Playing Crazy To Stay Alive

In my past life, my roommate overheard that manic-depressive episodes make people reckless with money, so he stole my prescription antidepressants and swapped them out. His excuse was sickeningly smug: "I read about the placebo effect online. Look at you—you haven't taken the pills in days and you're still breathing, aren't you? "Which means you've been faking it all along." I begged him. I told him that without that medication, the urge to end my life would swallow me whole. I pleaded with him to give it back. Stripped of the chemical armor keeping the darkness at bay, the void consumed me. I couldn't stop my hands; I dragged the blade across my wrists and bled out on the linoleum floor. Now, waking up back in this suffocating dorm room, granted a second chance, I refuse to shrink into silence. If soft words and tearful pleading couldn't save my life, then I will tear the roof off this place. I will show them what unraveling truly looks like. "Smack!" … Chad stared at me in stunned, slack-jawed silence. The slap had taken every ounce of strength in my body. The shockwave rattled up my wrist, leaving my fingers numb and stinging. It took him several long seconds to find his tongue, his face twisting with venom. "Are you completely insane?" "Yes," I breathed. "I am." In my last life, this was the exact morning I realized my imported psychiatric meds had been swapped for generic multivitamin capsules. Manny, our quiet, heavy-set roommate who lived across the hall, had mentioned seeing Chad rummaging through my desk while I was in the shower. My prescription wasn't an ordinary bottle of Lexapro you picked up at the corner CVS. It was a specialized neuro-stabilizing compound my parents had to obtain through an overseas compassionate-use program in Europe—prohibitively expensive, grueling to import, but the only thing that could quiet the violent static in my brain. It suppressed the urge to die. But if stopped abruptly, the rebound withdrawal was catastrophic. I had begged Chad back then. Without it, my nervous system would cannibalize itself. And he had just smirked. "Oh, come on, Jordan. What depression? If someone really wants to die, a couple of pills aren't gonna stop them. You're just dramatic. Stop being a delicate princess. A few placebos will set your head straight." Back then, I had been naive enough to think he simply didn't understand the biology of clinical depression. I sat there, shaking, patiently explaining brain chemistry, hoping against hope that basic human decency would compel him to hand the bottle back. He had only sneered at me. By then, I had already been off the medication for seventy-two hours. I hadn't dared to call my parents. They were working double shifts, their health already worn to the bone, just to keep me enrolled and afford the astronomical international courier fees for my treatment. I couldn't bear to dump another crisis onto their bruised shoulders. Now, the memory of that suffocating terror rushed into my veins. My chest hitched, dragging in ragged, shallow breaths. My hands trembled so violently they felt unattached to my arms. "Give them back, Chad," I whispered, the words vibrating with raw fury. "Give me my pills." Chad’s brows furrowed into an irritated scowl, his lips pulling into a thin, self-righteous line. "You're always groggy in the morning when you take that crap. You sleep right through lecture. How are you gonna pass finals? I did you a favor, man. You should be thanking me instead of biting my head off." A scream ripped from my throat—a ragged, fractured sound that shattered the morning quiet. The tears broke, hot and heavy, spilling over my burning cheeks. "The professors know about my medical accommodations!" I yelled, my voice cracking. "The whole damn administration knows I have a clinical diagnosis! I need that medicine to survive!" The thin drywall of the college dorm muffled nothing. Next door, bedsprings squeaked, followed by the muffled thuds of heavy footsteps on the floorboards. Chad heard it, too. His face flushed with petty annoyance. "Could you keep your voice down? Stop throwing a tantrum. High school is over, Jordan. You can’t hide behind your little 'mental illness' excuse forever." He grabbed my forearm, his grip bruising as he dragged me toward the full-length mirror hanging on the closet door. "Look at yourself," he sneered, pointing at my reflection. In the glass stood a ghost of a boy—shoulders hunched, eyes hollow, trembling like an animal waiting for the slaughterhouse bolt. "I'll give you credit, though," Chad snickered, leaning in close. "You play the psycho act pretty damn