If I die, this is why.

Sometimes, when I think of death, it's as a thick soft comforter, the kind my grandmother used to make. There's an equally soft pillow there and the bed is made up with crisp, clean sheets, cool at first, but warming up as I pull the comforter up around my shoulders and turn a little a few times, so that the bedding is tucked up around my body in a cocoon. The pillow case has been washed so many times there's no stiffness left in it, and it's soft and comforting to my cheek as I tuck my hands up underneath the pillow, palms together like a child praying.

There are days when everything is like it used to be, before I got pregnant, before the depression struck me. I feel happy, able to think clearly, energetic and capable.

Then, there are days when I'm just so tired and all I want to do is lay my head down on that pillow and never have to wake up again. It's not a physical tiredness. I don't know how to describe it, really, but lately it's like all my senses are wrapped around cotton batting and it's uncomfortable to do anything. My eyes hurt, but in a numbed sort of way, that's worse than a sharper pain. My head hurts, vaguely. Even my emotions have gotten into the game. Everything feels far off and it's hard to focus. When I sleep it's hard, not as in a deep sleep, but a tense sleep, that leaves me with a headache when I wake up and my muscles stiff and hurting. Only it's hard to feel them hurting because it's so hard to feel anything at all.

Other days are just overwhelming. There's so much to try to handle and I can't get anything right. Everyone is upset with me and I'm dropping balls all over the place. I spend my waking hours hiding from everyone, paralyzed with fear of screwing up again. There's so much activity in my brain, so much anger with myself, with everyone else for expecting so much of me and abandoning me to cope alone. It's like little energy storms floating around my head. Sometimes one will center in on me, bringing all the others with it, and for a few minutes it's all completely unbearable and hopeless and I can't see any way out, except through death. It's the only escape I can see and I'm so desperate at those moments that it takes all my willpower to keep from taking that final step.

I have more good days than I did before I started the medication, but the bad days are so much worse and they outnumber the good days. I didn't have any good days before. It feels like the good days are decreasing, though, from where they were a month ago.

At the least, the medicine isn't working. At the worst, it might be making me feel worse. I have to go back to the doctor and I'm scared, because if I start another medication I have to wean off this one first, which will mean I'll have about four weeks that have the potential to be really bad.

I'm so tired of this. Sometimes I feel so desperate to feel good again that I'd do anything, take anything that would give me some energy and hope. I can see how this kind of thing can lead a person to become a drug addict or alcoholic.

I keep holding out for my girls' sake, but I'm not so sure about that anymore. More and more it seems like they'd be better off with the trauma of me leaving them than with me staying with them, like this. Remember, I know how bad it is to grow up with a crazy parent.

And I'm so tired and that pillow is so soft.