By Caroline J. Trussell

Get a good job after school, move to a big city. Work from 9-5 and sometimes even later. Say yes ma’am and yes sir. Take the coffee orders. Come home late and always be available via email. Go the bar down the street that serves the $3 drinks, try to forget your day. Verbal abuse is expected in the industry, just smile and twist your personality to fit the people who are paying you. Eat a whole box of Cheez Its to numb the pain, lie in bed staring at the popcorn ceiling wondering what you were really taught besides how to endure pain. 

Let your roommate yell at you for missing out on a night of drinking when you were sick over the toilet from a digestive issue. Cry alone in your bed because you don’t want others to see the toll they take on you, how you may not be the person they believe you to be. 

Have a heart attack or at least what feels like one, wait, maybe you overdosed on the medication your doctor prescribed you. Did you take two or three pills today? Three is far too many. Call your father, who is a nurse, and let him tell you there is no such thing as ODing on that type of medication. 

Now you’re in the hospital and you’re wearing long sleeves and they’re asking you all sorts of questions and all you can think is you want to leave, you want to leave, you want to leave. But not just the hospital. The job, the city, the situation. But you’ll be seen as a failure because you’re supposed to get a good job after school and support yourself. You’re not supposed to have a two-hour panic attack because you’re told it’s just a stomach bug. You’re not supposed to move back in with your parents who helped you move 12 hours up the country. 

You’re supposed to get a good job after school. Not only that, but you’re also supposed to be happy and thankful no matter what. So, you take the pills they prescribe you because you’re tired of waking up every two hours from heart palpitations. You try the meditation and daily devotionals, the walks on the beach. You try smelling lavender and going to therapy. You sit in many waiting rooms, both virtual and in-person. 

You try this medication at this dosage because you haven’t tried that one yet. You picture getting hit by a bus and it’s the only thing your mind can think about for 24 hours straight. You call the doctor, and she puts you on another. You’re frozen in place, life is happening around you, but your mind is no longer in your body. You put 15 other pills on your tongue—ants crawl up and down your arms and legs, you feel absolutely nothing, you feel absolutely everything. Most of all, you feel dread. 

You’re supposed to be happy and thankful no matter what, but nothing takes away the dread.

You get diagnosed with ABCDXYZ and you nod and say thank you. You work on exposing yourself to things that scare you so that you can be thankful and happy and take care of yourself. 

You take the pills but this time, after five years, they don’t make you feel dread or numb. You take the pills, and you can take care of yourself and your parents. You take the pills, and you pursue your passion. You take the pills, and you realize you don’t have to be happy and thankful all the time, only sometimes. You realize the pills aren’t you, but just a way to help stifle the dread. 

You are happy and thankful but not at the cost of your own sanity. 

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Caroline J Trussell is a queer, neurodivergent writer who, in addition to flash fiction, writes horror and fantasy stories. She is a former journalist with work in Folio Weekly and Her Campus. The first book in her YA sci-fi fantasy duology, ENHANCED, recently published with Fire & Ice YA Books in August.