For the sake of educating the masses, I will share this painful and deeply personal story.
As you all know, my husband N. is a wonderful person who makes me very happy. He is kind, quiet, and normally very happy.
And then last Tuesday he suddenly changed. He became listless, he slept all the time, refused to talk, and looked extremely angry yet incapable of explaining what was happening. Then he started having fits of rage and experienced suicidal thoughts. I had no idea what was going on. Obviously, I was distraught because he didn’t even look like the person I knew and loved.
I tried talking to him but he couldn’t explain what was the matter beyond saying that nobody cared about him and everything was useless.
Finally, after trying to get it out of him for days, I discovered what happened.
N. had a tooth-ache. His dentist’s clinic is right around the corner. Besides, N. has a fantastic dental insurance. But he didn’t go to see the dentist because he thought his tooth-ache was not serious enough to bother the dentist and distract him from more serious pursuits than treating patients. (Yes, N. is like that. He doesn’t like to bother people needlessly.)
So instead of going to the dentist and getting his tooth-ache dealt with by a professional, N. decided to take care of it on his own. He disinterred a bottle of Vicodin and started popping pills. This was my Vicodin that had been prescribed to me but that I never took because I’m scared of it. I had asked N. to dispose of it but he forgot. Now he found this Vicodin and started taking it.
We are both very anti-drug and, as a result, our bodies are not used to any medication. Of course, after N. started gulping down these Vicodin pills, he overdosed on them.
If a few pills over the course of several days can do this to a person, I don’t even want to imagine the destruction of personality this garbage can inflict if taken over longer periods of time.
I took half a Vicodin pill once (it was actually for a tooth-ache, as well) and I never want to feel the way I felt on this medication. Just half a pill made me feel sociopathic. I didn’t experience any pain after I took it but I didn’t have any other feelings either. I knew that I could say and do anything to people and have no compassion for them. Thank God, I only took half a pill, so I was lucid enough to realize that I needed to stay away from other human beings until the effects wore off.
Don’t take this shit, people.
P.S. If you want to leave a comment telling me how Vicodin is great, please go and reread the first sentence of this post and then consider how stupid such a comment would be in this context.
Clarissa's Blog 
I wanted to ask you something unconnected. Reading PostSecret, this secret seemed frightening:
How should one deal with regrets about the past? How not to end up like this 70 year old person? Do you have any phylosophical approach / take on the topic?
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I will write a post about this, OK?
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@el: When someone writes something deeply personal and emotional to them, how does it make sense to comment with something unrelated?
As far as prescription medication goes, I am also petrified of it. During my last semester of university, I was prescribed beta blockers to deal with anxiety (I got the prescription during my first visit to the university clinic and it’s pretty scary how easy that was). I felt the effects 10 minutes after taking a pill and it was terrifying – I literally felt incapable of experiencing any emotion whatsoever for a few hours.
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Shoul’ve put it in Ask Clarissa instead.
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Is N. okay?
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Yes, thank you, he is much better now that he is off this stuff.
Never again, my friend, never again.
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So glad to hear 🙂 I was worried reading this. Glad it worked out.
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I can relate in a way, I have trichomania and I was proscribed Zoloft by my dermatologist because she thought I had a compulsion disorder. I hated taking that stuff, I felt so numb and everything seemed all gray and boring and I felt like a damn robot. I had trouble sleeping, food tasted bland, and my sex life went to hell because I wasn’t interested and I had trouble getting aroused. This shit is no good, I still have trichomania to a degree but I’m trying to find other ways of coping rather than going on some stupid pill.
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This sounds horrible! I feel for you, my friend! But it’s good you are looking for other ways.
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Thanks, I’ve had one sort of compulsion or another since I was a kid. I’ve bitten my nails and then started pulling my hair when I got tired of that, I get triggered when I’m bored or anxious or even just watching TV, usually when I’m sitting on the couch and I’m by myself. I always carry around an old pen with no ink in my left hand so it makes it harder to pull my hair, it doesn’t always work but at least I’m not using damn Zoloft.
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I missed “suicidal thoughts” on the 1st read. Didn’t think it was that bad.
//We are both very anti-drug and, as a result, our bodies are not used to any medication.
