The Edge

My fingers move over the keys, not typing, just moving because… I have to move.  My legs are twitching, my eyes are too wide, I can feel it but I can’t stop.

The depression has been ice in my veins, lead shot in my limbs, defeat, sloth.  But now it has been enervated like Frankenstein’s monster, a lightning storm in my brain that gave it a hideous semblance of life.

Now it is restless movement, snapping temper, too much light, too much sound… too much… too much… touch… get my fucking clothes off of me NOW!

Now it is Sir in the bathroom, handing me my toothbrush in the dark.  Now it is Sub Brother lighting a candle in the corner of the bedroom so that the only likely injury will come from me and not the dark.

Now it is pain in every muscle, but no, it was that before… the herx… not responding to the increase in DHA and EPA.  Sub Brother walking beside me on the dark sidewalk because I can’t stand being in the house any longer.  Speaking because it’s too dark to sign.  “You’ve only increased if it for a day…”

It’s cursing everyone, everything, knowing I’ll hate myself… tomorrow.  It is riding me, like a parasite in my brain, like Heinlein, The Puppet Masters… except when Sir takes my clothes no one can see it on me.

It is invisible.  Like the depression.  Like mania. Dysphoric state… that no one can see.  If only I would bleed. Then it would be real, not all in my head.

Now it is cold water, harsh and shocking, across my face, my chest, my breasts…  Now it is Sir’s hand, a sharp slap, on my leg, my thigh, and I curse him in snarls, but it helps.

Now it is Sub Brother, trembling because his own anxiety is riding him, opening the pill bottles, passing me water…  A wry smile when I blame myself, “See?  Now I’m giving YOU anxiety!”

“Life, gives me anxiety.  I’m not ready to give it up, yet.”

And now it is tears because… I hate it.  Because I hate it.  Because I hate it.

I hate it that now is when I am most likely to die… too depressed to live, enough energy to do something about it.

I hate it that now is when I can best see myself, too depressed for euphoric delusions, too much energy for apathy.

I hate it that I can’t control myself.  And I hate it more that I know it.

The meds are kicking in, dragging the energy back down, trickling into me like sand into a bag, and I become heavier… slower… the lucidity and the energy departing together, dysfunctional lovers.

But soon… soon… I won’t have to care anymore… I won’t even have to think.

With the last of my dysphoria I hate the meds that save me… my life or my clarity…

I hate that I have to choose.

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