Diary of an Adolescence Through Pills

Editorial Content Warning: This piece refers to substance use, suicidal ideation, and struggles with mental health. 

October 2020 

First day on Vyvanse and Lexapro, it’s Halloween. My thoughts feel quieter. It almost feels like they’ve lined up and started to take turns one at a time in being processed. I can’t seem to take any more than two bites of my In-N-Out burger. When I was getting it, an entire parade of cars bearing Trump flags went by honking and hollering. Nonetheless, my hunger is non-existent. The smell of food makes me nauseous. 

November 2020 

Lexapro hasn’t taken away my yearning for death. My emotions seem blunter. Their corners are rounded and colors more dull. I’m shitting twice a day now, which is cool I guess? 

December 2020 

So I did a thing, so no more Lexapro. Also, no more Vyvanse. It’s Adderall for me. I feel less nauseous and more normal. You know what I mean? If you do, you’ve probably taken Adderall and actually had ADHD. Prozac is my poison now. It truly is poison since it makes me so fucking pissed at everything. Literally, I find myself in a constant state of being irked to my core over every sound and even at concepts. I can only sleep and sometimes read to distract me from my constant burning anger. I also still think about killing myself. I don’t really want to do it. Like there’s no urgency, but I still think about it a lot. For now, sleep is the closest thing I have to it. 

January 2021 

Because of that constant vexation, I am now taking Lamictal. Apparently, it can give me a deadly rash in my internal organs which they told me to be aware of but definitely not look up. Of course, I looked it up. They told me to watch my dose and if I think I forgot to take it to not take it at all because of said lethal rash and if contracted I would need to go to the ICU, which is at capacity because of a worldwide pandemic. So I am being super careful. What’s freaky is that I’ve started seeing evil faces in the dark. Ghastly, gruesome, demonic faces that morph from one malevolent being into another. Amazing! Right? I will handle their grimaces if it means I will not long to go to sleep and never wake up. 

February 2021 

New pill! Hopefully new me… Wellbutrin. A cute name, really. It feels like it’s starting to work really well actually.

March 2021 

I really can’t eat. A few bites and I feel nauseous. I feel grotesquely thin. I don’t understand why people wish to look like this. It’s disturbing, honestly. My sternum is starting to make its existence known under my skin. The same goes for my clavicle and ribs. Adderall is so to blame. 

April 2021 

Things are starting to go back to normal. I’m in school again. I have a girlfriend again. I have more reasons to live now, although there remain a few cons to living. I have come to understand that I absolutely cannot miss a single dose of these pills. If I miss one pill, I feel like I’m going to pass out. I’m also really fucking sweaty all the time, especially at night. 

May-August 2021 

My dose has only gone up more over the months. My psychiatrist says things will get better if I just take more of it. Although my life has gone to shit I still feel a frenzied happiness from time to time. Life can’t be this shitty and this good. I don’t really understand it. 

September 2021 

New pill alert!! Abilify. Isn’t that a hopeful name? The incessant feeling of wanting to die has intensified again. I almost feel psychotic, although it’s apparently an antipsychotic. I feel more and more like a fucking guinea pig. It’s been a year of this shit. Truly in my ratgirl era, seeing that I’m big pharma’s favorite little lab rat at this point. This motherfucking psychiatrist is being such a fucking man, and not listening to a word I fucking say. I want OFF THE WELLBUTRIN TRAIN! Which he hears as “let’s up the dose.” I’m done with his shit, seeing that I literally hallucinate things happening when they didn’t actually happen. At least I think? I guess I’ll never really know, will I? Weird how truly perception-altering this shit is. 

October 2021 

I switched psychiatrists. Thank fuck. I found a lesbian psychiatrist. You know, keeping it in the community. She’ll definitely understand me as I tell her about dark scary shit, intensely personal shit, and shameful, embarrassing shit as she types away at her keyboard documenting my sobering vulnerability. I am supposed to go off all medicine for a month after a year of being pumped full of diet meth and suicidal poisons. Don’t think I don’t believe in psychiatric medicine, because I do. My hope in it is waning. I’m growing more and more tired of it and hopeless. How much more will I hold onto life without losing grasp of hope? It’s almost as if I’ve grabbed a handful of sand that’s slipping rapidly through my knuckles, spilling out more and more by the millisecond until all I have left are a few unsteady grains.

November 2021 

I am constantly exhausted. My waking moments are few and far between. I feel narcoleptic. I have to take almost three naps a day. I nap in-between classes at school. There now live many photos of me sleeping in the library on people’s phones. I apparently have to wait a few more weeks for all the medications to leave my system. I abandoned Adderall a long time ago in the name of being able to eat like a normal person again. The pounds are starting to slowly come back, thank God. For now I am lethargic and still hopeless. 

December 2021 

Back to more pills again. She and my therapist believe I’m bipolar. A possible explanation for my cyclical, turbulent emotional range. I don’t pay too much attention to the label. After all there are plenty of really fucking cool bipolar people out there. Like Julia Fox, Lily Allen, Selena Gomez, Kanye, and unfortunately Demi Lovato, whom I also share a birthday with. I can’t seem to get enough distance from that bitch. Hopefully this new mood stabilizer does what it claims to. 

January 2022 

My emotions finally feel palatable. They’re not as all-consuming. I can feel them and observe them from afar. A new concept to me. My hope feels renewed, although I have trouble sleeping through the night. For this they gave me Gabapentin, which would work for a few days and my body would require more and more of it as time went on. I warned my doctor about my past affinity for My Year of Rest and Relaxation. She had no idea what I meant by that, so I of course explained the plot to her. Essentially explaining that heavy sleeping pills scared me because I would probably want to be in a drug-induced twilight like all the time given my history. She had been planning on starting me on an antipsychotic which would also double as a sleeping pill. 

February 2022 to beyond… 

This combination would prove to be the solution to most of my issues. I could emote normally now. I felt in control. Happy to breathe and happy that my heart is still beating. I would struggle a little with remembering to take my medicine, but after some time it became a permanent habit like breathing, because after all they’re what keep me alive in a way.

Mariella Faura is a current student at the University of Southern California. She has been writing poetry from a young age, documenting her coming of age through words. Her work explores girlhood, coming of age during a pandemic, lesbian identity, and mental health struggles, offering a raw and nuanced perspective on resilience and vulnerability. Her poetry and autofiction is a personal catharsis embracing the beauty and pain that shape the human experience.