“
She handed him a glass of water and two Aleve gelcaps. “They’re anti-inflammatories. They will dull the pain a little bit and keep down swelling and redness. Swallow the pills, don’t chew.”
“Well, I thought I’d stick them into my nose and impersonate a walrus, but if you insist, I’ll swallow them.
”
”
Ilona Andrews (On the Edge (The Edge, #1))
“
Whatever it is," I said, "the point is moot because as long as I'm on these pills, I can't make contact to ask."
Derek ... snapped, "Then you need to stop taking the pills."
Love to. If I could. But after what happened last night, they're giving me urine tests now."
Ugh. That's harsh." Simon went quiet, then snapped his fingers.
Hey, I've got an idea. It's kinda gross, but what if you take the pills, crush them and mix them with your, you know, urine."
Derek stared at him.
What?"
You did pass chem last year, didn't you?"
Simon flipped him the finger. "Okay, genius, what's your idea?"
I'll think about it. ..."
***
Here," Derek whispered, pressing an empty Mason jar into my hand. He'd pulled me aside after class and we were now standing at the base of the boy's staircase. "Take this up to your room and hide it."
It's a ... jar."
He grunted, exasperated that I was so dense I failed to see the critical importance of hiding an empty Mason jar in my room.
It's for your urine."
My what?"
He rolled his eyes, a growl-like sound sliding through his teeth as
he leaned down, closer to my ear. "Urine. Pee. Whatever. For the testing."
I lifted the jar to eye level. "I think they'll give me something
smaller."
...
You took your meds today, right?" he whispered.
I nodded.
Then use this jar to save it."
Save . . . ?"
Your urine. If you give them some of today's tomorrow, it'll seem like you're still taking your meds."
You want me to . . . dole it out? Into specimen jars?"
Got a better idea?"
Um, no, but ..." I lifted the jar and stared into it.
Oh, for God's sake. Save your piss. Don't save your piss. It's all the same to me."
Simon peeked around the corner, brows lifted. "I was going to ask what you guys were doing, but hearing that, I think I'll pass.
”
”
Kelley Armstrong (The Summoning (Darkest Powers, #1))
“
I can’t function here anymore. I mean in life: I can’t function in this life. I’m no better off than when I was in bed last night, with one difference: when I was in my own bed—or my mom’s—I could do something about it; now that I’m here I can’t do anything. I can’t ride my bike to the Brooklyn Bridge; I can’t take a whole bunch of pills and go for the good sleep; the only thing I can do is crush my head in the toilet seat, and I still don’t even know if that would work. They take away your options and all you can do is live, and it’s just like Humble said: I’m not afraid of dying; I’m afraid of living. I was afraid before, but I’m afraid even more now that I’m a public joke. The teachers are going to hear from the students. They’ll think I’m trying to make an excuse for bad work.
”
”
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
“
Sometimes being crazy is a demon. And sometimes the demon is me. And I visit quiet sidewalks and loud parties and dark movies, and a small demon looks out at the world with me. Sometimes it sleeps. Sometimes it plays. Sometimes it laughs with me. Sometimes it tries to kill me. But it’s always with me. I suppose we’re all possessed in some way. Some of us with dependence on pills or wine. Others through sex or gambling. Some of us through self-destruction or anger or fear. And some of us just carry around our tiny demon as he wreaks havoc in our mind, tearing open old dusty trunks of bad memories and leaving the remnants spread everywhere. Wearing the skins of people we’ve hurt. Wearing the skins of people we’ve loved. And sometimes, when it’s worst, wearing our skins.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
A seemingly simple task like taking a bath or wearing a condom feels like multitasking to someone who suffers from hemiplegia or has only one hand.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
To some believers, being on the pill or using a condom is a nonverbal way of telling God to go to hell.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (The Use and Misuse of Children)
“
Surely the people naming antipsychotics could have come up with something less hurtful. After all, we don’t call Viagra the “floppy-dick pill” and hardly any of us refer to anger-management therapy as “maybe-just-stop-being-such-an-asshole class.” I honestly can’t think of any drug that has more of a stigma than antipsychotics.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
Move along,” Hines said. “Last room down.”
