and i have gotten stronger. over the past six months i have grown and toughened. i have become this person, this life worth living. something that for years i didn't even know existed inside of me, years. everything got better, easier, more clear. i allowed myself to make decisions.
for almost five years i was not enough on my own. i needed therapy and i needed medication. i was not strong enough on my own, i was not strong enough to live or to fight the disease. and then march 22nd came. i don't know what happened, what changed; but i decided to end it. i decided to cut off my dependency at the shore where it had grown roots. i decided to take control &no matter how badly it hurt, i decided i was going to stop taking the medication.
and it took nineteen days. it took nineteen days until the dizziness finally stopped, until the urge to pick up the phone &call the doctor &refill the prescription stopped. i didn't know it then, but maybe it was the hardest nineteen days of my life. it was hard, but i did it. i took back control over my life, i took back control. i stopped letting a pill decide whether i would have a good or a bad day, whether i would wake up &breathe or walk into the bathroom &slit my wrists. i took back control.
and right now i feel as if my progress is slipping away, slipping right out of my grasp. i see the lies that i tell myself to get by, to stay strong, for what they truly are: lies. i see the truth. i don't know how much longer i can tell myself, just get through this. i do not know if i can do this on my own. see the one thing that has been beside me this whole way, the one thing, the only thing held me up when i was weak &gave me strength when i began to fall, i feel right now, like he is slipping away.
written on 2005-04-21 at 12:25 a.m.
she / lost