Chapter 41 - My End
When I say it feels weird to be done, as you well know if you've been paying attention... my medication has me in a state where I can't feel most emotions. I can, however, feel some underlying reason or urge to feel the emotion.
This has been years. I'm done. Free. Again, when I say it feels good to know I took revenge and didn't skimp on dishing it out? You know how I mean it.
I put a big block of time aside, for me and my girlfriend. I have something big in mind for us, but she doesn't know yet.
"So. Honey. I have something big to ask you. I'm just talking about it, see how it goes."
"Does this story end, with you want to be a girl now? Dress up, or get tit medication and surgery? Anything remotely like that."
"No. Not at all."
"Then, I can probably live with it. I mean, if you bet on the Yen against the British Pound, and got fucked out of half of your booty? I mean it nice, when I say I don't care. I mean, I care if you get wiped out, because I know that sucks? But, you should know, of all people. We're not together for any, money reason, like most couples hook up."
"I'm thinking about... medication."
"Is yours going funny on you?"
"No. Steady as a rock. Like always."
"What about it, then. You describe, fetal position without it."
"What did you describe. Coming off of your happy shots that turned into happy pills, for you. Mine was bad enough, it stayed shots. Plus, they say pills wear on you going in, and going out. Shots? Only wear once, and its less."
"I was a... a fucking hot mess. For a couple days. Just when I thought it would never break, that I had to give in and have a little bit of each of these two medicines? I tried cold turkey, and that didn't work. Too bad of a... weird thing. I went to half pills, then quarter pills, then little chips. When I tried skipping how many days between chips? It got worse, worse than ever. But, I finally managed to ride one out."
"How long did, riding it out... how long did that take."
She said it with emphasis.
"Days."
"But you finally broke through."
"Barely. But, yeah. If you're asking if its some sort of weird psychological addiction response? Like coming off heroin or cocaine. Yes, its a weird psychological and emotional withdrawal. Here's how they explain the medical model, in psych classes. If you're interested."
"Sure."
"Your body. It makes chemicals. These chemicals? They wake you up, they put you to sleep. They make you feel happy, they make you angry. When you adjust or suppress one or more of these chemical systems? Its called rebound. Do you know the word."
"I know a rebound, is when you play basketball, you got to be always ready to get that rebound if the shot doesn't go in."
"Classic medical rebound example. My nose is running. I buy nasal spray. Why is my nose still running, weeks later. Answer. Rebound. You take anything, to regulate something? When you suddenly quit taking it. You have to go through at least three days of it actually being worse, sometimes as long as 7 to 10 days. The nasal spray? After three days using it, when you try to stop? Your nose runs worse then ever without the drug making it stay dry."
"You're saying these chemicals are the same? Rebounding."
"Up front? Me, the rape. You, what you experienced. Yeah, we're shell shocked. Traumatized. We needed treated. But, when we try to drop the medication, or just cut it down too much? Yeah. We get rebounded. The chemicals that your body makes, to make you feel good. To motivate you, to do things it wants. If you're medication is stimulating those pleasure chemicals, to regulate your moods? Yeah. You try to get off the medication, you'll rebound for days into a period where you get no pleasure chemicals at all. Or, the bad chemicals. Where our body regulates our fear and stress. If the medication shuts those off? Yeah, you get flooded with fear and stress chemicals."
"How dangerous is this period of time. Trying to get through it."
She spoke quietly, with a rock steady voice.
"Different for everybody, every case varies. Highly variable medical position to be in. That said? You hear the same story, over and over. Here's what happens, if I don't get my medication, I need my medication... and they go on to describe... basically? The rebound mechanism, of having their body systems regulated. Most people have zero idea, what exists beyond the rebound, that weird emotional withdrawal. The medical personnel? They'll straight out lie to you. See? You need to take your medicine. If you ask, is this some kind of psychological withdrawal? They'll swear on a bible. No, there's no withdrawal. Its just proof, you need medicated."
"Medical personnel, all in on the big conspiracy, the group lie? Sounds..."
I got the light musical laugh I treasure so much.
"Paranoid, yeah. God's truth, though. I used to not tell therapists right away, that I had half a psych degree in the bag. I already knew the truth about the medication and the weird withdrawal symptoms most of them shared. I learned to ask certain, litmus questions. To see if a new therapist? Would lie to me, or tell me the truth if I gently prodded them."
