magic

I look at myself in the mirror. I make my usual funny face. It looks just as funny. My nose is the same, my eyes still brown, my freckles still silly. This is my face and it has been with me for a long time. But I can look at pictures and know that I looked Different. Weight and hair length/color, clothes, confidence- it has all flickered with time. I look at pictures from the past few months, and I look the same. But I am not. I am Different, even though my funny face is unchanged.

There is a pill bottle in front of my mirror. I open it and take the last one. The little blue pill disappears into my mouth and fixes something in my head.

Magic.

I have had these pills for months and did not take them until four weeks ago.

I thought I should be stronger. I should prayer harder, process better, just get. the. fuck. over. it.

But I really, really couldn't.

The day after I took the pill for the first time, my hands shook and my mouth was dry. I looked up the drug and read the side effects; dry mouth; hand tremor; nausea; insomnia; inability to sustain an erection (snicker). But then I read the results and started crying. Panic attacks; gone. Depression; gone. Social anxiety; gone. I was so grateful. This was what I had been begging God about for months. My prayers rattled around in a little orange container.

It has been four weeks since I had a panic attack. It has been four weeks since my stomach hurt so bad I could not eat. It has been four weeks since I took my clothes off and cried because I looked so very terrible. The scale in my doctors office is different. The numbers are higher and I actually don't mind.

I am not perfect. I am not numb. I am still sad, but it doesn't drown me. I am still lonely, but it doesn't rob me.

This is all good, good, good.

But I wonder if it's all a lie.

When I have cramps, I practically overdose on Motrin. I don't feel pain, but my body is still cramping. Things are still happening inside me, I just don't feel it enough to care.

Tonight my mind started to race, but just a little. My heart beat just slightly faster. My stomach hurt but only for a few seconds. I couldn't cry, but I kind of wanted to.

And I thought: I am probably having one of the worst panic attacks I've ever had.

The bottle is now empty, and I think it will stay that way.

I'm not sure I want to be dependent on magic.