Beyond Understanding

I could hear them screaming, crying, cursing, pathetically scared. They were all there — the voices controlling my whole life.

I looked around the room. The walls were covered with colourful posters and motivational quotes. 'If you want to see the rainbow, you have to deal with a rain'. In the beginning, this one was my favourite. I was reading it whenever I felt terrible, and one day, it just became a frustrating reminder of my misery. What bullshit.

My clothes lay on the floor in one big pile next to a bright yellow desk with daisies. No wonder everyone thought I'm the innocent, happy and truly blessed child. But under all of that façade, there was mould, dark green and black mould covering all the pretended happiness, slowly spreading over the colourful surface. The only real thing in this shiny room was my notebook. The truth hidden underneath the fake, phosphorescent pink cover and smiley emojis. The dark secrets of my mind eating me alive every single day for the past two years.

I picked it up, placed it in the middle of the desk, and wrote on the cover "Mum & Dad" with a sparkly blue pen. No other explanation needed; it was all in there. No excuses, no sarcasm, no more lies. Just the truth.

The medication came in a white and beige rectangular box with the product's name on the front side. The package included a container with pills and a leaflet. I unpacked it and placed both on the desk next to me.

Methadone Hydrochloride 100 Tablets

Tablets USP

10 mg Rx only

Each tablet contains: Methadone Hydrochloride USP.... 10 mg

PHARMACIST: Dispense the Medication Guide provided separately to each patient.

WARNING: “The major hazard associated with methadone is the risk of overdose. This risk is particularly high at the time of induction to MMT and when methadone is used in combination with other sedative drugs. The relatively slow onset of action and long half-life mean that methadone overdose can be highly deceptive and toxic effects may become life-threatening many hours after ingestion”.

I sat the pills aside and unfolded an A3 package leaflet, skimming through the first page. The whole second side of the leaflet was designated to side effects written in bold.

1 in 5

Feeling or being sick.

1 in 10

Water/fluid retention, euphoria, hallucinations, confusion, blurred vision, sweating.

1 in 100

Dysphoria, agitation, difficulty sleeping, disorientation, reduction of sex drive, headache, fainting, breathing difficulty, weakness, low body temperature.

1 to 1,000

Slower heartbeat, palpitations, collapse, shock, respiratory arrest, ileus.

Frequency not known

Lower levels of platelets in blood, which increases the risk of bleeding or bruising; underactive adrenal gland.

'Mum? Dad?' I yelled from my room, but as always, no one was home.

They don't love you. They don't care about you. You're useless, powerless, weak, pathetic. Do it. No one will miss you, you piece of shit. Do it.

'Shut up!' I screamed at them and sank my face in my palms, feeling the tears finding their way through the spaces between my fingers. I rushed from the room into my father's office. As usual, it smelled like old tobacco and booze. There were frames with the model family he didn't change for his own, not even after those years, he bought them. The corner cabinet with a glass door was his modest personal bar. I took the unlabelled vodka from the top shelf and ran back to my room.

I quickly grabbed the container and sat on the bed. Do it. I emptied the content straight into my mouth, spilling almost half of the pills on the floor. I swallowed it down with the vodka and collected the rest from the floor, consuming the entire content of the container.

I lay down on the bed, waiting. I thought that the voices will shut up in a couple of minutes, but they were getting louder and louder. My whole body felt wet cold, and I was shaking but not moving. I couldn't do anything else than wait in pain. Fuck.