The medication

I dreamt last night that there was a pill for my illness. That there was an anti-depressant to take away my disorder. Just like there is chemo for cancer and physio for paralysis. I took the tablet just one pill and in an hour I lost feeling in my fingers and feet. My vision went blurry and I felt like I was floating everywhere I went. I felt more nauseous than I had ever felt before but I continued taking the white pellet of poison because for five hours after I swallowed it I was not longer the girl with borderline personality disorder, anxiety and depression I was simply me. The me I have been trying to get back to for years. Confident. Smiley. Happy and careless. But the victory sweet as it was, became a bitter defeat because I became reliant on something that have me ecstasy for such a limited time that it might as well have been a nicotine patch. I was a junkie hooked on the feeling of being normal rather than high. Feeling down to earth rather than away in the clouds. I had terrible withdrawal symptoms. My teeth went yellow and the muscle tremors were constant.

i awoke with a sweaty upper lip and a tear forming in the corner of my left eye. The darkness brought bewilderment as for a second I was caught between imagination and reality, checking my phone to verify that I had not been killed by this cure.

i lay awake for hours. Not because I was haunted by the images of my faded skin staring at me in the mirror swallowing a pill designed for destruction but because I was thankful. 

For years I have hated myself for developing a disorder where there is no cure. But I realise now that there must be a silver lining. I must accept that the disorder does not define me, it is just a part of me that I have to live with. I will never rely on medication to make me normal because I am already normal. Normal is difficult to define and for as long as I live I will tell myself that I am normal. Simply because by trying hopelessly to cure myself I am endangering myself, opening up my life to dependency and a desperate failure I'm coping with an illness I was meant to have. I know that I was given this life because I am strong enough to live it.