A Dark Night For A Broken Soul
Curled in the fetal position, my
fragile body shook. It was so cold! How could it be so cold? I needed to warm
up, but I couldn’t pull the blanket up without moving from my current position.
The position which made the stomach cramps just an inch more bearable, made the
itching subside by a fraction and the room not spin as fast.
I was in hospital changing
medication for my depression...just another part of my life unfortunately. My
body, already well accustomed to an avalanche of prescription medications, had
long since built up a tolerance to my current pills, and I had “slipped” back
into some bad habits, so now I was forced to go through this gut-wrenching
experience. The “temperamental drug” I was coming off caused withdrawal
symptoms similar to those experienced by meth addicts. My withdrawal was
particularly bad because my medication change had to happen quickly due to the
severity of my depression; I was literally doing this cold turkey, drugs one
day, no drugs the next. Or in my case, drugs this morning, tonight a
withdrawing mess. Lucky me!
Shudder after shudder wracked my
body. And with each, the cramps intensified, the itching began again and I was
forced to close my eyes as the room started to swim in front of me. I’m sure a
few whimpers escaped my mouth. I was trying to be strong but how could you be
strong when it felt like your whole body had been submerged in the Antarctic
Ocean? I felt the tears I had been desperately holding in escape down my
cheeks.
My body screamed for me to get
warm, and what choice did I have other than to obey? I had to do this now, or
else I would not do it at all. Through my tears, I psyched myself to grab the
blanket. In a shaky broken voice, barely above a whisper, I pleaded:
“One...”
“Two...”
“Three.”
I couldn’t! Everything hurt laying
still – my arms, legs, stomach, fingers, and toes. How could I endure the agony
of moving?! Even if moving did offer me the enveloping warmth of a blanket....God,
I needed to do this. I needed that blanket. I was vaguely aware that the
blanket was behind me but how could I get it with moving as little as possible?
Why was my mind so slow? It felt like every time I began to have a thought to
get the blanket, it slipped through buttery fingers and floated on by.
Focus. I needed to focus. IF I
rolled over, then I might somehow wrap the blanket around me. That would hurt
less than sitting up to get it. One roll and I could be warm. One roll and this
could end.
I didn’t think about it. I just
did it.
Or at least, I tried.
Through tears and gasping for
breath, I vaguely remember asking God to kill me. This was not merciful. I had
fallen off my narrow hospital bed in hopes of getting warm. Now my protruding
hipbone was in excruciating agony, while the rest of my body crawled. Even
though I knew this was all in my head, it didn’t feel like it at the moment.
The bugs crawling under my skin felt like they were really there. The room felt
like it was spinning around … and around … and around.
Sobs rocked my body. I couldn’t
do this. I wasn’t strong enough! Who could possibly survive this? Why was it
me? Why did I have to get “sick”? Why did nightmares haunt my sleep? Why was
this happening to me? I couldn’t see the spinning room through my tears. But I
remember the feeling of floating up back on to my bed, which I think was the
nurse. I couldn’t hear anything other than my miserable sobbing. I then felt a
slight prick in my arm, and drifted off into an abyss of comforting, all
surrounding darkness.
***
The next time I woke, daylight
streamed in through the window. My skin felt clammy but it was no longer
crawling or deathly cold. My arms and legs were covered in scratches, where I
had tried to stop the bugs from crawling further along my body. The room shook,
but did not spin. I tried to get out of bed to go to the bathroom, but gasped
as a sharp pain echoed from my hip, which was now covered in a violent purple
bruise. I had a bandage around my arm from where they had sedated me after I
fell out of my bed.
I
felt like death. But in the morning rays of sunshine, I found comfort. I had survived
the night.
