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| Art Card by the Author |
When I told my psychiatrist about the ghosts that I saw and the thoughts that ran through my brain, she asked me if I’d be open to taking pills.
My first thought was yes, of course, like it was a normal thing to agree to. And it was, to me, because the pills would ultimately help me with what I struggled with. The pills would be my crutch at a time when I needed a strong, steady stream to guide me back to shore.
My answer was yes, until I saw the pensive look in my doctor’s eyes and the worried glint in my mom’s.
Seconds passed by in which I never thought I’d hear the silence speak so loudly in a room merely filled with three people. The clock was ticking, their breaths held, and suddenly the space felt so quick to expand beyond me.
I left that room with a prescription. My answer was still yes, my agreeance to the pills still sound, but I left that room with a reluctance I didn’t know I needed to prepare for.
–
When I was adjusting to the medicine, my friends wondered about my state, and where I was once so ready to tell them I’d been put into medication, there was suddenly a chasm of silence I couldn’t fit to fill.
I felt no shame about my condition, I truly didn’t. There was no shame in needing medical assistance for something that wasn’t visible to most people because it was still there even if they didn’t see it. A continuous fight with my mind, and the brain was still an organ; I understood that there was no shame in treating a part of myself with the pills.
There was no shame to be had, but as my friends asked, I was brought back to that uncertainty of accepting my condition. Pills, pills, pills, so taboo and forbidden in our society, the association would surely paint me in a light so severe it might just set me back.
I wasn’t crazy, I just needed a little bit more help reconstructing parts of my brain so they worked well again, that’s what the pills were for — little building blocks to help me piece back the parts of me that kept falling.
When my friends asked again, after days of giving me my space and caring at a safe distance—a distance I’d put them in, I’d nearly admitted my secret.
Nearly.
–
My mom and I kept it from the rest of the family the first few weeks that I was taking my pills.
Weeks? Months? Or was it mere days? I can’t quite remember.
I can’t remember how long we kept it from them, I only remember the reason why we did it. Whispers in darkened rooms put my family’s opinions in a blinding glow. Their eyes, so easy to shimmer with love and affection, turned to stony judgment just as quick — if not quicker. A smile tipping to a near sneer of self-righteous suspicion.
Ignorance would be the word I’d use to describe the foundation of their beliefs. Outdated, ill-conceived ideas born out of ignorance about how the brain works, and how mental illness can incapacitate someone just as severing a limb can.
Perhaps they really were just a product of their time, inflexible to the ways the world has changed for the better, and perhaps if they learned the truth about me, they’d be more understanding. But I couldn’t risk facing their disappointment.
I couldn’t risk losing their love to have it replaced with disgust or apathy, just for them to know I was in a sensitive place they might never care to find.
It might’ve, could’ve made us a stronger unit had I just come out and said my piece. It might’ve been a bonding experience for us as a family had I been the one to advocate for mental health in the family.
We kept it from them all the same.
–
Eventually, the shame fades.
The fatigue of keeping such a self-imposed, darkened secret wore me out. The need for people to understand me won out over the fear of people judging me. After a time of wallowing alone in the dark, I shrugged off the weight and came out of my exile.
I told my friends. I told my family. I told anyone who had any immediate care for me.
Where I was so afraid of falling from their graces, I found that had I simply relied on my own belief, trusted my own perception, I wouldn’t have suffered through the silence alone. The people who truly cared accepted me for what I’ve gone through, and the people who didn’t make themselves known that they didn’t truly matter at all.
The relief of the unburdening would be the one to grant me the last key in getting better.
And with what I’d just done, I knew the first step to the last path was already taken.
–
I still take the pills.
It’s a slow, gradual improvement. My psychiatrist assures me that I’ll get to where I want to be, eventually, and that I just need to trust the process.
The process is a long walk set at a crawling pace, but at least I was still moving toward the end goal.
I can talk about the pills, my taking them and my needing them, so much easier now. I no longer feel the need to hide any part of it, as I’d always known from the start that there was no shame to be had for any of it.
I take the pills. I heal.
I survive.
I live.
