Stories from a college student

My Morning Routine

8 am Wednesday, February 6, 2019. My first alarm of the day blares its familiar ring next to my left ear as it lays on the side of my bed plugged into its charger.

Beside my bed is a nightstand that is home to a prescription bottle of Halcion which gets opened and used every night at 9 pm sharp.

The purpose of the bottle is to help combat my sleeping issues. It's small, white, bitter-tasting pills becoming a false life-line for me.

But even with the continuous sound of what can only be compared to a train horn blasting just a few inches from my face, I still remain asleep. Blissfully unaware of the failure my prescription has brought to me.

8:15 am. The second alarm goes off with the same savagery as the first as it desperately tries to alert my brain that it is time to wake up and get ready for the classes that I am paying for. I lay motionless as the dead even with my phone vibrating and shaking next to me.

8:30 am. The final alarm goes off to announce I am officially going to be late for class.

In the back of my semi-conscious mind, I recognize the desperate sound of the horn crying into my ear and what it is trying to tell me. I need to get up but I can't. My body lays practically paralyzed on the right side of the bed as I drift in and out of sleep.

My mind gives me every reason and excuse as to why I should skip class. Why I NEEDED to skip class. It did not matter that this would be the third time this week I was skipping class or that I was already in the double digits when it came to how many days total I had missed.

I am exhausted. Being asleep for a grand total of 2 hours at 8 am, it wasn't difficult to understand why. My body aches in places where I was too stiff during the restless night. My lower back feeling like it is made of stone as I try to become used to the uncomfortableness. My brain already starting a steady pounding for the day.

The heavy white covers are thrown over my head in an attempt to force myself back to sleep. Apart of me wants to get up. I want to go to school just like the rest of my peers and participate in my classes. I want to feel alive again but the excuses were too strong and my eyelids fall and my subconscious lulls itself back to sleep to the sound of the fading alarm as the orange bottle of pills, who are supposed to help me, stare at and mock me from my bedside for the third time this week.

10:15 am Wednesday, February 6, 2019. My eyes open on their own as I realize it is too bright outside to be 8 am.

The sun shines through the small crack in my blackout curtains that hang from my windows. Seeping into my room as it slithers towards me to make me realize what I had done.

I missed my 9 and 10 am class. Again. I feel a rush of adrenaline as I realize I can make it to my 11 am if I hurry.

As I heave myself into a sitting position on my bed, with my lower-back groaning and pulling on its own sore joints the entire time, the thoughts start to invade my mind.

They always start with the same one. "Do you really need to go to class today?" My determination answers for me with a swift yes. Then, like a tsunami hitting an unprepared home, my brain is flooded with justifications, reasons, excuses, and belittling thoughts aimed at myself.

"Why even bother going to one class? You've already missed the others. It's such a waste of gas to drive all the way to campus for just one 50 minute class. Stay home. What if you see the professor from the class you skipped? How little they must think of you. You have completely ruined your chance of even passing that class. Your professor can't even stand you for not showing up.
How dare you."

Words and sentences fly through my brain so fast that I can't even grasp at them to try and comprehend them. Blurring together until they form into something that personifies my self-hatred and disappointment.

What little fight I have in me quickly dies and shrivels until my will to move has once again been stripped from me.

I recline back into the bed. Laying motionless as more and more thoughts pound and claw their way into my head.

As I lay wraped in a white blanket on a bed of my own self-pity and hatred, I wonder why the pills didn't work again. Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe I should try trying them 30 minutes earlier or later. Maybe then I wouldn't be so dysfunctional.

8 am Thursday, February 7, 2019. My first alarm of the day blares its familiar ring next to my left ear as it lays on the side of my bed plugged into its charger.

Beside my bed is a nightstand that is home to a prescription bottle of Halcion which now gets opened and used every night at 8:30 pm sharp. The purpose of the bottle is to help combat my sleeping issues.

But even with the continuous sound of what can only be compared to a train horn blasting just a few inches from my face, I still remain asleep. Blissfully unaware of the failure my prescription has once again brought me.