Self-Medication Pt. 2

***

I was kicked out of my own apartment recently for not paying rent, plus I broke the mirror and didn't pay for it because I snapped. So, I moved back to North Carolina. Goodbye weed.

I knocked on the door, and it was Elijah. She probably missed me, which is why she held me tight. I forgot my little niece. I came back to this home where I gave Elijah my laptop to play Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach.

She's old enough to play family-friendly, non-gory horror games. There is absolutely nothing scary about the game, to be honest. There are only jump scares and nothing else. But I can't have her playing the first game of the series because it's going to freak her out too much.

I started taking new medications ever since I started living there again. That's where I felt guilty for feeling too good in my highs or intoxication with my downers and antipsychotics.

Because I know I'm supposed to be depressed and don't deserve happiness, which makes me think I probably don't deserve these pills that make me feel too good and help me forget my problems within the next fifteen to forty-five minutes and sedate me to bed all day refusing to sleep because I wanted to feel it all afternoon and work myself up to write all night with caffeine.

Yet I do need these pills. These help me relax from too much stress. And it also drives me insane when I don't take them.

I have also prescribed Prozac. I only wanted to take them at night because that's when I'm active and awake. Prozac is a happy pill that makes me hyperactive, and my brain feels funny. I feel so much joy, as if I had no problems or stress in my whole life.

Until it wears off, the effects run out or battery, I fall back to crashing down to depression and sleep by dawn with my sedatives for anxiety and insomnia.

Prozac is the only dopamine inducing drug I can take as a schizophrenic. Because dopamine is bad for schizophrenics. But since I was diagnosed with persistent depression, I can take it.

As well as some significant anger issues to help me calm down from them. Now I'm the one who sounds like an edgy TikTok alt kid. I swear to God.

Prozac also helps me become highly creative, especially when mixed with a daily dose of Red Bullshot and a few more shots of homemade espresso.

And you ask me where my millions of dollars went? I was so manic that I spent them all on buying just one NFT and never got to resell it. Investment is a risky thing to do.

You put your money into something and hope someone will buy it; otherwise, it loses its value when the price becomes lower, and you give up on it. You get less than you actually paid for. And I was so impulsive enough to think that investing in an NFT with the only savings I had was to help me become rich.

Oh, boy, how wrong I was. It was a terrible decision. I could have supported my family. Or paid for Elijah's tuition fee and took care of her with that money so my brother could rest from the stress of taking care of a toddler.

But meh, she's already going to school nowadays, and I'm here, stuck in the oblivious void of madness. Thinking of my life choices that brought me all the way here.

But I know it can't be my fault because I have a condition I can't control. But it can be maintained with the proper medications. Then my friend came into the house looking for me. It was Jade. She'd been looking for me ever since I left for California. I told her I'd been busy lately there….

Then she told me she came here because her parents told her to socialise. I told her there was a pandemic. Why would she socialise? She was being forced to, as she claims. I told her she couldn't blame herself for being an introvert. And gave her a meme template to say.

Parents: Why don't you go outside? You're always on that phone.

You: *goes outside*

Also, parents: Where do you think you're going? With your friends? Are you going to do drugs? What if you get kidnapped?

Parents: Why don't you get off your phone and spend time with us?

You: *spends time with parents*

Also, parents: *judges you*

It's sort of stupid how this comes along together. But her parents lost all restrictions for her, like letting her smoke weed or party all night or not come home within a week without asking permission just for the sake of her going outside. And damn, the way my father was the exact opposite. God dammit. This girl is lucky.

"Yeah and the only thing I do when they tell me to go outside is to go to the playground and stare at this same kid on the swing listening to music every single day and he only comes there after school. I never talked to him."

"You're a creep."

"He sings too, so like- I was eating dinner with my family and all of a sudden, I hear yodelling. And there he was across the street at the park. The same spot I always just look at him."

"And he's just a kid?"

"Yeah, he was super weird, too. I don't know. I'm not good at this at all."

"But you're comfortable talking with me. It's not like you're bad at socialising when you haven't spent 8 years talking to anyone besides your family."

"I never talk to my family at all. They just say 'Hey Jade, wash the dishes. Hey Jade, take out the garbage. Hey Jade, clean your room. Hey Jade, Hey Jade. I'm tired of it."

"Meh, life usually works like that. I'm lucky I didn't have to do any of those. I was super spoiled,, but I wanted to do chores, but my dad refused. Because he wanted me to keep depending on him so I can be his little boy or some crap.

I've always hated him. He would even get mad if I do HIS chores around the house, and he cooks for me. He cleans the laundry for me. He's been like that ever since I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and when he locked me up inside my own house all because I was 'no you're mentally unstable'.

He would pull out that card and take care of me for the rest of my life, locking me inside. Refusing to have me go to school, work, go outside, have friends, have a girlfriend. He expects to do this until he dies, and what if he dies and I have nothing? Will I know how to clean the dishes? Will I know how to cook for myself? Will I know how to clean my own laundry? Hell! He's stupid."

"Damn, that's tough."

"I know. You should go back home. My medications are scheduled at this hour and I'm going back to bed soon. Night."

"Good night."

And she left the house as Elijah held onto her, refusing to let her go.

"Elijah. I'll give you a lollipop if you let her go."

Elijah shook her head.

So I pulled out a lollipop as she came running towards me as Jade left the door and closed it. And after Elijah realised this. She cried. And my brother, Gie, came to calm her down.

That's when I left and went to bed late in the morning with the medications I probably skipped.