I have ADHD; my doctors switched my medication halfway through first term. The first day I cleaned my room with amazing efficiency. That night I did not sleep. The second day, I organised my underwear by color. That night I also did not sleep.
I am a very angry insomniac. Whenever I notice I'm still awake I roll over and take two sleeping pills out of the little jewelled tin on my windowsill. They're nothing interesting, just Tylenol Simply Sleep, like Tylenol PM but without the actual acetaminophen. Around three I decide to start taking three instead. Around four I notice all the pills are gone.
I want a cigarette and a little air seems like a good idea, so I get out of bed and walk outside. I look at the bushes. They seem very green.
“They seem very green,” think the bushes. They don’t like thinking very much, they’re a little shocked. “Maybe I should go back inside,” they think. They realize they don’t have their key.
“Oh, fuck me,” they think. They decide to call poison control. They don’t know the number, they decide to ask whoever answers 911. It’s a woman. I tell her I may be having some dosage problems, she tells me she’ll forward me to Poison Control but needs my address first. I give it to her. She tells me she’s sending a cop. She’s a lying whore, and I am very unhappy with her.
A car pulls up and a cop runs toward me at top speeds, which seems excessive. He tells me I can smoke in his car if I give him a cigarette. He tries to put me in the back but I don't like the bars so I sit in the passenger seat. He calls an ambulance. I suspect I've been too belligerent and offer him another cigarette. He tells me smoking is unbecoming of a lady.
They put me in the ambulance and strap me in. The woman wants me to fill out forms. I give her my social security number when she asks for my post office box. We have to make a list of my medicines; I spell out methylphenidate three times but she doesn't know what Vyvanse is and wants to know how to spell lisdexamfetamine too, so I pretend to fall asleep.
They roll me into the hospital. There's very little communication between hospital staff, every time a new doctor comes in I'm asked again how many pills I took. Every time I subtract two from what I last said. When I first called 911, I conservatively estimated 25. By the time they attach me to an ECG I've decided it was 17. By the time they start my IV, I've become tired of saying sleeping pills and decide to say I took Benadryl instead.
I'm still awake, so the cop comes over and asks me if I'm on meth. He doesn't believe me when I say no, he asks three more times. For some reason he has a nurse come over and strap me down. He starts a laundry list of every drug he can come up with and some I think he's inventing. "Heroin?" he asks. "That can do things like that." No heroin. I mostly pass my drug test but fail for amphetamines, which I tell them they should have expected. They ask about my meth use a few more times. I tell them they're lowering my self esteem, I don't like to think I look like your token meth user.
I spend most of my time at the hospital in the senior lounge of my high school. All my friends are there, and we have some great bonding sessions. They keep pumping me full of saline.
Someone from campus security eventually comes to pick me up. He drops me off by the Health Center, I cannot figure out why I am behind a building and wander away. I get into my room somehow and finally fall asleep under my bed. My roommate cannot find me.
I wake up 10 hours later, confused about the heart monitor stickers covering my chest. I wander around my room and stick them all over the walls.
On your weekday talk shows, this is the sort of thing you come out of a better person. Maybe there's a great lesson, but I'm still working on it. I try to list the things I learned in an attempt on reflection: Counting is a great skill. Hospitals are expensive. For some reason cops think THC is widely available in pill form. ECG stickers are great for holding up calendars. Never trust 911 operators.
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