What happened?

It was a regular week in April when I forgot to refill my prescription for my anti-depressants. I just didn’t go to the pharmacy. Between work and raising two toddlers, life was busy. But I had no idea what was to come from that fateful error in life logistics.

I remember feeling a sense of magic and weirdness. I was in the bathtub one night imagining myself shrinking into the water and down into the tubes. I then realized that bedtime had passed for the kids and instantly felt the guilt of missing it, tucking them in, which was a nightly routine for us. My husband must have tucked them in without me, while I waded in the warm epsom salt water day dreaming.

I remember that I believed I could control how fast or slow time went, and that I could transfix my energy onto other people. I imaged warm, bright yellow sun and fixed my mind onto my worrisome husband and I could feel my magical powers easing his troubles, melting his shoulders downwards. I could do the same with my mom and dad, who were visiting the house helping out with the family. The kids didn’t need my magic of course. If anything I needed theirs.

I remember I walked with Andrew to the park. He decided to go for a jog, I walked. But every person around me was suddenly a Nazi out to get me and I was a spy. I walked in fear, quickly and with my head down and didn’t admit to Andrew what I saw or felt, dismissing it as an odd daydream.

Things got worse. I couldn’t sleep and I’d imagine fantastical things like I was in a Harry Potter movie fighting off the metaphorical Voldemort of my life — childhood traumas or family generational sadness. I started to feel a groundhog’s day effect where every morning I woke up and thought I’d be shaken off and out of this nightmarish state but it was a repeat over and over, signaled by the warm orange light on our alarm clock.

I was feeling high and drunk while completely sober. Part of it was fun, but mostly terrifying not knowing what was reality and what parts I was imagining. My brain was failing me. Most of all I didn’t want to not show up for my family, my two children and husband. I was guilt ridden because of what was happening inside of my mind.

Over the course of a week or so these episodes continued and continued to escalate. Was I just overtired? Not sleeping? My dad picked up my medication for me but at that point I was too deep into my withdrawals and erratic symptoms.

One day my dad served me lunch and I was sure that he was trying to poison me. My favorite food, rice, tasted like lead and I believed that biting a banana he handed me would lead to my death.

Another day, I tried to nap in my dad’s bedroom here at home and I felt with vivid certainty the house was on fire and that fire trucks wailing in the distance were coming for us, to save us. I was so scared and thought I was having a panic attack. I was afraid that if I fell asleep my heart would stop.

Another morning, I begged my mom over Facetime to tell me when I was born, and what time. I quizzed her through desperate tears, knowing that surely if I was awake and this was all real that she’d know the most intricate details of my existence. Later that day, Andrew left for work and I laid in my purple fuzzy robe and Uggs on the kitchen floor. I listened to 5 Little Ducks while our au pair watched my daughter upstairs and my son was in daycare. I changed the music on my phone as my cheek was pressed against the ground, hoping that happy songs would somehow change my out of control mood and horrifying disposition.

It’s possible this was only a few days, but it felt like a lifetime of terrible experiences that then culminated in one of the saddest weekends of my life.

To be continued…