Medicated Nightmares #1
"Whatever you're feeling right now, there's a mathematical certainty someone else is feeling that exact thing. This is not to say you aren't special, this is to say thank god you aren't special." - Neil Hilborn.
My friends tell me I recite this quote to them every so often, but that it never seems to cheer them up like it does with me. I don't mean anything bad by saying this, my intentions were innocent. Unfortunately, good intentions don't always cut it. I could list out all the ways in which my view of people being inherently good, has stabbed me in the back, slit my throat and taken my organs, but it would be a never ending story. All you need to know for now, is that it has given me a life supply of trauma, packed neatly in a timespan of 15 consecutive years. This is not to say that every year was excruciating, luckily I was given some time to breath between beatings, but alas, I knew it was coming every time. You never know exactly what it is, but when something in your life is good, you can't enjoy it, because you need to stay on call for the next blow. This is not how I saw my life going, I had big plans as a kid. My mother always told me "Life is a party, but you have to decorate it yourself.", search for the happiness in smaller things. This does help from time to time, but when you spend most of your life in flight-fawn response, taking a breath and taking a moment is not as easy as it might sound. With all these 'things' as I will call them, every thing a new scar, some seem to heal, other fester and rot, emerging to sweep me into a downward spiral in a heartbeat. Yellow cars, taking drinking cartons out of the fridge, deadpool, flame tattoos, Daim chocolates. All these things and many more will set off all the alarmbells in my brain, and with that, all the fun things that come with c-ptsd.
Last year I applied for a psychologist, because the last one of my traumas seemed to be one of the festering type. It had gotten to the point where I would put off going to sleep, knowing what horrors would await me. At this point I was faced with what happened during the day, the flashbacks, the power this man still seemed to have over me. At night I would wake up in hot sweats, haunted by the visuals of the girls he might lay his hands on because I didn't report. The first step to taking back what was so brutally taken from me, was to make sure I could get a goodnight sleep, but was then told there was a 26 week waiting line for any help. I will spare you the details of how I spent those agonizing weeks, also because I barely remember, most of my time was spent about halfway conscious.
After I had been admitted, by lying about the amount of shit that needed to be shovelled in the brain department, things started looking up. It took quite some extra time for them to agree on what kind of sleep medication to put me on, they decided to go for Oxazepam. While I must say it was quite a fun high, sleep was still nowhere to be found. With this I went from 2 hours of sleep every day, to about 4. Still an improvement, I know, but not where I wanna be. The second option was a second anti-depressant called Mirtazapine. The thing with this was, the less you take, the more side effects you get, and the big one here was basically knocking you out for about 8-13 hours. While I always pride myself in doing the dumb stuff like reading the prescription papers, I was so desperate at the time I thought "Fuck it, what's the worst that can happen, get less sleep?". First time taking it was blissfull beyond anything you can imagine, and I know people say "They slept like a baby.", I don't think anyone can find a baby that has slept this good. Ever. When I woke up, I was surprised to see that it had made me cry. The weight of not sleeping had been so heavy, it almost crushed me.
In the weeks ahead I seemed to notice more often than not, my dreams were extremely detailed and graphic. When I told this to my psychiatrist and he just said "Oh yeah, they tend to do that, I guess I should've warned you.". I didn't think much of it, until the first nightmare on medication. It happened about a week in, and while i've seen and read my fair share of the horror genre, the mind can be an awfully creative thing when given carte blanche. I have seen myself beaten, tortured, sold, raped and murdered. Over and over again the medication knocks me out, and takes me into the darkest corners of my mind. The thing is, if I were to wake up from it, I won't be able to sleep anymore. If the medication keeps me asleep, I get to function somewhat normally. Still haven't decided which one is worse.
