It was sunny, I'd bought some brightly coloured cream cakes, and I'd made it through a week on a low dose. I called in at the doctor's to pick up my prescription and it wasn't there.
The blank barbie receptionist who talks through me explained that I couldn't get that renewed as my last pack was issued too recently. I lied and said I had a few days to go (truly, I ran out on Monday: but was too busy being disreputable to apply for more) but that I wanted to make the transition seamless. Which is the plan, anyway, so it wasn't a total lie.
She said I had two months to go, on a 10mg daily dose. No, I said, I took 30 mg a day and so I'd just finished my pack.
She pointed out that my prescription said 10mg daily; I said my dose was 30mg, it was in my records, and I had assumed that was a printing error.
I didn't say that given my doctor's ineptitude with technology I was surprised it even had a dose on it. I didn't say that my prescriptions had said that for months.
I didn't say I hadn't taken my pills at the correct dose for a week and that I was starting to flake out.
They looked up my records and saw that what I said was true; looked concerned, and pointed out to each other all the different doses in my records. What were they to do? their expressions said. It's a very serious business handing out medication, their expressions said. People say all sort of things to get a little extra hit of selective seratonin reuptake inhibitions.
I explained that I had tried to come down, found the effects too severe, and dropped off gradually. They looked suspicious and confused.
I'm not trying to gull anyone. I just need these to function. I need them so badly I'm talking about my mental health in front of a waiting room full of people.
They tell me I can't have my pills because the system won't let them, that I need to see the doctor and review my status.
I can't wait two weeks to see the doctor. I've had two freakouts in the last week, one in daytime. That's bad news.
I say I rather need my pills. I say I've been taking these for a long time. I say the last time I saw the doctor he gave me a lot of repeat prescriptions and the impression I didn't need to make an appointment every month.
I didn't say that seeing my doctor, my font of database-searching knowledge, for an insincere 'dear' and a chat where he tries to set me at my ease by commenting on my mohawk once a month isn't very helpful. I didn't say that his response to my questions are unhelpful because he's used to patients who don't like science; I didn't say I just want my medications, but I'm tied to the medical services.
My dose confusion is because I'm trying to quit what I've been on for the last seven years, ever since I came to London to live on my own and entered a really dark place. For two months I was scared of certain places in the university, certain phrases, words, scared to sleep; scared to do anything that might make me think of my death, my non-existence. Because thinking of that reduces me to a gibbering screaming spasming ball of panic.
The inevitability of the worst thing I can ever think of happening, the fact noone can save me from it and it's coming for me. I tense and hurt myself and cry and whine and flail and scream and beg anyone or anything to save me from what I fear the most and noone can. It ends when I tire myself out crying, or if I distract myself before I get down into that hole.
That, or the fear of that state, rules my life without the pills. The longer I go without them the more it is everywhere.
So I need my pills, dig.
But they tie me to that sad little clinic and those men telling me what I should do and having to share my privatest feelings every month because they can't remember me. Dependence. I can never just take off and leave because I need a steady supply of those little round white pills.
I want to be free. I'm trying to be free.
It's pulling at me though. I'm not sure I can do it. I wanted to cry at the doctor's receptionists when the three of them stood there and said I couldn't have my fix.
While I've been trying to get by without it this last week, I was hit by it in daylight on the street. Deep breaths, clenched fingers, half-circles of purple in my palms, trying to cling to the here and now in place of fear.
I was hit by it in the bed of a beautiful man. Blind terror, while he slept. I had to go to the cold light of the bathroom and try to regain some sentience. What would he have thought if he'd known? If I'd woken him up primal screaming my existential angst and drooling and sobbing? He can't know. He can't see me like that.
I NEED MY PILLS.
I have an emergency appointment with the doctor tomorrow to sort out the clerical error upon which my continued operation rests. Tonight will be fun.
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