The first dose

I've never been the one to ask for much help when it comes to my emotional stability. Well, maybe that is a complete lie. Maybe I'm so overdependent on everyone around me for emotional stability (friends, partners, family) that I am in denial.

So sitting in a psychiatry office was the last place I thought I would end up.

30 minutes. "We're the experts," the gentlemen with the glasses says. Because, of course, after 30 minutes of talking with me, writing a e-Perscription for me, and patting me on the back, you seem to understand everything about me, about my past, about my present.

You are the expert, after all.


*****

I sat on my sofa yesterday. The instructions were clear: cut the pill in half for the next seven days, and then one whole pill. Every morning. May cause dizziness. Don't take with alcohol. Increased risk of suicide. Decreased sex drive.

Looking at this little blue pill, I wondered how something this small, about the size of a pencil tip, could enter my body and give me any sort of mental stability. Something so small, something I am somehow incapable of doing myself.

And then the thoughts remains: Have I failed myself? Have I done something to cause this? Is it me, or everyone else?

I hold the blue pill in my hand, and stare blankly off into the television screen of the U.S. Open. This feels surreal; this is not my hand or my body, this pill is not mine.

And with that rapid realization, I throw the pill into my mouth and take a huge drag from my blueberry pomegranate juice and bask in my weakness.

*****

The real shit hit the fan late that night.

Staring blankly at the wall, a friend randomly chatted me up on Facebook. A simple question: "How are you?"

The dam within me busted with a force I've not experienced since I was a sophomore in high school. I ran out of my room into my roommates arms, and started beating on her chest, "What is happening to me!?" I started to sob uncontrollably. Running into my room, I see the picture of my partner who, for whatever reason, had abandoned me during this time in my life.

"THIS IS THE ONLY THING I HAVE TO HOLD ON TO THAT EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY!" I screamed as I threw the frame into the ground in front of my roommate.

Through sobs of pain, I broke through loads of insecurity and doubt as I said, "I don't know I could tell anyone I care about to go through a relationship, because all they do is enter and then leave. When you need them the most, they just evaporate and particalize in front of you."

The friend that chatted me up came that same night with Chocolate Peanut Butter cake and a message: You're going to be okay. Don't think about the pill. Let yourself find balance.

The first dose. A half pill.

WIHTM?