"ssri" poems
tachyphylaxis - tach·y·phy·lax·is (tāk'ə-fĭ-lāk'sĭs) n.
1. A rapidly decreasing response to pleasure following initial administration.
I didn’t know this
demon had a name.
Ugly as it is it fits,
a random mish-mash
of unpleasant sounds
and equal unpleasantness
felt.
I’ve known the *******
forever, manifest in vitamin cures
and psychological processes,
SSRI’s and stabilizers.
He attends to the end of
affectionate loving and all
the designer vacations
you've ever taken.
He is the golden handcuffs of
square foot home ownership
and his business cards are
set in silver.
To put it bluntly
his continuous presence
is intent on destruction
of any contentment.
He is all things along the way
that appear so promising at first
but never last.
Synonymous with tolerance,
antonymous with precedence,
the antagonistic leaven of all living.
May 29, 2016
May 29, 2016 at 3:29 AM UTC
my therapist told me to write more. problem is, i can't write in my journal at this very moment because that may tip him off that i'm up to no good. ever since he's been living here with me, i haven't had the alone time i need in order to purge my feelings. so i keep them inside glass jars in my head, but my inventory is overflowing.
he once told me that he thought i was "one of those people who will never be happy". i wanted to be offended, but instead i shut down. that was months ago, and i still haven't fully woken up yet.
i've come to realize that i can't recall the times when i'm feeling better than "not okay." my therapist tells me that's one of my biggest obstacles. she tells me i need to learn how to recognize positive emotions, as if i didn't already ******* know that. sometimes i feel like therapy is simply flushing money down the toilet.
i haven't had any episodes recently. the ssri's keep my emotions from occurring at all. i've learned to accept that my baseline attitude is "blah". though i can't say that whenever they ask how i'm doing. no sir. maybe if i can convince them that i'm doing better, i can convince myself??
there aren't any decent movies that address mental illness. hollywood is just now starting to address the topics of race, sexuality, and feminism. but you'd think with 16 million depressed people in america, those elitist ******** could come up with some way i can show my family what it's like to live without life. maybe then they'll be able to understand why they shouldn't keep asking if i'm okay.
i told him that i just wanted some alone time today and he said, "have you taken your pills?"
i keep having these dreams where i'm trying to say something, but it won't come out. i've literally woken my dog up several times during the night, because i've actually yelled out loud due to the struggle in my dreams.
i went hiking last week in the hopes that nature would bring me clarity. it didn't. in fact, i feel crazier than ever. i kept seeing myself lying in the clear freshwater as the current took me away. i'm not saying that to be poetic. i actually had hallucinations.
i think i may have a drinking problem
Mar 23, 2018
Mar 23, 2018 at 11:51 PM UTC
To answer your question from earlier with a newfound clarity, we're over. I've been ready to let go, but unable to budge an answer from the woman of such few words. Well, tonight she dropped me, and it's official. She punched my sheet and gave it back for the last time, passing me back into the world without a hurtful word like I'd been her best employee.
What's it going to be like now, as the human slingshot? All the emotions long left to the side return to the hole the skeleton of our dull relationship dug from the dense pulp of my longing body. I'll be a bullet, the smallest pebble, toward a target picked at random.
That's what's called a faulty firing pattern. For all I've tried, the SSRI won't fix my inability to grasp the practice of foresight, so for once I'll have to really think about putting my foot in the door. A road like that leads to nothing but the worst I have to offer, and the worst the world finds it can give in return.
I want to love, but I don't want to date. What is dating? I feel too old, and if you tell me I'm not old by any standard, then I feel like I missed something. I want to love, but I want to do. As I do, I want to meet. And if I never, then that's fine. But I'd rather meet and make the silent hard sell in a moment of the truest definition of fiery, urgent complacency, than pick through peers and lovers like I'm at a thrift store bin.
What I want, is to do what I want, and do what I know I shouldn't do, while sometimes pretending it's this great disaster that I report in writing, type into boxes on screens that lead directly to the people most likely to benefit from hearing about repeated and semi-purposeful crash and burns.
My perpetual hope is that I'll catch lust's throbbing hand so well wrapped around my throat that I'll simply die. That I'll choke and choke until you, whoever you are, break the bones away and choke my lungs with blood. I hope for the spastic gasps that you'll confuse for last breaths, when I'm actually having an ******
Jun 30, 2017
Jun 30, 2017 at 4:22 AM UTC
Sometimes everything is broken
Sometimes everything is fine
Once in a while my pain is your fault
Mostly it is mine
Did Jesus ever get depressed
Do you think maybe he got down?
