cracked

 

 

I know what you’re thinking.

“If you didn’t do drugs, your life wouldn’t be such a mess.”

“You can’t escape facing your fears forever by getting high.”

“It’s the drugs that ruined your life, that made you try to kill yourself.”

I know what you’re thinking.

And maybe in part you’re right. Getting high did make me go crazy. Getting high did help me escape my reality, stop me from facing my fears. Getting high did make me suicidal.

But that’s where you’re wrong. Out of fifteen suicide attempts, one – ONE – was by drug overdose. Until 15 months ago, I didn’t even know what drugs were, beyond some vague idea that “drugs were bad.”.

I knew that I’d tried everything else.

Psychiatric medication since age 16. First psychiatric hospitalization at age 19, voluntary. My psychiatrist said I could start taking 800mg/day of Seroquel per a new research study. Or take an MAOI inhibitor. In other words, every medication and combination available to modern-day psychiatry had been tried and discarded. I could try theoretical doses of powerful anti-psychotics, but no one knew if it worked outside of rats, or I could take first-generation anti-depressants that largely don’t work at all, at least not without significant side effects.

And I tried talk therapy. Of course, it seemed like a joke most of the time. Some of the best psychiatrists in the nation couldn’t even diagnose me, let alone treat me. So go “talk” about it …? Well, I tried. To this day I’ll never know if it didn’t work because I just didn’t try hard enough, or if it didn’t work because there was no way it could have worked.

First psychiatric hospitalization at age 26, involuntary. Medication overdose.

Second psychiatric hospitalization, age 26, involuntary. Medication overdose.

…

…

…

…

Fourteenth psychiatric hospitalization, age 26, involuntary. Medication overdose.

 

Transferred care back to Seattle; California Department of Health refused to treat me further until I stabilized at my parents’ house.

 

“Wanna party?” I was online looking for guys. Sure, whatever party meant. I love parties. I asked. It meant “tina.” I knew that was a drug but wasn’t sure which one. Thought about the proposition for a second. I was at the laundromat using the web browser on my cell phone. I had moved out of my parent’s house back in with my old roommate in Seattle. We lived on a boat. There were no laundry facilities there. It was a sunny day. Blue skies, no clouds, just the type of day that tricks a tourist into thinking Seattle has beautiful weather year-round.

It only took a second.

 

Why not?

 

What did I have left to lose?

What did I have left to try?

 

Anyways, it was just sex. The drugs were incidental.

 

I learned a lot that night. About love, and lust, and desire.

I learned a lot that night. I learned I could never have sober sex again.

 

I learned a lot that night. I learned that I could be happy.

 

Not just content, not just seeing past the pain, but actually

Happy.

No one had ever told me that this was what it was like for everyone else to live life. I realized I had never genuinely smiled before in my life because there was no smile in my heart. But now …. now I knew.

 

And because I knew, I no longer had to die.

 

I’m safe

Up high

Nothing can touch me

[Pink: Sober]

 

I’ve remained out of the psychiatric ward since that first hit.

 

They want to make me go to rehab.

 

I say …

 

Just one more hit.

One more time.

 

Death is calling.

RIP Amy Winehouse.

 

 

 

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