Ingredient 6: Dwindling Prescriptions - Blog8

There are several different ways I can approach the subject of this blog-post: I can discuss the disgrace that is health insurance; I can talk about the nation's overwhelming statistical dependency on prescription drugs; I can provide information about the shameful practices of pharmaceutical companies the world over as they make colossal leaps toward their goal of having every household - within the perimeters of what they consider to be "lucrative" societies - begging for their products; OR, I can write about what I had in mind ten years ago when the words "dwindling prescriptions" made it on to my list of life's "ingredients."  My List is compiled of all the things that I believe make universal Life worth the fare of the "strugglebus" (a term i only recently heard that instantly broke my top one hundred metaphorical phrases), but, there are also some very personal "ingredients" on the List...

This is one of them. 

Am I brave enough to expose just what a coward I am?  Should I be worried about the friends and family that will be reading this blog, as well as their inevitable accompanied judgements?  I suppose.  But I am more bothered by the possibility of exposing my most vulnerable truths; truths that I have carefully packed away in the walls of deeply dug caves and caverns, because should they be enlivened by the light of my days, they could grow strong enough to swallow me whole (repression can be a useful tool for as long as we can bare it), but with these truths hidden away, how whole can I really be?  The real question is: how whole do I want to be?  I don't expect that the answer to this will be animated by a single confessional blog-post, but...maybe it's a start. 

I have pain.  Like every single existing human being, I have pain.  And while I remain aware of the origins and how extensive they are, I also understand that at the very deepest levels I keep the worst of the sources away.  Far, far away.  This is a long-standing agreement I have made with myself.  It is survival.  Pure and simple. 

Guilt is a wretched thing.  Shame is Guilt's beckoning incestuous lover.  Together, they harbor the strength of ten Goliaths to my one lonesome (and desperately metaphorical) David: forgiveness. Yet even with ten to one odds, I know enough to freely declare that forgiveness will rise up and slay the monster antithesis to my peace of mind...all of it...every time.

But what does it matter?  To me, it is a whole lot of everything wrapped up in even more nothingness.

I am not strong enough to forgive. Neither myself, nor my most relentless of tormentors: I am not strong enough to forgive either.  And from this inability, a way of life is sprung - like Athena from Zeus' head.  Also like Athena, this way of life is made to appear pretty to look at on the outside, but it is cold and vengeful underneath all of the flowing garments of distraction.  And my, how it can transform!  But only to the eye.  The stuff that is not visible - the REAL stuff - never changes.  It can't, because "it" is me.  I have drawn my lines of limitation, and I do not cross them.  The monsters that live on the other side of those lines are hungry, my friends.  Their hunters' instincts are swift.  Their touch: fatal.

What does any of this have to do with "dwindling prescriptions?"  The whole "appear pretty to look at on the outside" thing would not be possible without the prescriptions - before the "dwindling" ensues, of course (You didn't think I have the strength of will to carry that kind of facade around all on my own, did you?).  Also, the lines I have drawn for safety require constant maintenance; otherwise they dissolve, leaving me vulnerable to the darkest of predators. 

So, here's the truth I have to live with: not only am I unable to face what lives beyond the lines and diminish the horror with the only weapon in love's arsenal that can (forgiveness), but I cannot be bothered with the full responsibility of the continuous effort required for self-preservation.  A masochistic anti-martyr or just a lazy, seething bitch?  I don't know.  What I do know is that I rely on prescribed sedation for the hostile beasts that wander my emotional territory (a technique practiced by many, perfected by none). 

When the pills begin to get low, the world begins to quake as my carefully drawn lines start to fade (the increased measure on the Richter scale being in direct correlation with the decrease of medication).  BUT, when the good doctor uses his awesome power to summon the almighty refill, I can re-claim my throne (wobbly and unkempt, but a throne all the same) with an inflated false sense of confidence, ruling over a kingdom with high walls and deep motes, knowing all the while that I am succeeding in shutting out the monsters, but by the very same defenses, the view is blocked and growth is limited.  Indeed, any real victory remains in a constant state of purgatory, unable to claim a master.  For even a cowardly queen knows that there can be no victory without a battle; yet only when the dwindling begins does that become remotely bothersome.