Dear Cit

By Gemma Chatzipanagiotis

Image credit, Zoltan Tasi, via Unsplash

Dear Cit,

We have been close friends for 18 months now, you and I. A relentless labourer, picking up my pieces and sticking them back together again. We did not hit it off immediately: we both know that. Not love at first sight, but more thrust together by necessity.

At first you made me shudder, you made my jaw dance; my eyes stare open into the night, and massaged electricity into the back of my head. You made me so hot and shaky that I sublet the shower for several weeks. You picked up the little appetite I had and calmly packed it away.  

Weeks passed and we grew to work well together, Cit. Dragging my serotonin levels up off their knees, I began to have brighter days. The terror that I felt on a daily basis began to ebb, the silhouettes of my loved ones waiting on the shore, easier to see. We spent time together on these bright days. Skyping my children and feeling worthy to speak with them, hours of crosswords, and a million cups of tea.  My mind began to feel calmer with your residency. My Google searches of terminal illness symptoms soon ceased.

Some days my “Other” would prove stronger than you and I. Dark days of indescribable terror. My Other has a long-standing relationship with me you see. An anxious whisper in childhood, he had long since graduated to a confident tenor. Motherhood provided him the perfect platform. He prospered here. He insisted something would go wrong. He led me by the hand each morning to the nursery assuring me I deserved all that I got. He sat with me in the bathroom and did his best “TOLD YOU SO” face, every time I lost a pregnancy. He draped himself across my back, my black knapsack, assuring me that yes; your daughter’s diagnosis is your fault.

He was with me when I had my first panic attack on the subway. He invited friends too. A frenzy of little worries. Each day when I dropped my son off at nursery, he encouraged me to have a glance back and whisper, “if this is the last time you see him alive, does he seem happy?” The multitude of little worries scurrying behind him.

On the day my Other won I was amazed to learn that it has distinct hallmarks, making him easy to identify. The GP confirmed. Yes, he places a golf ball in your throat so you cannot eat. Yes, he is a sleep thief. Yes, he barricades the door and keeps you inside. Yes, he is a medical mastermind who can help you diagnose yourself. The answer?  

You.

A prescription of Citalopram 20mg.  

This is how we came to be. That first night I crawled into bed and waited for you to work your magic. The side effects you gave me were almost as bad as the Other. I relocated to my mother’s, and my jaw became your typewriter. I spent that first night staring at the picture of my long dead Grandpa on the dresser. Pleading with him repeatedly to take this feeling away, the dark silence punctuated every so often with your typing.  

A few weeks later and we had settled into our companionable existence. Us against the world. Us against the Other.

Thank you, Cit.  

For the last week, I have begun to visit you less. We are on day six and already my body misses you. I am naked around the house most days to compensate for the sauna inside me.  My mind won’t rest as easy at night without your ritual lullaby and I have to concentrate hard to stay focused. The typewriter jaw has returned, and that is why I have chosen to write this. My jaw and keyboard chattering in unison.  

This is our crescendo.

I truly hope that you and the Other are now historical in my story.  

Let me go. Leave me be. Let me live.