It’s usually about three or four in the morning that I start awake from sleep with a realization that I’m under attack. Millions of tiny worries are crawling over my skin, gnawing, biting, ripping flesh off my body. Most of them are totally irrational, but the shear number is too overwhelming to launch a counter-attack with cognitive analysis against one at a time.
They know my Achilles heel… they know my most fundamental fears, my deepest wishes in all the world, and they ruthlessly attack. Staggering under the attack, I get up and fish my bottle of medicine out. Just knowing that I hold my own WMD right there in my hand gives me some hope. I coax a little white pill out, visually assess how my supply is holding up, and place the pill on my tongue. I let it sit there for a moment while I carefully replace the lid so that they are safe. The pill tastes bitter as it begins to dissolve. I take a swig of water, and wait.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, I am relieved to notice the chemicals wrapping around my brain. The worries float benignly away into the fog of the periphery of thought.
If I can’t feel peace, at least I can feel numb.