I spotted a fish tank halfway down the aisle. Dug into my pocket.
“Hi,” I whispered. “Distraction in five. Four. Three...”
I broke off as we neared the tank.
Hi spun. “Yo, warden. When do we eat around here? I'm hypoglycemic, plus I've got a hernia. And rabies simplex D. Basically, I need a ton of pills or my arms will fall off.”
“Boy, you're on my last nerve.”
As Hines glared at Hiram, I palmed the flash drive and dumped it into the fish tank. The yellow-and-black rectangle tumbled to the bottom.
So long, friend. Let's hope Shelton's email went through.
“It's a cultural thing,” Hi was saying. “I think you're being very insensitive.”
Hines snorted. “Do you want me to cuff you?”
“Kinda.”
“Hi.” I nodded.
”
”
Kathy Reichs (Exposure (Virals, #4))
“
Ossip, I think you are a humbug...you are not even a doctor. But you are funny. Your notion of a humanity universally putting out the tongue and taking the pill from pole to pole at the bidding of a few solemn jokers is worthy of the prophet....
”
”
Joseph Conrad (Secret Agent)
“
What did your mom say?"
"She said I better not be pregnant."
Janie snorts. "What the hell is wrong with our parents, anyway? Wait -- you're not, are you?"
"Of course not! Sheesh, Janers! I may not have gotten the best grades in school, but I'm not stupid. You know I'm on the Pill. And his Jimmy doesn't get near me without a raincoat, yadamean? Ain't nothin' getting through my little fortress!
”
”
Lisa McMann (Gone (Wake, #3))
“
So when I ran out of the final bottle of Zoloft, I didn’t take any more. I didn’t call Dr. Barney either. I just threw the bottle away and said Okay, if I ever feel bad again, I’ll remember how good I felt that night on the Brooklyn Bridge. Pills were for wimps, and this was over; I was done; I was back to me.
”
”
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
“
Men are born with nothing with which to buy. Women are born with something to sell.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana (P for Pessimism: A Collection of Funny yet Profound Aphorisms)
“
New Rule: Stop pretending your drugs are morally superior to my drugs because you get yours at a store. This week, they released the autopsy report on Anna Nicole Smith, and the cause of death was what I always thought it was: mad cow. No, it turns out she had nine different prescription drugs in her—which, in the medical field, is known as the “full Limbaugh.” They opened her up, and a Walgreens jumped out. Antidepressants, anti-anxiety pills, sleeping pills, sedatives, Valium, methadone—this woman was killed by her doctor, who is a glorified bartender. I’m not going to say his name, but only because (a) I don’t want to get sued, and (b) my back is killing me.
This month marks the thirty-fifth anniversary of a famous government report. I was sixteen in 1972, and I remember how excited we were when Nixon’s much ballyhooed National Commission on Drug Abuse came out and said pot should be legalized. It was a moment of great hope for common sense—and then, just like Bush did with the Iraq Study Group, Nixon took the report and threw it in the garbage, and from there the ’70s went right into disco and colored underpants.
This week in American Scientist, a magazine George Bush wouldn’t read if he got food poisoning in Mexico and it was the only thing he could reach from the toilet, described a study done in England that measured the lethality of various drugs, and found tobacco and alcohol far worse than pot, LSD, or Ecstasy—which pretty much mirrors my own experiments in this same area. The Beatles took LSD and wrote Sgt. Pepper—Anna Nicole Smith took legal drugs and couldn’t remember the number for nine-one-one.
I wish I had more time to go into the fact that the drug war has always been about keeping black men from voting by finding out what they’re addicted to and making it illegal—it’s a miracle our government hasn’t outlawed fat white women yet—but I leave with one request: Would someone please just make a bumper sticker that says, “I’m a stoner, and I vote.
”
”
Bill Maher (The New New Rules: A Funny Look At How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass)
“
There were times—especially in summer, while swallowing my afternoon salt-pill—when it occurred to me that I was simply repeating my mother’s life. Usually this thought struck me as funny. But if I happened to be tired, or if there were extra bills to pay and no money to pay them with, it seemed awful. I’d think This isn’t the way our lives are supposed to be going. Then I’d think Half the world has the same idea.
