Taking the Pill

Image credit: Ashling Larkin

In 2007 I gave birth to my daughter. After four months of continual depression I saw a psychiatrist who diagnosed me with “just having the baby blues”. “The Baby Blues” is thought to stop about ten days after you’ve had your baby. A year later, still depressed, I asked my GP to put me on an antidepressant. I took fluoxetine, a generic form of Prozac. As is so common, I had a number of side effects, which I documented in a verse diary inspired by the Japanese form of renga.

Taking the pill

 

Day one

 

The slow sorrow

melts through like butter.

 

Feeling all pain

on every face

as my own.

 

Day two

 

A stuttering mind

limps after a waking night.

 

Gambolling shadows

play statues

in focus.

 

Day three

 

After the emotion of the moment dies

the underlying tone remains:

 

flat.

 

Resting

by my daughters breathing,

I wonder.

What gifts I have planted

in her cells,

what bombs.

Mairi Campbell-Jack is a poet and writer living in Edinburgh.  Her poetry and fiction have appeared in The Scotsman, The List and Octavius.  Her double pamphlet of poetry This Is A Poem, dealing with post-natal depression and separation was published by Burning Eye Press.  She has an MA in Creative Writing from Edinburgh Napier.  She works in Scottish politics for a UK charity, is a single Mum, and autoimmune.  She is currently working on a poetry graphic novel (artists with capacity, talent and commitment welcome to get in contact), and a creative non-fiction book.  In her spare time, she enjoys embroidery, photography and TV.

Ashling is a Scotland-based comic artist, illustrator & animator. She graduated in 2016 from DJCAD with a 2:1 Bdes(Hons) in animation and has since been doing freelance work at the Dundee Comics Creative Space at Inkpot studio while also working on her current ongoing project, a fantasy-adventure webcomic called “The Enchanted Book”.