• Random and Odd

    …much too young.

    For all of you that has read Random and Odd and held my hand while I battled through my Anxiety disorder, you’ll understand this.  Those of you that just got on the Random and Odd train, you’ll have to just play along.

    The first thing I hear on the news is Whitney Houston had xanax in her hotel room.
    OH SHOCKING, like I didn’t see that coming.  The bigger question today is what celebrity doesn’t have a bottle of xanax?
    It pisses me off how easy it is for people to get it.  Just say they have anxiety and poof they get a prescription.
    I went through classes, books and countless therapy sessions to just be able to understand why I had it and not that I ever beat anxiety, but I can at least manage it now.
    How many of the people that have a bottle of xanax have had to go through all that I have to be able to take it?  They are not tit tac candy, people!

    Do I understand why people would want to be on xanax? Yes, I do.  Having a rough time of it today? take a xanax and it will ‘take the edge off’.
    TAKE THE EDGE OFF.  No, it’s not a ‘take the edge off’ pill.  This pill was designed for people with an anxiety disorder.  People who have the flight or fight switch broken. It’s a chemical imbalance.
    It is not a pill to give to people who can’t fucking cope with the stress of a rough day.

    It’s been several years that I have openly admitted to having an anxiety disorder and when my world flipped over and I got a whole new set of friends I had to decide which route I was going to take.  Do I admit to what I have and risk being laughed at or do I shut up and deal with it alone?
    I decided to take the middle road.  It’s simply because the battle of coping with anxiety is over.  I’ve learned what I need to do to be able to get through the small and medium sized anxiety attacks.   Telling Lester about the big ones scared the shit out of me because I wasn’t sure how he would handle the information.   He seemed to take it okay and I told him that they are rare when they hit, but when they do, I would tell him and coached him on what he can do to help me.
    That is really all I can do.

    I take xanax.  Not everyday anymore.

    Thank god.

    I’ve found that when I feel them starting to coming on, I take a half a  pill and I do this for a couple of days to get the xanax in my system and I’m okay for a week or two.   It’s like pain management, don’t let the pain get so bad that you take a bunch to get rid of it.

    Xanax is a serious drug that should only be prescribed after having to go through all that I had to go through to get it.  I took a six week class. I took months of therapy talking about it. I read 2 books on the disorder an how to manage it.  Was this enough?  I’m still alive.
    Have I fucked up and taken it with other stuff? Yes. I have.  I was reading the list of pills in Heath Ledger’s system and how they speculate due to the autopsy when he took the list of pills.  Nothing he took wasn’t anything I didn’t have in my medicine cabinet and battling insomnia I know that train he climbed on… take a prescription pill, didn’t work so take a over the counter. didn’t work yet, take another over the counter…nothing…okay time to call in the big boy.  nothing yet. one more over the counter.  It’s INSANE what I would do just to get some sleep.  NEVER did I think I was going to overdose and I could have.  It would have been a tragic mistake of taking one more over the counter or just one more prescription.

    Moral of the story…xanax isn’t shit that you need to be joking about.  It’s not a fix all drug. It’s not a sleeping pill.
    Yes, it helps you sleep. It’s not designed for that.
    Yes, it will take the edge off a stressful day. It was not designed for that though.
    Yes, it will help you through a panic attack…but truly the ACTUAL amount of people that have an anxiety attack don’t need to take xanax.  They can get through it without it, I did for YEARS and I had them up to 4 times a day…full blown freak out, should be hospitalized, scare people kind of anxiety attacks.
    It wasn’t designed to be given out like candy for the people who have had one or ‘short of breath’ scared feeling sometimes.
    Oh fuck it, what hell do I know?

    I feel horrible for the Houston family, just like I felt bad for the Ledgers and the Smith families.