the most depressing thoughts cross my mind. I thought back to a conversation I had with one of my best friends about how she was put on steroids and it made her gain a ton of weight. Oh my gosh... the Prednisone! I quickly looked up the side effects for the steroids that the doctor put me on. Sure enough, increased appetite, anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts were all listed.

I didn't know whether to feel relieved or mad. At least my weird behavior had an explanation. I wasn't regressing, it was just the chemicals in my brain telling me to do these things. But that just made me angry. WHY did the doctor not warn me that Prednisone causes suicidal thoughts? If I had informed him about the recent death of my boyfriend, I'm sure he would've thought twice about prescribing me something that could send me on a downward spiral!

I called my mom and dad sobbing, explaining to them that THIS was the exact reason why I have such a distrust of medicine. The fact that the doctor checked me out for less than 20 minutes and put me on all of these dangerous meds seemed disgusting. How could he do this to me? How could doctors everywhere do this to people every DAY! For all he knew I could've had an extremely addictive personality and the Vicodin he casually prescribed me for pain could have triggered a life long addiction. I hated doctors for me, for Blake, and for the whole world.

But after a while of fuming, my mom helped me see that it's the system that's broken. Doctors give advice about what to do to naturally heal, but people want medicine. If the doctor can't give them a quick fix, they'll move on to one who will. And people don't do the research necessary to help inform the doctors about what they need. How can doctors know all of the potential problems you'll have with a medication unless you tell them? It's our job as patients to be advocates for our health. If we don't guard our own bodies with vigilance, who will?

So I stopped being upset and changed my perspective. Thank goodness that I know myself well enough to catch these thoughts. I knew right away that I was not upset about Blake, so my depressive and suicidal thoughts were definitely abnormal. I don't like drinking, so there is no reason I'd be contemplating getting drunk in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday. None of this added up to me, so I knew something was wrong.

I realized that it's not the doctors fault, my fault, or the pills fault. It's actually no one's fault. What happened this afternoon was a wake up call. I need to be the number one advocate for my mental, physical, and emotional health. Only I will be able to know when something is wrong, so building up my self-awareness is my best defense against potential problems. Just as I have been vigilant with this blog tracking and paying attention to my emotions, I need to do the same with my physical health as well.

Detroit Hyena

Since Blake's death, I've tested out hundreds of ways to cope. The most controversial of which has been befriending a heroin addict in Detroit. Five months ago, in a strange mixture of compulsive interest and morbid curiosity, I looked up "#heroin" on Instagram. What I found shocked, terrified, and intrigued me all at the same time. With one simple search I was given unlimited access into a private world. From the safety of my bedroom I got an intimate look into the lives of people who share their drug use through pictures. It was all there: everything I read about, but had never been exposed to.

There was one person's profile that I kept coming back to. She seemed to take pride in her drug use and the scars it left on her body and life. She was so open, honest, and unashamed. But as much as it scared me to see her photos, I could sense a goodness in her. While looking through her profile I felt a magnetic connection to her that can only be explained by fate. 

A week or two into my secret fascination with her account, I finally decided to make contact. What started out as a simple question turned into several comments back and fourth. Then emails. Then texts. I explained how my boyfriend died from a heroin addiction I knew nothing about and she detailed her 15 year-long battle with the same drug. We listened to each other, cried together, helped each other reach a new level of understanding. We made an unspoken commitment to leave judgment at the door and support each other unconditionally.

In the five months since we became friends, Hyena has committed to sobriety and relapsed several times. And on a night I'll never forget, she talked to me during her suicide attempt as I desperately tried to remind her how much she had left to teach the world. And to teach me. Her story was far from pretty, but I've always been convinced that she deserved a happy ending. Through it all, I held the hope that deep down she believed she deserved one too.

  

Detroit Hyena is now 27 days sober. Although her other attempts at sobriety have ended in using again, I know it's different this time. I know this because everything about her is different this time. 

I feel different too. In an unexplainable way, from across the country and with completely different life struggles, I feel like she and I have made this journey together. When I look at her only one word comes to mind: metamorphosis. It's been an incredibly gruesome past few months, but through the turmoil I believe there's been somewhat of a rebirth, for her and for me. 

Through Hyena, an unknown junkie from Detroit posting pictures on the internet, I learned that kind questions grounded in a desire to understand are the passageway to greater awareness. An awareness about those who are different than you and, more importantly, about yourself. I am forever grateful for the day that the strange mixture of compulsive interest and morbid curiosity lead me to her. I told her before, "I don't always support your choices, but I will always support you." And now, with incredible pride and love, I can finally say I support both.

Congratulations on your 27 days, Detroit Hyena. Here's to 27 and forever more.

Here's the link to her blog. She's an incredible writer: http://detroithyena.blogspot.com/

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.