”
”
Stephen King (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft)
“
Jeez, somebody took some bitch pills today.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (Mad Honey)
“
Some men would not still be HIV negative or alive, if they had managed to sleep with some of the women with whom they want or wanted to have sex.
”
”
Mokokoma Mokhonoana
“
Still, I knew rehab was important. So I listened. I went to every class. I held hands with strangers. With suburban mummies who’d gotten addicted to prescription pills, and a preacher’s son who’d fallen into the arms of heroin, and a Russian oligarch’s daughter who, like me, had snorted pounds and pounds of cocaine to numb the feeling that the world was closing in on you from all angles. I wrote letters to my family and friends. Angry letters. Apologetic letters. Funny letters. Then I burned them all. I couldn’t write Stardust shite, though. Everything I had to say to her—every single groveling word—had to be said in person.
”
”
L.J. Shen (Midnight Blue)
“
because my anxiety disorder gets really bad on planes and so I end up panicking a bit. Usually I get on Twitter and tell everyone that I love them because that’s about the time that my antianxiety pills kick in and they make me super sentimental and scared that I’m going to die. It’s like taking ecstasy, but instead of having sex and going to a rave I just want someone to stroke my hair and sing me old Irish drinking songs.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
Okay. Let me rephrase. Sometimes being crazy is a demon. And sometimes the demon is me.
And I visit quiet sidewalks and loud parties and dark movies, and a small demon looks out at the world with me. Sometimes it sleeps. Sometimes it plays. Sometimes it laughs with me. Sometimes it tries to kill me. But it's always with me.
I suppose we're all possessed in some way. Some of us with dependence on pills or wine. Others through sex or gambling. Some of us through self-destruction or anger or fear. And some of us just carry around our tiny demon as he wreaks havoc in our minds, tearing open old dusty trunks of bad memories and leaving the remnants everywhere
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
I ask the nurse wrapping up her dispensing duties if I need any meds, and she says I'm not scheduled for any. I ask her if I can have some. She asks what I need them for. I tell her, to deal with this crazy place. She says if they had pills for that, they wouldn't need places like this in the first place, would they?
”
”
Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story)
“
Trying to assassinate the president should not be funny. It really shouldn't. It's not like I was cracking up when we read about Lincoln or JFK. But let's face it, they were real presidents. Gerald Ford ranks right up there with Millard Fillmore and Bush the First on the list of unexciting white men who have run this country, made their way into history books, and otherwise been human sleeping pills. If all the presidents had been television shows, Gerald Ford would probably have been a PBS fund drive. So I'd bet the fact that anyone would try to kill Gerald Ford, Gerald Rudolph Ford, was kind of hard to get excited about, even back in the day.
”
”
Alison Umminger (American Girls)
“
Antidepression medication is temperamental. Somewhere around fifty-nine or sixty I noticed the drug I’d been taking seemed to have stopped working. This is not unusual. The drugs interact with your body chemistry in different ways over time and often need to be tweaked. After the death of Dr. Myers, my therapist of twenty-five years, I’d been seeing a new doctor whom I’d been having great success with. Together we decided to stop the medication I’d been on for five years and see what would happen... DEATH TO MY HOMETOWN!! I nose-dived like the diving horse at the old Atlantic City steel pier into a sloshing tub of grief and tears the likes of which I’d never experienced before. Even when this happens to me, not wanting to look too needy, I can be pretty good at hiding the severity of my feelings from most of the folks around me, even my doctor. I was succeeding well with this for a while except for one strange thing: TEARS! Buckets of ’em, oceans of ’em, cold, black tears pouring down my face like tidewater rushing over Niagara during any and all hours of the day. What was this about? It was like somebody opened the floodgates and ran off with the key. There was NO stopping it. 'Bambi' tears... 'Old Yeller' tears... 'Fried Green Tomatoes' tears... rain... tears... sun... tears... I can’t find my keys... tears. Every mundane daily event, any bump in the sentimental road, became a cause to let it all hang out. It would’ve been funny except it wasn’t.