The only man who could walk on the water
Maybe instead wanted to drown?
I can relate to mixed emotions
I know what it's like to swing between extremes
Sometimes I feel like I could move mountains; oceans
Sometimes I just want to cease to be
The wild ride through downs and ups
There is medication that takes all of that away
Caring to much and not giving a ****
Knowing tomorrow wont ever feel just like today
If we are made in the image of God
Coming into this world chosen and anointed
Why is there times I feel like a fraud?
Why so often do we leave disappointed?
Does God take his Lithium
His SSRI's and his benzo's too?
If we are made in his perfect image
Then why can perfect feel so blue?
why is it that we all have something wrong?
Some deficiency or disorder
And why should we take our medication
When God is so bipolar?
Sep 16, 2013
Sep 16, 2013 at 4:44 PM UTC
Now I’ve tamed the
Paroxysms
The tidal waves no longer
Roar
The midnight screams are
Cut to whispers
The midday blaze
Reduced to coal
Now the days have fewer
Minutes
The past shall pierce the skin
No more
A sudden bang
A silent seizure
A crippling song
To end them all
Now I’ve tamed the
Colder seasons
The hail, the ice all thawed
And gone
The brilliant lines
The highest treason
I sold my vision
Just to live on
Jan 2, 2017
Jan 2, 2017 at 8:00 PM UTC
I can't be what I want to be
Cause to fail is easier
Then to fail to succeed
My generation is a new breed
Ready for a revaluation
But tripping over our own two feet
PTSD, ADD, ADHD
VHS , DVD, MP3
I'm sick of these mental anomalies
Drug dealers with doctorates
Pushing band aids
For a brain aneurism
That may not even occurred yet
But your diagnosis
Is their proctosis
To line their pockets
With decaying presidents
So they don't feel a need
To take that SSRI
that to you they so desperately feed
Welcome to America
Home of the crave
And land of the greed
Hope you have enough stolen
Souls in your pocket
So that you may succeed
Jul 10, 2016
Jul 10, 2016 at 2:27 PM UTC
Taking medication may be fastening together the seams that could split. Between SSRI, HRT, and caffeine the moments speed, fleeting before I secure my grip. What's the point of living as a zombie losing opportunity through barely there fingers? I can be **** for you, I'm fond of pleading on my knees, tongue over my teeth, waiting patiently for my mouthful -- but what's point? What would it solve to introduce a controlled study meltdown? Well, I see the seasons coming at first light. Spring and Fall pull balance apart. So pull apart, because these meds don't help when my mind conspires without me, but with the world. Leave me alone. I'm caught gazing at the canvas in the white on walls. If it appears I'm choking, I am. I choke myself to gasping near to death as a means to depart from my leaden regret. Do I grow wings? No. Do I ascend? No. Do I myself then deify? No. It takes endlessly repeated little deaths to prevent permanent disintegration in passion's cruel flame.
Mar 24, 2017
Mar 24, 2017 at 6:59 AM UTC
Life was only worth living
With SSRIs in the system
It was only a matter of time
Before I regressed without them
Back to the bottom
Another AllTimeLow
The headaches
The despair
The empty
If I can’t live without you
Do I even deserve to live with you
Jun 20, 2021
Jun 20, 2021 at 11:52 PM UTC
While I stand in line to pick up my prozac,
the pharmacy’s preset radio
plays a cover version of a song
that I liked in high school.
There was a time, amazingly,
when I was naïve to the comfort of prescriptions.
Floating through friends’ houses that were
too expensive to feel comfortable in,
gravel-speckled snow in mounds
mile-marking parking lots
while waiting for the 7:00 showing.
Teenage intimacy and
red bulls at a sweet sixteen,
trying to figure out the coolest way
to ask for a sip of the schnapps
that I know is hidden in that soda can,
parties I’m not sure I was invited to
and a 10:00 PM curfew.
Water pong with balled up aluminum foil
in a half-finished shed behind
his friend’s house in the dead of winter.
I wanted to feel like them,
incite my growth,
I know he was just trying to keep me clean.
He tried, but I got what I wanted.
Mar 9, 2022
Mar 9, 2022 at 1:33 PM UTC
I've always believed that
something exists beyond the veil.
