Whispers In The Dark

Robin

Robin

I had only been diagnosed with schizophrenia for a year and a half. Sure, I showed symptoms of it for quite a while before that, but I wasn’t officially diagnosed until April of 2012.

That meant that I had only had one Christmas as an officially diagnosed schizophrenic, medication and all. Unfortunately, my habit of skipping out of my medication doses started early. I had even hated taking any form of medicine before that; cough syrup, painkillers, Ibuprofen… It was easier to just wait it out than force down syrup that tasted like drain cleaner or pills that dissolved too fast and made my throat chalky.

When my doctor informed me that there was no “waiting this out”, I was even more determined to do so. It only took a week for them to realize that I hadn’t been taking my medication; the bottle was full and I spent three hours crying in the bathroom.

I had been taking them for three months when the vomiting started. My mom wouldn’t let me stop taking the pills and kept me home for a week, force-feeding me them and holding my hair back when my hands were busy clutching the rim of the toilet bowl. It might not seem like a long time, but when you’re puking every other hour, for hours on end sometimes, it feels like an eternity. A week later, when it was finally over, we went back to the doctor. She told me that as long as I kept up with my doses and didn’t try to go without it for more than a day or two, it probably wouldn’t happen again.

Me, being a stubborn piece of shit, decided that that summer would be the perfect time to stop taking them. That time, it took them two months to figure it out. I had gotten smarter; hiding them between couch cushions and keeping the panic in my head. They didn’t see anything. But then my dad got the bright idea to check the couch cushions for change, and it was over.

Four and a half months later, on Christmas Eve, the vomiting started again. We were on the way to my grandmother’s house when I dumped a pair of brand new jeans on the car floor and blew chunks into the gift bag. My father called my grandmother and told her to inform the whole family that we wouldn’t be coming; I was sick.

I was determined not to ruin Christmas a second time. My dad and my older sister, Maria, had spent Christmas in the kitchen eating cold mashed potatoes and drinking away their problems. My mom and I spent Christmas in the bathroom, my head hanging over the bowl and my mom holding my hair back and bringing me water.

To be absolutely sure that I wasn’t going to ruin Christmas, again, I stopped taking my medication. Again.

I didn’t sleep on Christmas Eve. My stomach was churning and my head was spinning. I couldn’t focus. Something was wrong.

I stumbled from my bed and dry heaved into the toilet for a few minutes. Nothing came up except for a small dribble of bile. My head was pounding. The flickering nightlight in the bathroom was too much for my watering eyes. The voices were whispering, turned low. They were merely whispers compared to the blood rushing in my ears. I leaned over and retched again. Nothing.

Maria found me on the bathroom floor an hour later. She woke up our parents. My dad ended up driving me to the emergency room at two in the morning when I couldn’t respond to him.

I was shaking and crying by the time that we got there. I couldn’t help the shaking; my hands were cold but my head was hot, I couldn’t hear anything, I was falling in and out of dizzy spells… The crying, though, made me want to punch myself in the gut. Over and over and over again.

There were more people than I had expected there to be in the emergency room at two A.M. on Christmas. We waited over an hour. My mom called twice.

I told her that I hadn’t taken my medication; just for a few days. And that I didn’t want the side effects to start up during Christmas. The words felt like cotton in my mouth, dry and hard to speak.

The doctor stared at me sadly and tsked. “You brought this upon yourself,” she scolded. She wrote out a slip for my father; bed rest, fluids, and medication.

“Take your medication next time!” she yelled as I trudged away from the E.R.

I ruined Christmas. Again.