I’m up to 5 pills a day now. Prescribed. Three and a half before bedtime and then another pill and a half when I wake up. In truth, I have another two half-pills at the ready, depending on how my emotions cascade on any given day. So that makes the possibility of 6 pill days. But mostly, I’m a 5 a day guy. 

                  Depending on your own lot in life I suspect this number could seem either high or low. I mean, I doubt many of my college students are popping this amount of legal medication. In your twenties, pills are Tylenol and Advil and maybe the occasional anti-depressant. I’m not trying to define anyone’s experience here, I’m just saying that 5 pills a day seems like a lot of meds for a 23-year-old to need. Then again, if you’re one of my parents’ friends, most likely the proud owner of one of these bad boys, you’re most likely gently scoff-laughing at how cute it is that I think 5 pills is a lot of medication for one person. As you get older older, 5 pills can end up the equivalent to your morning coffee: A nice amuse-bouche of peptide inhibitors in preparation for the real show of beta blockers and reuptake inhibitors served in a few hours. 

                  To me, the number 5 is less a trigger than the fact that I’m up from 3. Three at night. All in one shot. Bam. Done. Clean. This addition, and extension of my medication cycling to 2 times a day, leads me to the conclusion that things are not getting better. I mean. These aren’t even any new drugs, just more of the existing ones. And if my doctors are dialing up my medication levels, how could I not feel as if my anxiety and depression are metastasizing. Perhaps, being the huge psychological brain that I am, my depression and anxiety (D&A) have mutated to become drug resistant. It leaves me, emotionally, in a place where I reread my last line and wonder if it’s a backhanded compliment or a life sentence.