well. Maybe you should teach me your tricks. Next time someone pisses me off, I'll just foam at the mouth like you do." He chuckled, entirely oblivious as the screen of his phone lit up on his desk. A notification banner popped up: "Venmo: You received $500.00 from Brianna Ramos." "Message: Good stuff. If you have any more of these, I'll take the rest." Beneath the notification was a thumbnail preview: a photo of my distinct, foreign-labeled blister packs sitting on a dorm desk. Chad had accepted the transfer. My medicine. He didn't throw it away. He didn't hide it to "teach me a lesson." He had sold it. He had peddled the medication my parents had starved themselves to buy, hawking it like cheap party drugs to some stranger on campus. The last frayed wire holding my sanity together snapped. He had never been ignorant. He wasn't misinformed. He was deliberately, methodically gutting me for a quick five hundred bucks, leaving me to drown in my own chemical hell while stuffing placebos down my throat. A sound tore out of me—half-sob, half-hysterical laugh. My fingernails dug into my forearms, raking downward, tearing through the skin in jagged, crimson tracks. I didn't feel the sting. The physical pain was an anchor, a desperate distraction pulling me back from the sheer abyss yawning inside my skull. Seeing the blood, Chad’s smug grin vanished. A flicker of panicked guilt flashed in his eyes, quickly replaced by defensive rage. "Hey—stop that! Don't you try to guilt-trip me with that self-harm bullshit!" I couldn't hear him anymore. His voice sounded like it was coming from the bottom of an abandoned well. All I knew, all that remained in the scorching heat behind my eyes, was that my life had been bartered away for pocket change. I seized the heavy ceramic mug from my desk and hurled it against the wall. It shattered with an explosive crack, white shards showering the rug. Blind with terror and adrenaline, I grabbed whatever was within arm's reach—textbooks, a desk lamp, an empty thermos—and smashed them onto the floor. "Give it back!" I shrieked, my lungs burning. "Give it back to me!" Heavy footsteps pounded outside in the hallway. A fist hammered against the door. Inside, neither of us moved. Chad was frozen in shock; I was paralyzed by the convulsions wracking my ribs. The lock clicked. Manny shoved the door open, sweaty from his morning run, his eyes widening in horror at the crowd of students gathering behind him. The chaos of the room lay bare under the harsh fluorescent lights: broken ceramics, scattered papers, the copper tang of fresh blood in the air. Chad scrambled to compose himself, plastering on a nervous, practiced grin as he addressed the hallway. "Look, Jordan, I just told you that you need to focus on your classes. There’s really no need to lose your mind over some academic advice." He was already weaving his narrative, erasing the truth before it could take shape. Manny rushed forward, throwing an arm around my trembling shoulders. I pointed a blood-stained, shaking finger straight at Chad’s desk. My voice was loud enough to vibrate the cinderblock walls of the entire floor. "Who gave you the right to sell my prescription? Who gave you the right to put a price on my life?!" I choked, bile rising in my throat as dry heaves rattled my chest. "Do you have any idea what that pill does? Is my life only worth five hundred dollars to you?!" Whispers rippled through the doorway like dry grass catching fire. "Did he just say his meds were sold?" "What kind of psycho roommate steals prescription drugs?" "Jesus, look at his arms... if someone stole my lifeline, I'd lose my mind too." Chad’s face drained of color as the hallway stared back at him with disgust. He swallowed hard, trying to salvage his golden-boy facade. "Don't listen to him! Jordan isn't stable—he doesn't even know what he's saying! He’s been sleeping through every morning lecture, and as the floor representative, I was just trying to check on him—" The murmurings softened slightly. Doubt began to creep in. "I want to die." The thought blossomed inside my chest, cold and quiet. The noise in the hallway faded into a dull roar; my vision tunneled into dark gray edges. My gaze drifted past the open door, toward the second-floor breezeway balustrade just across the hall. The morning breeze was damp and cold out there. There was no thought process. My body moved before my brain could stop it. Before anyone could register the shift in my posture, I broke away from Manny’s grip, bolted across the threshold, and swung one leg over the metal railing. For one second, the world held its breath. Then it detonated. "Grab