Every meaningless thing became the subject of a world-shattering existential crisis filling me with an awful profound foreboding and sadness. All was lost. All... everything... the future was grim... and the only thing that would lift the burden was one-hundred-plus on two wheels or other distressing things. I would be reckless with myself. Extreme physical exertion was the order of the day and one of the few things that helped. I hit the weights harder than ever and paddleboarded the equivalent of the Atlantic, all for a few moments of respite. I would do anything to get Churchill’s black dog’s teeth out of my ass.
Through much of this I wasn’t touring. I’d taken off the last year and a half of my youngest son’s high school years to stay close to family and home. It worked and we became closer than ever. But that meant my trustiest form of self-medication, touring, was not at hand. I remember one September day paddleboarding from Sea Bright to Long Branch and back in choppy Atlantic seas. I called Jon and said, “Mr. Landau, book me anywhere, please.” I then of course broke down in tears. Whaaaaaaaaaa. I’m surprised they didn’t hear me in lower Manhattan. A kindly elderly woman walking her dog along the beach on this beautiful fall day saw my distress and came up to see if there was anything she could do. Whaaaaaaaaaa. How kind. I offered her tickets to the show. I’d seen this symptom before in my father after he had a stroke. He’d often mist up. The old man was usually as cool as Robert Mitchum his whole life, so his crying was something I loved and welcomed. He’d cry when I’d arrive. He’d cry when I left. He’d cry when I mentioned our old dog. I thought, “Now it’s me.”
I told my doc I could not live like this. I earned my living doing shows, giving interviews and being closely observed. And as soon as someone said “Clarence,” it was going to be all over. So, wisely, off to the psychopharmacologist he sent me. Patti and I walked in and met a vibrant, white-haired, welcoming but professional gentleman in his sixties or so. I sat down and of course, I broke into tears. I motioned to him with my hand; this is it. This is why I’m here. I can’t stop crying! He looked at me and said, “We can fix this.” Three days and a pill later the waterworks stopped, on a dime. Unbelievable. I returned to myself. I no longer needed to paddle, pump, play or challenge fate. I didn’t need to tour. I felt normal.
”
”
Bruce Springsteen (Born to Run)
“
How did you get through it?” I asked her. I was hoping she was going to recommend a book, a pill, some quick fix to make this feeling of inadequacy go away.
Instead, she looked at me kindly, quite earnestly, and said, “You know, I think after years and years, I learned to stop giving a fuck. If people I knew, friends or relatives or strangers or whoever, had an opinion about what kind of mother I was or wasn’t, if they thought I was making mistakes, or doing things the wrong way, being too this or too that, being selfish by not giving all of myself to my kids, I eventually decided, fuck ’em. I’m doing the best I can in a culture that offers parents little material or emotional support. If people have a problem with the way I’m doing it, fuck every last one of them. And it’s funny—that anger—that was what got me to a place where I could finally stop caring and enjoy the little monsters. That’s when I started feeling better.
”
”
Kim Brooks (Small Animals: Parenthood in the Age of Fear)
“
My sleep cycle is a bit more elaborate. The seven stages of sleep (according to my body) STAGE 1: You take the maximum dose of sleeping pills, but they don’t work at all and then you glare at their smug bottles at three a.m., whispering, “You lying bastards.” STAGE 2: You fall asleep for eight minutes and you have that dream where you’ve missed a semester of classes and don’t know where you’re supposed to be and when you wake up you realize that even in sleep you’re fucking your life up. STAGE 3: You close your eyes for just a minute but never lose consciousness and then you open your eyes and realize it’s been hours since you closed your eyes and you feel like you’ve lost time and were probably abducted by aliens. STAGE 4: This is the sleep that you miss because you’re too busy looking up “Symptoms of Alien Abduction” on your phone. STAGE 5: This is the deep REM sleep that recharges you completely and doesn’t actually exist but is made up by other people to taunt you. STAGE 6: You hover in a state of half sleep when you’re trying to stay under but someone is touching your nose and you think it’s a dream but now someone is touching your mouth and you open your eyes and your cat’s face is an inch from yours and he’s like, “BOOP. I got your nose.” STAGE 7: You finally fall into the deep sleep you desperately need. Sadly, this sleep only comes after you’re supposed to be awake, and you feel guilty about getting it because you should have been up hours ago but you’ve been up all night and now your arms are missing.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
Drowning in Blue
Pulled deeper and deeper
into the void,
I dig down
into my pocket,
find the capsule I stashed,
first beneath a flap of tongue,
then in a cave of fleece.
