Daily Archives: March 20, 2020

Vacation Pandemic – Day 5

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I had promised myself I would never do this again. And yet here I am, third time. And just as miserable.

Withdrawal.

Withdrawal from one of the worst meds to come off of.

The first time, my best friend didn’t believe I felt as bad as I did, and accused me of hitting on her boyfriend when I’d asked him to change the time on our wall clock.

Top most symptom of the withdrawal, brain zaps and dizziness.

While, probably not the clinical term for it, it is the most accurate to anyone who has experienced it. It happens any time I move my eyes. Zap. And because you then try not to move your eyes, zap. You close your eyes, and the pressure of your eyelids, zap. Sometimes it rocks thru your whole body. I feel it in my chest. I feel it in my elbows. This electricity that wants out, but is stuck.

And so, because of the care you try to take in conservatively moving your eyes to avoid the electrical storm headache in your brain, you develop this dizziness. You close your eyes and the world slips out from under your feet. Your stomach roils, but you’re just standing there. You sit. You lay down. But even the ground can’t help you.

I am fortunate to be here at home with my parents while feeling this way. But also, have never felt more scared to look and feel sick.

The last time I came off this med, I got so bad I wanted to die. I actually wanted to die. Brain zaps and dizziness are one thing, but I developed sweating and shaking. I found myself curled into the fetal position majority of my time. I had one pill left, I was mean’t to be off them completely, but I would hold the near empty bottle like Smegol stroking The Ring. And I was home all alone.

On the one hand, I gained a new sense of empathy towards drug addicts trying to come clean. On the other hand, I added one more line to the list of reasons I would surely die during the apocalypse…

I tell myself that I will never do this again. My brain is such a jumble I can barely read, I can hardly write. This time I gave myself off of work, to live and write and plan out my future. Not really in the cards…

Vacation Pandemic – Day 3 & 4

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Yesterday, while at the store I stood in an aisle looking for something. I noticed an older man watching me from the end of the aisle. Once I had found what I had been looking for, I grabbed it and walked past him. I noticed him then hurry down the aisle to find his own items.

It felt as though he had been glaring at me. No one has been outright rude to me, but I can’t help feeling higher amounts of judgement..

We drove through town, taking notice of all the places still open. Places desperately remaining open, places stubbornly remaining open. People are trying to survive. And ironically, while in an attempt to physically survive this pandemic, people are losing sight of basic survival needs…

We went to the store again today. It’s hard to stop needing things. It is a state of mind I am not used to. That Costco trip mentality. We walk into the store and dried pastas, dried beans, frozen veggies… depleted. Sensible. Sensible items if you’re going to survive the end of the world…

And for as many zombie movies as I watch, disaster movies about all electric power shutting off, post apocalyptic survival movies… it’s easy to say you’d know what to do. But I really don’t. I don’t have a means to set myself up for that.

Instead I joke that I’m resigned to being one of the first to die. I need too much food.

Ironically is my father’s community title. Head of the Disaster Preparedness Committee.

So I’ll continue to live day by day… I don’t know any other way. I will continue to live paycheck to paycheck, buying groceries as I need them. I will continue to go to work, because I work in a hospital. I will continue to go to bed at night, and wake in the mornings…

The small coffee shop that uses the pink breast cancer awareness paper cups was still open. We blessedly went in. The woman behind the counter seemed either high on caffeine, or high on hand sanitizer fumes. But extrordinarily friendly. Giving us more cookies than we’d asked for and pretending it was an accident.

Because, during these times, we can’t forget to be good to each other… we have surely failed as humans, if in the middle of all of this, we forget that..