In the summer of ‘06 I awoke to the feeling of passing out. What? Yes. It’s quite an odd one. My heart rate, when I counted it was 250 bpm. That’s really bloody fast.

I dragged my ass to the hospital, thinking I was going to die. They thought I was having a “panic attack,” which prompted them to fill me with Ativan (Lorazepam). I passed out from the drugs and my heart rate was 180bpm. A cougar sitting on your couch shouldn’t prompt anything near that rate, let alone sleeping. So, they were convinced, I had either done 100 lines of coke or they needed to call Dr. House. They made me piss in a cup so many times, I can’t believe I had enough urine. I had never touched coke, ever, never ever. (Although, I have read “Cocaine, An Unauthorized Biography,” which is a brilliant book.)

After that, they did all the tests under the sun, made me pee in a cup some more, asked me again if I was a drug addict.

They kept me for a week and still had no idea why my heart was so freaking fast. I left with some Atenolol – a pretty  generic beta-blocker. It made my heart slow down and also made me feel like crap. But my heart wasn’t exploding. I was just having nightmares and nauseated to the point of thinking fresh air smelled bad.

Months after that I found a specialist for Dysautonomia – what I presumed I had and which turns out I do have. He prescribed lexapro, klonopin, and zebata (a beta blocker). Light doses of them all. It was fine, at first.

I felt okay. I was anxious as hell, still, and my heart would do weird things all the time and made me feel like I had a rusty old engine inside.

A year later, I met a genetic specialist who got me on some vitamins to attack the core of my problems and it helped. A lot. (Google “Methylgenomics”)

But, years later, I was still on all these drugs. I was starting to forget names very easily. And, my life was really falling apart. I was apathetic. My life was always close to two minutes from diluting into something resembling nothing of a life.

I remember that I couldn’t remember who Phil Collins was one day – at all. I kept saying “you know that guy that drums, he made the 808, and he was in the band that was really groovy.” And, that was it. I mean, Phil Collins? ;) I think that’s when I first realized what was happening. It wasn’t until much later I decided to change what was going on.

I found out that these drugs were really great at eliminating my symptoms, but also made me an anxious zombie. I was frustrated and at the same time I had no idea why. My mind was so sedated that I couldn’t really properly conclude what was making me anxious. But that’s what it was, secretly, the drugs diluting my mind were making me frustrated. After that small epiphany, I dropped most of the drugs until I had to finally cut my klonopin. I thought that would be fine. (I did all of this under the care of a doctor.)

It wasn’t.

It was terrible.

I was addicted. They say it’s non-addictive. It isn’t addictive per se, but your brain gets hooked on the way it works. Hooked!

I felt like I was being detached from the matrix… slowly and with massively terrible side affects. It was a journey, I’ll give it that. I’m not sure what cold-turkey would have been like, I don’t want to know. I was manic for weeks and I thought maybe I could never really return to a life that didn’t involve a yellow pill in the morning. But, I made it. And, I’m really good now. I’m me!

These days, I can “see,” for the first time in years. I can feel, I can cry, I can get shivers from music. I feel like I’ve been missing life for the past three years and I’m desperately sad about it. I’m sorry for who I was. I wasn’t a bad person, I was just diluted. A waterpool of what Noël used to be.

Exercising, eating right, meditation, music, enjoying every moment, and understanding that reality is not perception and perception is not reality, have helped me balance everything out. The drugs were a mask. They didn’t make me healthier.

So, here I am, 2 months after my withdrawal from prescription drugs. I couldn’t be happier to be able to just be. And, I couldn’t be more frustrated with the doctors for thinking any of what they did was helpful.

I really wasn’t going to write any of this. But, I haven’t written in a while. Why not start with what leaves me most vulnerable?

P.S. – Thank you Stephanie. You leave me without words.