I’d been toying with the idea for maybe a month. Occasionally I’d find myself browsing pharmacies online, catalogues of laxatives, looking for something I might be able to take without vomiting, the way those tiny pills had started to make me do last year.
They stayed in my cart on DoorDash. A liquid, a different type of laxative to those I’d used in the past, but still a stimulant. Every now and then, I’d open the app, just to see them there. A kind of relief, a safety blanket, knowing they were there just in case I might need them. Almost subconsciously, I mentally noted the store’s closing time - no late night panic order possible.
I don’t know what the exact trigger was that day. Only that my brain screamed “DO IT!”. And so, with 4 minutes until orders closed for the day, I did.
That was two weeks ago. I’ve since taken them four times. 1/3 bottle, 2/3, a whole bottle, two.
I tell myself it won’t happen again. That it’s not worth it. But within a matter of days, the idea plants itself in my head again, and it’s like I can’t concentrate on anything else until I do it.
15 doses, all the way up to 90, and none of them gave me the level of pain I was looking for. While I never want to experience the pain of the volvulus or post-surgery again, I think it’s skewed my perception of GI pain, and I’m left underwhelmed by what laxatives themselves are capable of.
They’re dangerously easy to take. Tasteless, though a bit tricky to empty the bottles designed for counting drops. But at 6x the price per dose compared to the little tablets, it’s not practicable for the amounts I take.
I can’t believe I let myself do it again after what happened last year. I know it’s stupid. I haven’t told anyone yet. I know I probably should. I suppose admitting it here is the first step. I wasn’t even sure if I would share it.
Overall, I’m not sure if the higher Seroquel dose is helping yet, self-harm urges aside. Maybe a bit? Theoretically, it should be. New GP thinks it might have to go higher still, but I want to wait a bit longer until I know for sure. It’s so hard to tell in the short-term. To quantify mental health. It’s only in looking back that I’m able to see.
The best part of the lower dose is that sometimes it feels like my brain is on fire. It’s kind of like it lights up, but with unbound intensity, in a way I rarely felt while on the higher dose.
When it’s good, I’ll be amazingly productive, to the point I struggle to keep up with myself. I have all these thoughts in a million different directions. I can’t move fast enough, like time moves too fast and I move too slow. I’ll write for hours because it just keeps coming and everything fits together with perfect clarity. I have all the energy in the world, and get through to-do lists and life admin, cleaning and organizing and sewing. It feels amazing. I wish I could bottle it.
But other times, it’s the same intensity, but of stress and overwhelm, fixating on self-destruction and everything that is wrong in the world, when I’m unable to think of anything except the pain I crave.
I wonder if the good justifies the bad.
Apple blackcurrant sugar-free cordial. You’d never know there’s 90 doses of laxatives.
xxBella
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