Which Prescription is Saving Me
- Mar 1
- 4 min read
Written by Justin H. Briggs, Writer
Justin H. Briggs is the author of "Insanity Comes To Mind: A Memoir on Mental Health," which was published on May 1st, 2020. He is a good writer working at being great.
As a child, I was frequently reminded, “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.” I did not like doctors, pills, needles, or even the many assorted notions presented by the US Government’s D.A.R.E program to youth in the schools. The ‘90’s, am I right? After 41 years of L-I-V-I-N, I can safely say that I have tried it all by now, at least twice.
When once I would “Just Say No” to doctor’s visits short of the necessary physical evals for athletics or anything ailing me which Tylenol could not alleviate, I now take six daily prescription medications as required for me to live, period. I also frequently consume marijuana as a luxury. Alcohol is banished from the kingdom, but I will bum a cigarette any day.
High school showed up and things just got stranger. I felt worse every year and no one could tell. I am a boot-strapping mother fucker, I told myself, as I feigned bravado in spite of the then-misunderstood litany of my current medical conditions. Without being too revealing, I will admit that three prescriptions are for my mental health and three are for my physical health.
More than six hours without one specific medication and anxiety increases. More than a day without an additional four daily medications and both my body and brain begin regressions, in medical parlance or rather, I start to die faster. I also must inject testosterone boosters two times per month in order to be a Real Man. Any one medication removed for too long and I die. Period. And so, marijuana is the luxury and cigarettes are at least a necessity.
I used to fake it so much, trying to make it and all that. What a dipshit mindset. I fixed so many problems for paychecks from other people, human or corporate, and all the while left in my wake destruction, chaos, and ruin for all concerned due to my perpetual inability to “fix” myself. Send the assassins C.O.D.
I also used to not say shit because I did not have anything nice to say and I still have nothing to add to the conversation, for what it may be worth. Nice words get you caught up, or dead, or worse. But not talking about my problems, or my thoughts, which others did not want to hear, rather led me to today in more ways than one.
By college, the bravado fell inwardly down to apathy at reality in general and then plummeted further down into an all-consuming, soul-stirring depression. But booze helped me sleep, which is important to do. Alcohol then got me paid, played, arrested, and maybe dead once, no shit.
I fell and cracked my skull open at the end of my fifth collegiate year, or victory lap in Uhmerican parlance. I awoke as an amnesiac after that fall. Then I could press on my left temple and feel my skull grind on the right side of the back of my head. I had not a thought of speaking even to my parents about seeing a doctor, but a good friend who is no longer with us suggested I try pot for self-medication rather than alcohol.
Flash forward, past what is covered in my memoir on mental health, at least, and I know now that we are all crazy to one degree or another, or, rather, atypical. It is an interesting design component of the human being: individuality, what a nightmare. But I am not fighting for any title on the matter. Call this venting for me and take it as advice, check yourself before, during, and after you wreck yourself.
My primary failure as an individual, in my opinion, is failing for decades to recognize the gravity of my mental health reality and the resulting damage that I inflicted on others. And to that end, while I am “dry”, I am under no delusions of sobriety. I have to mentally escape every day if I want escapism. Or die. There appear to be no strong enough narcotics to kill me, and escaping into prescriptions is just slow suicide.
In fifteen years of living with a variety of diagnoses, I have consumed multiple dozens of varieties of prescription medications. There is no silver lining. That is consumerist bullshit. There is also no silver bullet what ails me either, so to speak, and I am not a werewolf anyway…I am a human being with mental illness. The side effects in any short-term, mid-term, or long-term consumption essentially require me to smoke weed so that I can at least stomach the necessary caloric intake for my prescriptions to actually metabolize into my body and mind and not just wash on out without doing their supposed jobs. What a luxurious and decadent lifestyle.
Read more from Justin H. Briggs
Justin H. Briggs, Writer
Justin H. Briggs is a writer located in Manhattan, Kansas, USA. He is more than his diagnosis and less than his potential for success, in his opinion, but he is working on that. His diagnosis of schizoaffective bipolar disorder manifests symptoms of depression, mania, delusions, paranoia, and hallucinations. He is in no way medically certified beyond the occasional CPR certification, but he has been there and done that, so to speak.
