Medication and Suicide: An American Panacea

There are things that I am not ready to write about. Things I may never be able to commit to the page. It is too fresh, this wound, open and raw, oozing and overflowing.

I climbed four flights of stairs to ask the doctor about getting eye drops. The one medication I forgot to pack but one that is generally easy to procure. I had the Lamotrigine, for mood stabilization, the Cymbalta, for bilateral foot neuropathy...and mood, the Lorazepam, for anxiety....and mood, but forgot to put the Refresh in the suitcase. I needed it as badly as I needed the others. It was essential.

The doctor was young and kind and swung his computer around so I could see the list of my meds. My eyes landed on the hot button warning, the words causing shame to rise and crescendo. It was like looking at strobe lights or a flashing neon sign, Risk for suicide, impossible to miss. He is seeing this, they are seeing this, anyone opening my medical record is seeing this and judging?

They don't know me. They don't know my story. Who I am, what I battle and face or choose to turn my back on. They don't know.

Risk for suicide, like a scarlet S pulsating, pinned to my chest or penned across my forehead. On a scale of 1-10 how is your mood today ? Your anxiety? Any thoughts of hurting yourself and others? As if these questions will reveal the dark.

Oh yeah, I want to answer, all the fucking time. But I know that would be a sure ticket into the Psychiatric Inpatient Unit, watched and monitored and asked again and again about my intentions.

I have the Lamotrigine, the Cymbalta and the Lorazepam. All of this because I forgot the eye drops.