Psych Drugs

My Own Private Wonderland

That gaunt-faced woebegone eyed stranger
just stared back at me...
life's furrows ploughed in a desperate field
of sun leached skin.
Empty sky eyes beseeching
over the hard line of incessant frowns...
I couldn't tell what he was thinking...
the only aura exuded was forlorn.
But I knew....
as soon as I opened the medicine cabinet-
he would vanish-
because I knew there was a pill in there
that would make everything look better...
on the other side of the looking glass.

unseen thank you for your entry feeling your pain my meds make me numb too great entry

All in my head..

A.K.A; The difficulty of taking medications for emotional/mental issues


At first it feels like they're not doing anything, which makes you want to stop taking them.

Then it makes you feel like you're not yourself when they start to work.
Sure, that new person seems to like you, but they actually just like the meds; they wouldn't like the REAL you.
Sure, you can smile and the panic attacks lessen, and you can let go of the little things which used to drive you crazy (pardon the terminology).
Sure, you level out.. level out, meaning your emotions deaden and you can't feel as intensely as you used to..
Do YOU even like these people, or is that just the meds?
Sure, they keep doing that thing you hate, and they seriously seem pretty brain dead half the time, but you don't seem to mind, you let it slide, que sera sera...
That isn't YOU
The real you has standards, the REAL you wouldn't have been able to hang out and have fun with these people, and these people wouldn't be able to stand you if you weren't on the meds....
which makes you want to stop taking them.

Then it makes you feel like you don't need them because you've been doing so well.
You haven't broken down into tears for no reason, you haven't snapped at people you love for getting on your frayed nerves, you're steady..
and it's not like you want to be on medication your whole life when you don't need it.
You're leveled out, steady, calm.. detached, deadened...
You remember what it was like to love before and you start to wonder if the meds are deadening that too.
That heart-rending ache isn't there, just a kind of numb contentment.
Your sex drive is effected too.. low to a shocking degree for yourself.
What about your creativity?
You haven't made anything new or had anything other than a dim passing impulse to even start something.
What's the point if you just go through life detached, feeling none of the intense passion that makes humanity strive to greatness, that makes epic love stories, steamy encounters, and soul inspiring art?
What good is contentment, happiness, if it's just this and will never be anything more?
How can you really say you love a person when you can't actually feel it in the deep bone-shaking way.. and when, once again, it's only 'meds-you' that has felt anything? …
which makes you want to stop taking them.

And you stop taking them.

Then you feel it again!
The passion, the creativity, the loveloveLOVE.
The obsession, the high of holding on to something so true and righteous that it doesn't matter that the idiots of the world think you're being unreasonable..
If they're too stupid to see it, you don't want them in your life anyway.
You feel the heat of real, burning, blinding fury and of tunnel-vision lust that makes nothing else matter in the moment.
You feel your nerves fraying, you can't stand it, they should KNOW how much that pisses you off.
In fact, they DO know; they're doing it on purpose!
Then they have the audacity to look all wounded when you snap at them..
You feel the shame in having hurt them.
You know they don't mean to, you know you're being unreasonable and there was no way for them to predict what you might find infuriating at that moment.
You can't help it, and all you want is for them to hold you in their arms and let you break down into tears..
You settle for going to bed early and quietly sobbing yourself to sleep, feeling such intense loneliness that your bones feel hollow, and you hide it.
You hide everything, even though they're right there,
even though they've always been there for you,
even though they would hold you and pet you and tell you everything will be alright, because it wont be.
It wont be alright, because you can't be strong, and they'll ask why you stopped taking your meds.
You don't want to go back on them.
You want to start taking them again so badly, but you're afraid that you wont be you again..
..that it means you're weak.

Then you feel guilty.
You're killing your love for them,
your creativity, and everything that makes you YOU
just to fit into a society you can't stand and which never wanted you anyway..
You feel guilty for being weak.. Or is it strength to admit you need help?
The intensity is just too much.

And you start taking them.

Then at first it feels like they're not doing anything, which makes you want to stop taking them....

Then it makes you fe....

thank you Buddha and Nimmiamee for fantastic entries..

Lorazepam

That word is something of a two way street, one side opened to it's purpose, the other side is only but a foul interpretation of the human experience. Maybe it's my sensitive nature that keeps me from appreciating the countless conversations on the absurdity of such a word. Depression I met sitting alone at MacArthur Park counting the birds who dared get close to my bench. No danger of getting hurt but why would anything want to get close to such a sad human being? All I really wanted was the appreciation of the trees who looked similarly like me waving back and forth against the wind. My anxiety erupted as two German Shepard dogs decided to sit next to me as if saying "man, get up and enjoy life" They were right, but how wrong of them to assume I was capable of such an action. I haven't given up but I'm a victim of circumstance.

congratulations for winning Katja

for runners up Primogenito and Unseen

fantastic and brave entries all around

thank you to all who participated sincerely Crimsin