But the modern age has done its best
to keep us from seeing it.
The world spins and tells us what we want
but the world lies.
The world can never provide
enough
to satiate the soul.
A six-figure income
lies
Your new toothpaste
lies
“I cant wait until Christmas”
lies
That SSRI drug trial
lies
“If only she would love me”
lies
An early retirement
lies
A trending poem
lies
“I can quit whenever I want”
lies
Additional home square footage
lies
That new car smell
lies
Hair plugs
lie
“I’m fine to drive home”
lies
***********
lies
Any kind of cosmetic implant
lies
Anything you wish you could get your ***** little hands on
lies
There is no end to the lies
and lists of
things that will not satisfy
for long
Only the now
is true and
fulfillment will not come
later
It is right now
in this moment
You are alive and
you don’t need to be
You are your own gift
Embrace the now
Breathe
and
Observe
Sep 29, 2023
Sep 29, 2023 at 11:49 PM UTC
The feeling is viscous. Impermeable.
I’m restless, doomed. I can’t explain
why I love art
but wear a lab coat, just
so I’m forced to remember
what life is worth.
I can’t find that in words.
A white noise, a terrible ringing. I
used to feel nothing. Not anything.
Now I hear my fear and anger competing.
I’m listless. Delusional.
My mind is irrational.
My heart says “don’t listen”
but I can’t always hear it.
I wouldn’t
hurt myself anymore, but sometimes
I can’t sleep on my side.
I’m balding from tearing
my hair out. Sometimes
I dream I’m pulling at wires
and on waking my palms are bleeding, sometimes
I wake up and I’m crying,
fingernails buried alive, and I’m prying them
out from under my skin.
But, these are just days the SSRI’s
aren’t working,
the days when I'm ill
and my whole body's hurting.
My dad is so sad - he says
“when will you stop them”
I say “hopefully never.”
He’s downtrodden. I’m sodden in rain.
I want to lie in bed today.
Is that okay? What if I
never get up? What if I forget
how to feel, and lie here
for weeks and weeks upon end?
I’m so afraid of
losing my mind again.
Dec 13, 2015
Dec 13, 2015 at 12:11 PM UTC
Thing about bipolar disorder. There is no cure and it's a mental illness.
The thing about bipolar disorder, I can be depressed for no reason or I can be restless for no reason.
The thing about bipolar disorder, there are times I see shadows moving not attached to anything.
The thing about bipolar disorder it can only be treated with antidepressants or an SSRI.
Dec 1, 2023
Dec 1, 2023 at 4:54 PM UTC
If all the world’s a stage
then anxiety is a crisis actor
The trickster archetype
typecasting all my critical thoughts as truths
Into a monster of the weak
rogue gallery
of self-destructive episodes
Maybe it’s the lack of SSRI’s
but SI be like:
*Since they slashed and burned
half the forest preserve
maybe you should slit your wrists
and self-immolate in the center of it;*
*Maybe you should spill
your guts like seppuku
at the center of Daley Plaza
underneath The Picasso*
outside that Shepard Fairey exhibit
(Provocateurs; Block 37)
Call it an art instillation
If all else fails, I’ll just throw myself in front of a Tesla on the North Shore
May 1, 2020
May 1, 2020 at 1:40 PM UTC
It was a dreary day,
not different than normal.
The sky was gray,
the air was damp.
My heart raced as I drove over the mountain.
I told myself over and over,
I am here to get better.
I will try to get better.
The doctor came in,
I started to cry.
I can’t let this out,
I will keep it inside.
As the time past,
that soon was a lie.
She asked me, “honey, do you have hope?”
I said “well, ma'am, I truly try.
I can see a better future,
But sometimes want to die.”
“Let’s try to fight these feelings,” she said.
“Would you try an SSRI?
We can face this as a team, you and I.”
I dropped my head,
I wiped my eyes,
I said “let’s give it a chance,
it cant hurt to try.”
Here I am.
6 months gone by.
I still feel alone,
but I don’t want to die.
I’m starting to see the beauty in things.
I’m starting to feel again.
Is this a chemical warfare,
that keeps me from feeling low?
Or is this a head trick,
a sugar pill,
a modern placebo?
Whatever it is, I am happy.
For a minute,
for a second,
for a moment,
I am happy.
I have hope.
May 24, 2019
May 24, 2019 at 10:59 AM UTC