Wandered off to the Shoulder of the Recovery Highway

Heather has a Bachelor's Degree in English from Moravian College and has been freelance writing for more than 13 years.

Wondered why sometimes an illness or problem couldn't go away

With the snap of the fingers or the waving of a magic wand

Life not like the fluff that Hollywood pandered to the masses

Desperate for an escape or some meaning to the humdrum reality

Of punching a time clock and waiting for the weekend to arrive

Only for it to vanish quicker than the sands through the hourglass

And so are the Days of Our Lives daytime television rigmarole

Is this latest setback a design flaw that suddenly came out of the woodwork?

Or was it based on a single mistake of not keeping quiet a nagging doubt

One error in judgment led to mistakenly getting a medication changed

Derailed my recovery tenfold to the point where a white padded room

Could've been on the horizon if I wasn't too careful

Moody, hormonal and just plain down in the dumps

Wondered how one package of yellow and white pills could wreck

This journey to newfound emotional recovery

Knew realistically that being one hundred percent cured

Wasn't quite in the cards just yet, but it was nice to be hopeful

Transformed from the somewhat optimistic into a walking automaton

A walking advertisement for big pharmaceutical companies

Saying that their drugs work, despite the side effects

One supposed to help one problem and needing another

To combat raging insomnia and inability to sit still

Understood that Rome wasn't rebuilt in a day and all that

Just slightly disappointed that my self-doubt likely led up to this

Being medicated in order to function and not have a meltdown

Aware that many people have worse circumstances

Abject poverty and various acts of cruelty done to others

Focused at the moment of taking it one day at a time

Trying to keep my head above water and stay relatively sane

Cultivate a newly minted sense of humor

Buried deep under serotonin suppressing medication

Eager to find it along with the ability to return to the overactive dreams

That kept me entertained during the day and at night

In the meantime, downing the doctor prescribed capsule designed tonic

At the appropriate times and fighting the side effects

Just coasting along and not get too comfortable being numb

Stigma in a being flawed was unrealistic; but from a need to find normal path

Without the aid of stimulants and inhibitors

So far hasn't happened, yet.

Only time will tell if that's ever going to be the case.