Fear of the Known

Last night something changed. Dramatically, suddenly, with no particular trigger. I vaguely remember that I walked out of the room and then the depression faded to black with the light switch. I felt it wash away from me.

The internal trembling in my chest picked up pace, my eyes became clear, thoughts, words, songs and ideas started coming then played over and over in a nonsensical loop in my mind, faster and faster. I was aware of myself bouncing my knee, tripping over my words and giggling too much about trivial comments my husband was making.

Sleep was slow to come, but it finally did, and I woke with the energy of 1000 jack rabbits at 5am on the dot, I haven’t woken of my own accord before 9:00 in over a month. Still trembling, mind still racing.

Anxiety? Maybe.

Hypomania? Well I did dedicate a decent portion of last nights Insomnia to redesigning the landscaping plan for my back yard to include a pool, cabana, spa, tennis court and archery range…

I don’t know.

My psychiatrist appointment is today.
I love my shrink, I’ve mentioned this before, she looks exactly like a young Meryl Streep, elegant with perfect poise and she always knows exactly the right thing to say.

In the end I sent her The Letter, she replied quickly. Her response was of course, perfect, she’s so professional, so good at what she does, I guess this is why she’s booked out 12 months in advance.

But despite her awesomeness, today I am afraid.
I am afraid because I know that medication is going to be coming next. What else is there? Aside from ECT, but, and I mean no offence as I know some of you guys have had success with it – I would rather be eaten alive by fire ants and you will under no circumstances voluntarily drag me into that procedure EVER, and if it’s done to me involuntarily like that DARLING psychiatrist in the hospital threatened me so kindly with, then I will kill myself very violently and publicly purely out of principle making damn sure to get my reasons broadcast on every news channel in the process!!
Okay, deep breath, sorry I will get off my soap box, yeah so I’m not an ECT fan. And really not a fan of being threatened.

Where was I? So I suppose my fear is that this morning will be my last few hours of having an unpolluted mind. Which sounds ridiculous considering the torment it throws at me on a daily basis.

But you see, in all of it’s confused muddled up glory I still have my clarity, the kind of clarity one can only possibly understand the value of if they too have ceased mind altering medications and felt it return. That clarity, purity, pulled as if by strings from the distance, the clarity you hadn’t realised you had even lost until you found it again.
It’s like a drug, the best drug in the world.
That feeling as the last of my prescription had dissolved and clarity seeped back into my body, it was so, I don’t know, honest? Real? Like part of my soul came home and I promised myself never to hold it back again.

I can hear what your thinking. They’re just meds Kate, millions of people take them. You’ve taken plenty of them in the past, you need to take them again you crazy idiot, you know you do!

As fucked up as I am, as much as I just don’t know how to survive right now. Even without little voices that aren’t voices whispering that they will kill me if I dare to pop a tablet in my mouth…

To go back to that medication fog? To choose a life of dullness and side effects, to squash down a part of myself feels unthinkable, like I am murdering my truth, and that seems so much more unforgivable than just murdering myself.

Even when it seems denying medication comes at the ultimate price, it’s just easier for me to accept, it’s easier to believe that maybe, just maybe that really is how it is meant to be.