Not 24 Hours from Tulsa

I have been awake for about 36 hours straight.

I was awake and crying all night. Mindlessly clicking on the laptop.

Some nights my brain chemistry just rebels against my meds and refuses to respond as it should – by sleeping.

At least that’s what I thought.

Turns out Phil, who is usually so reliable, forgot to give me my evening meds.

No quetiapine.

No sleep.

I sit here now, waiting for today’s meds to kick in and give me just a little relaxation and a  little relief.

But I am shaky and nervous.

I hate that at 47 I can’t be trusted with my own meds. That I don’t realise when I haven’t taken them and can’t remember if I did.

I want to scratch away my anxiety. Not the usual tiny repetitive scratches that gradually remove the top few layers of skin in one little spot. No, I want great raking movements. Top to toe.

Making my whole body sing with relief.

I hate the ways my body smells.

I want to shower, but if I do and then I eat, I will smell wrong again and need another shower.

So I wait.

Feeling more and more irrational.

Knowing that today , I am not ‘normal’. Hating myself for my inability to stop acting this way.

Soon, they will bring me some food. Then I can get ready to sleep.

Maybe take some zopiclone.

Maybe a diazepam.

Yes, definitely diazepam.

Without it, this skin won’t scratch itself off.

oops I missed them again!

Last night was a drug- fuelled doozy – diazepam, zopiclone, 200mg quitiapine and still I kept waking up in pain.

Morning comes and I greet the day feeling jittery and scared. That terrible, pit of the stomach, fear that just makes you hold onto yourself tighter and tighter until the trembling stops. But the trembling doesn’t stop.

And then comes THE question … ‘what’s wrong?’

And I sit and sob and cry and snot and try to stop and blub and all that I have been holding in escapes. All the fear and uncertainty , the fear of being afraid,  the uncertainty about it  ever stopping.

My head hurts. My shirt is wet and ‘no, I don’t know what brought this on.’

We have lived together long enough for he who thinks logically and manages my condition much better than me, to usually have an idea at this point.

Tablets.

He has forgotten to give them to me this morning.

I hate that he has to manage my meds (like I have some sort of chronic illness or something) but this happens much more regularly if I am in charge. Also he has to hide the bad boys in constant far of me deciding that today is one day too long for me to be on the planet.

So an astonishing four hours after I usually take them, I am a trembling wreck in the corner.

That is how long it takes for withdrawal to kick in from 225mg slow release venlafaxine people.

Half an hour later and I am my normal, drug- addled calm person.

Is this what I would be without my meds?

Or is it just magnified by the withdrawal process?

I am seriously not ready to find out yet.