I Take Medication Because I Want to Live
Words by Kimberly Morand
No, this room is too loud, I thought. The muffled conversations of people outside two floors below, his keyboard clicks, the skin rubbing between my husband’s nervous hands, the jazz music streaming in the waiting room; it pierced my ears and I squeezed my eyelids just enough to divert my attention on a tear in his carpet. It collected into a tangle of knots like the pit in my stomach. It reminded me of brown worms.
“I think it’s time you went to the hospital,” my psychiatrist said.
“What?” I shot up from the couch and my psychiatrist calmly said, “OK, Kim. Please have a seat. Let’s talk. Can I give you a medicine that will help calm you down? Your brain is firing off too quickly.”
“Babe, you’re sick. Please,” my husband whispered. I nodded my head.
The small yellow pill melted on my tongue and within minutes, all of my “brilliant” thoughts that had collided against one another at a breakneck pace, now stuck in time. The itch under my skin was barely noticeable. I felt mentally far yet my body anchored to the earth by cement.
“The doctor pulled a plug on my head,” was the last thing I remember saying to my husband before I fell asleep.
It was the next day in a tiny ER exam room when my psychiatrist told me that I had Bipolar Type 2. I was dressed head to toe in everything pink.
He handed me new prescriptions – my official societal label as “the crazy person”. My head swirled. I was originally diagnosed with postpartum depression and that was going to eventually go away because the internet had told me so.
But Bipolar Disorder meant forever.
At the pharmacy, I swayed at the counter as the pharmacist filled my order, checking, double checking, whatever it is they do so well, but she was taking too long. I could feel people starting to stare. They knew. They all knew. When she finally arrived with my shockingly big brown bag, I blurted out loud, “I’m bipolar OK! I am very sick!” I never returned to that pharmacy again.
SEEING THE WORLD PROPERLY
It's six years later. There have been many medication and dosage changes, side effects, ups and downs, successes, setbacks, but I am still here fighting and I am still taking medicine. Without medication, I wouldn’t be able to make it out of bed in the morning; inversely, I’d still be up in the late hours of the night ordering art printed on vintage encyclopedia pages. That really happened.
Life is not supposed to have such sharp edges that it hurts to almost breathe. I know this because without proper medication I watch people, stable people, you people, go about your day without any effort at all. You are completely unfazed by colors that are too bright, sounds that are too loud, and gravity – your feet seem to float across the pavement whereas I am struggling to carry triple my weight in cinder blocks on my shoulders during my depressive episodes.
You laugh when you should, cry when you should, get angry, elated, terrified, and stressed when you should.
I want that. I don’t want to suffer eating kale, jogging around the block to get fresh air, and rubbing coconut oil in places I didn’t know existed just because your Aunt Karen suggested that I try that to cure my crippling anxiety. (That’s not a thing. I just made that up so don’t do that.)
My psychiatrist gave me medicine. I am allowed to take it. It works for me.
I am not ashamed to take medication to treat an illness that has dragged me through the depths of hell and has held my brain hostage for weeks and months on end. I’m not ashamed to take medication so that I am able to get off this roller coaster and see the world like you do. I want to enjoy life with my family.
I did not choose this illness but I do choose to take medication. I want to ask you this: would you tell someone who has cancer to try yoga or to smile more before trying chemotherapy? Then why would you tell me, someone who battles thoughts of suicide – that’s a life and death situation – to try these things instead of trying to take medicine?
Taking medication for my mental health doesn’t make me weak. Taking medication means that I need help. I’m OK with receiving help because I want to live.
** Editor’s Note: This essay first appeared in Issue 15 of Holl & Lane Magazine. **
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