The Pharmacy and the Pastry

October 2022

We stopped at a bakery on our way to the Minneapolis Airport. It had been one week since my world crumbled and I left my husband. A friend came to visit me in Fargo, and he was headed to the airport so he could fly back to Denver. I used to never eat gluten or real sugar or pastries. I had what I now realize is orthorexia, but then I just called it paleo baking. Once I healed from many eating disorders, I held a deep respect for pastries. My life has been very bitter at times, and if a cookie gets me through the day, what is the real harm in that? This became increasingly true in 2022, one of the hardest years of my life. After we left the bakery, after I took my friend to the airport, I was in a terrible car accident. The pastries in this photo ended up in my hair, the van ended up in a ditch, and I ended up in a routine of physical pain and physical therapy, to accompany my emotional pain as I healed from my divorce and this car accident. This was almost a year ago and I’m happy to report, I still consume a lot of pastries—but my mind is in a brighter place entirely.

I’m in this new routine
90% of my diet is pastries and burgers and I’m not exaggerating.
I go to work
I go to bed 
I go to my other job
I lay in bed
Wishing I could sleep

I have time to sleep
But I can’t ever get more than 6 hours
I ache for 6 months of 8 hour nights.
I sleep 6 hours
I go to work
I sleep 6 hours
It is my day off
And still I can only sleep 6 hours

I got to the pharmacy
I go to therapy
I go to physical therapy
I get beers with friends
I go back to work
Back to the pharmacy 

How many medications have I tried this year?
Zoloft, Diazepam--Zoloft is the only antidepressant that hasn’t made things worse. 
Alprazolam and Diazepam are the only ones that help with the panic. The deep paralyzing panic. I take them sparingly. Only a few a year. But I hate that the only things that help end with ‘am’

I tried medical marijuana, then I left Missouri, came to Colorado where it’s just regular marijuana. I still can’t tell if it helps. Cycobenzaprone after the car accident. I don’t like it. It’s doesn’t help the pain, it just makes me tired. Divolofinac for the inflammation. Methocarbonal for the pain, less strong then Cycolbenzpbrone. Nothing helps the pain, it just makes me tired. I’m already so tired. 

Xanex. But I have three left. Only three
I’ve carried the bottle all around the country for 8 months. Now I have two and half. They are expired at this point, but they feel like hope. Like a backup plan if my worst day happens again.
They tell me my genetics don’t even process Zoloft. The years I was okay with it because it had no side effects, were because it had no effects at all, other than placebo. I laugh at the situation.

I take Trazedone. Thank god for Trazedone. It is the reason I now sleep 6 hours instead of four. Trazedone is what people give thier dogs before they go to the vet. Bruno, Backup, and I take Trazedone. I take it because it's been around 100 years and it's safe enough for a 30 pound dog.
We try Wellbutrin. I have a bad feeling about it. They want me to take it twice a day, I manage once a day and still have a bad feeling about it. My sister recommends Prazosin. Now they tell me to ween of Wellbutrin, start Prazosin, don’t take the Trazedone when you first start the Prazosin.

CVS keeps losing my thyroid medication 
I am loosing me mind.
I go back to work
I go back to the pharmacy 
I go back to physical therapy 
And regular therapy
And I’m sick of the pharmacy 
And sorting out these bottles
I’m so tired.
(I have a few beers)

I eat a burger for breakfast at noon because I’m shaking and nothing else sounds good.
I remember that yesterday all I could eat was a burger and a piece of pie 
Why can’t I eat anything besides burgers and sweets?
Don’t your cravings mirror your deficiencies?
Was my life that bitter for that long?
Now all I crave is sugar? 
I’ve bled all summer,
Is that why I only want red meat?
The actual blood came in Colorado, but I was bleeding out all 7 years wasnt I?
Laying myself on the alter for you.
I know you didn’t ask me to, but I bled myself dry for you.
I’m bloody and bitter and my body is trying to fix it. 

I work 
I sleep
I wake up too early 
I live at the pharmacy 
I never miss my appointments 
I’m so tired. 

My therapist tells me 
The root of all my fears 
Is that I don’t trust myself
She says I’m resistant,
That I cry when she mentions my relationship with myself 
I say I’m not resistant 
I just don’t know what that means
I don’t know where to start
How do you trust yourself ?
She says I’m always asking for answers 
But why don’t I trust myself?
I ask her how to start trusting myself.
I’m so tired

My nightstand makes me look like a pill addict
I laugh at the thought 
What’s the opposite of an addict?
Can you be addicted to so many things that don’t work
If I was addicted to them would I have so many left
Are you an addict if you take them out of hope and not need
And the ones that do work, you hoard until they expire because you’re scared of running out of something that works
I guess I'm addicted to the hope that something so small could solve all these big things
So I try anything
But I maintain nothing.

What the opposite of an addict?
When you google the opposite of addiction
There’s inspiring articles
About how the opposite of addiction is connection. 
I have that
I have so much of that
My therapist says I have some of the most complex trauma she’s ever seen, 
and the best support system she’s ever seen
I am not lacking in connection.
Is that why none of the pills work?
Because I already have something better? 

How do you learn to trust yourself?
I’ve been thinking about it all day and I’ve never been more confused
I don’t know what it means
I don’t know what it means that I’m not trusting myself.
I don’t know how to start trusting myself
I’m not sure when I stopped. 
All I can think of so far
Is that I should stop going to the pharmacy 
And all the appointments 
And reading all the books
And just spend time with myself.
Isn’t that how you gain trust with someone?
Time? 

At the end of every session
She asks
When will you know you’re ok?
I say, 
"When my brain stops hurting."