Bug zappers

Hell hath a name

Oh, and the bug zappers! Did you know about those?

 

I was halfway through a conversation with an RN named Margie who was the only staff person on duty at Cedar Vista Hospital (that being “mental” hospital, without actually using the word), when I remembered to ask her about those nasty things! 

 

I was really starting to think that I might get somewhere with Margie. At first, my hopes had dropped through the floor when she told me there was no doctor on duty at night – just her – and she couldn’t prescribe anything. She was willing to admit me, but I didn’t see how it could help without her being able to knock me out. Anyway, we kept talking for a while. She told me that she had also been an addict. Just like me. It all seemed so harmless, she said. And for a while, truly helpful. 

 

You see, it was supposed to be a temporary thing for me. I’d battled depression several times in my life – well, maybe most of my life – but it had never gotten the better of me before. This time, with menopause sneaking up and, of course, there was the hysterectomy due to all those fibroids. So I thought, “Why not?   I could really use some help and it’s just a harmless little pill.” All the literature said it was not addictive. 

 

I was certain that something else was happening to me – something terrible like brain cancer or late-onset psychosis. I had fallen down a flight of stairs, drunk, when I was 18. Maybe that had caused brain damage. Margie said, “no.” 

 

Her story and mine varied greatly, but we had both turned to the medical profession for help. We had both been pleased with the assistance of those little crutches. Sometimes, a gal just needs a little something! Not like Mick Jagger’s “Mother’s Little Helpers.” No, nothing like THAT! Just a brief respite from a tumultuous passage, then we’d be back on the road.  

 

Since Margie worked at Cedar Vista, she saw the warning signs in a couple of recent patients. They were bad cases, though. Institutional cases. She decided to stop taking her little pills, very slowly and gradually. As for me, I just stopped taking them. I couldn’t see any reason why not. Margie said it didn’t matter. Tapering off or cold turkey, it was all the same. 

 

First came the jerky, jittery movements, followed closely by insomnia. The insomnia led to severe paranoia of insomnia that was only partially cured by drinking a combination of alcohol and codeine cough syrup. The nightmares were vicious visions filled with demonic creatures I’d never imagined. I woke up screaming, but at least I had gotten a little bit of sleep. 

 

I began to hate my husband. You see, he took the little pills, too, but that wasn’t why I hated him. I hated him because he had cheated on me 26 years ago. Oh, we’d discussed it to death and even sought professional counseling in the distant past. I felt it was behind us – way behind us – but now I hated him anew. I hated the way he looked. I hated the way he talked. I hated the way he laughed. I hated his choice of movies to watch on TV. I hated him because he was alive and living in the same house as me and seemed to be doing just fine. 

 

Then I discovered that at some point, a bug zapper had been installed in my head. It gave me a little comfort to know that Margie had one, too, but, well, not that much comfort, really. On a round-the-clock basis, an electric bug zapper was busily working away inside my head. How did it get there? What kind of bugs was it killing? When would it’s work be done? As I lay in bed, doped up on alcohol, codeine cough syrup and then, the addition of Benadryl, it continued to zap away. Even in the midst of those hideous Technicolor horror movies, it continued it’s never-ending job of extermination, with a loud ZAP! 

 

Yes, Margie knew all about the bug zappers. She knew about the nightmares, too. In fact, she even hated her husband worse than I hated mine. She left hers, along with her three young children. When she spoke of her hatred, tears started to form in the corners of her eyes. She said that she didn’t really hate them – it was herself that she hated, and she didn’t want to expose them to her disease. 

 

But hope lay before me. Margie had obviously made it through the horrors of withdrawal, and so would I. What luck that I happened to meet her that night, while she was on duty, I thought. It was kismet that she was there instead of some other nurse. She could tell me what to do so that I could pass through to the other side, as she had done.

 

Margie said, “no.” There was nothing to tell. At first, she tried to tough it out. After that, she saw a hypnotist. When she came dangerously close to suicide, her physician told her to keep taking the little pills. She obviously needed them quite badly, he said – more than she thought. You see, he told her that what she was experiencing was part of her disease, which the little pills had been successfully treating. It could absolutely NOT be any type of withdrawal syndrome because massive piles of literature assured all that these drugs were non-addictive and harmless. 

 

Upon hearing this, I began to sweat profusely. Some segment of my brain was screaming, “No, this can’t be!” I had been depressed for so much of my life that I knew, for certain, that THIS was not a return to depression. I told this to Margie, who had taken on a placating role by that point. I could see that she felt sorry for me – that I had been delusional, just like her. I had never acknowledged the psychotic nature of my disease. 

 

As my agitation and plain, simple fear went off the chart, she suggested that I go to the emergency room at St. Agnes Hospital (a REAL hospital, not a mental ward). I ran to my car and drove there. 

 

The nurse on triage suspected I was having a heart attack, so I was whisked past the colicky babies and viral infections for an immediate EKG. All it showed was tachycardia. Back to the waiting room to listen to the bug zapper for a while longer. 

 

I was eventually called by a male nurse and taken to an examination room. I told him everything I’ve already said, including my conversation with Margie at Cedar Vista. He gave me a stern look and said, most solidly, “antidepressants – are – not – addictive!” I could see just a touch of fear in his eyes when he said that. Well, his turn with the bug zapper would come eventually. 

 

Shortly thereafter, a young doctor from Armenia examined me. I retold my story again – the third time that night - while he nodded his head in what seemed to be agreement. He left for a short period and returned with two, 2-mg. Ativan tablets in a cup. “Here, take these. I’ll be back soon.” 

 

The bug zapper continued along its course for a while, but I started to feel a little sleepy. My mind cried out, “PLEASE, doctor – give me enough of these new little pills to last forever!”  As I became sleepier, the volume on the bug zapper lowered, just a tad. 

 

The Armenian doctor returned. I told him I was feeling better – well, sleepy, actually. He told me that “those drugs are poison.” He said that their withdrawal was worse than heroin. He said they were “an abomination.” All the while, the male nurse stood behind him, shaking his head from side to side, as if he, the nurse, knew far more than this foreigner. 

 

The doctor left momentarily then returned with a prescription for Ativan. He said very clearly that I was NOT to resume those other little pills. He said it was, indeed, possible to get past their withdrawal, and to use the Ativan (0.5-mg. ones) as often as needed. He shook my hand, patted me on the back and sent me on my way.

 

The male nurse managed to get in a quick “antidepressants – are – not – addictive” before I got dressed, but I was too sleepy to take him seriously. 

 

So, just a final word in closing. The pharmaceutical companies have lied to us, ladies and gentlemen. What the Armenian doctor said was true – antidepressants are more addictive than heroin. They promise paradise, and for a while, they provide it. Then one day you wake up and their promise is gone, like a poof of smoke or a phantom that never existed. What you’re left to deal with is something far worse than any major depression imaginable. To top it off, the medical community in general will deny that your hell on earth is caused by antidepressant withdrawal. 

 

They’re lying. 

 

 

Reviews

[Vanguard]

Nice work being didactic without being overzealous. It's a terrible thing in science when people start putting dogma ahead of evidence. Untested drugs are a real problem, because if you cant trust the doctors about your health, who can you trust? No-one.

I really liked the bug-zapper analogy as well ^^