I have hours only lonely

I feel like a heroin addict in need of a fix.  My hands are shaky.  Sweat sticks to my skin.  I feel nauseous.  I take a steaming shower to try and burn away some of the withdrawal symptoms.  I finally, painfully, give in to the need.  The little pink pill that beckons my name.  The little pill that won't let me go.  Again and again it pulls me back into it's web, like a fly who has struggled against it's stickiness for hours and finally feels his wings pull free, he's snatched back by a brisk wind only to be stuck worse than he was before.  My words are like venom.  Quick and painful.  Against my will their fangs land on the nearest victim.  This sickness in me, this cancer that no chemo can cure.  No drug strong enough to rid it of my body. 

 

My pill is not that of an illegal substance.  It's prescribed to me, as it has been for years.  Paxil holds me hostage.  I'm as close to normal as I will ever be when I'm on it.  Once again, I have tried and failed to switch to another anti-depressant.  Once again I have been a disappointment.  It's a good thing I never did any hard drugs, there's no way I could've ever pulled free from them.  I can't handle the shaking, sweating and mood swings.  I don't like my quick temper when I'm not on it, my willingness to hurt those I love without a backward glance.  All I ask is to be like you.  Normal without the need of a pill to make me that way.  Do I even know what normal is?  Is this how normal people feel?  Normal "happy" people.  Do happy people sabotage themselves over and over again?  Do they despise themselves sometimes?  Are they lonely when surrounded by a crowd?  I have no idea what normal is.  I have no idea what it feels like to be happy without pills.  To hell with people like Tom Cruise who think a cure for depression is as easy as a jog and a few sit ups.  Those people know nothing of the emptiness of real depression.  It's lonely, endless and hopeless.