New Meds, Who Dis?

I can't pinpoint the moment of awareness that I don't feel anything. I guess it is more like a momentary lapse of emotion that draws my attention to the fact that feeling anything is unusual. Did I just laugh? How? (not why) Am I frustrated, upset, angry? Where does all that energy come from? And, more importantly, where has it gone now? 

People who arent privy to mental illness, in themselves or others, might not understand what this derth is like. I think the closest description is the vast emptiness of space, squeezed into your torso. Bleakness, an endless void deadening the chaos of living.

And in this state, it is easy to skate by. It really is. People don't notice nearly as often that I have shut down--the blankness of my facial features, the curtness of my replies, the lack of social graces, the petering out of small talk. There is no excitement, but also there are no outbursts--no random explosions of rage, no endless jags of crying, no unexplanable hysteria. People like neatness, blandness.

And the hiding makes it easy on my behalf as well. Without scrutiny, it is possible to slip into the shadows, alone, unnoticed but, perhaps, unbothered. There is some perceived safety in isolation. But is this me, though? Am I this reduction of soul? And, even in the depths of that deep well of aloneness, I realize I can not stay there, I must push myself to emerge, to reach out, to be with others. And so, I peel off the mask and acknowledge the smothering darkness.

Light comes from a small square pill with complex chemical interactions and impossible shifts that put me on rollercoasters of emotion--one moment laughing, the next sobbing. Now angry, later manic. Is this who I am? or is this a construct of medication? How does this help me move closer to my true self or is such a thing possible?  Exhausted but feeling the chaotic energy of the living, I join in rather than watch from the sidelines.