#my mom really thinks its my meds and that i need to get off gabapentin and maybe i do bc long term theres memory loss

[roses-n-rads]

huhlh

[stubbornattempt]

I want to tell you about what happened and what I thought was happening after I left the truck that morning. I know you said to run and I don't know why I went into the woods instead of running down the road. I was really spooked about aerial imaging so I wanted coverage overhead. I thought that the shoes that driver gave me might have GPS or a mic so that you guys could keep track of me. I was talking to you in case you could hear me. In my mind I was trying to lose any tail and so I started hitching rides to random destinations. In the woods I looked for places to hide and I found this tiny hole in the earth and crawled into it. I heard the radio of a car that drove by and I don't remember the exact song or lyrics but it made me think I shouldn't hide there so I left. I decided to look for train tracks so that I could hop onto a train but eventually I was stopped by this guy who wanted to talk to me for a minute. He had a young son with him. The cops showed up and started asking me questions. I'm sure I looked wild. I was all scratched up from the night before and hadn't showered in a week or something. I was wearing clothes that the truck driver had given me. At first I lied about everything but they poked holes in my story so I ended up telling them that I was schizophrenic. One of the officers asked to see my hands and shone a flashlight on them. He said something about how if I was having problems I should go to the police. He said that if a particular police officer didn't help then I should try talking to another one. I wondered if Officer ***** had been contacted and was in touch with these officers. They checked my body to see if I had any weapons and asked if I had anything sharp in my pockets. Then the ambulance arrived and I got in. I thought I heard you crying and talking to me but I couldn't make out any words. In the ER room I also thought I heard you and I strained to make out words but couldn't. They tried to get me to eat but I had no appetite. I think I slept for a little bit. One of the nurses aids looked and sounded like Little John. He looked directly at me and kind of closed his eyes and flashed toothy smile. I didn't acknowledge recognizing him. I listened to the staffs conversation outside of my door and at one point the guy who seemed like Little John said something about how if it were him he would pop the battery out of the phone. Later, when they were moving me to the unit, I was riding in a wheelchair past the nurses station and we passed by him. He said, "Are you coming back?" So I didn't know how it could be Little John but it seemed like him. Every little detail I thought was a message for me. If they got something wrong on my meal order I tried to understand if it was a clue. I thought this one doctor might be in the know. I thought other patients might be plants. I thought the clothes they wore might be messages. I thought I got a message that you had escaped abroad and I was relieved. I thought Little John might help me escape and get to you. I was there for a month. I didn't contact my family the whole time until they finally wanted to discharge me and I called my sister. I thought there was a plan to extract me on the drive back home when my sister came to pick me up. I was going to run away at a rest stop or something. Turns out she came with the whole fam and I didn't follow through with that plan luckily. I didn't believe for a moment that it was over. That thought didn't enter my mind. When I was returned to my dad's place I still thought there would be an extraction plan. I thought it was where I used to ride my bike. One time I ditched my bike and hid it in the bushes. I went into the woods and ditched my shoes since I was always suspicious that they were bugged. I found a place with good coverage and hid out there for hours. Eventually I got too cold and hungry so I went back to my dads. I tried again though. This time I hid in the woods until nightfall. Then I climbed up to where a road went by and I took off all my clothes in case they were bugged and waited hoping a car for me would come by. I don't know if this was ever true, but over the course of this entire thing I always thought people were getting messages to me through Pandora. I somehow extrapolated from the songs that you were in Italy and that I needed to go there. So I was going to sell my moped and get a plane ticket. I went to the post office to get a passport. I told my dad that I was going for an interview. I didn't have enough money to get a passport though. I went to another hospital for a few weeks. The lease at my dads place ran out eventually and we decided to move to another state. I really didn't know if you still had tabs on me or if you'd given up. I drank really heavily and gained even more weight than I had at the hospital. Living in the other state was a disaster. My dad had run out of money so we only had his disability check each month between the two of us. I went to yet another hospital and this one was the worst yet. While I was in the hospital my dad broke his foot and when I came home he was still in the hospital so I was there alone. I'd spent the entire time in the psych ward laying in bed thinking about you. Well I also read a few John Grisham novels. But I'd resolved to reach out to you and find out what was happening and if you still loved me. When I got home I looked you up and was surprised to see that you had resumed your life and you were talking about very normal and commonplace things. It hurt a lot because it felt like everything had just rolled off your back and you didn't care about anything. I don't remember what I messaged you but you didn't reply. I almost took all my pills at once. I don't know what stopped me. Anyway, my dad couldn't drive for a while so I had to walk a really long way to the dollar store every couple of days to buy crappy groceries. It was fucking hot as balls and I'd nearly pass out making the journey. We ate a lot of frozen meals that cost a buck and some gross canned food. My hair started falling out a lot. I started having problems with my body with twitching and being unable to control my movements. I couldn't sleep or get comfortable. Eventually I called 911 and the ambulance took me to the hospital. The doctor was a dick and told me it was because of gabapentin withdrawal since I had run out. They release me but I had no way to get home. I tried to call a taxi but none were available. Fortunately I met this nice guy in the parking lot who was going in the general direction and he gave me a ride. I kept getting worse and couldn't stop shaking and twitching. Our neighbor Jerry was this huge fat guy who worked on motorcycles and loved Trump. He was very nice to me though. He would drive me to the gas station almost every day so that I could buy beer for me and my dad. He also smoked weed and would get me high sometimes. The weed seemed to help with my shaking. Eventually I got so bad that my dad called my mom and she drove down to get me. I threw all my belongings into two trash bags and we set off to drive back to her place. She gave me a couple Valiums to help with my condition but it was a really awful and uncomfortable ride. She took me to the hospital here in town and it turns out I had toxicity from my medications and was catatonic. I don't have much memory of the first week or so in the hospital because they had me on some really nice meds. I was unable to shower by myself and I was on bed rest and wasn't allowed to get out of bed by myself. Apparently I tried to do that a few times and set off the alarm. I was on the Medicine floor while I was detoxing and after that they moved me to Psych where they kept me for a few more weeks. My mom would visit every afternoon and read Harry Potter to me but mostly I just laid in bed. They harassed me to join the groups, as they usually do, and I'd go to as few as I could get away with. I felt very happy to be back in my town after being in the other state where everything sucked. However, after being released I realized that my previous life there didn't exist anymore. I don't really remember how I spent that first year back. I thought that eventually I would be required to get a local crappy job, like working at a gas station, and I would have to drive there on my moped. But then my disability came through and I got like $25,000. Last spring I went to Chicago for the hell of it. A few months ago I finally bought a car and got my whole license thing sorted out. I'd had the interlock in my car when I lived with my dad. Its a requirement because of a DUI I had in like 2011. But since I was trying to get to you and I became convinced that my car had a tracker on it, I took it to the Title Loan place and got $4,000 cash. That's when I bought a used car for like $500 and drove up a state. The car stopped working and I abandoned it because it was illegal for me to drive a car without an interlock. So I lost both of those cars. Because I didn't complete the interlock then I have to do it now. So I've got that fucker in my car for another 4 months but I'll pass it this time. So compared to all that I'm definitely doing much better now. It's annoying to live with my mom because she harasses me all the time but she's not charging me rent. I think I'm gonna need to move out at some point though. Anyway, the point of telling you all this is simply because I want you to understand me. I'm not trying to make you feel bad, although you might anyway because its a very pathetic story. If I could go back in time and never give John those CDs, I wouldn't change anything because then I never would have known you. That's how much your love is worth to me. I'm gonna keep telling the story from my perspective in installments because I want you to understand and it also helps me to get it out there.