him!" "Call Campus Safety! Call somebody, now!" My muscles were stiff, locked up in a catatonic freeze. Before my second foot could leave the concrete, three pairs of hands grabbed my hoodie, yanking me violently backward onto the breezeway floor. Chad pushed through the crowd, his face dark with fury, his voice harsh as he tried to reassert dominance. "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you putting on a show for attention? I asked you about your classes, and you try to throw yourself off a balcony? Have you thought about your parents for one second?!" He was scrambling. He knew the situation was spiraling beyond his control, and his only play was to brand me as fundamentally broken. Yet, one sentence pierced the fog. "My parents." If I died today, what would happen to them? Would my mother’s brittle bones survive another funeral? Would my father ever stop staring at my empty bedroom? "I want to die," I whispered, the words spilling out unbidden. "No... no, I can't. I have to stay alive." The students around us shifted uncomfortably, their expressions softening into sheer pity. "He's really sick," a girl whispered from the back. "He’s not faking this." Tears washed the grit from my eyes. I looked up at Chad, pressing my palms against the cold concrete floor, my forehead nearly touching his sneakers in an involuntary, desperate bow. "Please," I sobbed, stripping away every shred of dignity I possessed. "Just give it back. My parents worked twelve-hour shifts so I could have those pills. Please." Manny shoved past Chad, hauling me up into his arms, his voice shaking with pure rage. "Are you proud of yourself, Chad? I kept quiet because I thought you were just playing some stupid prank, but you actually sold his meds? What kind of monster are you?!" A thousand violent endings flashed through my mind—jumping, cutting, disappearing—but I clamped my teeth down until I tasted iron. "Not this time. I will not die on this floor." "Manny," I choked out, leaning against his broad shoulder. "Give me your phone." He handed it to me instantly. My trembling fingers dialed the one number carved into my soul. "Mom..." My voice cracked into a hollow whimper. "He sold my medication." The other end went dead silent for two agonizing beats. Then, my mother’s voice came through, steady, terrifyingly calm, but tight as a drawn bowstring. "Jordan, sweetheart. Is there someone with you right now?" I handed the phone to Manny. "Yes, Mrs. Bradley," Manny said, his voice firming up. "I'm right here. I won't let him out of my sight." "Good," my mother said, her voice clear even through the speaker. "Keep him safe. I'm on my way." When Manny hung up, he tightened his grip on my arm. "Hold on, man. Your mom's coming." That was the exact moment Mr. Faulkner, our Hall Director, came jogging up the stairs, huffing from the climb. The moment he heard the words "Your mom is coming", his expression curdled into panic. Once parents got involved, campus PR went out the window. A scandal like this would incinerate his performance review and kill any chance of his promotion to Assistant Dean. "What is going on here?" Faulkner barked, immediately waving his arms to disperse the crowd. "Break it up! Don't you people have eight a.m. lectures? Move along!" Once the corridor cleared, Faulkner turned on me, his eyes cold and exasperated. "Jordan. What kind of stunt are you pulling this time?" "This time." The phrase hit me like a splash of ice water. The ghost of my previous life flickered in front of my eyes. I had gone to Faulkner on the very first day my medication went missing. I remembered his patronizing smile. "Well, Jordan, you look perfectly fine to me. In fact, your economics professor mentioned you finally stopped falling asleep during morning recitations. Maybe you don’t need those heavy drugs after all." He had treated my chemical stabilization as an inconvenience. He preferred me unmedicated because it saved him paperwork. When he refused to intervene, I was left to beg Chad alone. And when the agonizing withdrawal drove me to line my desk drawer with utility blades, Chad had simply told our floor mates: "He’s exaggerating. He just wants an excuse for failing his midterms." And someone had laughed. Right now, that laughter seemed to echo down the hallway. "Stop laughing," I muttered, my jaw trembling violently as I glared at Chad. "I am not faking this. Give me my pills. I need my medicine." My teeth clattered. "Mr. Faulkner, he sold it. He stole my prescription and sold it." Faulkner looked at Chad, who immediately slid back into his rehearsed defense. "Mr. Faulkner, that’s ridiculous. I didn't