An opioid crisis

The Truth, well my truth at least.

Every single time I pick up that pill bottle I feel like less of  a person, each time I choke down the chemicals I feel like part of me is dying. I have poured the entire bottle into my hand and stared for minutes at a time. Do you know the power in that little pink pill? Do you know that it has taken more lives in a single year than any gun? I didn't type those words for political debate, no those words are my own inner debate, my inner struggle. Knowing that I hold that kind of power in my hand makes me feel small, vulnerable. It is like knowing there is an intruder hiding in my closet, waiting for the perfect opportunity to steal my last breath, my last heartbeat. Its knowing that that pill itself has relieved far more pain than just the physical hurt that haunts me. It has given hope to those who felt incredibly hopeless. That little pink circle that sits in my hand and swims down my throat, it has the power to take it all away. The nights of unstoppable crying, the constant anxiety of walking into a medical building, the shame, the guilt, the feeling of being less than human, less than whole. It is an all powerful beast and it resides in my home and finds its ultimate purpose fulfilled in the warmth of my blood and the power it has over my brain. 

It has been said before, "you must love the high," That is completely wrong, the only "high" I love is the one that flows from my lips with a real smile behind it. I don't enjoy looking at people I care about with a forced smile and a pained hello. I don't like my children to see me with a grimace or with tears pouring from my eyes because I am in more pain than anyone should have to endure. So, I swallow that devil down. The same hidden monster that has claimed the lives of my peers, quite literally saves mine. 

I take nothing away from those who have lost someone they loved to the little pink pill. I cant understand or even begin to truly comprehend what it is like to lose a loved one to a devil that still exists (unlike a disease that one can’t avoid, but a devil that exists because a man created it). It must be like knowing that your loved ones murderer is still walking the streets with free reign kill again and again and yet again. You fight to end its existence, while we hold on tight to the one thing that makes us feel, well, more human. You fight for it to be taken away, while we fight to do more than simply exist. You wish it didn't exist while I wish I didn't depend on its existence. I may not fully understand your pain, but you do not live every day with mine. How can we come to a place where we can understand each other? How can we stop battling against each other simply because we do not understand each others perspective? Is that not the basis for most of the horrible hatred and fighting in this world? A lack of understand and a lack of acknowledgement that different perspectives exist and that neither are all right nor are they all wrong. 

I have a murderer in my home. A murderer that I allow to be here, a murderer that I depend on. I look that killer in the face nearly every day and when it is a really bad day, a day where I simply cant lift my arms or move my feet, a day where I cant stop the tears and don't want to move, on those days I look that killer in the face and I say , Thank You!"