I still can’t talk. My voice comes out in the faintest whisper and when I cough I sound like a baby seal. Or at least what I imagine a baby seal would sound like. If it had a cough.

I’m just sitting and waiting for Monday, trying not to think. I feel like I’m keeping a big secret, even though I haven’t done anything yet.

I don’t usually keep stuff like this secret. Everyone knows I take antidepressants. I’m open about my mental-health history, which includes hospitalizations and months-long inpatient treatments, though they were years and years ago. I actually advocate for people speaking openly about such matters, because it helps take away the stigma and the shame that people with mental illness are so often saddled with.

This feels different. Maybe I’m just being a hypocrite. Or am I afraid of talking about it, in case it doesn’t work out? I do know that I don’t want to answer a bunch of questions about it, I don’t want to hear a lot of judgemental comments, especially from certain peeps in my social group (you know who you are, benzo-abusing chemical-dependency counsellor).

It’s one thing to be depressed, or anxious. It’s quite another to be a junkie – that’s something you bring upon yourself, right? That’s someone who can’t be trusted. Who couldn’t handle her shit.

And while I freely admit that when I quit taking these pills I get sick, and my pain and depression become overwhelming, and I don’t want to or won’t or can’t handle that, I don’t want to be thought of as an addict. I don’t want to be tarred with that brush, and I feel coerced by the nature of the medical establishment and the government’s “War on Drugs” to say that I am in order to get the treatment that I want. This sucks, and yet I’m not as angry about it as I used to be. I guess I’m adjusting to the unfairness as this late date in my ongoing struggle with the system.

Or maybe I’m just sick with this cold and laryngitis and feeling to craptastic to get riled up about anything.