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The many prescription medications the narrator takes to facilitate her hibernation project represent the fine line between self-care and self-indulgence or self-destruction. Once the narrator formulates her plan to transform herself and improve her life by sleeping as much as possible, she enlists the help of a dubious psychiatrist, Dr. Tuttle, to prescribe her medications that will help her sleep. Dr. Tuttle has a practically non-existent allegiance to ethical standards in medicine, and she eagerly prescribes the narrator all manner of potentially dangerous drugs, not bothering to verify the narrator’s increasingly fantastical claims of insomnia. In so doing, she enables the narrator’s self-destructive hibernation project, during which she spends most of the year asleep or in a drug-induced, semi-conscious haze.
In theory, the narrator’s project resembles a healthy approach to recognizing the ways in which one’s life is lacking and then taking steps to improve one’s habits and perspectives in order to feel more satisfied and at peace with oneself: she will take it easy and take the medications a medical professional has prescribed her, and in time, she’ll feel rejuvenated enough to live the life she wants for herself. In practice, however, the pills only enable the narrator to remain self-indulgent and to engage in self-destructive behavior while she pretends to improve her health and practice self-care. While in drug-induced blackouts, she makes ill-advised phone calls to her ex-boyfriend, Trevor, and she eats copious amounts of junk food. She sleeps until her muscles atrophy, and she ensures that she is never sober enough to consciously reflect on the inner struggles that are actually causing her such pain and dissatisfaction with her life. In short, the drugs enable her to engage in self-indulgent, avoidant behavior and prevent her from practicing the acts of self-care that would actually help her to work through the issues she is supposedly interested in solving.
Pills Quotes in My Year of Rest and Relaxation
The My Year of Rest and Relaxation quotes below all refer to the symbol of Pills . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Chapter 1
Quotes
“I’m not a junkie or something,” I said defensively. “I’m taking some time off. This is my year of rest and relaxation.”
“Lucky you,” Reva said. “I wouldn’t mind taking time off from work to loaf around, watch movies, and snooze all day, but I’m not complaining. I just don’t have that luxury.”
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Chapter 2
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“But you could have the medication instead,” I argued. “And spare your jaw from all that chewing.” I didn’t really care about Reva’s jaw.
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Each time I awoke, I scribbled down whatever I could remember. Later I copied the dreams over in crazier-looking handwriting on a yellow legal pad, adding terrifying details, to hand in to Dr. Tuttle in July. My hope was that she’d think I needed more sedation.
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My father was always sick in my dreams, sunken eyes, greasy smudges on the thick lenses of his glasses. Once, he was my anesthesiologist. I was getting breast implants. He put his hand out a little hesitantly for me to shake, as though he wasn’t sure who I was or if we’d met before. I lay down on the steel gurney. Those dreams with him were the most upsetting. I’d wake up in a panic, take a few more Rozerem or whatever, and go back to sleep.
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“People like your mother,” Dr. Tuttle replied, shaking her head, “give psychotropic medication a bad reputation.”
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Chapter 3
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The carefree tranquility of sleep gave way to a startling subliminal rebellion—I began to do things while I was unconscious.
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Chapter 4
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“I’m overwhelmed, I guess. It’s been hard, but also sort of beautiful in this sad and peaceful way. You know what she said before she died? She said, ‘Don’t worry so much trying to be everybody’s favorite. Just go have fun.’ That really hit me, ‘everybody’s favorite.’ Because it’s true. I do feel the pressure to be like that. Do you think I’m like that? I guess I just never felt good enough. This is probably healthy for me, to have to face life now, you know, on my own.
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I thought about whatever subliminal impulse had put me on the train to Farmingdale. Seeing Reva in full-blown Reva mode both delighted and disgusted me. Her repression, her transparent denial, her futile attempts to tap into the pain with me in the car, it all satisfied me somehow. Reva scratched at an itch that, on my own, I couldn’t reach. Watching her take what was deep and real and painful and ruin it by expressing it with such trite precision gave me reason to think Reva was an idiot, and therefore I could discount her pain, and with it, mine. Reva was like the pills I took. They turned everything, even hatred, even love, into fluff I could bat away. And that was exactly what I wanted—my emotions passing like headlights that shine softly through a window, sweep past me, illuminate something vaguely familiar, then fade and leave me in the dark again.
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Chapter 5
Quotes
I took off the white fur and the bustier and the fishnets and went to the bathroom to run the hot water in the shower. My toenails were painted lilac, my previously flaky calloused soles now smooth and soft. I used the toilet and watched a vein throb in my thigh. What had I done? Spent a spa day then gone out clubbing? It seemed preposterous. Had Reva convinced me to go “enjoy myself” or something just as idiotic? I peed, and when I wiped myself, it was slick. I had recently been aroused, it seemed. Who had aroused me? I remembered nothing. A wave of nausea made me lurch over and regurgitate an acrid globule of phlegm, which I spat into the sink. From the sandy feel of my mouth, I was expecting to see granules of dirt or the grit of a crushed pill speckling my saliva. Instead, it was pink glitter.
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Pills Symbol Timeline in My Year of Rest and Relaxation
The timeline below shows where the symbol Pills appears in My Year of Rest and Relaxation. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
...corner to a bodega for coffees (two, each with cream and six sugars) whenever her medications wear off and she can’t stay asleep. Other times, she watches movies or orders takeout....
