All the cold medicine in the world couldn’t put me to sleep right now.

My body is tired. Maybe even sick. Nyquil couldn’t put me to sleep. So here I am. Nyquil is for cold, flu, fever. Sore throat too. It’s not for my anxiety and its not for my depression. It’s not for my unexplained sadness. A sadness I can’t justify. It simply just is. It’s the only thing lately that knows how to be present. I myself am another story.

It’s been a few months since I’ve been off my anti-depressants. I don’t want them. Did they help? Yes. I don’t want to need them. It’s the only medication they seem to let you be dependent on. I was fine for a few weeks. Not too many side effects. Now I’m here at a place I recognize all to well. Maybe I never really left it. Maybe I’m just a little loopy right now. But I can recognize really high-highs and really low-lows. I can tell you that’s the place you don’t want to be. That’s the place I recognize.

It doesn’t matter. All that matters is if I rest. All that matters is me being healthy enough for all the obligations I owe to life and it’s people. Nyquil temporarily eases your body’s physical pains, allowing for a more peaceful healing process. Maybe that’s what my other meds were. But I quietly wonder if the mind ever does heal itself? With all the things in the world to help you stabilize and monitor it. But nothing to ever fix it. To make it normal. To make it fit in with everything else.