A Refuge Broken

[no_escape]

I'm alive, and people are treating me like I survived something. It's kind of them, but the truth is that I've failed yet again. If I can't even kill myself, what more humiliating failure is left? Nonetheless I don't want their drugs in my body. The nurses humored me at first, but the stern face of authority is beginning to show. If you can remember the fear you felt as a child being punished, you'll know the feeling of challenging a doctor or nurse as a "mentally unsound" person.

How do I explain that it isn't physical side effects that I fear? My mind is the gateway to my soul; my brain is the dwelling place of my mind, and they want to physically manipulate my brain. I tell this to one of the more sympathetic nurses. She nods absentmindedly, and asks did I read the self help book on the table by the television? The other patients are huddled there, waiting for smoke break. They are drugged in varying degrees, and none are half as threatening as the nurses.

I tried to hide a pill in my mouth again today, but was caught this time. The male nurse leaned toward me aggressively, and asked in a threatening voice, "Do you think this is some kind of game?" I reacted with habitual aloofness, before realizing I no longer had my family to protect me in here. I had no power, no rights. My youthful pride withered, and shamefully I put another pill in my mouth and swallowed.

In the broken years that followed, I took many pills, each one eroding my last ties to this world. Do you know what it feels like to be an empty husk with an eviscerated nervous system? I've played the game, gone to school, smiled and planned. Yet today I saw a woman who was with me in that psych ward all those years ago. I remember her childish exuberance and total disconnection from this world. This morning, as her glassy dead eyes turned upon me, I wanted to ask her, "what did they do to you? where have you fled?" But I don't think she would be able to answer that, any more than I could.

[Dragon]

That was an excellent post, no_escape, thank you ...

You have the same "fear", I think that I do.  I don't like drugs that chemically alter my mind, whether it's alcohol, pot (or related) or "medicine".
While they seem to have the mindset that it's better to be alive and medicated, I have the mindset that I'd rather be dead than to spend my life as a zombie.  And you're right, there's little common ground there.
During my very infrequent hospitalizations I've seen too many people where "the lights were on but there was nobody home."  Not the life I choose for myself.
I wish that more (any?) of the medical folks would realize that they're trying to treat the symptoms of a very real dis-ease.  Without trying to resolve the underlying issues, some of which can go back years!, all the drugs in the world aren't going to help.  One also has to question whether those old issues have become such an ingrained part of us that we wouldn't feel as if we were ourselves without them.

[no_escape]

Thanks Dragon. I often feel like what I have to say is of no interest or relevance to anyone. We seem to see eye to eye in a lot of things though.