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…
The Other Me
‘Pharmaceutical Daze’ ii. Life became restructured, but restructured in a safe environment. I disappeared from the social circles I’d known. Later, I learned people had wondered what happened to me. I let the medications stabilise my life, although often it didn’t feel much different from before. When I eventually began going out again, Stan and I hung around with my cousin, Roo, and his friends. They were drinkers, and some of them occasional stoners. Stan joined them, although I didn’t. With what was going through my head, taking anything that changed my perceptions seemed redundant. It also scared me that some people could have extreme (paranoid) reactions to dope. I…