***TRIGGER WARNING – The following article discusses suicidal ideation and could be triggering. ***
I opened the top of my prescription bottle and looked inside. There were only three little, round pills left. Xanax was more valuable to me than gold. I was seeing a psychiatrist for depression, and besides the anti-depressants that didn’t seem to be working, he had prescribed a miracle drug—Xanax. I could be in the middle of my worst anxiety attack, mind racing, stomach churning, heart thumping, and one little Xanax made it all disappear. Setting the bottle on the kitchen counter near the trash can, I went to get dressed. When I started to walk out the door, I couldn’t find my pill bottle. Panic shot through my stomach. Where had I put them? I thought I had left them on the counter! Where was my Xanax? There were only a few left, and I had already been planning how to dole them out. I couldn’t lose them altogether. Where was my Xanax!
I heard my husband turning on the shower. “Matt!” I screeched. “Did you see my pill bottle on the counter?”
“I dunno,” he said nonchalantly. “I cleaned up the kitchen this morning and took out the trash. Maybe they accidentally got thrown away.”
Racing to the curb, I hefted the trash bag from the bin and ripped it open. Glops of spaghetti, old coffee grinds, and filters mixed with disgusting potato peels covered everything. I didn’t care. I had to find that prescription. I began taking out wadded pieces of paper, old cereal boxes, and plastic lids, littering them along the driveway. Finally, all the way down at the bottom, I caught a flash of white. It was the top of my pill bottle. Breathlessl,y I grabbed it and held it close. I heard the comforting chink of the pills inside. Thank God I had noticed they were missing before the trash guys came by.
That was the day I realized I had a problem. I would have done anything to get those pills. The fact that I had gotten so upset was an indicator of just how dependent upon them I had become. A worse indicator was the fact that they were losing their oomph. I was upping the dosage and mixing them with alcohol to get that smooth, sustained relief, and even that wasn’t working anymore. I knew I was reaching dangerous levels, but I couldn’t stop. Therein lies the problem. Benzodiazepines give temporary relief to anxiety, but as soon as the drug wears off, the anxiety comes roaring back. In addition, benzodiazepines lose their potency over time.
When you’re in a really bad place, medication can save your life. But if you are not careful, it can also kill you. Imagine suffering from constant, torturous terror and finding one little pill that will instantly turn it off. No wonder I thought I had discovered a miracle.
Looking back at one of my journal entries from that time, I know why I was beginning to be swallowed by the vortex of addiction.
“I feel so depressed this Christmas,” I wrote. “Why do I have to have such a screwed-up family? I’ve been having thoughts of taking my life a lot, lately, everything feels hopeless. How I wish I’d never been born. I just don’t know how I’m going to do life. I’m just no good at it. I feel so bad all the time. I’m afraid. I’m afraid all of the time. Things will never be any different for me.”
The holidays have a way of bringing angst and sorrow to the surface. The holidays put us back in the past with all of the abusive demands and expectations. One way survivors of childhood trauma try to cope is by using outside sources to soothe all those raw emotions, in effect, numbing them out. We use drugs, alcohol, food, busyness, work, and a thousand other things to keep us from feeling. In the end, those things are only a temporary fix and are not only emotionally dangerous but can also be physically dangerous.
Eventually, numbing will not work, and if you are engaged in healing, addictions and numbing habits only get in the way. Instead of numbing out this holiday season, try to put in protective boundaries. Don’t participate in the usual crazy. Know going in that your family is not going to change, but you have the power to make a different choice. You can limit the time you spend with them or cut it out altogether. You can choose safe and uplifting friends to spend time with. You can host a holiday party or dinner for people who don’t have family. You can create your own family. Allow yourself time to grieve what you do not have, but don’t stay there. Look around. Perhaps there are opportunities you never thought about to change the way you approach the holiday season. It’s important to your spirit to celebrate in a real way. You deserve a holiday season filled with joy and it is possible to make small steps toward that. Defy trauma, embrace joy.
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Rebekah Brown, a native of the south, now resides in the Great American West. Surviving a complicated and abusive family system makes her unique writing style insightful as well as uplifting. Rebekah is the proud mother of two and grandmother of four.
