The Other Me
An ongoing serial about neurosis, beginning with anxiety that burgeoned through my teenage years, and grew into issues also with depression and OCD, amongst other things.
The Other Me
‘Hello, Panic, My Old Friend’ v. I was in a constant shell-shocked state, short of breath, and felt like another earthquake was going to break me into little pieces. There were plenty of tremors, but I lived in anticipation of THE NEXT BIG ONE. What happened when that hit? What happened to me? I’d been living on an edge of constant anxiety; into what abyss did you fall when you plummeted from this this edge? I didn’t know any different, nor any better. This is what Dr Victor had programmed into me when I was younger: I was heading for a nervous breakdown; I could be institutionalised; it was worth…
The Other Me
‘Hello, Panic, My Old Friend’ iv. Dr Warren had an analogy that the anxiety was like a snowball. Unhindered, it would gather momentum and grow bigger and bigger, but put a big enough block in front of it, it would hit that block and splatter. That sounded good to me, but right about now, anything would sound good to me. With that in mind, Dr Warren prescribed me a sedative: .5mg of Xanax three times a day. Unfortunately, Xanax wasn’t a medicine you could get with a prescription over the counter. You needed government authorisation. Dr Warren said he’d file the request and the authorised prescription would come to me…