drugs

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I was invisible, but I am not that girl anymore

I have to write once more for this blog for my grade. I’m highly motivated by grades, so despite feeling as though I have nothing to say, here I am, typing. I thought maybe I’d write about how we adjust to our unique bodily abnormalities (I don’t love this word, but I’m at a loss for another). I thought about sharing my husband’s experience of processing the bodies of fallen soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, the forced emotional detachment he took on as body after body found its way on a table before him, waiting to be readied to head home in a plain wooden box, back to the states and no doubt a family that would never recover their loss. I thought about sharing the moment my friend, whose son died an hour after birth, told me she can’t bear to hold sleeping babies because it feels too much like holding a dead baby, and how that statement, so matter-of-fact for her, knocked the wind out of me and ripped a hole in my heart for her, right beside the one that grew as her belly swelled with the baby we both knew wouldn’t survive. Somehow, none of these felt like things I wanted to share. And as I stared at the screen, thinking, “I have nothing to say,” I recalled (with the help of some online diary entries) a time in my life when I had the reverse problem: so, so much to say, and no one to listen. And I knew. Despite how very little (very, very little) I want to share this story about myself, I need to. I owe it to my own slow recovery, the future of my children, and the potential readers who’ve maybe been here too. So, here we go.

*Deep breath* *Deep breath*

I don’t generally ascribe labels to myself (they are relentlessly negative), but most people who know feel comfortable placing “emotional” over my picture. It’s a fair assessment. As long as I can remember, I’ve been an emotional girl/woman. I cry a lot, sometimes for justified reasons (see above), sometimes because I’m easily overwhelmed by emotions. I hurt a lot, and for me, emotional pain is easily manifested physically. In times I’ve had my heart broken, I have felt an ache in my chest that made it hard to breathe. It is this essential truth about me that led me down the path of self-injury. And this truth that kept me under its weight for over 10 years. If you need a trigger warning, consider yourself warned. There won’t be images, but this will probably hurt.  Continue reading →

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Imprisoning Addiction

I recently ran across an article, and a comic describing an experiment that redefines how we think about addiction. The basic gist is that it isn’t a personal flaw, that addiction is more about environment than anything else. It was really eye-opening and I invite you to check it out.

But it got me thinking…

(TRIGGER WARNING: drugs, addiction, incarceration)

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Embodiment, Women and Drugs

An acquaintance of mine recently made a pretty generalizing statement that sparked some dissonance in me. My friend and I were chatting about a celebrity entering another stint in rehab and he said to me, “Drugs really kill a woman’s face. Us men are lucky.”  As I ingested some chunks of this comment, a river of thoughts came crashing in.

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It is interesting to watch the way prescription drugs are consumed in America. We tend to obsess over the benefits of prescriptions and gloss over the possible side effects. Every commercial for a prescription drug is required to announce the side effects, but who can actually hear them? There is usually a man with low-pitched voice racing through the possible inconveniences as if they are minor possibilities.

Apart from a 4 hour erection, Viagra can also cause loss of vision, diarrhea, dyspepsia, and dizziness. It can also be fatal when taken with other drugs, especially drugs for heart related health problems. This information is not commonly discussed. Every commercial has the side effects mention as mandated by the FDA. It is the consumers responsibility to understand these side effects, ask questions, and take necessary precautions. Unfortunately, as a society we are more eager to reap the benefits then we are to take caution over the adverse effects.

I felt that Viagra was a great attention grabber for this post, but this is greater than the erection verses vision debate. There are so many prescriptions out there for a wide range of serious and minor illnesses that have side effects of varying degrees of significance. We have become comfortable putting chemicals in our body for self medication or as instructed by a health professional without thinking about the consequences. I don’t remember ever pausing to think that my aspirin can give me stomach ulcers before consuming it. Whether it is an over the counter drug or a prescription medication, we need to pay closer attention to the warnings labels, especially if the drug is a personal desire and not necessary for health maintenance, like Viagra or Latisse.