Prescribed pills to offset the shakes to offset the pills you know you should take it a day at a time

Nails for Breakfast, Tacks for Snacks – Panic! At the Disco

She remembers memorizing that scene from ‘4.48 Psychosis' by Sarah Kane and swearing she'd never need drugs.   That was before.  She gets frustrated with her parents and the older generation as there's such a stigma with Depression.  Why is it so difficult to grasp such a simple concept: the brain has a chemical imbalance.

…what have you got to be depressed about?…

Nothing.  That is the point.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise.  She didn't even hide it – she just didn't bring it up.  It's not like all her family members are stable.  Her Nan's youngest sister, Mac, was in a home for years because she couldn't cope, and her own mother is most definitely bipolar with the way her moods shift seemingly independently of outside influence.  Treading on eggshells.  Understatements.  Clichés.

It had reached tipping point; the shaking anger, constant frustration, lack of ability to concentrate, the Guilt, and lethargy.  The workload and pressure added.  The Wedding and Family - multiplication factors.  Childhood issues never addressed.  Abandonment issues.  The need to be loved.  Deaths.  That powerless feeling.  The loss of control.  Loss.  The responsibility to make everyone happy.  Overcompensation.

She had spent the first counselling session in tears.  The release.  Someone outside it all listening.  She's not crazy.  She's not unreasonable.  She's not selfish.  She's not responsible for ensuring others' happiness – only they can do that.  She is only capable of affecting herself.  Her own happiness. 

                …a foreign concept…

There was always a finite number of sessions.  She'd known that.  During one of them the term was batted around:

                Depression.

She'd promised to book an appointment with a doctor to get tested. 

                Yes.  It is depression.

Sertraline 50mg.  Night terrors – ants are crawling all over her body.  Swinging extremes of hot and cold.  Then the dreams were gone.  The anger dissipating.  Letting things go.  Admitting that not everything is in her control.  She cannot make people feel anything.  She cannot affect anyone but herself.  She refuses to be drawn into arguments.  Refuses to be involved.  She copes.  She copes.

                Then winter came.  The void after all the Life Changing Events.  The nothingness.  Life.  The day-in-day-out drudgery of work, housework, sleep, work, housework, sleep.  The too-short weekends - packing as much into them as possible.  Seeing friends.  Seeing family. 

Either she's used to the drug or it is not as potent as it was or SAD is kicking in and over-balancing her.  But she's slipping again.

She starts to revert to living through the films, books and TV series again.  Exhausting those she turns to fanfic and Slash as she had done for LOTR years before.  It is almost an addiction.  Escapism.  Living in the romance of the Other.