uncertaincertainties

[uncertaincertainties]

an anecdote of an arid adventure

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of depression, body image/dysmorphia

i tell myself to wait another 20 minutes. 20 minutes, i think, or i'll try again tomorrow. i seat myself in one of the crappy plastic red chairs beside the CVS pharmacy within Target. it's taken me a good 45-minute walk to get here, and in the traditional mid-day SoCal heatwave manner, it'll take me another good hour to walk back home.

i'm waiting for my antidepressants that my psychiatrist prescribed on the phone earlier today. we had a 20 minute phone call where she fired off different forms of medication, and different medications under each one.

i don't really know what will work best, i said: basically, i'm leaving it up to you. she mentions SSRI's, and prozac, and says i can pick it up today. as soon as you are able to.

i've already checked twice with the pharmacy, the first being nearly an hour ago. they say something's wrong with the system. just sit tight, we'll figure it out. i've walked around the store twice already; anymore and i'm worried the security guard will think something's up.

the first time around is out of pure curiosity, followed on quickly by my interest in mass-produced materialistic goods i don't really need.

i want to find those little weighted stuffed animals that are all the craze on TikTok, mostly because i want to name it ironically after my medication. a momento for my outing. a conquest bearing the namesake of my medication, and hopefully a new chapter of my life. awe, little Prozac. instead, i find overly large Squishmallows in the kids' section, where a young mother pulls twin toddler girls with either hand down aisles with a gait of reluctancy and fatigue. i feel ridiculous there, standing in front of a rack of enormously large Squishmallows shaped like tacos, boba, and ramen.

i turn on my heel and head towards home decor. i buy two candles that smell like peonies and saltwater and head back to the pharmacy.

just sit tight.

so i do, in a plastic chair that i'm sure has not been wiped clean for some time. then, the pharmacist behind the counter suddenly turns toward me, waving a paper bag in the air. i've already bothered him three times, and i'm sure his excitement is only that of getting me out of his hair, but i find it in me to smile nonetheless.

he's Asian, mid-thirties, with an air of pompous humility that i find oddly refreshing.

i get Starbucks on my way home. there are three girls behind the counter, roughly my age. one of them likes my top. i smile and ask what their favorite drink on the menu is.

strawberry frappucino is their drink of choice. the woman behind the register smiles wide. my coworker adds a bunch of stuff to it that's really good. she fires off the add-ons and alternate options and i nod as if to show i might understand.

however your coworker likes to make it is fine, i tell her. then, jokingly, or perhaps sparingly, i add: i'll leave it up to her. it comes out large and fruity and is oddly reminiscent of Nesquik in taste and color, though i'll admit i've only had Nesquik twice in my life.

i can't finish it in a sitting and put a quarter of my off-brand Nesquik in the fridge.

two days later, i call my friends from college. two that i met in March, shortly after my fallout with my ex-friend group.

vicky is a psych major from Fresno. she's wasian and, like me, only lives with her mom. doesn't see her dad at all. we joke, white men and their insanity. she's dating gray, an engineer major from San Diego who is also white; we try not to hold it against him. we have an unspoken agreement to Facetime once a week, usually late at night when we all get ready for bed. or, they do and i'm up browsing random stories or games or videos, which i do once they hang up to sleep and continue to do well into early hours of the morning.

SSRI's?? vicky gapes on a glitchy screen. somehow, our connection is always terrible. i hold up my medicine in dim lighting for them to see and they squint to read the name. you're taking SSRI's? she gives a high pitched squeak of disapproval and laughs to ease my worry, which is slowly morphing on my face. gray looks on empathetically while he attends to his summer programming work.

they're terrible. studies are showing that all SSRI's are just placebos. but prozac is an active placebo, girlie. vicky tsks and applies a copious amount of toothpaste to her toothbrush. i don't know what the difference is and struggle to discern her words through mouthfuls of minty foam. active placebos are like placebos except that they're active in your bloodstream, she tells me and promptly spits. if you stop taking them you're at risk for seizures and major withdrawal symptoms. then she adds dryly, you might as well be on heroin.

we go back and forth like this for another 30 minutes, her chiding remarks about medication and my psychiatrist's choice of treatment, my growing worry and confusion about the difference, and gray occasionally cutting in to deliver tentative attempts of comic relief to ease what is certainly my apparent anxiety over my anxiety medication. the irony isn't lost on any of us.

please just be safe, vicky says right before hanging up. gray texts me to tell me if i need anything, they're here for me.

i have a panic attack two days later, a side effect of the medication. i used to get them rather frequently, probably three times a week at least, but they stopped around my sophomore year of high school. now, they seem to have returned.

i do feel the benefits of my medication, barring the fact that it perhaps is a placebo; i feel more motivated and energized--i wash my face regularly and even steam-cleaned the floor of my bedroom, but last night i had a mild yet still notable depression spiral.

another side effect of my medication is major weight gain and my body issues are already an issue for me. i worry over food and fat and how my body might swell in an attempt to make me a more functioning person, a well-adjusted being. what i would do for a night that i can fall asleep on my own without sobbing into a pillow, without any side effects. i scan the fridge, neglecting my three-quarters-finished Nesquik drink, looking for something low in caloric value. not that it will probably matter, anyways. i fish out some blueberries and let the fridge door swing shut.

[uncertaincertainties]

i'm failing.

TRIGGER WARNING: mentions of depression, death, and sexual assault

i'm failing everything.

no, i'm not failing, like oh god my C+ will never let me amount to anything, how do i tell my parents.

i'm failing.

not that getting a C+ is something to brush off, either. all i'm saying is in the state i'm in now, getting a C+ is unimaginable.

i'd throw a fucking parade.

no, i'm failing everything. and it isn't just academically, either.

it's my friend group, who earlier this year, decided to group gather and talk a bunch of shit about me behind my back before saying it all to my face in an intervention-type-we're-sick-of-your-shit scenario before ghosting me. talking about me behind my back. clandestine group chats and an outer circle of their own friends whom i've never met but know me and hate me.

it's my boyfriend--ex-boyfriend, actually--who was part of the friend group and, after breaking up and getting back together with me several times, finally severed our ties after talking shit about me with the aforementioned ex-friend group, dumping me, and going back to talk more shit about me in a room with them. i had, just for the record, said "i love you" for the first time the night before. he shook his head fervently and said "i can't..." and i replied "it's okay; just pretend i never said anything."

i'm failing everything.

it's getting a call a week before finals that one of my family members had died. it's calling my grandmother to see how she was doing and hearing her fall apart on the phone.

it's my single mother, who screamed that i was ruining her life and kicking me out temporarily after i opened up to her about my being SA'd for the first time almost a year before and needing to withdraw from college as a result of declining mental health. she's the only parental figure i had.

i withdraw and let everything consume me, which results in episodes of self-pity, wallowing, and deep self-hatred.

it's my anxious and depressive symptoms that cause me to dry heave and--on the rare occasion throw up--after emotional conflict.

it's the sleepless nights where i cry in the dark into a pillow i haven't been able to wash in three weeks because, as i've said before, depression.

what's the point?

i'm failing everything.

[uncertaincertainties]

a warning, from yours truly

characterized by my hypersensitivity, stubborn adherence--or perhaps subservience--to the ego, and faulty notions of the world, i present to you in raw, wholistic glory, the fears and inner musings of one writer.

you have been warned.