Mistaken Reality

A Chapter by Scarlett Brooke

How to fix a huge mistake.

I entered the magical world of anxiety and depression medication in my college years. I had my first panic attack one day, twelve years ago, when the professor turned off the lights. My life was never the same after that. Since then I have been completely dependent on medication and alcohol to keep my mental illness hidden away. On days where the anxiety hits hard, anything could happen. I've gone completely blind, other times, I got temporary amnesia, unable to recall myself, my life, what I was doing at that very moment. Occasionally it even gifted me with claustrophobia, and severe social anxiety, rendering me speechless, physically unable to talk. The attacks have felt relentless, and arbitrary for so long. If medication isn't enough, alcohol works every time. Even as little as a glass of wine could stop a panic attack in it's tracks. For years, I carried around some form of alcohol in my purse, just in case I had an episode. But work and liquor don't mix well, which made it difficult to keep this stigmatized security blanket at arms length. So when a drink wasn't around, and Xanax wasn't enough, I'd have to make a desperate, dramatic excuse to leave wherever I was to find that bottle of liquid gold.

I remember one time having a panic attack while checking out a bottle of wine. I thought I was going to stop breathing and pass out. Between gasps of air I urgently coaxed the check out lady to hurry. When she finally did hand me the bottle I sprinted to the restroom and gulped the wine down immediately. It was warm relief flooding through my body and suddenly I was ok again. I don't know what would have happened if I didn't have that bottle.

But it's not like that all the time, I can go through weeks, sometimes months, of temporary sanity. But it never lasts. It always comes back to remind me that it can attack at any moment. So I stay vigilant with my alcohol, xanax, and whatever medication I had recently been prescribed, so that I can keep up the image of a sane person. I never let my guard down. Never.

A year ago I was prescribed zoloft, and 100mg brought a new reign of chemical balance to my life. Anxiety creeps it's way in time to time, but attacks are less frequent and more easily subdued with the help of my steadfast pals alchy and xanny. Although my anxiety and depression had been curbed, my anger and resentment towards my life still seemed to bubble at the surface. So I decided to get my real estate license, and within a few months I had made 50 grand. The most amount of money I have ever personally been liable to at one time. That's when the farm life fantasy entered my life. I quit my job in Miami, moved out of my parents house, and bought a five acre microfarm in Cheifland, Florida. For three months, I lived in bliss. Imagining all it could be; imagining all I could be. I could live off the land, make a sustainable oasis, free of stress, comforted by the natural highs of hard work and love of the earth. Nowhere in that vision was my zoloft. So I recently decided to make my utopia a zoloft free sanctuary. And now I cry. I cry all the time.

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