"And?"
She whispered, but steadily.
"Most of them will lie right to your face."
She continued at normal quiet volume and pacing.
"You asked if it was dangerous. It can be."
"Tell me the danger."
She paused.
"Generic case. Whether its cold turkey, or... the patient has been reducing dosage, and finally tries to go without. They all report different, but really its all the same thing. The old timers used to call everything, a nervous breakdown. And when you try to get off of most psychiatric medications? You can expect your basic full blown nervous breakdown. I would expect? Yelling, screaming, crying, bawling. Snots down the face bawling. Hours at a time. Days, even."
"That's embarrassing. Not dangerous."
She sighed.
"It can devastate a person that's emotionally... fragile, or weak that way. Your heart rate will peak at near panic levels, possibly for hours at a time. A person with any kind of blood pressure or a weak heart? It can easily kill them. Your heart will be banging away, fast and weak after several days with no sleep and what you call... fetal. Pretty sure, my nervous breakdown, is your... fetal position."
"Yeah."
"So outside of the heart collapsing, there the matter of heart attacks and even seizures. I'm less worried about you and a heart attack. You exercise and work out, like a religion."
"One of the few things, that takes my mind off of... seeing the damn pictures. Makes me feel a little better."
"That's because exercise makes, for lack of a better word? It makes some good chemicals. Some people with some mild to moderate problems? Over compensate, and get by from exercising at a high dosage, basically. I would recommend, that you keep on exercising, if you're successful getting off the medication."
"Seizures?"
"They can happen. Its rare, but its a possibility. If they happen, they can be almost not detectable, or... even devastating. Its rare, but people have came to with half of their body not working. Like a seizure an old person can have."
"And if that, once that happens... what."
"Seizures? Highly variable. They can range from weird sensations and feelings? To paralysis and even death. If you get bad enough, there's a little common drug they always have on hand. For anyone, getting off of anything. Alcohol, drugs. Librium, is the standard thing. Its great for the short term, you don't want to get on it as a substitute. You can use it heavy for a short bad spell, its what its for."
"I'd rather not."
She stared at me.
"I know the feeling. Goes against the grain, that you're trying to get off of psych medication. And they're talking about dropping pills into you, to get you through it. You think I wasn't in that same boat?"
"Did you need the Librium."
"Yeah. Remember. I had medical care. When the dog won't take the pill, do you know how you get the dog to take the pill?"
"Learned this when I was a teenager, with our own dog. He got an infected cut, he needed antibiotics. You have to gently shove it into the back of his throat, just right, and he swallows. Its more art, than science. I learned to do it, and not get bit. He learned to let me do it, and I didn't force him too hard."
"That's a dog, that just doesn't understand. Now? Imagine the human. Fighting you, this is about not taking psycho medication. Yeah, they had to force a couple pills now and then. Down my throat. You curious how they do that?"
"Sure. Sounds fun."
"They bring a couple nurses or interns with them. Everyone's all quiet and glancing around, you just know something is coming. They shove a bar across your mouth. Its a padded metal bar. Holds your mouth open. They drop a couple Librium pills in, while they hold you down like this? And drop water in after the pills, and just hold your nose. You eventually have no choice but to swallow the mouth of water, and the pills go down. They just did that the first time, because that was all they had on hand. The preferred method, is just hold you down for an injection. Its to prevent heart attacks and seizures, as much as it is trying to give the patient some small relief if you can."
"Can I ask a stupid question, honey?"
"Anything."
"I don't think I ever asked. What was your college degree you gave up on. What was it going to be in. Did I just hear you talk about psychology classes a little bit back there?"
"Try not to laugh."
"Why would I laugh."
"Not, ha ha funny. Strange funny. I was getting my bachelors in Psychology. I was a psych student. How ironic, was that."
"Did, experience with psychology... help any?"
"Maybe a little? It actually hurt more. Tricks, I guess you would call them, wouldn't work because I knew the basic tricks from classes. Plus? I'm a human being. I thought this was my field, maybe I could really help."
"And could you?"
"Like I said. A little bit. But, it hurt more than it helped. I thought I knew something. I didn't."
