Decolgen knocks me out

7:24 PM, April 15, 2010

In my bedroom

“Whatever it is that you are taking, you have to stop.”

That was my sister. She’s practically gone crazy over me for the past three weeks. Protective as she is of her elder sister, she never said anything. Until this afternoon.

This morning when I came home from work, I started working on the scrapbook for the trip. But seeing pictures of how happy life was three weeks ago did not help me one bit. So I gave up, and decided to watch one of my favourite movies on DVD.

Practical Magic. I’ve always loved the film. It reminds me of my childhood when I wished for a knight in shining armour who will sweep me off my feet. I imagined him to be tall and dark, none of those blonde hunks they take for Prince Charming.

I relived that childhood dream in the last three weeks. I was overwhelmed, intoxicated, infatuated. I thought I had finally found my knight. I believed I was starting to live my own fairy tale. But the knight rode away without me.

I did not finish the movie. I downed two tablets of Decolgen (how pathetic) and fell into bed. Since sleeping pills are banned in the house (my fault, of course), I had to resort to cold meds to knock me out. Sick, eh?

Karla knows me too well to tell that there is something wrong. I always finish a movie no matter how sleepy I am; and she saw me going to the medicine drawer when I came in.

So there she was lecturing me about what I have been doing to my body. She stood with me in front of the full-length mirror and got a weighing scale. I practically lost 10 kilos since I came home from Boracay (yehey?).

She forced me to look at myself: dark circles around my eyes, pallid complexion, dry lips, tear marks all over my face.

“Have I been crying in my sleep again?” I asked.

She just replied, “For two days now” and walked away.

When I was a kid, my parents would always know when something’s bothering me. I cry in my sleep when I’m hurt, anxious or in the past years, feeling suicidal.

So that was why Karla was so angry that I took the Decolgens. She knew that I was forcing myself to sleep, that I was in pain.

I guess I could not hide my emotions from the people around me. I wear it now, more than ever, like a neon sign on my forehead.

So much for pretending I’m OK. What the hell, even with drugs that are supposed to induce a dreamless state, I still cry in my sleep.