I didn’t fall so much as vanish, one quiet inch at a time.
Medications were always an endless loop — try this, wait six weeks, hope for relief that never came. My diagnosis bounced between bipolar, manic, PTSD, depression, anxiety. I didn’t care what word they used. The only thing that felt real were the side effects: hair falling out, restless legs, stomach cramps, diarrhea, and the hunger — the kind that swallowed me whole.
I’d had an eating disorder when I was younger. I still fight with the numbers on a scale. That part never leaves you; you just learn to manage it without letting it run the show.
The worst were the shakes. Bad enough that a doctor wondered if I had Parkinson’s. Forty years of meds, forty years of protocols, and I can barely name what I’m on.
A friend told me the meds weren’t worth it. I believed him. I stopped everything cold. At first nothing changed. Life was calm enough that I didn’t notice the slope under my feet. I was a little crankier, a little more wired, but it crept in quietly — until it didn’t.
The crash hit like a trapdoor. I couldn’t get out of bed. I wasn’t hungry. I was anxious and hyper‑vigilant and convinced I could out‑swim winter in the outlet behind our yard. I would’ve frozen long before I drowned, but in that moment it felt like a clean exit into the dark.
My friend had other ideas. He gathered people, and a crisis counselor showed up. That was my first psych ward.
Compared to others I’ve seen since, it was a country club. I didn’t know that then. They guided me back to myself, slowly, gently. A few weeks later I was upright again — the familiar version of me: a little crazy, a twisted sense of humor, fueled by caffeine, marijuana, and poor choices.
The people around me were just like me. So everything went back to “normal.” Or so I thought.
K.
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I'm Still Here. Somehow... 