Back on Day One
Six days ago, for the first time in years, I went to work without a pill box filled with Xanax and Wellbutrin. For the first time in a month there wasn’t also some Klonopin in there. It was like leaving the apartment without cigarettes and a lighter for the first time after you quit smoking. You think you’ve forgotten something but remember you don’t need what you left behind anymore.
A few months ago I tried to buy bodhi seed prayer beads on Amazon. I’d bought two identical sets before but had given both away. One went to a friend in need. Later, one went to a whirlwind vacation romance. Now they’re not being made anymore. However many of them there are out in the world is however many there will be.
Back at work, I left my car in a parking garage and started walking to the building where my desk is. There is a small part of the path between the parking spaces and the stairs down to the street where you have to be careful to watch for cars speeding around a corner on their way to the next level of the garage. On the ground just by the edge of this death curve I saw a set of nearly identical prayer beads that I’d had before sitting in the dirt. Apparently the remaining stock of these beads is being doled out slowly via parking garage.
That first day without Xanax or Klonopin was a roller coaster nobody wants to ride. I’d taken the first Librium while I was getting everything together for work and it kicked in hard once I sat down at my desk. It had the total lack of grace and subtlety you would expect from a drug accidentally discovered in the mid-1950’s. I put my headphones on, started listening to the Hamilton mix tape and I was flying. If this was the first step in getting off benzos, I could see how each subsequent step down in dosage would suck. Right then though? I was having fun.
I’m not sure at what time the fun stopped but when it left, it left I giant hole in my chest where it had been. It was as though I’d hired contractors to do construction work and hadn’t read all the terms of the contract. They stopped with everything seemingly half done, pointed out they’d fulfilled their part of the bargain, and left me wondering what I was going to do with the unfinished mess that was left behind. I counted down the time until I could take another pill and when I did take it, it just sat there listless at the bottom of the hole.
Rationally, I knew the pill was doing something. I was able to walk around and do my job. I could feign good mental health and hold a conversation so long as it had a purpose. Once the talk led to anything personal or any other topic at all, my brain scrambled to find the right words. The medication was working on some level but the flight was over.
To add another metaphor into the mix, I was an emotional rainbow that day. Name a feeling and I felt it: exhilaration, despondence, hope, doubt, determination, joy, despair, sadness, emptiness and nothing at all.
The feeling of a hole in my chest persisted. (I’m currently feeling it as I write this on the first day I step down my dosage as part of the tapering plan.) Something vital was missing and it felt like it would never come back. (Change all of that to the present tense if you’d like a description of my current state.)
Xanax does not leave the body willingly. The greater part of it is gone but bits remain that occasionally ask “Are you sure? Are you really sure?” And you have to be sure. The option is there but there can be no choice in the matter. You can take a pill and you might feel better for a little while but when it’s done you will find yourself back in the same place with the same feelings. You can take another pill and then another and eventually you’ll be back in the same general position of needing to get rid of them. You’ve already been through so much and felt so much. You’ve survived this far and at times it has taken everything you have to endure it. You don’t want to do this again. Don’t be forced to put your hand on the hot stove a second time.
That first day sucked. It was exhausting. I’d planned to muscle through it and go to the gym but I went straight home. Closing the apartment door behind me was such a relief. My mood could change wildly but I didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing my reactions. I was in control of what I did or didn’t do in the world of Free Time.
I have no idea what I did other than skip even doing the yoga video. All of this stuff affects your memory, so there’s that.
Over the course of the next four days I got to a state of what felt like complete normalcy. It felt like I was seeing and experiencing the world the way everyone else does. At times it scared the shit out of me. Maybe it was a vision of what’s to come — the world without medication. Sometimes it wasn’t so bad though.
Then Sunday night happened. It was the fourth day without Xanax and it sent an emissary to visit me. I bottomed out but those words are for later.
PS: I now have a Twitter account @chloradiaz
