As promised, Zara Barrie is back in a 3-part series sharing her journey of pain and self-healing.
If you missed it Part 1, Be sure to check it out here to get the really full picture.
In this post, Zara tells us why she self-medication and the mechanisms she has been using to anesthetize herself. She safely pulled herself out of this episode, which she will now tell us about.
Let’s get it in …
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For a long time I was so afraid, so embarrassed, blatantly convinced that if I were to wrap my lips around the truth, then naked anger would kill me.
But I swore to my Higher Power (Lana Del Rey) the night I called my brother in Los Angeles and told him that I was constantly fainting, unyielding sad, and relied on Xanax to calm the anxiety that released like lightning into my body every single time I allowed myself to be alert And I still, and very oddly, stumbled over the exposed brick texture in my apartment – choke the shame.
The hands of shame were still wrapped around my neck, but her fists were no longer strangling me.
Two days after talking with my brother, I went to the doctor who brought me a family friend in London with him. My eyes nearly fell out of their sockets the second time I walked into her office. This was not Normal A doctor. She possessed an adorable faux giant chest spilled from a pink Barbie blouse, a mini skirt kissing the tops of her (very shiny) tanned thighs, and a Texas-style beauty queen bomb. It felt like a sign of a great deity. It was this Mine Kind of a girl. See, in London, I always felt too much, too emotional, too loud, rhinestones and a flaunted palm tree in Beverly Hills among English roses. I immediately felt calmed by the illustrious presence of the most glamorous and famous doctor ever. (Lana Del Rey Definitely Sent it to me).
“What’s going on, baby?” She snores. Her serious, doctor-like eyes pair artistically with her gorgeous sexy outfit.
“I’m afraid to go crazy,” I said staring at her legs wondering how she got them …shimmering.
“why?” Sexy doctor asked.
“Well, I’m really depressed. And indeed, really, really anxious. I drink a lot because I’m so depressed and so anxious and so empty that seems to be the only thing that helps.” I have stopped. I held my breath. Breathing means feeling, feeling means crying and me really You don’t want to go over there. I’ve been numb for so long that the emotional vacancy has been my comfort zone. I tightened my fists and tightened my shoulder muscles to prevent tears from creeping into my ducts.
“What’s Next?” She doesn’t seem particularly bothered by anything she just said. Her realistic demeanor made me feel less like an alien and more like what I was: a girl. A girl is going through a hard time, but the girl is no less.
I decided to continue. “Well, I also developed this obsession with weaving.”
Did not flinch. “Follow.”
“Just as my mind catches strange tissues and makes me feel like my skin is creeping out of my body and staying with me for days, I actually feel like I want to tear my body apart just talking about it. Wine helps it disappear. But I fear I’m going crazy.”
“I regret to inform you that you are Not On the way to madness. “
“I’m not?” I asked. Contrary to her deep fears, she felt like a little girl who had just been informed, there are no monsters living under her bed.
“No. You have depression, anxiety, and persistent intrusive thoughts.”
“intrusive Reflections? ”
“It’s a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder. One gets intrusive, unwanted thoughts or images stuck inside their heads. It’s a nightmare. But this is not uncommon. I have that too.”
She owns it too?
“Yes, baby. I have that too.” She joked, you read my opinion. “It runs in my family. It’s a biochemical issue. It’s not important anyway! I’ll prescribe you a low dose of antidepressants.”
I said nervously, “Okay.” Funny that I was afraid to take an antidepressant, but I had put a dirty ecstasy pill in my mouth recklessly the previous weekend, without a second thought.
She picked up a bright pink pen and wrote me a prescription. “Try this to tidy up, but listen, dear. You need to To go to treatment. There might be some pain inside you that you need to cope with. ”
“Certainly.” I chirped. I was on antidepressants but treatment was out of the question.
Two weeks later I was sitting on the train, heading to work, when I first felt a gentle rush of serotonin littering my sad mind.
Maybe not everything is that bad. I thought cheerfully. As I got off the train to Oxford Street, I suddenly felt like Christmas was on my mind. I felt that the dark curtains that had been pulled through the windows of my heart had suddenly opened and all the sunlight was streaming in me.
