Drugs, Alcohol, and Social Disorders

The doctors always warned me that self-medication with drugs and alcohol was common in my condition. It makes sense. A normal person lets go of all their social anxieties and insecurities when they are drunk or high. Persons with panic are no different. I've experienced first hand that when I am under the influence, life is easier. Every obstacle I face I just jump over and say "Fuck it, I'm drunk!" and let it ride. I do not self medicate myself whatsoever at all, even knowing this and knowing that it is very tempting. The only reason I know these things is because I have experienced these influences but not in the purpose of ridding my anxiety or pain. But really, what is the difference between self-medicating myself with drugs and alcohol and a doctor telling me that it is okay with their drugs?

I am prescribed a drug that is a strong depressant. I am to take it whenever I feel a large obstacle coming and I know that my anxiety will be a problem. It takes the edge off basically. So I do, and I feel the same weight lifted off my shoulders of caring about the little things that make me anxious as when I have a few drinks or take a few hits of marijuana. Is that self-medication? I mean, I am the one deciding when I need it. It numbs my pain. And I can get addicted to this drug if I take it too often. It's the exact same thing if I have a drink every time I'm nervous.

Some people that are close to me actually encourage self-medication. My brother turned to me once while I was in high school and said, "Ya know, if you started smoking weed, you'd be so much happier and more chill" With my condition and the tragic stories of self-medication I had heard, alcohol and drugs scared the crap out of me. I knew that every person enjoyed experimenting with those things but I thought that if I had just tried something once I would become addicted because it would make my pain go away. Obviously, since then I have experimented and realized that I wouldn't become addicted immediately  Sometimes I have slipped up though. There have been times I caught myself smoking weed because I was anxious or drinking hard so that I became calm faster. I realize that every time I did that, the night ended horribly. Worse than if I would have done it out of pure entertainment and not a get away from my problems.

But that's all that medication is. A get away. A cheat. But the average person doesn't think that medication is a bad thing. People need what they need. There can be a million different types of medication to numb your problems but they will still be there. No medication can completely change who you are or what you have done to yourself. It will always just numb what is there already.

I don't self-medicate. But it depends on your point-of-view on what self-medication really is.

Trains, Pains, and Automatic Relapse

Honestly, the reason I haven't posted in weeks is because I've been better. The reason I'm posting now is because I'm not. That's what happens I guess.


In the weeks that I was better, I felt on top of the world. Suddenly everything was looking up. I thought I was getting a job and I wasn't freaked out about it. I wasn't anxious at all actually. I rode home on the trolley, which is usually a challenge. It was actually the only time during weeks past that I felt a little bit anxious.


I felt totally fine walking to the trolley. I had everything ready to go. Even waiting in the terminal was fine. That would usually be the part that I would get shaky at. Waiting. Waiting is always my weakness. When I have to wait for something, my mind starts going. I start thinking about the fact that I'm not panicked and what about the current situation would freak me out. Then I get freaked out. But waiting in the terminal I was fine. It was waiting on the actual train that gave me a moment of uncertainty. I was sitting by myself with my backpack on my lap and my duffle on the seat next to me. I leaned my head against the window and saw the blackness of the terminal outside. My eyes wondered to the sliding doors of the trolley. They were staying open for the late passengers to arrive. I thought about how when they closed I was stuck inside of the car until the next stop. There was no turning back. Stuck. My hands started to shake and my breathing got heavy. I then stopped the panic attack in its tracks. I closed my eyes and turned "Marching Band of Manhattan" by Death Cab for Cutie on my iPod. I turned the volume up very high and had a flow of memories to the song. The first time I heard it, my brother was driving me in my Dad's Mountaineer to my middle school during the summer. I was picking up my schedule and forms for the 8th grade. I fell in love with the song. My mind fast forwards to 6 months later. I have the album on my brand new iPod Nano that I got for Christmas that year. My friends and I are in the cafeteria trying to sneak listens so that the lunch proctors don't catch us with it. I tell my best friend Sarah to listen to "Marching Bands of Manhattan", she looks up at me and tells me it's awesome and she wants the CD. She then listens to a song called "What Sarah Said" off of the same album just because it has her name in it. Then I wonder what Sarah's doing right now, will I see her tonight when I go home? I then think about how that memory is 6 years old but is still fresh in my mind. I open my eyes. The doors close. The train starts moving. I'm calm. I repeat the song the whole train ride home. I stare out the window and watch the world go by as fast as I feel time does. Panic is gone.


All of that detail in a small attack that I got through. My attacks got worse when I went home this past week for Thanksgiving. Even though everything in the suburbs is still, I felt like it was moving so fast. I think that my biggest problem in life is that as often as I try to stop time, I feel it moving past as fast as it does on the train. Which makes me feel out of control. Like I'm riding down a steep hill on a bike, my brakes don't work, and I know I'm gonna crash. Times like on the train I find a way to roll into the grass and slow down, other times I face-plant on the pavement.