Pills

Since getting out of the hospital years before, my Mom had been on a bunch of pills. There was Lithium for her depression, Lectopam for her anxiety, Valium to calm her nerves, Water pills for her high blood pressure, and all sorts of pain killers for the headaches that had plagued my Mom since having the electroshock treatments. Add to that the binge drinking that was a staple of her new life with Dale, and my Mom was spiralling out of control. Life was rough. My Mom’s young body became bloated, and her pretty face had become puffy and grey. She didn’t work, and since she and Dale drank most of his money away on booze, we were living off the pittance she pulled from the welfare cheques she got each month. My Dad was living in his own alcoholic haze 1000 miles away, and as far as he was concerned, since my Mom was living with Dale and collecting welfare, he didn’t need to pay any of the child support the court said he owed. That left my sister and me never knowing where our next meal would come from, whether we would be kicked out of whatever crappy place we were living in, or if the lights and heat would still be on when we got home from school.

For my Mom, all of it took its toll on her, and those pills seemed to be the only comfort in her life. She could stay out all night, wake up with a wicked hangover, and a pill would make her feel better. Dale would beat her until her whole face was so swollen that she was unrecognizable, and a pill would help her slip away and into another world. Then, when Mom and Dale would break up (it was an on again, off again cycle) and depression would set in, my Mom had a pill that could help her to cry a little less.

Everywhere my Mom went, she took that giant bag of pills with her. Over time she absolutely became addicted to everything that the pills did to her mind and her body, but there was also some level of comfort from knowing that these pills could take away the pain of everything my Mom had been through.

So, when an eviction notice got slapped on the front door, there wasn’t food in the fridge, or the pain she felt from her own fucked up childhood became too much, my Mom could make an escape…even if it was just for a few hours.

But escaping for a few hours wasn’t enough - and through pills and other means, my Mom attempted many times to make her escape more permanent.