Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing(67)

I flushed every pill I had.

This is not how to come off psychiatric medication. You’re supposed to wean yourself with the help of your doctor. But I think we’ve established that I wasn’t exactly thinking straight. So instead of a calm, slow return to something like my normal brain chemistry, I rode out a week of a lightning storm in my brain and mood swings that scared my dog. That poor fucking dog really didn’t get the good years of my life. But he slept on my chest when I couldn’t stop shaking and head-butted me awake from nightmares and made sure I went outside, whether I liked it or not.

I told myself I was going to feel something again, even if it was pain. I was going to fucking feel it. I just wanted to be me again. I missed me. After months of not even being able to cry, I broke down sobbing one day, sitting in traffic, weeping because my iPod played “Southern Cross.” And I was so fucking happy to feel again, I started laughing. I felt like a fucking crazy person. But the thing is, I like being a little crazy, as long as I can feel.

   When you’ve been depressed as long as I have, you get good at it. You develop survival skills or you don’t last very long. I know to go outside. I know a sleep schedule helps. I know to make myself exercise, even a little. I know who to call when things get too dark. I know to make myself call. And I know my brain’s full of shit. It’s like being on psychedelics. You can talk yourself down, tell yourself you’re on drugs, none of this is real, it’ll pass. I don’t know that when I’m on pills. It’s hard to tell yourself you’ll feel joy again when you don’t remember what feelings are.

I was still on probation. Still had to pee in a cup every other month. Which, when I did the math, meant I could smoke pot for a month, suffer thirty days, pee in a cup, and smoke again. Fucking marijuana. It’s the least goddamn harmful drug, but goddamn if it doesn’t hang out in your pee the longest. I could’ve been clean from coke, heroin, barbiturates, meth, codeine, PCP, ecstasy, or LSD in one to three days. Smoke a little pot because it actually does fucking help with every goddamn symptom of PTSD, from the constant alertness to pissing myself in a stranger’s basement, because I can control the dosage of pot, know how high I’ll be and for how long, because I can still feel joy, and my urine is dirty for seven to thirty days. Violation of my probation, which had nothing to do with drugs.

I decided it was worth the risk. Which meant I had to wait in a Greg’s apartment watching his avatar wander around a map, picking up random shiny objects, until Greg felt like weighing out a bag. When that Greg stopped answering text messages, because that’s what pot dealers do, I got a Brad. Then a Greg, or a Ryan. Then a Brad again. Sometimes back-to-back-to-back Ryans. Maybe a Brian just to mix things up. You get the point.

   I have to switch dealers a lot because I don’t smoke enough to buy regularly and keep up with their lives. An ounce can last me six months. The downside is, I tend to run out at the worst goddamn times. Like, after a breakup.

I was heartbroken. I tried drinking. I gave it everything I had. But I’d just end up hungover and still heartbroken. The VA offered me pills and a therapy appointment in a few months. I texted every known pothead in my phone but couldn’t find a plug.

This is how it goes as you get older. You finally have a little money, enough to blow on a bender. And you cannot fucking find drugs. Everyone’s so closeted about their drug use, you don’t know who to ask. You’re still a little paranoid and don’t want your responsible adult friends thinking you’re some sort of drug user. You can’t just go down to the local high school and ask the stoner crowd. You’re a goddamn adult. The only drug users I knew were into coke and meth. They’re great if you want someone to clean your house and occasionally scream at you about politics or cry about Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Not great at finding weed.

They say when you’re heartbroken, it’s good to distract yourself, volunteer, find something meaningful to devote yourself to. I devoted myself to finding weed. I got a little from a friend at work. But when that ran low, I tried stand-up gigs. I’m serious. I had a friend, this local comic named Lars, who thought stand-up might be good therapy for me. I actually went to open mic nights, got up on stage, and asked if anyone was holding, explained why I couldn’t find drugs because I look like a cop, told them the story about walking into a bar one night and watching the obvious drug dealer with the backpack panic and run out. The crowd thought it was hilarious. But it wasn’t exactly a bit. Not one person fucking offered me drugs.

   I would like to add, for the record, that since I’m now open about my drug use, I’m now the person every responsible adult who’d like to use drugs—relatives, bosses, neighbors and friends—asks for drugs. Be the change.

One place I did know to find weed was a concert. And I had tickets. (The moment this occurred to me included a pathetic sob because “we were…supposed…to go…together.”) I was a goddamn mess. No one in my condition needed to attend a Citizen Cope concert. But I had two tickets to his sold-out show at the 9:30 Club. Even in a better time, I couldn’t go alone. I don’t like crowds, but I’m usually all right with another person. So I put an ad on Craigslist: “Face value or whatever you have to start my bender.” Within an hour my inbox was a cornucopia of drugs. Every Cope fan in D.C., and it’s his hometown, was sending me pictures of fucking drugs—weed, ecstasy, coke, acid tabs—mostly weed and acid. It’s a tribute to Citizen Cope’s music, really.