sell anything. He was passing out every morning, and as the floor representative, I was worried he’d flunk out. I just swapped his vitamins so he’d get some energy back! Look at him—he’s wide awake now. I was trying to help him, and he assaulted me and trashed the suite." Chad’s voice trembled with feigned hurt, the picture of an earnest student victimized by a lunatic. Faulkner turned back to me, scowling. "Jordan, he was looking out for your academic standing. College isn't high school. Your education comes first. Can’t you just show a little resilience and work through it?" "Resilience." In my last life, I tried to show resilience. And then I died alone on the bathroom tile. My fingernails dug into the fresh cuts on my forearms, threatening to peel back the flesh. Chad took a step toward me, reaching out as if to play the concerned friend. "Get away from me!" I screamed, recoiling like a wounded animal. "You thief! You sold my life!" My eyes caught the shine of Chad’s smartphone resting on his desk just inside the door. In a blur, I lunged forward, grabbed the phone, and scrambled back into the corner, clutching it against my chest like a shield. Tears blinded me, but my thumb found the open messaging app. The five-hundred-dollar transfer glowed on the screen. Trembling, I pressed down on the microphone icon and spoke directly into the chat: "Please... whoever you are, can you please give my pills back? I'll pay you whatever you want. I have some savings. Just give them back... without them, I won't survive." Chad’s composure vanished entirely. "Jordan, what the hell are you doing with my phone?!" He lunged toward me, forgetting Faulkner's presence entirely. But Manny stepped squarely into his path, his broad chest blocking Chad like a brick wall. "Back off!" Manny roared. "If anything happens to him, you're an accessory to murder! And you—" Manny spun, glaring straight at Faulkner, "—you’re an accomplice." Faulkner went pale. The threat of legal liability cracked through his administrative indifference. He quickly backed away into the corridor, pulling out his cell phone, his voice hushed and frantic as he dialed campus legal. I curled into a ball on the floor, my forehead pressed against my knees. The cuts on my arms burned, sharp and rhythmic, a lattice of red against pale skin. Manny knelt beside me, gently wrapping his hands over my wrists to keep my nails from digging deeper. "Jordan, hold on," he whispered, his voice cracking. "Your mom's coming. Just hold on." Faulkner brought in two other campus security guards, but no matter how gently or firmly they told me to stand up, I remained frozen. I was waiting for the only person in the world who would fight for my life. Realizing they couldn't move me without a scene, Faulkner quietly shut the dorm door, hiding my bleeding arms from the curious glances of the hallway. Two hours later, the door was thrown open. My mother stood there. Behind her were two uniformed officers from the city police department. Her hair was wind-blown, her coat half-buttoned, and her limp was pronounced from running across the campus parking lot. The moment her eyes landed on me huddled on the floor, she nearly collapsed. "Jordan!" She couldn't kneel properly with her bad knee, so she simply dropped to the floor, pulling me into her arms. Her hands found my wrists, pushing back the torn fabric of my sleeves. When she saw the fresh lacerations, her eyes turned bloodshot with unspeakable grief. "I’m here, baby," she whispered, rocking me against her chest. "Mommy’s here. You’re safe now. Don't be scared." Surrounded by the familiar scent of laundry detergent and lilac soap, the dam broke. Sobs tore through my ribs. "Mom... he sold my medicine. He said I was just being dramatic. Mom, it hurts so bad... my head hurts..." My mother didn't spare a glance for Faulkner or Chad. She looked straight up at the two police officers standing in the doorway. "You see this?" she said, her voice dropping into a register of cold, terrifying certainty. "This is attempted murder." Faulkner swallowed hard. Chad visibly swayed on his feet. My mother pointed a shaking, accusing finger directly at Chad’s face. "I will see you ruined for this," she said, each syllable deliberate and sharp as glass. "You stole a controlled psychiatric medication from a diagnosed patient and trafficked it. You are a criminal." The officers began photographing the room and my injuries, while my mother insisted on taking me straight to the university hospital's emergency psychiatric wing. Faulkner tagged along, nervously offering pleasantries that fell into dead air. In the exam room, my