I hold it like a jewel,
the key to some magic
kingdom where only good
feelings are allowed.
Funny, but sometimes all I feel
is good. More than good.
Great. Invincible.
When Mama felt like that,
Daddy called her manic.
But why is mania bad,
if it means you're on top of the world, where
everything is white? Bright.
I wish I were up there now,
instead of treading water
in this damn blue hole.
This magic pill won't fly
me there. It will only take
me halfway, to what others
call normal and I call gray--
toeing a straight gray line
is all medication is good for.
Bad genes have doomed me
to seesaw, white to blue
and back again,
for the rest of my pitiful life.
And the thought of that
makes me want
to open a vein,
experience pain,
know I'm alive, despite
this living death.
”
”
Ellen Hopkins
“
I made an appointment with a sleep doctor, who explained that during the sleep study people would be watching me sleep and monitoring my brain waves to see how I reacted during the four stages of sleep. I'd explain those stages if I could spell all the complicated words but they basically range from "Wide awake" to "Just barely not dead."
My sleep cycle is a bit more elaborate.
The seven stages of sleep (according to my body)
STAGE 1: You take the maximum dose of sleeping pills, but they don't work at all and then you glare at their smug bottles at three a.m., whispering, "You lying bastards."
STAGE 2: You fall asleep for eight minutes and you have that dream where you've missed a semester of classes and don't know where you're supposed to be and when you wake up you realize that even in your sleep you're fucking your life up.
STAGE 3: You close your eyes for just a minute but never lose consciousness and then you open your eyes and realize it's been hours since you closed your eyes and you feel like you've lost time and were probably abducted by aliens.
STAGE 4: This is the sleep that you miss because you're too busy looking up "Symptoms of Alien Abduction" on your phone.
STAGE 5: This is the deep REM sleep that recharges you completely and doesn't actually exist but is made up by other people to taunt you.
STAGE 6: You hover in a state of half sleep when you're trying to stay under but someone is touching your nose and you think it's a dream but now someone is touching your mouth and you open your eyes and your cat's face is an inch from yours and he's like, "BOOP. I got your nose."
STAGE 7: You finally fall into the deep sleep you desperately need. Sadly, this sleep only comes after you're suppose to be awake, and you feel guilty about getting it because you should have been up hours ago but you've been up all night and now your arms are missing.
I suspected that the only stage of sleep I'd have during the sleep study would be the sleep you don't get because strangers are watching you.
”
”
Jenny Lawson (Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things)
“
Cade studied her for a moment, then sat forward in his chair. “Seriously, what is it about this guy? He’s just a rich computer geek with good hair.”
Rylann smiled. “I think there’s a little more to it than that.”
“Christ, you are smitten.” He threw up his hands. “What is going on with everyone these days? Sam Wilkins is babbling about a meet-cute, Cameron’s sneaking off to get hitched, and now you’re all starry-eyed over the Twitter Terrorist. Has everyone been sneaking happy pills out of the evidence room when I’m not looking?”
"No, just some really good pot.”
Cade laughed out loud at that. “You are a funny one, Pierce. I’ll say that.”
“So does that mean we’re still on for Starbucks later today?”
He studied her suspiciously. “You’re not going to want to talk about Kyle Rhodes the whole time, are you?”
“Actually, yes. And then we’ll go shoe shopping together and get mani-pedis.” She threw him a get-real look. “We’ll talk about the same stuff we always talk about.”
