I've got that numbing feeling.....

I've got that numbing feeling..... me, xannax and guns. Not a good prescription.

Between the ages of twenty-six and thirty one I was lost. Literally. I had become anorexic and with that came depression. A friend, Bev, convinced me that I really did need help. So I inquired around. I did my homework so to speak. From the first appointment I was prescribed Xannax. As my appointments came and went, my dosage was increased. I started not liking the feelings and the non feelings. Each time I expressed that this just wasn’t working. The doctor explained…yet again…that I hadn’t reached the proper dosage for me yet and up the prescription. On and on it went.
In three or four of those years, I moved seven times. Finally, I just gave up and moved into my car for a year. It was easier, but there really isn’t much room in a Honda Prelude. Trust me.
I began having, to me, logical thoughts. To others, not so much. I would be having a perfectly logical conversation with Bev and she would stop me mid sentence and tell me to think about the words I was putting together. Holy crap! What nonsense. Things like, I’m driving down the road going seventy. If I open the door, how far will I roll? Or, it’s midnight and I’m at work cleaning the deli slicer. The blade is exposed. Just how hard would I have to slam my head into the blade to penetrate my scull? Honest. These thoughts sounded quite logical.
One day I went to work in the deli. I said hi to Bev and walked over to wait on my first customer of the day. She wanted one pound of bologna and one pound of American cheese. Pretty generic in the land of the deli. I went and got my trusty plastic glove and while putting it on asked the customer again what it was she wanted. She told me. I then walked down the deli case, picked up the cheese and asked the customer how much she wanted. One thing accomplished. What else did she want? I asked again. Walked down the case, picked up the bologna….how much? With that, Bev politely excused me over to the table where she had been working on cheese for the cheese case. She took the rest of the customers. Honestly, I don’t even remember this happening at all. Bev told me about it many months later. What else don’t I remember? What else might I have done?
I do remember driving to my appointments. “Three pieces of paper, three pieces of paper”. This sentence would keep repeating itself. The first piece of paper the doctor wanted me to sign so that I would commit myself. The second piece of paper was to allow six to ten shock treatments. The third was yet a stronger prescription. I do remember him telling me twice that he hadn’t ever had anyone on such high dosages of this stuff. HELLO!?!?!?
I don’t remember what my lowest weight was. Odd I know for someone that is anorexic, but remember, I am living in my car. Not much room for the scale.
One night, after having moved in with a motorcycle gang, (a few stories there…), I was cleaning my gun. I figured that I only needed one bullet, so I put it in the cylinder and closed it. I put the gun to my head. I pulled the trigger. It took me a minute or two to realize what I had just done. I put the gun back in its case. I brought it to a friend that I knew had a gun permit for the state of Connecticut. I told her to never let me see or touch that thing again. I now know why God made me dyslexic. The cylinder rotated the opposite way. I went home. Popped another Xannax. Opened a big bottle of cheap wine and woke up sometime the next afternoon in a fog. As I laid there and the fog slowly went away it came to me what I had done the night before. What I was capable of.
At some point I must have called my brother, Rick, because he and his wife Kath were at my door. They live five hours away. The only thing I remember, the only thing that really stuck was when Kath said “What do you want me to tell Brandie?” (my niece) “How do you want me to explain this to her because I certainly don’t have the words”
I knew then that what I was doing wasn’t working. I stopped taking the Xannax. Big mistake! Guess you’re supposed to be weaned off of that stuff. All the drinking I started doing wasn’t helping either. Bev, seeing just how desperate things had become, quickly got me in to see another doctor.
My first meeting with the new doctor was weird. I wasn’t sure about some things, okay most things. I ended up giving him Bev’s phone number. She had seen it all pretty much. She knew the truth. Guess she had spoken to him twice. I never asked about what. I was diagnosed with eight things though I can only remember six. I was STILL anorexic and depressed. I was now also suicidal, chemically dependent, border line alcoholic, (I remember asking if that was like being almost pregnant), and obsessive compulsive.
While struggling through this time, Bev was always there beside me. She kept repeating, “One minute at a time. We’re gonna do this, you and me, one minute at a time”. She kept me alive.
A few years later, I lost Bev to lung cancer.