Antidepressants get a bad rap – but they saved my life | Anonymous
I think of it as the warm chord. I was sitting in the front room, alone. My parents had gone to bed, but I wanted to listen to a CD I'd bought. I turned the light out, to immerse myself. That in itself was strange. When you're anxious, immersing yourself in a feeling seems like a bad idea - your skin is so thin anything might penetrate it and overwhelm you, a song or a smell or a mood. But I took the risk, and instead of fear - the heartbeat stoking, paralysing fear I'd experienced for much of the past year - there was something else. Fear had left a space, one I was invited to explore. It said: you can come out now.
But alongside that, there was a positive presence, a low thrum of safety. A warm chord. Nothing to do with the music; it was more elemental than that. I sat and the world turned, but without the familiar promise of danger. A stillness settled over everything. I no longer had to hold all of existence in my hands, as if super-human vigilance could protect me from harm.
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