215
LAST ONE OF THE FLOOD I SWEAR
For as long as I can remember I’ve had antagonist dreams from time to time. My subconscious conjures images of my mother: insulting, condescending, hating, hating, hating, cutting me down, sneering, humiliating, threatening. Her words are weapons and they flay me to the bone and I can never, ever fight them. I can only give up and give in.
She isn’t like that in real life. I’ve woken up nauseated and crushed under the juggernaut-car of depression telling myself it isn’t really her.
At some point my spouse took her place in my dreams. I couldn’t always give myself the same reassurance when I woke up.
But tonight-
.oOo.
I hate what this drug does to me. For as many years as I’ve looked forward to finding out how this class would help me, all the hope I poured into it, the word “disappointing” falls utterly flat.
Quetiapine is an atypical antipsychotic. Its effects on me are unfortunate at best. One might blame the bipolar comorbidity in my brain, the (un)natural redistribution of dopamine between one quadrant and another, for how difficult I am to treat. Even out one side and the other goes berserk.
I’d had such hopes. But the quetiapine courses through my blood like an unholy fusion of amphetamine and opiate. On this, the tiniest annoyance sets my teeth on edge. On this, I have no patience and everyone is a fool. On this, I can sleep five hours or twelve and never feel rested. On this, my limbs feel like lead. On this, I am the poster child for impotent rage.
When I ran out of clonidine I started rotating in this antipsychotic instead. Half a pill at night. It’s destroying me. I hate the person it makes me become.
.oOo.
It’s like dragging around fifty-pound weights attached to every limb. I slept off and on throughout the day, drawn to my shabby little bed as though chains were pulling me back down, down, down, whispering how sweet unconsciousness would be. Relieve the weight. Relieve the anger. Float weightless in the sheltering dark.
To hell with my eight hours of reading. I went straight to bed after work and slept another seven.
The drug promised peace if I slept.
It lied.
I dreamed.
But this time.
This time was different.
I was with friends pacing through the racks and halls of a warehouse. I couldn’t tell you who they were now that I’m awake. Too warm, surrounded by dust and old props and tools and cobweb, and we didn’t care. Then he showed up, stalking the same racks and halls with a much smaller entourage.
My ex-spouse. Tall, broad, fat, scruffy, scowling. I knew how this dream was about to go. I felt the scratch of denim on my skin and a sour bile burn in my throat and I crushed my fear and hurt into diamonds.
My diamond is rage. I’ve got diamonds in my eyes.
And I took her place.
I became my rage. My hate. I came at him and my words were weapons, I provoked him and herded him like a wolf harries a sheep in a pen, my five-foot-seven to his six-foot-four, with my friends taking my cues as his abandoned him. My heart raced and I felt no fear, only anger, only the desire to hurt, to flay him to the bone. Take a swing. Here I am again calling you out on your lies, fucker, take a swing, give me an excuse.
Give me a fucking excuse.
He fled. I followed.
In the dream he wormed his way out into the tiny parking lot and we followed, and under a too-bright sun he was calling my boss, trying to shunt blame and paint himself a victim again and I was SNARLING the litany of his crimes, taking the phone from him and holding his lying coward eyes like I’d skewered him as I told him all he’d done. And there was some fool of a man trying to talk me down, making excuses, and I would not back down.
I took her place. It’s about fucking time.
For as long as I can remember I’ve had antagonist dreams from time to time. My subconscious conjures images of my mother: insulting, condescending, hating, hating, hating, cutting me down, sneering, humiliating, threatening. Her words are weapons and they flay me to the bone and I can never, ever fight them. I can only give up and give in.
She isn’t like that in real life. I’ve woken up nauseated and crushed under the juggernaut-car of depression telling myself it isn’t really her.
At some point my spouse took her place in my dreams. I couldn’t always give myself the same reassurance when I woke up.
But tonight-
.oOo.
I hate what this drug does to me. For as many years as I’ve looked forward to finding out how this class would help me, all the hope I poured into it, the word “disappointing” falls utterly flat.
Quetiapine is an atypical antipsychotic. Its effects on me are unfortunate at best. One might blame the bipolar comorbidity in my brain, the (un)natural redistribution of dopamine between one quadrant and another, for how difficult I am to treat. Even out one side and the other goes berserk.
I’d had such hopes. But the quetiapine courses through my blood like an unholy fusion of amphetamine and opiate. On this, the tiniest annoyance sets my teeth on edge. On this, I have no patience and everyone is a fool. On this, I can sleep five hours or twelve and never feel rested. On this, my limbs feel like lead. On this, I am the poster child for impotent rage.
When I ran out of clonidine I started rotating in this antipsychotic instead. Half a pill at night. It’s destroying me. I hate the person it makes me become.
.oOo.
It’s like dragging around fifty-pound weights attached to every limb. I slept off and on throughout the day, drawn to my shabby little bed as though chains were pulling me back down, down, down, whispering how sweet unconsciousness would be. Relieve the weight. Relieve the anger. Float weightless in the sheltering dark.
To hell with my eight hours of reading. I went straight to bed after work and slept another seven.
The drug promised peace if I slept.
It lied.
I dreamed.
But this time.
This time was different.
I was with friends pacing through the racks and halls of a warehouse. I couldn’t tell you who they were now that I’m awake. Too warm, surrounded by dust and old props and tools and cobweb, and we didn’t care. Then he showed up, stalking the same racks and halls with a much smaller entourage.
My ex-spouse. Tall, broad, fat, scruffy, scowling. I knew how this dream was about to go. I felt the scratch of denim on my skin and a sour bile burn in my throat and I crushed my fear and hurt into diamonds.
My diamond is rage. I’ve got diamonds in my eyes.
And I took her place.
I became my rage. My hate. I came at him and my words were weapons, I provoked him and herded him like a wolf harries a sheep in a pen, my five-foot-seven to his six-foot-four, with my friends taking my cues as his abandoned him. My heart raced and I felt no fear, only anger, only the desire to hurt, to flay him to the bone. Take a swing. Here I am again calling you out on your lies, fucker, take a swing, give me an excuse.
Give me a fucking excuse.
He fled. I followed.
In the dream he wormed his way out into the tiny parking lot and we followed, and under a too-bright sun he was calling my boss, trying to shunt blame and paint himself a victim again and I was SNARLING the litany of his crimes, taking the phone from him and holding his lying coward eyes like I’d skewered him as I told him all he’d done. And there was some fool of a man trying to talk me down, making excuses, and I would not back down.
I took her place. It’s about fucking time.