The gods of Chemical Balance

“You look beautiful in the sun!” She exclaimed smiling as she walked up the aisle towards me. I smiled back betraying my true feelings at that moment. Even as I said thank you I was thinking: I wish I felt beautiful; I wish I could tell my brain to stop sending me mean messages; I wish I didn’t suffer from this chemical imbalance and I could appreciate what you are saying to me. For the past four days I’ve been in the bowels of my mind. Here everything I know to be true and rational does not hold water. The mere thought of feeding or clothing myself throws me into insurmountable panic that the only thing that soothes this is going back to sleep. On days like these I pace my kitchen for forty minutes only to decide on a banana and tea neither of which I consume completely. Heaven forbid I have an appointment to get to. All order goes out the window as I throw clothes out of my closet onto my king-size bed. Because there is so much room to go I don’t stop until I break down crying knowing my OCD side will have an angry time putting it all back. I watch myself put on the last item of clothing that tops the pile. I stare in the mirror and try to tell myself she is pretty. It doesn’t work. She screws up her face at me. I imagine her saying, “Yeah right fool! It’s not that easy!” I shrug and leave her alone. When she gets this far gone redemption comes from unseen gods who hold the strings to chemical balance. Nothing I do or say matters much. I cease to have any control over her. I can’t look beautiful in the sun!