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...pays no attention to the goings on of the outside world. When she needs more pills, she forces herself to walk to the Rite Aid, but it’s a painful walk, and...
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...but the narrator never wants to see her: she tends to call Reva when her medications are kicking in and can hardly ever remember the conversations they have. Reva claims that...
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Reva constantly worries about the narrator’s concerning behavior—her prescription drug use, her smoking. The narrator, however, insists that she is actually practicing self-care: she’s simply...
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...to suffer from insomnia (she’s already sleeping around 12 hours per day) and asking for downers, Dr. Tuttle writes her several prescriptions. She advises the narrator not to fill them all...
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...big work assignment, and Natasha fires her. “Out of curiosity,” she asks the narrator which drugs she’s taking. The narrator insists she’s just been tired. The narrator has always loved sleep....
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Chapter 2
...claims her plan is to sleep for a full year and gestures toward her many medications to show Reva how she will accomplish this goal. Reva is wary but praises the...
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...Goldberg movies. When she must, she ventures out to the Rite Aid to replenish her pill supply and buy prepackaged food.
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...mostly unremarkable. She claims that her symptoms have worsened, and Dr. Tuttle prescribes her more pills. Dr. Tuttle asks, again, after the narrator’s parents, though the narrator has repeatedly told her...
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Chapter 3
...meanwhile, doesn’t tell Dr. Tuttle about her blackouts, fearing Dr. Tuttle would stop prescribing her medications if she knew. Instead, she tells Dr. Tuttle that she’s having more trouble sleeping. Dr....
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Back in the present, the narrator returns to her apartment with her newly filled medication prescriptions. She thinks about Trevor incessantly for the next few days and uses all the...
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...can say in response. Reva thanks her and cries to herself. The narrator pops one Infermiterol to tune out Reva’s sadness.
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...sleeping enough. Dr. Tuttle accepts this explanation and suggests the narrator continue to take the Infermiterol.
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The narrator returns to her apartment, pops another Infermiterol, and takes inventory. She sees the uneaten pints of ice cream and observes that her...
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Chapter 4
Dr. Tuttle had warned the narrator that a small percentage of Infermiterol users experience hallucinations. Now, aboard the LIRR, she wonders if she is lucid dreaming. She...
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...the TV is still on, and a porn movie is playing. The narrator takes an Infermiterol as another porn movie starts. Reva talks about her relationship with Ken and her mother’s...
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Chapter 5
...her of a police officer who visited her middle school to teach the students about drugs and drug abuse. He warned them about Rohypnol but added that, on the positive side,...
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The narrator steps out of the shower and takes an Ambien and some Benadryl, then she checks her phone and sees that she’s called Trevor’s phone...
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The narrator lounges around until evening and then takes a Nembutal and watches movies. She finds the porn channel again and turns the volume down low...
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Still unable to sleep, the narrator takes more and more pills. She pops in Braveheart, but then the VCR breaks, so she’s stuck with TV. She...
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Chapter 6
...time, she’s actually telling the truth. She lies and claims not to have tried the Infermiterol yet—it would be too risky for the narrator to let Dr. Tuttle know that the...
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...Ping Xi’s business card is also attached. She returns to her unit and takes some pills. She drifts in and out of sleep. She has a dream she’s in a hospital,...
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...odd as she looks out her window and investigates the sidewalk below. She takes more pills and sits on the couch. She realizes she “want[s] the old half life back,” the...
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...Dr. Tuttle this. Each time the narrator tries to bring up the issues with the Infermiterol, though, Dr. Tuttle cuts her off, and eventually the narrator gives up. She also has...
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...she asks if Reva would like something to calm her down. She offers her an Infermiterol. Reva accepts, but warily. She suggests looking it up, but the narrator promises her she...
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Reva relents, washing down the pill with a can of diet soda she removes from her purse. Reva exclaims when she...
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...rest of your life! xoxo.” When she goes to her medicine cabinet to find her pills, she finds that they are all gone. In a panic, she calls Reva, but Reva...
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...“that’s why [she] hated [Reva].” She wonders if maybe she should have stolen her mother’s pills, like Reva stole hers. She thinks about her mother’s corpse in its coffin. She wonders...
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...hates her for it. Finally, the narrator reaches the bathroom, where she finds her stolen pills. She breathes a sigh of relief.
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Reunited with her precious pills, the narrator imagines what Reva might say in this moment: that Reva has stood by...
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Suddenly, the narrator realizes what she must do. Figuring that one tablet of Infermiterol will knock her out for three days, she hatches a plan. She takes only the...
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Chapter 7
...pizza, and do some basic exercises. She’ll also wash her clothes. Then she’ll take another Infermiterol, lose consciousness once more, and start the whole cycle all over again. In this way,...
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...to exit the apartment. This will ensure that she cannot exit the apartment in an Infermiterol-induced blackout. If she dies by jumping out the window, so be it.
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...“Sweet dreams,” and he leaves. Alone, the narrator takes the first of her remaining 40 Infermiterol tablets and lies down.
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...critiques of the institutionalization of painting,” or some nonsense like that. The narrator takes another Infermiterol and falls back asleep.
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...May 28, she comes to and knows this is the last time she’ll take the Infermiterol. She takes the pill and “pray[s] for mercy.” She drifts in and out of consciousness...
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