Lithium

10 days ago i proposed
a 2 month hiatus.
silence for 9 weeks.
minus 1 day.
a lot of numbers
but no words.

10 days ago i proposed 2 goals. goals that would make things easier and better for us each even if we didn't reunite at the end.

his was to work on his dissertation without the distraction of a demanding, mewling, crying slave kitten crawling around his feet and scratching at his pants leg for attention.

mine was to get my mood swings under control. which meant only 1 thing.

Lithium.

the drug has been haunting my horizon for years.

among all the other diagnoses i've had to accept over the years, this has been the hardest, even if not at all arguable. bipolar with depression. not really severely bipolar, but bipolar nevertheless. it makes sense for someone who hates to be put in a box, even as i've longed for my master to keep me in a cage. there have always been 2 sides to me, and i've always resisted being defined by one side or another.

as has been pointed out to me, the real value to the diagnosis is how i am treated to control the mood swings. i'm not the crazy kind of manic depressive, veering from grandiose schemes and wild behaviours to deep, dark, bottomless depressions.

but my father-in-law was.

and he committed suicide.

it was quite a while ago. i can't remember exactly when, i think the first attempt was in the mid-80s. that one failed. but it was horrible. i won't tell you what. but it failed. a number of years later, he didn't take any chances. he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.

and then-hubby #2 and i couldn't blame him. he was debilitated from the first attempt, and in such psychological pain that he couldn't go on. they had tried everything. and nothing worked. none of the medications worked. there was only one route to stopping the pain. and he took it.

they didn't have the fancy newer drugs now. i've tried some of them but had allergic reactions. others were ruled out for other reasons. the only thing left for my really pretty mild case is lithium.

and i've been refusing it for years.

because to me it's all tied up with my late father-in-law, whom i loved. an unusual man, a sensitive and wise and creative man. a rare person whom i hardly every saw because ex-hubby not only saw his parents even less often than i saw mine, but rarely spoke to them, either. he was special, my father-in-law. you couldn't help but feel it in his presence. just as you couldn't help but feel his fragility.

and he jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge.

maybe i'm afraid that by taking lithium i'm saying yes. i am truly horribly mentally ill. i have this horrible disease that drove him to kill himself.

i don't know.
i really don't know why i've resisted so hard.
all i know is that any mention of my taking it would make me cry.

like now.
like this morning at my doctor's office.

she's a very wise women, my psychopharmacologist. i admire and respect her greatly, and this is the only thing i've every totally resisted her on. until today. when the philosopher accepted my proposal of the 9 week silence, i said i would tell my doctor that i would go on lithium. she's known all along that all she had to do was wait.

and today i walked into her office and sat down and told her i was ready.
and started to cry.

she assured me all i need is a very small dose.
just to stop the bouncing up and down.
way under the normal therapeutic dose.
as if i have just a touch of bipolarity
along with my bisexuality.

i had made up my mind.
i had promised to rein in my mood swings.
so i sat there and cried and said ok.

and tonight i take the first dose.

i'm taking so little. and it's really so safe. and even so cheap. there's nothing to be afraid of except memories and connotations, nameless terrors and waterlogged ghosts.

i've resisted for years.
i've feared it for years.
but i'm doing it now.
for you, master, for
you and for us, if
there is such an us.

i'm crying and grieving for a man long dead and normality long fled and i know it will help and at least i'm facing the state of my disordered brain and taking the help of some sort of psychiatric personal organizer to get the clutter under control. looking at it that way, i suppose there's no harm in using some mild soap to clean up a little of the accumulated sludge.

i suggested the comparison of the lithium to mild sandpaper, smoothing away the rough surface. she said it wasn't even as extreme as that, especially at the dose i'll be taking. she compared it to a chamois cloth instead. now that doesn't sound so bad.

so i'll take the first dose tonight, and try not to cry too hard, and have faith that it will work.

and i'll lie there in bed, and try to conjure up the comforting stroke of his hand on my hair, and i'll try to recall the safety of his arms, and i'll listen very hard for his lilting whisper in my ear...

don't cry, kitten...
don't cry...
there's nothing to be afraid of.
everything will be all right.