The 'P' Word

No, not home sweet home

Whoa there! Come back! What the fuck did I say? Oh, was it my honest, yet cheery, response to your tentative question about my mental health? No? Oh, in that case it must have been the mention of the anti-psychotics I'm taking. Go on. It was, wasn't it? 
See, that's the problem with taking anti-psychotics in an effort to trip up my onwardly-stomping depression. The 'P' word terrifies people. So many people I know break into a sweat when I mention anti-depressants that by the time I mention anti-psychotics they're actually sweating spinal fluid. I find myself having to reassure them that I'm not carrying a knife, as if I were on day-release from Broadmoor's solitary confinement wing.
The reality is that low doses of anti-psychotics stabilise mood swings, a hideous, broiling symptom of depression. That's why I take them and that's why you'd have to prise them from my cold dead hands. Until I swallowed my first dose my mood swings were almost a form of entertainment. A ten minute timeframe would take me from skippingly joyous through to desperately suicidal all because I didn't like the way the mugs were stacked in the dishwasher. Counsellors tried to teach me how to halt the black moods as they came on. The problem was that they came on so rapidly that I didn't know they were happening until I was face down in the sneaky bastards. 
Then I started my love affair with anti-psychs and the wild mood-swinging abated to become an occasional mild sway. Course, I'm still prone to yelling at radiators and carpets if the mood takes me but at least I can now see said mood coming at me from a mile away. The anti-psychs buy me valuable, life-saving time to change the direction of my day.
Course, by writing this explanation, what I'm really trying to do is comfort those who think that anti-psychs are only for the deranged and sneakily armed. They're not. And I'm not. There's no scale of bug-eyedness that determines whether you take them and you don't have to prove a life-long dedication to ripping the legs off puppies either.
So do not fear the 'P' word. Just take a sigh of relief when you hear me babble about them. It at least means I'm one fuck of a more stable soul. It's when I come off them that you'll really want to worry. Boo!