"I encounter something similar, with shooting. I can target shoot a handgun, and especially a rifle. Its not like hunting, and cops think they know something about accuracy with handguns. They don't, competitors are way better at speed and accuracy. And rifle target shooters? Serious ones. Practical hunting skills works against you."
"They think they know something, and it works against them?"
She was fishing for we had a zen on the subject. I nodded.
"Yeah."
I waited. Nothing uncomfortable in our silences, at all.
"Honey?"
"Yeah."
"In your psych experience, that's classroom and.. therapy experiences. Do you think there's any chance of my reaction to trying to lower my dosage past a certain point, is... like withdrawal."
"It well could be. I was getting a degree in the field? They never mentioned reactions to getting off the drugs, only how much of what to prescribe like candy."
"Do you think it might end? If I could tough it out."
She got quiet.
"You might, get so bad, you... would want to hurt yourself. It used to be called a nervous breakdown. It is, we call it other stuff now. Its the same collapse. You could potentially, you know. Freak out. Sorry to use such a technical term, but, there it is."
"I was thinking more along the lines of... straitjacket."
"Literally?"
"If that's what it takes. Or, lock me in the bathroom. You'd have to be willing, though. To see me crying in the fetal position. For days. To see if I could come through it, if I could survive enough of it. I can always take a tiny shot, if I have to."
"You told me about the tiny shots, you call it... topping up. If something crops up. Sounds like my... slivers I was trying to get time between them and try to get off the next sliver. You would be getting to the next mini shot. Your next one, its your next sliver."
"More or less. Could you watch me like that? For days. See if I could break through."
"Someone did it for me. It took a couple tries, before I broke through. It, was pretty bad."
I tried it starting one early weekend. I skipped an expected regular seven day dose, and the weekend was approaching ten days. I backed off, and went for another full cc to remedy it. The tiny chink in the armor, that I was lengthening seven days to ten days. It was something.
A couple weeks later, I tried again. Eleven or twelve days in, already a sweating mess. I can recognize just from the smell of the sweat, what's coming. I tried to take it, I honestly tried. I held myself off with a micro shot. One or two more, and I went by micro shot, to micro shot. A tenth of a cc at a time. I started lengthening those. Sweaty, racing heart, cold and somehow hot at the same time. Cramps and body aches. Weird twitches and spasms. Odd electrical zaps, radiating out from my brain and surging through and around me.
I figured I was maybe having a seizure, and at least my horror would end. It didn't. I found out that beyond what I call going fetal position, there's another one. I decided to call it, simply the rock. Cried out, but with a sweating, panting, racing anxiety that leaves you feeling like you just barely escaped being eaten for lunch by a bigger predator. That feeling? Camps out on you, and just parks and stays.
And that's the best parts. The worst, are the crushing waves of weird emotional sledgehammer that... crush in waves, is the only way to describe it, for me.
While its happening to you, it takes forever. You have no sense of time. Days turn into more days. Days strung together with no sleep, and filled with endless days and nights of nothing but despair and intermittent waterfalls that crush you with negative emotion. When I finally got close? Days on end with zero hours of sleep, produced hallucinations. Trust me, they were scary.
I didn't realize she had taken a week off of work unexpectedly. I found that out later. I remember her shaking me at one time. I was beyond a hot mess. If I really wanted to go through with this, was I willing to go all the way. I remember her finally smacking sense into me. Literally.
She was yelling at me, and smacking at me. It wasn't having any effect. She bodily rolled me over, and hauled off and smacked the taste right out of my mouth. She followed it up with a quick and really much harder backhand. Like, a fat bleeding lip backhand. That kind of thing. Like a drunk mom, bashing the back of her hand against a toddler's face. The slight pause from the initial hard forehand smack, followed by the somewhat epic back hand and a quick solid forehand pimp slap. A couple more, here and there.
She smacked the ever loving shit out of me, until she had literally smacked some semblance of my shit into me. I was going to open my mouth. I was going to chew up the brownie she put in. I was going to drink the small glass of milk. And if I didn't do it? I got yet one more of those wicked slaps she was simply pasting right on my face.
Every hour, on the hour. I got wicked slaps and had to chew up and swallow a brownie, with the milk. After a couple, about two or three hours in? Yeah. They were brownies made strong with pot boiled in the extra butter added to the recipe. She grinds hers fine enough, I don't mind it in the brownie itself with the extra butter she uses.
