• Sixty-One

    24

    I lay awake, following the whirlpool of thoughts deeper into my self-consciousness. At first, it was trepidation about the anxiousness exploding into a panic attack. I existed on this brink that represented this horrible danger. Beyond it, I didn’t know what else there was. Madness, maybe. Or that’s what I thought when I was younger and naïve. Then it was worrying about possible health issues. Like that small lump that appeared on my hip following a game of tennis when I was just sixteen. Cancer, maybe? That was a weekend of worry, until my GP told me it was some fatty deposit. There were other things that cropped up. Like,…

  • Sixty-One

    15

    I lay in bed, growing so stifled a fine sweat forms across my brow. I shouldn’t be sweating – it’s not hot – and when I push the covers down to my waist, I immediately feel the cold. Now I’m in two different climates: from the waist-down, I’m too hot, and from the waist-up I’m freezing. Here’s a side-effect of the Aropax – hot flushes. I’m only thirty or so, and struggling to reconcile what Aropax does to me. There are so many problems, but before I started them I had crippling OCD, and had been agoraphobic and living effectively as a shut-in for five years. This is the trade-off.…