every morning starts the same

my daily 185 milligrams of Effexor

taken alongside my 30 milligrams of buspirone

after washing down my four pills with a swig of whatever happens to be on my nightstand i go downstairs and eat

for if i forget, or don’t have time, i’ll be in the nurses office within an hour of school starting wolfing down three breakfast bars as to quell my nausea. though eating isn’t as simple as that. i have to make sure i eat the right thing in the morning or my day will be ruined.

on Mondays, Thursdays, and Fridays i eat a muffin, and on Tuesdays and Wednesdays i eat toast, no excuses. i’m not entirely sure where it come from but i know that if i eat the wrong thing my stomach will be upset the rest of the day.

and i’ll eat as i wait for my carpool to arrive, quickly grabbing my purse and dashing through the door so she doesn’t have to wait too long

but when my day does not start with my medicine the routine changes. whether because i'm rushed, i forgot, or i simply did not want to i don’t take my medicine i rely so heavily on.

i still eat because if i don’t eat whatever it is i am supposed to my day will be worse than it already will be

the nausea will still appear and my hands will begin to shake by the end of the school day

my skin will be too tight, and i will notice how my toes touch, and my teeth will be too big for my mouth, and my eyes too warm.

and my vision will suffer because i will constantly see flashes of light, and the clicks of my teachers typing will drive me mad, and when one of my peers cough i will jump, and my kind will not shut off.

i will be going going going until i can no longer go and yet i wonder why i need my medicine.

i know why i need it; my anxiety and depression are too much for me to handle on my own so the drugs take the edge of my worries off my shoulders.

but not only do i need it for those purposes, now i need it just to make it through the day. i am a wreck for days if i forget my drugs for one day. i am in a cycle of prescribed addiction where even if i no longer needed the drugs i would need to ween off like a drug addict does before rehab as to not die from withdrawal.

i never thought i would be a drug addict, and yet it would seem i am at the mere age of fifteen.