When she got done basically beating me up and trying to fight what she wanted into my mouth, she tried a new tack. She was rolling around fighting me, on my back. I later found out it was a stout wooden spoon, but I didn't know it from any other thick dowel rod when it happened. Her hands were on either end of the thumb thick piece of wood across my mouth, and her hands were on either side of my face. I could feel the little cords in her wrists as she gamely held on with her fists tight around the wooden handle she had my head with now.
I felt her hurriedly winding some cord from handle to handle, back and forth, passes on the back of my head. Then once she had it on, I remember getting held firmly while she put another one on, and used it to hold it in while she used a piece of her favorite rope, and made it permanent.
She used it, and left it in for I don't remember how long. It not only quieted me a good bit, but she could also manipulate me much more effectively by grabbing the thick wooden handles on the sides of the corners of my mouth. From behind, if she was riding me physically to control me for a fit. More than once, she wrapped a thick leather belt around my torso just above my elbows and buckled it tight.
With her wood handles, and the belt on? She could grab me from behind, and hold a knee and leg on me to control the particularly violent fit. I'm talking flapping arms and legs. She would inch up from sitting upright on me, facing up to her. The backs of her knees neatly bore down on the thick wooden handles tied across my mouth. Just the belt and the thick wooden spoon tied on, allowed her to hold me still like that. She smiled and dropped several of what she said was Librium. She scored a prescription of 1 milligram, the littlest ones. To not be afraid of many at once. 10 milligram would be a standard single pill dose to use, this was just the same drug in 1 milligram pills.
She simply poured water into my open and firmly held mouth, looking down on my face held still with her knees cradling my face down to the floor. I coughed and gagged and swallowed. She calmly broke up a brownie after feeding me pills, and poured what she wiggled in front of my face and explained was toddler's electrolyte solution. She had a case of it, it wasn't poison, and if she had to fight me to take it? She obviously could and would.
I found out later, after an undetermined number of days. They were indeed strong pot brownies. It was meant to sedate me, with something natural that couldn't kill me or provide any weird withdrawal of its own. And trust me here if someone makes you eat enough strong pot brownies? You can put a rhinoceros down that way, its a matter of getting enough brownies into them.
Instead of the pleasant floating feeling of a normal strong pot brownie or three, I had the unpleasant feeling of floating in a sea of despair and regret and loneliness and about seventeen other negative emotions that ganged up on me. But several strong pot brownies sort of floated me into it.
I found out at the end? She had ground up and pulverized Librium pills into a powder, and sprinkled them liberally as a topping onto and into the icing. Extra icing sealed it, it was why she insisted on shoving the entire brownie into my mouth, and any other way got me a wicked slap. Finally, she just tied the thick wooden spoon across my mouth, and that gave her unfettered access to force anything down my throat she needed to.
The Librium was to help keep me down, and the string of brownies worked as well in anesthetizing me. When I had the violent, weird... twitching, spasms, flapping, windmilling... whatever that was. She would end up standing in her socks on those wood handles, pinning my face down tight to the carpeted ground. The belt she left around my torso completed her medical restraints she whipped up for home use and control of me.
I flapped like some manner of stranded dolphin. Her stocking feet pinned my face down like a bug pinned to a wax board. She said the difference between psychologist and psychiatrist? Was that one was a medical doctor on top of a psych degree. It was her being forced to call it with only half a regular bachelors in psych, to call those as potential seizures. She always went with knees on the wooden handles though, for mouth access, and looked down on me before dropping a little stream of 1 milligram Librium pills into my gurgling mouth. She manipulated a toddler's bottle of electrolyte tipped over the wooden bar tied across my mouth, to gag me into swallowing the pills.
"Those might be seizures."
Maybe 10 days into this hell, I came out? Enough the sweat wasn't returning as thick or as quick each time. I was by no stretch of the imagination done? But I could see light at the end of the tunnel, and it wasn't the oncoming train.
At the end, I finally had enough of my shit together, we could really talk. I found out that she had finally said screw it, and took first one then a second week off. No explanation, family emergency, no comment. Apparently there was no further explanation needed, that this was a one time thing and I had better mean it.
