“Up and Down, Up and Down, I will lead them Up and Down”

Depression and anxiety cackled as they shook my head and heart awake. A therapist once told me to “sit with them.”

“Oh sure,” I said, “How about I give you a glass of Clorox to gargle with and you sit with that? How about I light your hair on fire, and you sit with that? I get so sick of people acting like I imagine things, yet telling me in the same breath they’re my own fault and I deserve them. Nobody says that to people with lung cancer, although, arguably, they chain smoked cigarettes. Nobody says that to people with heart disease, even if they ate trash all their lives and now weigh 300 pounds. Nobody even says that to alcoholics with cirrhosis of the liver.”

“The only people they say that to are people with AIDS and people with some type of thing like this, but at least they don’t tell people with AIDS they’re just imagining it, and they should just get over it. Nobody ever faults anybody with cancer who wants the plug pulled, or even shoots themselves, but they fault people with this. And then they say it’s our fault for not taking the pills. People just think I’m crazier for hating pills, but they probably would too, if they walked in my shoes.

I have tried pills, twice. Effexor numbed me too much, and Celexa did not numb me enough. I do not want to be numb. I just want it to go away on its own, or at least with something natural like workaholism, which is cheaper than acupuncture.

A rude comment kicked off a crying jag, which always annoys people. Then it began to ease up after a positive conversation, and then another rude encounter got me down, and then another positive conversation lifted my spirits. I guess the truth is nothing stays the same, but how I hate the lows. People tell me “just don’t let it get you down.” I’ve done my damndest not to, trust me, but it comes for me, and will not let go. You don’t tell somebody in the midst of a heart attack not to let it get them down. It does feel like I imagine a heart attack, but a real heart attack caused by someone who clogged their own arteries is acceptable, this type of heart attack, is not acceptable. It’s my fault for allowing it to happen. I pray to be let out of this prison as soon as possible, and do not care how I leave it.