mother produced my thick medical binder—a comprehensive record of my psychiatric history. The attending physician’s face darkened the moment he read the medication name. "This is an imported, high-potency neuro-regulator," the doctor said, looking up over his glasses. "It’s not approved for standard retail distribution in the States due to severe withdrawal risks. The rebound suicidality from sudden cessation is extraordinarily high." My mother nodded grimly. "None of the standard domestic SSRIs worked for me," I whispered from the gurney. "Only this one kept the thoughts away." Faulkner, standing near the curtain, cleared his throat. "Excuse me, Doctor, but how bad can a missed dose really be? Surely it’s just a matter of mental discipline—" The doctor turned a glacial glare onto him. "Sudden withdrawal from this specific chemical compound triggers acute neurochemical shock. The suppressed suicidal ideation returns with magnified intensity. We have documented clinical fatalities directly linked to abrupt cessation." When my mother had first secured the import license, the specialists had made her sign half a dozen disclosure forms: "Never stop cold turkey. Any dosage adjustment must be done under inpatient supervision." It was a dangerous drug, but it was the only ladder out of the well. My mother hadn't brought me to the ER just for medical stabilization; she was building a paper trail. After years of navigating institutional cruelty, she knew the drill by heart. When I explained to the doctor that I had been off the pills for three full days and that my Hall Director had dismissed my plea for help, Faulkner stepped forward again, waving his hands defensively. "Now, wait, let’s not put that on the medical chart—" I looked at him from the bed, my voice flat and lifeless. "Did I tell you my medication was stolen?" Faulkner blinked. "Did I tell you I was spiraling and asked you to help me get it back?" His mouth twitched. "And did you tell me that being off my meds was 'good' because I wasn't drowsy in class?" The exam room fell deathly silent. The only sound was the rhythmic clatter of the doctor’s fingers striking the keyboard, typing every single word into my permanent medical record. Under the clinical recommendations section, the doctor printed in bold ink: "Patient presents with acute, severe suicidal ideation secondary to forced withdrawal of specialty neuro-pharmacological treatment. High risk of self-harm. Discontinuation without clinical tapering strictly contraindicated. Immediate psychiatric monitoring initiated." A temporary dose of an emergency sedative was administered. Faulkner stood in the hallway, pacing back and forth, frantically whispering into his phone. It was almost funny. When my life was hanging by a thread, he couldn't be bothered to lift a finger. But now that his career was on the chopping block, he was moving mountains. The sedative made my eyelids heavy. My mother stroked my hair until I drifted into a dreamless sleep. When I woke up, the private consultation room was crowded. Two campus deans and a detective from the local precinct were waiting. Seeing the suits, my pulse spiked, but my mother’s hand found mine immediately. "It’s okay, Jordan. Detective Ortiz is just here to take your official statement. He’s here to help." Detective Ortiz held my medical chart, his expression grim. "Jordan, you noticed the pills had been replaced with vitamins three days ago?" I nodded slowly. "Why didn't you call your parents immediately?" I lowered my head, staring at the sterile white hospital blanket. "My parents work day and night to afford the import courier fees. We can only afford two weeks' worth at a time. I didn't want them to panic. I thought... I thought the university staff would handle it." Detective Ortiz's gaze flicked toward the campus deans, whose faces looked carved from chalk. Faulkner stood against the wall, beads of sweat glistening along his receding hairline, utterly silenced by the detective's stern posture. "And how did you realize the pills were being sold?" Ortiz asked gently. I reached onto the nightstand and handed over Chad’s unlocked phone. The detective scrolled through the Venmo notifications and the photo evidence. He turned a sharp, piercing look toward Chad, who was sitting in the corner under police escort, looking pale and hollowed out. "Care to explain this, Mr. Keller?" Ortiz asked. "Earlier, you told us Jordan was confused." Chad opened his mouth to stammer an excuse, but before he could string two words together, a panicked voice broke through from the hallway. "Officer! Please—I didn't know! I didn't know they were stolen!"