Little Blue Pill

My Little Blue Pill

Every day I have to take this. This little blue pill. No, it’s not THAT blue pill, it’s this one. See the picture? That’s what I take every day.  There are many times I wish I didn’t have to, but then I’m always reminded every day off why I need to.  This little blue pill is my life, and it’s my curse.

I should tell you a bit about why this has become my life, why I need this pill.

Life throws curves, and sometimes, they’re harder than you can deal with, most people bounce back from them quickly. They will be sad, but they overcome it and keep going. I was unable to.

Growing up, I was that awkward girl. Didn’t quite fit in anywhere.  Never had a lot of friends.  I was smarter than a good deal of the other kids.  I liked to keep quiet, and was in my own world most of the time. This lead to me being bullied. I’m sure there was more to it, but it happened. I was bullied from 5^th through 12^th grades.  I gave back to a few worse than I got, they learned to not try to fight with me, but that wasn’t what hurt the worse. It was the emotional feelings, the ones of being left all alone that stuck. I still have those scars. They’re always with me. The scars run deep. Deeper than you could imagine.  I felt as if I was truly all alone in this world, that it was me against everyone.

After graduation, a few things changed a little.  Going to school for art was a needed change. Not only could I work at expressing myself more, but I was around people that were more like me. At least in the creative and imaginative department. In others, not so much, but it was ok, I felt more comfortable.

Then the real world came.

I couldn’t get a job in the art fields.  So I continued to be a waitress. I was working open to close 6 days a week. I worked more hours than management. They told me so. I didn’t have anything else to do though, so I worked myself into exhaustion, and yet continued onward. Then the restaurant closed. Luck was on my side, as one of the managers worked at another restaurant as well, and was able to get a few of us jobs there. I was one.

I was so happy to get the job.  I was making more money than I needed really.  All my bills were paid in the first 2 weeks of each month. The people I worked with seemed ok and were fun to hang out with. I felt like I fit in.  Then the event happened.  A coworker had raped me.

My world crashed, burned, and ceased to exist.

I was falling.  I was falling down, down, and yet further down.

I felt nothing. I shut myself off completely.  I was a shell of myself. What I was doing was not living.  I’ve talked about emotional zombies before on my blog, and that’s what I was. I shut off my emotions, I felt nothing. I slept almost all the time. I found a new job because I had bills, but again, I just existed there. When I was done working, I would go back home and sleep. I didn’t do anything. This continued on for months.  I didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t go anywhere, and barely ate. Barely existed.  I wasn’t there.

You would think this couldn’t get worse, but in the middle of that, I noticed I was late. By 2 months.  Just what I needed, a reminder of what happened.  Abortion was not an option for me. It wasn’t the fault of the baby growing inside of me.  It was mine. I couldn’t take it out on this little living person inside of me. Just as I started to accept this, I had a miscarriage. The one thing I had wanted since I was little, was to have my own family, and now that I had accepted that this was happening, though not the way I wanted, the trap door opened up and swallowed me whole again.

It was about this time, that I started my addiction. It was a coping mechanism.  I began cutting. I was so tired of not having any control, of shutting myself off because I was feeling so much that it was overwhelming, that I started. It was a way to control how and when I was felt emotions. Knives, the sharper the better, the deeper, the more it burned, the more it helped me.  I couldn’t stop, I didn’t want to stop.

Then someone I didn’t even realized still cared, showed that they did.  They realized something was wrong, and wanted me to get help. I didn’t think anyone else knew, but they seemed to have noticed. He saw the scars, the still healing wounds I created, the dead eyes, the inability to want to go on. In fact, it was before this that I had tried to end it. I had it all planned. I tried to go through with it, but I failed in the end. I was just another fail to add to the epic list of fails that I had. But he had seen this. We went out for drinks one night, and as we said goodbye, he whispered to me that he wishes I would get help. He knew I was hurting, and wanted to see me get better.

This set me off on a road of thinking and searching. Just a few days later, in the City Paper, there was an ad looking for people for a clinical study at the one psychiatric clinic. It listed a bunch of different symptoms for depression. I was able to check of each and every one of them. This must be a sign. I tore the ad out and stuffed it in my pocket. Later when I was alone I called and set up an appointment with them.

Even at this time, no one knew. I had told no one. It was just my friend who suggested I get help, which set the wheels in motion, but I didn’t have anyone there.  Family, “friends”, anyone, there was no one there to help me. They did not know. (In fact it wasn’t until just recently, about 9 years after the fact, that I finally told my parents what had happened, which has led to the latest therapy I am in now for PTSD, but that’s another story.) I was doing this on my own. No support, just me.

So I went to the appointment. They did an assessment, and this thing took a few hours. At the end of it, they told me I didn’t fit for the study, I had too many problems. I had anxiety, social anxiety, clinical depression, borderline OCD, and perhaps some personality disorders. They said that while I didn’t fit with this study, they would get me into the clinic.

This clinic turned into my savior.  It saved my life. After the first few sessions with the psychiatrist noticed some of my scars and recent attempts at controlling my emotions. She knew what was going on, and into intensive therapy I went.  This therapy was several days a week, and lasted for several hours each time. I saw a therapist in group, one on one, and also so another psychiatrist.  They started me on antidepressants.  These were changed a lot until they found the right cocktail to get me to start feeling alive. Little by little, with the help of these pills, the coping I learned in therapy, and the counseling that I attended, I started to come alive again.

I will admit I have gone through multiple therapies, several psychiatrists, and many medications to get me to where I am now.  Where exactly is that? It is a work in progress. I keep slipping up, having relapses where I have returned to my “coping” mechanism.  I have my ups and downs.  I go into some really deep depressions, but I’m learning. I can start to recognize these when they happen. I know that it means I have to make an emergency appointment with my therapist and psychiatrist.  Maybe my medications need adjustment, or perhaps I just need to talk out what is bothering me. I made a really big step by admitting what happened to me, by telling those that are closest to me what happened.  I’ve acknowledged that this happened, that it is what started everything with me, so I’m trying to get the help what I need to put this in the past. The past is where it belongs.

So this little blue pill that I take every day right now, it really has saved my life. It has taken me from the point where I was ready to end everything, to starting the road to my recovery, to where I am able to admit what has happened to me, and share it with others, to seeking the last bit of help I need. Ok, maybe not the last, but the best, where I know I should hopefully be able to move on, and not let this affect me the way that it has.

I’m starting a new life. A life that includes my little blue pill. The pill that keeps me from sinking into the deepest of depressions, the one that keeps me from reverting back to the life I had that kept me from wanting to live. The one that allows me to live a life that is happier, where it’s not all black, but shows much more color. It helps me to be me. The me that  I was suppose to be. Not the one that is trapped inside of themselves.

About Not Quite Alice

http://myrabbitholes.wordpress.com Depression as a sidekick can make life interesting. Why not talk about it. Any other random things that seem to always be popping up into my head. So here I am, letting it spill. I'm nothing more than me, a random girl who is into Star Wars, cartoons, Sci-fi, all things geek, art, making up things, steampunk, and octopi.

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