• The Other Me

    The Other Me

    ‘Hello, Panic, My Old Friend’ iv. Dr Warren had an analogy that the anxiety was like a snowball. Unhindered, it would gather momentum and grow bigger and bigger, but put a big enough block in front of it, it would hit that block and splatter. That sounded good to me, but right about now, anything would sound good to me. With that in mind, Dr Warren prescribed me a sedative: .5mg of Xanax three times a day. Unfortunately, Xanax wasn’t a medicine you could get with a prescription over the counter. You needed government authorisation. Dr Warren said he’d file the request and the authorised prescription would come to me…

  • The Other Me

    The Other Me

    ‘Pharmaceutical Daze’ iv. Gradually, Ativan stopped working on me. But instead of it losing its effect, something else happened. Whenever I took one, the anxiety mutated into a disquiet where everything around me seemed almost unreal. One night, after taking an Ativan, I walked to my bedroom and saw down the hallway, by my parents’ bedroom, a hazy greenish-blue blob just sitting there on the carpet. I approached and it dissolved. I went to bed, petrified, and saw two other smaller blobs on the bedside drawer. Closing my eyes, I told myself I was okay. When I opened my eyes the blobs were gone. There was no doubt the Ativan…