NUMBER FIVE

My other favorite number, and not because it means I'm halfway done either .

Withdrawals. Never thought I'd be going through them…

Here's what I wrote in a letter to my family, but never actually sent;

DRUGS: No I'm not taking anything illegal. My Zoloft (anti-depressant) has been abolished. The doc said “your fine lets wean you” to my objections. Although I had noticed a month or two ago that I was craving warm colours (red, orange, yellow ect) instead of cold colours (blue, green, purple) I still felt really bad. Anyways about 3 days after I'd completely stopped (took 50mg instead of 100mg for a week then stopped) I started feeling sick. I'd already been crying my head off for the past three days. Then I started to have these really scary visions. They were so bad, sudden and scary I hid my scissors, shaving stuff and anything else I had scary visions about away (even Rosie [my teddy bear], my true love of which is unconditional. I had a dream she was rotting when I was little and it sort of came back but with creepy crawlies!). Then one night I was having weird vision like dreams. Before I continue I must let you know I was attacked by a dog a long time ago, in year seven. He didn’t hurt me but after that I hired books about dogs and learnt how they work, what their body language means, how to protect myself-and if necessary, how to kill a dog instantly if I feel its going to severely injure me. I was having electric shocks; some so severe I punched myself in the head or leapt off the bed, or almost spun myself out of the bed with my leg kicking out fast. I wasn’t really asleep because I was having these shocks so much I couldn’t get to sleep. I had heaps of scary dreams but the last one, the one I remember was by far the scariest.

Basically I was in a field of long grass, and the white cat (Smoochie) was climbing the fence, and the black cat (Vegemite) was on the wooden table behind me. A beautiful English sheepdog came bounding up to me and he was bouncing around using his “play stance” (type of body language dogs use to tell you they want to play) and he ran off and came back with a stick, so I was about to throw it and he leaped up to my face and ripped at it. It was EXTREMELY graphic. It scared me cause there was no sign he was scared, angry or anything that would make him snap, it’s my favorite sort of dog after German Shepard’s but it was so graphic. [I ran downstairs to mum shaking and crying…at 16 so she was kinda freaked out herself specially when I took nightime flu tablets to sleep]

