As far as you were concerned, there were three drawbacks to the Xanax that you had stolen from your mom. Number one, it was an anti-anxiety. Meaning, it was a depressant. It was meant to calm you down. And while it did that very well, it caused you to become tired about an hour to two hours after taking it. Fanfuckingtastic. You did not, under any circumstances, have time for naps.

So, you made sure to always take your Xanax with a Red Bull and a caffeine pill or two. The logical part of your brain told you this was a bad idea. Very, very bad. You were sending conflicting signals to your brain and such. But it worked out pretty well, actually. The panic attacks, though not completely gone, were drastically reduced, yet you were still able to pull the all-nighters you needed to study. It all made sense to Insane Natalie, who was proud of you for putting your grades and your future above all else. Didn't the future matter more than the present anyway? Because in the blink of an eye the present would be the past and the future would be here and you'd be fine and sane and sitting under a tree at Yale.

Dad had taken you to visit once. Freshman year. Your mom was visiting your grandparents because...she was in one of her frightening as fuck stages. And everyone was so concerned for poor little Natalie, as if you hadn't grown up with this woman as your mother. As if you weren't used to all of her crazy behaviors. Really, by the time you were fourteen, an insane asylum would have felt homey and normal. Regardless, they all still had on their rose colored glasses telling them that you could be spared if she had a weekend with your grandparents and you had a weekend with your dad.

Dad...you loved him. He could drive you insane, but he was the closest thing you had ever and would ever have to "normal" parent. Sometimes, in a twisted way, you felt like you and your mom were two siblings competing for his attention. You felt bad for your dad most of the time. In fact, though you were ashamed to admit it, you felt as much pity towards him as you did love. He was essentially raising three challenging children. His dead son that only his wife could see, his wife, who you would argue was the most challenging of the three of you, and...you, the nerdy girl who just couldn't be good at anything except for school and piano.

Anyway, he had taken you to Yale. For a day, you felt normal and special and brilliant. You did all of the official campus tours and then spent some more time exploring on your own- just dad and you. You think it was healthy for him, too, to get away. He was smiling so much as the tour guide explained the housing system, as you walked up science hill and you made a joke about switching your major to a science so you could become a doctor and cure all diseases, as you stood in awe in the library and proudly read the Latin from the book on display, as you walked into one of the dining halls and declared that you felt like you were in Harry Potter. And it was all okay, just for a day. That was the day you completely decided on Yale. Yale or nothing. No back up school would be as amazing.

Dad would be proud when you were at Yale. You would be proud and happy and spend time with other sane people dedicated to their studies. Maybe, eventually, even your mom could appreciate the fact that the daughter she was barely aware of existing had made it into an Ivy League school. It would be great, you just had to get there. Panic attacks definitely did not help with the "getting there" part. They were a waste of time, in your mind. Which brought you to issue number two with Xanax. It didn't last 24 hours. Wasn't extended release supposed to last the whole 24 fucking hours? It wasn't asking that much was it? Yet, somehow, it only lasted twelve for you. Twelve hours of un-panicking bliss and twelve hours of pure panicking hell.

Your solution to this problem was developed six days after your first Xanax. It was simple. Double the dose. Two mg. The label said 1-2mg every morning, right? And 1mg lasted 12 hours, so maybe 2mg would last 24? It was still safe, obviously, if it was the suggested amount. You still weren't taking the maximum daily dose, so you viewed this as absolutely fine. No reason for concern. At all. Except for...issue number three was still bothering you.

What was issue number three? That damn extended release part. You knew it was a logical decision on the part of the psychiatrist or psychopharmacologist or whoever the hell had prescribed it. The ups and downs of fast acting anti-anxiety medications were definitely not a good idea for someone with bipolar disorder. Especially not when it was...your mom. But for you, it was just a pain in the ass. During the twelve hours that the Xanax had worn off and you were just shit of luck (a phrase you didn't used to use, but hey, what the hell?), what were you supposed to do if you had a panic attack? Panic attacks always came on so suddenly and Xanax didn't kick in right away.

Some Googling fixed this problem for you. Cut it in fourths, let it sit in your mouth for three to four seconds, then swallow, one person on a forum had said. It'd make the Xanax fast acting. You were reluctant to do this. But nine days after your first Xanax, at two thirty AM on Monday morning, when you had four tests in five and a half hours and you felt totally unprepared, you sighed out a "Fuck it" and grabbed the medicine bottle. You had had two Xanax (with the mandatory energy drink and caffeine pills) about twelve hours earlier, when you got home from school (you couldn't take them before school, because you absolutely could not be tired during class when you needed to be paying attention). But this didn't matter to you at the moment. What mattered were the tests and how the grades on the tests affected the grades in the class which affected your GPA which affected your chances of getting into Yale.

So, you used a knife to cut the pill into fourths and put them on your tongue. You closed your mouth and fought hard not to spit the pieces out. It was one of the nastiest tastes you had ever experienced, worse than both your mother's cooking and the PTC papers you had to try in AP Biology. You were definitely a taster. And, finally, the four seconds was up, and you took several gulps of Red Bull, followed by several more as you popped two caffeine pills. Just to be sure. No sleeping tonight, just studying.

To be continued.

...And also, reviews are still pretty and make me do happy dances.