I am not sure there is a connection. Isn’t reaction to drugs genetic? What do doctors say? In my family people strongly react to (some) drugs, but I doubt starting taking them regularly would help. “Help”, sure, but not help.
//But he didn’t go to see the dentist because he thought his tooth-ache was not serious enough to bother the dentist and distract him …
Since it more than bothered both of you, I would’ve offered to tell each other before any of you takes any drug. Just to be safe.
Isn’t it patriarchal conditioning of “strong men don’t go to doctors”?
Teeth, in general, are costy and potentially risky for health business in many ways. In Israel there is health insurance, but not teeth insurance either. So, seeing doctor today may prevent paying A Lot tomorrow and preserve one’s quality of life. Having a high temperature (except extremes, of course) is much preferable to “insignificant” tooth – ache.
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I don’t even drink coffee anymore, although the mild stimulant in cocoa is acceptable. Too much stimulation lifts me out of myself and then I don’t know where I am, whereas a depressant like wine reminds me of my actual views and sensations and returns me to a state of oneness with myself.
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You have to go to the dentist regularly for checkups so this doesn’t happen. Seriously. I am the only person in the family with all my teeth because I do this. My mother advised it and it was one of her good pieces of advice. Sometimes I have not had the money for it and I have put it on a credit card and yes, it is worth the freakin’ interest because of the difficult and expensive problems it prevents.
You can be one of the lucky exceptions with perfect teeth despite no care, but it is a bad idea, very bad, to let things go far enough that you get a toothache.
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I’ve tried various antidepressants, do not think I should ever have / do not think I was even depressed to start with. Horrible things in my view, I can’t think straight on them or be sure how I feel. Their worst aspect is the long action: they are not like coffee or wine, with an immediate effect that then wears off. They stay in your system.
For an injury, though, I got straight morphine once. Not synthetic, not mixed with anything else. It was fantastic!
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“You have to go to the dentist regularly for checkups so this doesn’t happen. Seriously. I am the only person in the family with all my teeth because I do this.”
– I agree completely and N. always followed this advice. Until he went to a dentist with what he thought was a toothache but it turned out that he had bitten his cheek on the inside and it got infected. So N. felt embarrassed and decided that if he came to the dentist with another minor issue the dentist would laugh at him. To me, this sounds like a very convoluted kind of reasoning but here you have it.
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Well, I once had a toothache, was very surprised since I take care of my teeth, went to dentist who said it was a sinus infection pressing on the nerve.
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Wow, sorry to hear about this. I’m glad it turned out okay, though.
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Thank you, my friend!
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I’m glad to hear that N is okay! I had the exact same problem with adderall, it murdered my interest in everything I love: Sex, food, drink, friendships, physical affection, literature, laughter; it was all boring to me. I can’t imagine going back to that, poor Jaime hated every minute that I was on it, because I wasn’t the bubbly, sweet, squishy partner she loved, just a stony, silent stranger. It was unbearable for everyone who had to deal with me, I bet.
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That’s exactly it! I missed my “bubbly, sweet, squishy partner”! It was very sad and scary because I had no idea what it was.
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Huh. I took adderall for a while and it had the opposite effect on me. It sort of turned me from my normal depressed self into the bubbly person it seemed everyone wanted me to be. I eventually decided to stop taking it because it caused an increased heart rate, there was a dramatic “let down” when it wore off and something about the whole thing didn’t feel quite right.
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Eeep. That doesn’t sound at all pleasant. Vicodin is a class A drug here and is not prescribed for toothache – it is not at all the kind of drug to self medicate with. Can I ask why, particularly since he doesn’t normally use painkillers, N thought to start there rather than use paracetamol or ibuprofen? One of the things about opiates is they need to be carefully balanced against the level of pain the patient is in, otherwise the side effects are can be worse than the problem.
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This was the only thing we had in the house and I guess he was in too much pain to drive to the pharmacy.
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I’ve never had to use an opiate-based painkiller (thankfully) but I’ve always been terrified I’ll have a large enough injury to justify it. I’m certain I’ll become dependent immediately, since I was once sedated with morphine for a surgical procedure, and upon awakening, proceeded to tell all the nurses, doctors, and my mother how wonderful I felt for the next 2 hours. Opiates are scary stuff.
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But feel good. I must have incredible will power or something. They do the job the first time so I don’t then want more.
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