She admitted, that the Librium powdered up and the strong pot brownies? Was the best home remedy to safely put me down and not induce any weird side effects. As long as I didn't try to use the Librium for any period of time? It wouldn't have any effect. But I was cautioned about it. Don't mess with it.
My symptoms returned, but never with any of the original fury. Another couple weeks that I stayed there with her for, while she went back to work and got forgiven there. I was laying there, talking with her. Feeling her warm skin and getting an emotional charge out of it, that had been denied to me for so long.
The symptoms grew less and less severe, and the times between attacks lengthened in short order.
I was through it.
I was finally able to get a bath and make myself presentable, at long last. I was laying with my head on her lap in bed.
"How much time did you take off work? To deal with me."
"Does it really matter? Enough, it looks like. That's the important thing."
Something in her voice, sounded like a person with money laughing cost off, telling you not to worry about it and just enjoy it. It felt warm and wonderful. To feel that. It was a novelty to be able to feel, and have it not bite me in the ass. Well, at least I got bit less often, and a bit gentler each time.
"Are you in trouble at work?"
"Hmm. I'm not anyone's favorite right now. I know that much. I think half is that I did it, another half is that I refuse to say what the emergency is."
"You could have got fired for me."
"Mm. I took a calculated risk. On how many weeks I could get, without getting fired. And once I was a certain number of days off with you? I only did it because you swore this was the one you'd really try on... so yeah. It was gonna work, I wasn't getting fired for nothing. If I got fired? It was going to be because I stayed there three weeks and did it, if that's what it took."
"Well? Thank you."
"You want me to lie? I said the risk was calculated. The fact you make good money, and almost never have to work? Call me shallow, but I sensed I could sponge food or cheap rent off you until I got another waitress gig going. Not that I sponge like that normally, either."
I stared in her eyes now, as I had before.
Was I fixed? No. I would never be... fixed. Fixed would imply I felt like before it ever happened, and that's just not possible. Did a combination of revenge and finding someone else at the end of their rope too, get strong enough of stitches over the gaping wound. So that though it was touch and go for a little while there, I had pulled through and it looked like the stitches held finally. Yes.
In car ran over me terms? I walk with a limp, sure. I was afraid I'd never walk again, so... that's optimum.
We're weird but perfect partners for each other. We each can put up with little bouts of the blues in the other. We can both appreciate sitting around, having chip and dip and ice cream parties, watching cheap old DVDs, and having silly conversations about the "making of" documentaries some have.
I initially bribed her, basically. Begged and bribed, to be more accurate... to try listening to the director or a big actor do the voice over track. They play the movie at low volume, and the person or persons, describe the experience.
Its less than a dollar a piece for any DVD you can find in any junk store or flea market or yard sale, and better if you'll buy in bulk. Then, when you get to enjoy a documentary extra, or a voice over by the actors telling you insider jokes about making the movie... I feel like I get more value out of the movie. Plus, I get the silly feeling I know secret insider knowledge the average person doesn't know, because they don't watch the extras like I do.
It just gets me more time with my head in her lap. And yeah, for her to sit and listen to the actors tell the stories? Its entirely normal of a procedure for me to lick then touch her with this tiny vibrating ball, and I mean right where it counts the most.
She jokes that its not fair, but she thinks any boring documentary might start making her wet now, I'm ruining her.
I almost can't believe I made it back to... here. I honestly don't get the creep out, when it pops into my head that it only takes three murders to be a serial killer, and I did more than three.
There's, like, papal dispensations for people that killed way more than I could ever dream of killing. Political leaders? They've killed millions some of them, and more than one has went over a million. But political leaders don't count, and wartime experiences don't count. You don't charge people for self defense or preventing felonious harm to another loved one.
And really, that's how I sleep better at night. I don't feel like I'm grasping at straws, claiming that they made me do it. How could it be my fault.
I believe it, too.
They really did steal my soul.
I guess I stole one back.
Its fair.
The three man hit team, got what they had coming. What they were up to? Reprehensible. They should have been ashamed of themselves. The pet military contractor the governor had and the governor himself eventually, make five. I find it easy to forget the patriarch of crime and his bodyguard, but they do make seven.
I win?
If you even wanna call it... winning.