A Shift - Part I

Thirteen years ago this week I walked into a doctor's office with shortness of breath and chest pains. I left there with a prescription to 'magic pills', a handful of samples, and a warning that I should learn to live with it because once I fell into a depression I would always fall into it again. I cried all the way home. I had gone for help and was handed pills and shooed back home. I spent the entire month of January hidden at home. On the couch, with shades drawn, lights off. Me and my magic pills.

When I finally ventured back to work and the outside world, I was no longer 'depressed'. The magic pills did a fine job of killing all emotions. I was now zombified and gaining weight because of them. I couldn't sleep so I went back to the doctor who handed me sleeping pills with a smile. Take these, you'll be fine. And I did. And what a deadly combination. One night I didn't think they were working. I couldn't sleep. So I must have kept taking them during the night. I don't know how many. Until I reached a point where I felt fine but from my perspective I was on the ceiling looking down at my sleeping body. But along the floor were rolling shadows like furry balls trying to get onto the bed. It scared me senseless but I couldn't do anything about it. At some point I woke up to my hubby crying and shaking me saying that I wasn't breathing. I jumped off the bed to look for the fur balls. I realized then that I must have accidentally taken way too many pills. I flushed everything down the toilet, opened a bible and cried for help. I never did go back to that doctor.

But I did get angry.

I lost 5 months of my life in a medicine-induced stupor.

And the anger created a shift within me.

I never did fall into another depression.

I never needed magic pills again.

I never needed sleeping pills again.

I had to learn to trust differently

And begin to recreate myself