It felt like I could see the sparkle lightening my future path once again!
that’s it. I have no problem drinking! You don’t need to revisit past trauma! I do not need treatment! This magic pill is all I need! this is. is being. The. Asks.
And the answer was. at first. Then little by little the demons found their way back to my astronomer.
It started with nightmares. Bloody, graphic nightmares about being caught by frightening men. Then the shame of my ex-girlfriend returned. She mocked me that my dad would soon discover who I was really I was. The medication helped me crawl out of bed in the morning, but it wasn’t able to fix what I felt was broken inside of me. She was not able to erase the traumas of the past.
Hope to tell you that I immediately realized this and went to therapy. But I am one of the most stubborn prostitutes you will ever meet. My unwillingness to give up is my greatest strength and my most serious weakness. I did not go to treatment. I’ve never been to a trusted friend’s house. I went back to the tavern and drank myself into oblivion.
It’s not that I was totally awake in those first few months of blissing on antidepressants, but I didn’t feel the need to escape by drinking. For the first time in years, I was drinking for pleasure, not for anesthesia.
But the demons are back, and so have the electricity cut off for me.
Now that I have been taking antidepressants, my pregnancy is lower than ever. A big glass of wine made me tumble and tire. Two large glasses of wine and I couldn’t remember anything the next day. And I was drunk of a different kind than I was before. The grains mixed with the wine made me wild and reckless. She ate a model birthday candle straight from her cake at a trendy party in Notting Hill (that was a special kind of painful I still wanted to hide under the covers for the rest of my life.) I jumped into a shopping cart that was rolling down a busy street at 2 am and almost opened my face. Even more seriously, I started inviting strangers into my studio apartment. At this point, my roommate had moved in with her boyfriend, so I was free to let my self-destructive knowledge fly off peacefully.
One morning I woke up with my heart so heavy that I thought it was going to fall off my chest. I knew something really I had darkness the night before. I didn’t need to look at the black and blue bruises that adorned my skinny wrists like the matching bracelets to the cuffs to know someone hurt me. Someone did something to me against my will. My soul felt soiled.
Once again I looked at the sprawling path of my future. I watched the luster that paved the way disappear one by one before my eyes. My shiny future looked as flat, matte, and fuzzy as it had been before I started taking antidepressants.
I got on a plane and decided to stay at my father’s house in Florida for a while. I called a therapist. I broke as hell however my life Was at stake. I knew that. If I didn’t die from drinking or drug overdoses, I would die from situations in which I put myself in when I was under the influence. There was no quick fix. There was no magic pill. I had to take off that lovely pink pad and look at the wound with all his naked tears.
The healer I went to see, Catherine had warm hazel eyes and a southern tone. She was not as magical as the London Doctor, but she emitted such radiant energy as if lit from within.
“What’s going on.” She asked. Nag Champa incense burns in the background.
“I am afraid to feel. I am very afraid of the feeling. I am still trying to numb my feelings with drugs and alcohol and it is not working. I am very afraid of the feeling.” I was trembling.
“why you And therefore Afraid of the feeling, Zara? “ The tenderness that came down from her voice when she said my name out loud made me start crying hysterically.
“Because these feelings are so frightening I think they will kill me.”
“Feelings cannot kill you.”
“they can not?”
“No. Feelings are not monsters that will kill you in your sleep. This is actually not physically possible. Run away from them with alcohol and drugs.” He can Kill you. But feelings won’t. ”
“Even the bad guys, really?”
“Even a really bad guy.”
That was the moment when I learned the strongest lesson in my life, a lesson I repeat to myself every time I tend to numb an uncomfortable feeling.
Feelings can’t kill you. You can escape from them.
♡♡♡
Be sure to follow Zara on Instagram Embed a Tweet And check out her other posts on Skinny secrecy ( Here & Here ).
Stay tuned in Part 3 where Zara will give us all the tips for self-forgiveness and how you found freedom.
Q, Lauren
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