No White Picket Fence: A Verbatim Play about Young Women’s Resilience Through Foster Care by Robin C. Whittaker and Sue McKenzie-Mohr

Author:Robin C. Whittaker and Sue McKenzie-Mohr
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781772012996
Publisher: Talonbooks
Published: 2020-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

SCENE 13: LOTUS IS PRESCRIBED DEXEDRINE

Light on LOTUS.

LOTUS

I was prescribed Dexedrine since I was four and I was like the last one they would have suspected would ever, like, not, I don’t know, follow the rules […] Group homes are given two to four times the amount of money to take care of us, depending on how many medications we’re on and mental disabilities such as ADHD, post-traumatic stress, depression, and any of the medications going with them are considered disabilities. And the parents and the group homes are paid more so they don’t want to not medicate us ’cause it’s a quick band-aid and it makes us numb and robotic and whatever, and it holds off a lot of behaviours until everyone explodes … And they’re paid a lot more to have us on these so my mother, I knew, was medicating me to control me because sh– when I was first prescribed Dexedrine, when I was young, she took me to three different doctors and I knew she was just making her rounds until she found the one that was going to prescribe it for me. And then she would sell it also, um, and overuse on me also. And then I knew when I went in foster care they weren’t gonna take me off because that gives foster homes more of an initiative to take you ’cause it’s more money. But, not exhibiting any other behaviours that were gonna make them try to put me on any medication because that’s the first thing that they do. They have a government psychiatrist that sees all of us, who doesn’t listen to anything and then writes out a prescription. Oh you’re crying: Prozac, you know, the only one that goes for everybody. Oh you can’t pay attention: Ritalin and Dexedrine. Amphetamines and synthetic cocaines, like, great thing to give us whenever we’re already trying to calm down here […] So … I, um, hid my Dexedrine under my tongue for like over a week […] But I just wanted to go to sleep and go back home and not have to, like, wake up in there again. And, um, instead, I like, ah, was not successful in that they found me (laughing) and I was …

INTERVIEWER

So you took the Dexedrine that you’d –

LOTUS

Yeah.

INTERVIEWER

– been saving?

LOTUS

Yeah and, so, um, I just, um, yeah. I was okay with it either way, I just wanted to know, it was like, almost like, what is my destiny? Am I supposed to keep going? Can I go, like, back home? But I can’t do this anymore and I have done my best.

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