Anyways the scariest symptom I had was the aggressiveness one. Somehow coming off –some sorts of- drugs can cause you to become aggressive. It was the strangest feeling. Those who know me well will know that I'm extremely timid, if you yell at me enough I’ll burst into tears; combination of (mostly) fear, shame, guilt, or in the case its not my fault, fear, anger, frustration and injustice. If someone I care about is physically fighting I will go into hysterics and freak out (except the day Rhianna slapped Ashley. That was a great day), if someone I don’t care about or know is fighting I will shy away and keep out of it.  As far as I'm concerned, (animal wise) if it’s not domesticated, and it doesn’t grow bigger than my foot it can be and most likely is scary. Anyway, the symptom I had I will try to explain as best I can. I went to school and I felt kind of agitated. But it wasn’t in my mind. Most agitation comes from your head and goes to the body, but this was the body talking. My arms felt angry and agitated and I didn’t understand it. I went to math and sat down, punched myself in the face by accident (I had a shock run through my arm like when I was having that dream even though it had been a week, I still had random jerks) and got teary because it hit my nose, which makes the eyes water. Mrs. NameRemoved thought I was having another “moment” like the week before when I burst into tears and she had to calm me down. I told her “no I'm not crying *laughs*…I just hit myself in the face by accident” she didn’t get it so I explained my muscle had a spasm after class.  Then I went to history and told my teacher I was having a new, dangerous symptom and to just be aware of how I'm feeling. I sat down and was participating as usual, we had a debate. I argued for Greece (being the best over Rome) “well we built the foundations for your country, if it wasn’t for us you wouldn’t have become the people you came to be…and besides that, Greeks helped found your little establishment!” and some girl on the roman side told me to “shut up”. My body got so angry at that that the only way to hold it back was to retort at her (normally I would have just ignored her) “you know what? I am entitled to be here and I'm entitled to have my say, so don’t you tell me to shut up!” she started to say something and I told her to shut up and she said “oh, I know you didn’t just tell me to shut up!” and I laughed and said “well then your stupid ‘cause I did!” and Mrs. NameRemoved told us both to shut up, and my anger faded slowly. Julius was amazed; he’d never seen me so nasty. He’d never seen me upset before either. Then I went to art class, and my body was agitated, but my mind was excited and telling me to hurry up because I had a great session planned. I got to class and set up my stuff so I could trace a drawing I'd done (I put it on a transparency) onto a HUGE board.  I had to do it near the door because the projector couldn’t be moved, so I put chairs around my work area, which most people went around, others ran into them *smacks head over stupidity of others* before realizing they were there! Anyways I had a run in with a girl, who I'm always nice too, and I get along with her fine. she walked straight through the 20cm gap between two chairs and tried to walk in front of the light that was projecting my work, which would mess me up really badly. I asked her three times nicely not to (and the girl who was watching said I did do it nicely, cause I asked later) walk in front of my work. “please go around, I put up chairs and everything…can you please just go round?” she glared at me and then walked straight through, messing up my projection. Again my body got so angry and I yelled loudly after her “well that was [insert bad word here that ends in y]! What the [insert another shameful word here] did I ever do to you?!” then my mind connected to what was happening and I ran out of the classroom and didn’t return for 20 or more minutes. What happened was my body was pulling me like a magnet to fight her, my arms were begging for it, and it scared me so much because I never get like that, and I don’t want to be aggressive. It took so much just to run the other way and not allow my body to hit anything or one. I sat in the bathroom shaking and teary. It was so scary for me to even feel like that. On a normal day I would have called not yelled after her “well that’s nice. I’ll remember that”. I came back to class and Mrs. Name Removed was worried and asked why I swore, and said she would have to write me up. I told her what happened and she agreed the girl was out of line (after the other girl confirmed my version), but I shouldn’t have used profanity. I told her to check her email, because I was sure it was a symptom, and I didn’t want to get in trouble for something I would never do if I had control. Throughout that day was a series of incidences where I had to use all of my strength to hold myself back. To explain it better, you would have to know what feeling detached is like. Mild forms can make you feel like your arms or legs aren’t attached. Like you have no control over them, you can control them but in the end their really controlled by someone/something else. Extreme forms of detachment can make you feel like you’re outside of your body, but either looking through your eyes or watching your body. It’s like you can watch the movie, but it’s not yours, it’s the video stores. If you know even the milder form then this will be easier to understand, because it’s the milder form mingled with the extreme form. I felt like I had total control of my mind, throughout the day my mind was calm and peaceful, as normal. My body on the other hand didn’t feel like mine, it was totally numb-horribly numb, the only thing I could have felt was something piercing my skin (I closed my binder on my arm because I couldn’t feel it was in the way). So basically it didn’t even feel like I could move my arms or legs. If you can't draw now, imagine what its like to try to write with a numb hand, it’s very hard. Sort of like the way I felt when I had to stop myself from doing anything I wouldn’t normally do. It was a huge effort, and when I got home I was exhausted. The rest of the week was “fall break” luckily so I secluded myself for the few days that symptom remained, out of fear more than anything. But all in all it was a horrible transition. For 5 weeks I felt nauseous and like I had 20 periods at once.

It was scary because I didn’t know WHY I was having these feelings. I wasn’t told I could have withdrawal symptoms or what they could be! I threw up a bit because the abdominal pain made me nauseous, and I had constant headaches and felt like my head would explode from pressure, or the pain from the headaches. I took medications for all of this but it never made the slightest difference. I felt vertigo, although (to my deep annoyance) it was really mild, I never felt it before except once in a dream and I wanted to compare the two, but all I felt was dizzy and the walls I ran into, and the stair rail I fell into after I grabbed it cause I started to fall down the stairs. Although this was an absolute horrible 5 week experience it was well worth it. I feel much better, I'm craving warm (happy) colours and I just feel good again.