50 Words

(In)Sanity

Thrifty Words Theme Challenge #23: Mental Health

Merriam Webster defines mental as

1a: of or relating to the mind specifically: of or relating to the total emotional and intellectual response of an individual to external reality mental health

Of course, there are many other applications of the word, but for my purposes, I’m going with definition 1a.

Mental health, in particular, has been on my mind lately. My family has had a rough go of it the past few years. My son has been in and out of hospital after many suicidal gestures and a few attempts. Our entire family was in therapy for all of 2019.

I did a stint in the hospital after my medical team freaked out because I was taking 30mg of melatonin every night in order to fall asleep. The highest recommended dose is 10mg. They started playing around with my medications; adding one and taking another away. I got less and less sleep as the months went by. But it wasn’t until they put me on Trazodone that the shit hit the fan.

I was never made aware of the box warnings. And the “label” looks like this.

By the time they prescribed the Trazodone, six months had gone by with such poor sleep I couldn’t tell you my name. My husband and I, who so rarely disagree, let alone argue, had a few fights. Ultimately I ended up attempting suicide and was taken to the hospital.

The doctors there made even more of a mess of medication. My husband said I was unrecognizable. He said I looked like a long term meth user who couldn’t stop “noodle groovin.”

It took a few months to get all of this straightened out. Finally, I was prescribed the proper medication at the proper doses AND started taking my melatonin again. Things are good. Things are really good. Much better than I expected them to be.

This particular combination of drugs and therapy is working. I not only feel healthier mentally, but I’m also back to being me. I’ve worked on something creative every day, I keep up with the housework, I write, I keep up with personal hygiene, and my husband and I are in the best place we’ve been since 2018.

All of this brings me to this week’s Thrifty Words Theme Challenge #23: Mental Health.

What do you consider mentally healthy? What about unhealthy? What do you do to preserve your mental health? Is crazy a bad word in your world? How could society improve upon its reaction to mental illness/mental health?

It seems like a bit of a big ask, but ask I will.

Mental Health — 50 words, Go!

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline Hours: Available 24 hours. Languages: English, Spanish. Learn more 800–273–8255

Here’s last week’s roundup of 50 word stories for inspiration

If you are new to Thrifty Words or if you just need a reminder, here are the submission guidelines.

Remember, in order to be considered for the challenge, you need to write exactly fifty words (contractions such as ‘you’ll’ and ‘y’all’ count as one, as do articles ‘a’ and ‘the’ ‘and all 23 auxiliary verbs ‘am’ ‘is’ ‘are’ etc. Hyphenated words count as one word.)

Please use the kicker 50 WORDS and ‘Thrifty Words Challenge #23: Mental Health’ as your subtitle and submit by 12 pm EST / 5 pm GMT on Saturday, 6 January. All stories submitted by the deadline will be released the following morning at 6 am EST / 11 am GMT.

A reminder: we will only publish one story per author to the roundup. If you submit more than one story, it is most likely that the first story submitted will be chosen for the roundup. You may submit 50 Word stories outside of the theme challenge anytime. They will be published in the Thrifty Words section but not included in the theme challenge roundup.

If you would like your 50 Word stories pushed like inner-city heroin, please leave your social media handles at the bottom of your piece. Feel free to follow us on Twitter @TheBadInfluenc7. Follow the editors of Thrifty Words Theme Challenge, Jonica Bradley and Marla Bishop on Twitter here @lynn_jonica and @tulipchickuk.

You can find a video of noodle groovin here or just do a quick YouTube search. There are too many out there.

SAMHSA’s National Helpline — 1–800–662-HELP (4357)