Not feeling nearly as lousy as yesterday.  Wish the doctor would have thought to mention that the first two days going off the welbutrin are HELL.  He said the next two should be all right, and then back to normal (well, the new normal) by shabbat.  Yesterday was just terrible.  I was shaking and sobbing and could not get any sort of control of myself.

Do you know what it is to totally lose control?  I'll bet a lot of people have lost control in anger- in fact, I believe that is what the definition of Rage is, when you are so angry that you lose all control of how you think and behave that physically can not control yourself.  But anger is something you have to let happen.  It starts slowly and gradually rises until it hits the point where it overflows the damn and come pouring out as uncontrollably rage.  Once the two sides of the dame are equal it can become as still as silent lake that reflects like glass.  Once the moment passes and the rage is contained the episode is over.

Sadness and grief is different.  There is no slow rising.  There is no huge rush and than relief as the twi sides of the damn balance out.  It is instantaneous and it has to much pressure behind it that it cuts right through the damn in a stream so high pressured that the one single stream is completely uncontrollable, but you try to repair it anyway.  But soon there is another little hole.  Than another whole pokes through.  and another.  And another.  and eventually you can't keep up with patching them all.  Although the water is not rushing over the damn as quickly as the rage, the grief is still coming through and there is just as little you can do about it.  And because the holes are lower down it never stops.  Water keeps going back and forth from one side of the damn to the other even long after the two sides are level.

Yesterday was the rage.  It all came flowing out at once and was completely unstoppable.  The only thing that could be done was to wait for the water to become level and for my internal and external pressure to equalize.  Nothing can hurry it along.  There is nothing I can do, nothing I enjoy doing, that will help me out of this state.  All I can do is to wait for that blessed moment when the rage disappears in exchange for the drugged sleep of forgetfulness where I can, for a few hours, leave the damn entirely and take refuge in a bright sunny field playing with both of my girls.  Or take them for ice cream, or on a merry go round ride.  Or even just sit and snuggle on the couch and read a story.

Today, and most days,  is more like the holes in the damn.  The grief and sadness come through and there is nothing I can do about them because they come through in too many places at once, but they come through slower so I have a little bit more time to anticipate and react to what is going on. and when I have that time I can try excersizes or medication to relax before they hit the point where the water comes rushing over the wall.  On these days I can pass the time working or drawing.  I often sit and pick out old melodies on the piano.  Maybe watch a tv show.  On these days I generally try to avoid the drugged sleep and just go to bed sadly when I get tired.  These are the days where the nights are horrible.  Where I have one nightmare after another until I finally wake up and pick up a book or a game and play until morning.

And that is how I am getting through life right now.  Rage or grief during the day.  Drugged sleep or nightmares at night.  It is no way to live.

But back to what I started with.  Do you know what it is to lose total control?  To know you are sobbing but to be unable to stop.  To be shaking and convulsing in agony and to be clenching your muscles so tightly that  it physically hurting you but yet be unable to relax them?  To be scratching your skin and leaving welts so that you can try to get the physical pain to over ride the emotional agony that you are feeling?  To have no recollection of how you got to where you are or who in the world is with you or how they got there.  It is a terrifying feeling to not have any notion of what you are doing are why you are doing it.  To wake up the next morning with welts on your arm and to not remember exactly how  they got there?  To have your  husband tell him you were hitting him away when he tried to stop you from doing it and that you would not let him anywhere near you?

Do you know what it is to hear a noise like an animal and realize it is you moaning in pain?  To hear yourself chanting one name over an dover and over again?  To not be able to get terrible thoughts of how you might have killed someone you love or what you could, in theory, do to yourself out of your mind?

I used to watch crime shows and think that all those people who claimed to  not know  what they were doing and then got off my reason of mental defect were fooling the system.  Now I know better.  There really can come a point where there is a total loss of control that can not be overcome by will power alone.  There really can be a point where it is almost like you are watching your life as an outsider and can't do anything about it.