Flux

So yesterday our neighbors had a Batman marathon, and we watched all three of them.  Nolan's trilogy is not short, and we didn't end up finishing Dark Knight Rises until eleven at night.  There were five of us there, and when we finished, all of us presumably went straight to bed.  I know I did, and for me, that was a big mistake.
     See, there's a medicine I take every night after dinner.  It's used to treat a common disorder that is nonetheless rarely talked about, and if I don't take it for a long period of time, it puts me at risk of dying.  Not because my heart will give out or because I'll have a seizure, but because I'll kill myself.  Prozac is commonly used to treat clinical depression, in addition to other things.  So last night I missed my dose.  Hold on, I'll go take it now,
     Hi, back.  So this morning I woke up, laid in bed for an hour, and got up feeling like shit for no reason whatsoever.  This is not an uncommon thing, for me.  Medication keeps it at bay, creates a bedrock layer past which I can't really descend, but there's always something there.  This isn't self-pity.  Or...maybe it is, I don't quite know.  I'm not thinking straight, see.  I didn't get my fix and I'm not thinking straight.
     What scares me is wondering how many people struggle with this exact same thing, locked in a struggle with their own biology.  The interesting thing about fighting with yourself is that the casualties hurt both sides, not just the one that loses.  Yes, medication is giving up and yes, it makes me better.  No, it's not a chemical lobotomy and no, it's not natural.  And it hurts; missing a dose like this is like leaving Plato's shadow-cave, looking at a world that's cruel and cold and uncaring.
      And no, it's not the end of the world.  Fluoxetine has a half-life of almost two weeks; as in, it'll take a month for the last dose to fully fade from my system.  But the withdrawal sets in within hours, and boy is it strange.  Those who have never struggles with depression don't understand what it's like, to be trapped between two solaces, the only places left in the world, and looking at them and seeing two Hells.  Which are the shadows?  The vague assumptions and hopes thrown up by my drugged mind and psychiatrists with PhDs and leather couches, or the ghosts of monsters that haunt my sober mind with a vengeance?  Which one is real?
     For years, the traditional medication for depression was self-prescribed and available in most stores; alcohol.  I sometimes wonder if Prozac is just the next level.  Only in my 'sober' moments, though, like now.  When I'm normal, when I've had my fix, I feel fine.  I feel great.  I feel like doing things that aren't sitting in my room feeling sorry for myself on my blog.  Is that real?  Or is this?
     Flux.  Rambling, twisting mazes of thought that I don't understand and never will.  Do I have answers for these questions?  No, I don't.  If you do, dear reader, I hope you share them.  The person with those answers could be the richest person in the world in a very short time, because there are millions of people struggling with these issues, their own life hanging on a scale next to their twisted, bent brains.
     For now I'll stick with the recommended help; therapy and medication.  God, I hate those words.  And yet they saved my life.  But you mark my words; someday I will unravel this.  I may never understand, but at least I might be able to see it.  My mind.  MY mind is everything to me, the only thing I can truly say I own.  And if you can't understand your own possessions, why bother keeping them?