untitled.

Something was wrong. Those pink and blue pills were supposed to help me. It was simple: just take them with a little water and wait for the feeling when they reach your bloodstream. It’s soothing, so calm – like you’re wrapped in this impenetrable bubble.

They weren’t working. I looked at myself in the mirror. Where did my chin go? Oh, my neck swallowed it. I can see that little half circle where it should protrude. I was heavier – I’d ballooned to 210 pounds, up a pant size and a shirt size – but I didn’t bother to get new clothes. My hair was shoulder length and knotted. I tried to comb it, but it was so messed up I just pulled it straight from the scalp. My eyes watered. I didn’t care. There was something comforting about the pain.

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06 Sept 2005

Alright, it’s time to come clean. I just started taking two different medications. One for obsessive behaviors (Fluvoxamine), and another for my anxiety (Klonopin). Frankly, it's been a long time coming. I've basically been crippled by my anxiety since the age of eight years old and it's factored in every major decision I've made since then. We're talking from what I wear, to the hairstyle I have, to the people I talk to, the food I eat and how I react in social situations. It's also the reason why I chose Northern over IU and University of Iowa, and then eventually chose ECC over Northern. I couldn't handle it. The stress I was putting on myself was way too much. I basically spent my first night of college at Columbia locked in my room, bawling my eyes out. I'd worry about things that I didn't need to worry about whatsoever, but this fucking monster just took over me and made me think of the worst possible situation … Under the advice of someone who’s name I wish to keep private, they decided that maybe medication may be the best option for me. And, oh god, it is.

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I remember being pretty carefree until I turned eight. In fact, I can remember where I was when I first felt that sting – the nervous pang that reverberates through your body, attacks both your stomach and your heart at the same time, and twists and turns them like some parasite gnawing away at your insides. It was in second grade.

Someone had made fun of me for a TV show I liked. I don’t remember what exactly was said, but I knew I had been insulted. I was embarrassed. I felt naked. Exposed. There wasn’t anywhere to turn. Someone had singled me out. I didn’t have the approval. I was doing something wrong, and the punishment was a scar seen only by my eyes.

As years went by, my anxiety worsened. I would launch into a panic when in a situation I couldn’t control. On several occasions, I’d cry. First days of schools were always awful. I’d bawl my eyes out for a couple of weeks until I got used to the changes in my classes. In sixth grade, I was so upset that I threw up. The fear of not knowing what obstacles I would create for myself was debilitating. I was at the complete and utter mercy of my own mind.

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16 Oct 2005

“…I had to play around with the doses a lot. Some days, my mind would be racing but my body wouldn't be able to catch up - or I'd have an extreme amount of energy and do things like running up furniture, throwing furniture, running around the apartment to exert my energy or just eat a ridiculous amount. One occasion I ran up one of the chairs in the apartment, hit the wall and came crashing to the floor between the wall and the dinner table. I laid there for a good five minutes and then called my therapist who then talked to my doctor about fixing the medication...”

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At first, I thought the prescriptions I took were helping me curb my anxiety – maybe they did at first, because I did notice a slight decline in my edginess. I was still anxious, but not to the point where I was over processing and getting sick about it. After about the first two weeks, I started experiencing strange side effects that I wasn’t aware of. My doctor claimed I shouldn’t be experiencing any, but as the days went by my body began to make very strange adjustments.
Not being able to piss was one of the worst parts. I can’t think of many scarier situations I’ve been in, knowing I have a full bladder, but it’s only trickling out.

“Oh, it’s just a side effect, there’s not much we can do,” the doctor said. Side effect? Thanks for telling me. Here I am, in horrible discomfort and you tell me there’s "not much you can do?" I tried everything. Complete silence. Running water. Playing music. It’s embarrassing now, but I even had people shout encouragement -- nothing.

I also developed this terrible cotton mouth that left my mouth dry at all times, despite how much I hydrated myself. When I’d eat (and I ate voraciously), food would have a metallic taste to it. It didn't make any sense. Still, no matter what I read, I had to stick with the pills. They were going to make me better.

