Call me Ishmael.

It has been one of those days. No — it has been one of those WEEKS, where I feel like I’m drowning and gasping for air and there is just 

Water.

Water filling my chest cavity.

Gasping, sputtering, coughing.

Occasionally there is a brief moment in a day — just a minute or three — when I breathe and feel the oxygen making a clear path to my lungs and I feel

Relieved. 

Relieved because I’m not sad, anxious or in a state of constant fear. But then those three minutes end and the ocean splashed into my face and chokes me like a tsunami when you were only expecting high tide. 

There is no escape. 

I’m drowning. 

Flu Shot

“Can you describe the pain for me?” The doctor asked.

“Yeah… Uh… It’s sharp but dull. Constant and heavy, and it radiates.”

“Where is it located?” She inquired further.

“Oh, well… Everywhere.”

“Everywhere?” Asked the doctor, skeptically.

“Yes. But it starts in my brain. And then my heart. And somehow makes my whole body numb.”

The doctor just stared at me quizzically, but I felt that the silence begged further explanation.

“Well, there’s different triggers. Sometimes just a thought, or a feeling, or a memory… And it leads to more thoughts and feelings and memories. Usually a painful idea or self deprication are involved, but eventually it leads to this. I’m not able to function or to work. I can’t concentrate and I don’t feel well.”

The doctor paused long enough for a brief look of pity to flash across her face.

“I see. Well I’m not able to treat you for feelings. Are you otherwise feeling well? Have you had your flu shot?”

“No, I haven’t had a flu shot yet.”

“Great, I’ll send one of the nurses get to that then!”

She left the room and as the door was slowly creeping shut, I listened to the click click click of her heels as she disappeared down the hall. 

Alone in the room, I looked around and opened some drawers cautiously and quietly, not wanting to get caught snooping. In the first drawer just a basket of condoms and a roll of gauze next to a box of unopened tongue depressors. But in the second drawer I found a box of sealed, foggy plastic bags with the word ‘sterile’ printed neatly across them. I looked closer. They were a medical instrument looking like a blade or scalpel or something of the sort. A gold mine. 

I tucked several of the bags into my purse and shut the drawers just as the nurse walked in. 

“Alrighty, you’ll just feel a pinch and you’ll be out of here in no time! I’m actually quite good at these, Theorie nearly painless,” she beamed. 

I smiled at her efforts, thinking about how good she must be with children… “Oh, I’ve never minded physical pain.” 

Half Empty, or Half Full?

Maybe people who are pessimistic  [or realists or whatever they like to categorize themselves as] don’t see the glass half empty. Maybe instead, they are looking at a hollow glass cylinder with no potential to be occupied at all.

Ramblings from a post brick wall mental state.

Why does my depression seem to hit me like a brick wall right around 9:30pm every day? Though it never totally ceases, at least during the day I am busy enough to manage it. On nights like tonight, it hurts. It pains me and makes me want to actually weep. The cold autumn weather and my lack of social engagements really strengthen the grip that it has on me. I don’t know why I speak of depression as having the all consuming power that it has, I just feel helpless when it hits me like it does.

Drained.

9:30pm, Saturday.

Exhaustion creeps into my mind, weighing down my already heavy thoughts.

Consumed with anguish and disappointment, I allow my eyes to close.

I embrace the familiar feeling, numbness slowly creeping over my body.

The darkness devours me once again.

I feel

Drained.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Occasionally, sometimes more than occasionally, I transform emotional turmoil and internal struggle into… feeling itchy. I do this with the assistance of a couple oblong, white, neatly scored and numbered pills. All it takes is a swish of water and a tilt of the head and my fate is confirmed. The pain I feel turns into a bubbly numbness and, other than the occasional sensation on the skin that causes the desire to scratch, everything disappears.

I would never take more than a safe dosage; my intention is never to kill myself. Though, sometimes when feeling especially depressed, I think about the world without me in it. I would never act on those thoughts because my depression is not of that nature. It’s hard to explain to someone who isn’t in my head.

I know that these pills are intended to be used for physical pain, but how convenient that they aid in a temporary recess from emotional pain as well. I am not an avid drug taker, nor do I drink in excess, but I find that when something really helps me like these pills do, it’s hard to resist. I have will power, and I take them rarely, but I wonder if this is how addictions start. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) these pills aren’t easily accessible for me, so I do not foresee an addiction in the near future.

The occasional slip into desensitization and vacancy may be an unconventional treatment, but how does the saying go….?

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.