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

    The Other Me

    ‘Pharmaceutical Daze’ vi. Going into New Year, my steadiness grew and I again looked to ditching the meds. By now, I was taking only the Tofranil. They’d done their job. I wasn’t depressed, I wasn’t having panic attacks, my anxiety was probably as normal as anybody else’s (well, mostly), and the intrusive thoughts were few and dismissible. The worry was whether any – or all – of that stuff would come back once I went off the meds. Was it lying in wait? Already, when I’d decreased my dosage of Tofranil by one quarter, the anxiety had seethed. Maybe I hadn’t tried hard enough to get through it. For over…

  • The Other Me

    The Other Me

    ‘Pharmaceutical Daze’ v. Towards the end of the year, Stan went out drinking with friends one night, and when they got back to his place Stan got it into his head to take his car for a joyride. The guys with him, Tim and Jay, tried to talk him out of it, but once Stan got something in his head it was impossible to get it out of there. The best thing to do was chaperone him and make sure he didn’t hurt himself or anybody else. Stan jumped into his car, while Tim and Jay followed in Tim’s. Only Stan sideswiped a telephone pole. He drove his damaged car…