With a grin, he finally nodded. “Fine. Three o’clock, Pierce. I’ll swing by your office
”
”
Julie James (About That Night (FBI/US Attorney, #3))
“
Mrs. Plutarski is such a pill to me. You’d think I
routinely crapped on the altar, the way she treats me.
”
”
Kristan Higgins (Catch of the Day (Gideon's Cove, #1))
“
Everyone loves a goddamned trainwreck, after all.
”
”
Carolyn Drake, "Pill Pusher" Songs of my Selfie
“
It's funny that people are afraid of being controlled by the government, but it's so easy for them to accept being controlled by pills.
”
”
Patricia Krisztina (The #REDACTED# Journals: Thierry Reed (Adam's Legacies))
“
The kind who mostly uses weed when he needs to deep-clean the apartment, de-pill the couch, or watch Prehistoric Planet.
”
”
Emily Henry (Funny Story)
“
Y'know, this is really crappy. All that exercise, all that healthy living, all those goddamn pills and herbs, look at me, I'm so goddamn healthy, vitamins take me.
”
”
Alex Shvartsman (Funny Fantasy)
“
After working most of her life Grandma finally retired. At her next checkup, the new doctor told her to bring a list of all the medicines that had been prescribed for her. As the young doctor was looking through these, his eyes grew wide as he realized she had a prescription for birth control pills. "Mrs. Smith, do you realize these are BIRTH CONTROL pills?" “Yes, they help me sleep at night.” "Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely NOTHING in these that could possibly help you sleep! She reached out and patted the young Doctor’s knee. "Yes, dear, I know that. But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in the glass of orange juice that my 16 year old granddaughter drinks . . . and believe me, it helps me sleep at night.
”
”
Adam Smith (Funny Jokes: Ultimate LoL Edition (Jokes, Dirty Jokes, Funny Anecdotes, Best jokes, Jokes for Adults) (Comedy Central Book 1))
“
Emma, okay, enough with the singing. Mommy's getting a three-pill headache.
”
”
Jeff Abbott (Trust Me)
“
Sean told her about the question Rosie had posed while they were in the parking lot of the grocery. Franci had to lean against the counter, laughing so hard she was doubled over, yet trying to keep quiet lest Rosie come running soaking wet to the kitchen to see who would dare have fun without her. “Yeah, funny,” Sean said. “What would you have said?” She wiped her eyes. “Well, I have a special book about all that. It’s right about time to look at it together, but I didn’t know how to explain you to Rosie, so I’ve been putting it off. I guess I can go ahead with it now.” “A book? Come on!” “No, really. It talks about all the differences in the mommy’s and daddy’s bodies—it’s very cute. Sweet. Non-threatening.” She smiled at him. “If you’re very good, I’ll read it to you later.” “If you’re very good, I’ll show you how it’s done.” He leered at her. “By the way,” he said. “How was it done in this case? We were always very careful. Do you remember?” “Every detail,” she said, turning away from him to put away dishes. He turned her back. “Could I have a couple of details, please?” She took a breath. “Remember I used to go off the pill for a couple of months a year and your job was to be very good about the condoms? Well, there were a couple of times you got real worked up and just let it slide.” She shrugged. “It was as much my doing as yours. I was also a little worked up.” Silence enveloped them for a moment. He leaned forward and kissed her brow. “We were like that,” he whispered. “I’m not sorry about that. Big accident. Huge reward. She’s awesome.” Franci
”
”
Robyn Carr (Angel's Peak (Virgin River #10))
“
REALITY… Sometimes people in my dreams say crazy dumb stuff because they forget I’m in a wheelchair. Hey, I don’t blame ’em. I’d like to forget it, too. But I can’t. Of course, I keep hoping that one day I’ll see a commercial for a new wonder drug called something like Spinulax that will magically make me walk again. Unfortunately, it would probably come with a list of gross side effects like all those other pills they advertise on TV: “Spinulax may cause constipation and diarrhea. Not to mention projectile vomiting. And sudden death syndrome—as in, oops, sorry, you’re dead.
”
”
James Patterson (I Even Funnier (I Funny, #2))