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“Paradoxical Disinhibition - Increased excitement, irritability, aggression, hostility and impulsivity may occur in some patients who take benzodiazepines. This paradoxical disinhibition may, in rare cases, result in attacks of rage or violence, or other indiscretionary or antisocial behaviors. Such reactions may be due to disinhibition of behavioral tendencies normally suppressed by social restraints...” - American Academy of Family Physicians

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The physical toll the medication took on me greatly affected my general mental state. Before, I had been friendly, polite and generally easy to approach; I had become aggressive, impatient and offensive. My optimism turned into a seething pessimism. My relationships with others began to suffer. I had an incident with a roommate that even caused him to move out of the apartment, and a year-long relationship with my then-girlfriend -- already shaky by the time we got to Chicago -- was ending. My mental state had caused a great amount of stress on my parents. Many nights I’d call them at one or two in the morning, bawling, and not able to explain to them what was wrong. All of these greatly added to my stress level and often triggered my worst attacks.

In addition, I developed strange habits. I had to clean. Everything. Top to bottom. Dust, vacuum, mop, disinfect, repeat. If there was a plate in the wrong place, I’d launch into a rage and slam myself in my room. This occurred at least once a day, sometimes two, three and even four, if I didn’t have much else to do. An already-avid music listener, I could generally afford one new album a week. Over the course of eight weeks, I acquired an astonishing twenty-six new discs, most that I’d get “bored” with and forget about after a couple of days.

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30 Oct 2005

“Last night singlehandedly was one of the most fucked up of my entire life … I had an anxiety attack like I’ve never had before. I was hyper ventilating so bad that I could barely stand up. Aaron (one of my roommates) got me downstairs and outside. Security called an ambulance for me. I believe it was one of the most surreal experiences of my life.”

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I got into a pretty bad argument with my girlfriend at the time and I believe that I stormed out of my room in the apartment and destroyed a standing oscillating floor fan before collapsing on the floor.

When the ambulance came, they checked my blood pressure. I decided not to go, instead opting for a late night over-the-phone therapy session with my longtime counselor. Things started to calm down and I thought that maybe I was out of the worst of it, but I still could not shake my dependency. I refused to think that the medicine was not helping me.

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16 Nov 2005

“Trashing the apartment felt GOOD in a sick, twisted way. I don’t know what I broke, or how bad anything was damaged, but I know I fucked it up. Maybe my time is up at Columbia. No, the school is great, but living there is very painful. Hey, today I overturned a mattress. I haven’t done that since I was two. Why do I get so upset and then become resigned to the fact that I was upset? Why I am I numb? Where does all this stress come from? Why do I cry so hard? I don’t know. If this is the bottom, then I’m sure looking forward to the other side – I mean, the top.”

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I had been staying at a friend’s apartment two floors above mine in attempt to regain some focus in my life and to ward off some of the awkwardness of my ambulance visit two weeks before. After another particularly bad argument with my then-girlfriend over the phone, I was at wit’s end. I took off down two flights of stairs and barreled in my room. When I entered, I obliterated that poor oscillating fan. I broke the neck of the fan off the base, and then separated the metal weight from the plastic bottom in a few swift movements. It was the personification of the anger – something immobile that would take my punishment without dishing it back.

Then I overturned some chairs and made my way to the closet outside of my bedroom. My blood was boiling. I felt the anger through my veins, giving me unlimited power. I used it to kick the two doors inward, breaking them off their tracks. Then inside the closet, I grabbed a crate containing my school books, spun around and delivered another kick through the locked bedroom door where my roommate was. The force knocked out the door frame.

Immediately, without consequence or acknowledging he was in the room, I launched the books at the wall, ran to where they dropped, overturned the mattress and stormed out of the apartment, bursting into tears and falling to my knees. Completely drained from what I just did, I crawled towards the staircase, made my way up and went back in the apartment where I cried in the arms of my friend Lauren until the blood vessels burst in my face.

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That very same afternoon I made a conscious decision to kick the medication. I watched as three wasted months of my life emptied into the bowl. Two separate pink and blue piles floated to the bottom and spun like a tornado, swept away as I pushed the lever.

Like a tornado, this illness swept through my life quickly and intensely and left a lot of damage. But just like tornado victims with the storms that leave them without homes and loved ones, I too had to do something that they are forced to do.

Rebuild.