Courtship

Finding the appropriate antidepressant is like a courtship, you know, playing the field before you settle on one that works, looking for your pharmaceutical soul mate. You flirt with one, it seems great at the beginning, your heart races when you see that little amber bottle, you get that thrill when pop off the lid, you drink in the shape, you taste it as it settles on your tongue, bitter and foreign at first and then bitter and familiar, and you swallow, visualizing the path that medication traverses before it settles and starts to disseminate throughout your system. It infiltrates your pores. A chemical caress. You feel a warm glow. You feel safe. You start to look at the world in a novel way. You start to understand how people can make small talk. You wonder if that's how you're meant to feel, even though you're different from everything you've ever thought you were. But maybe who you have been hasn't been who you have been meant to be. Then the honeymoon ends, and your dance partner turns out to be different from how you thought it was. Imperfections arise, cracks in the facade. But you stick with it. It's what you know. You dabble with others, lured by the promise of something new, but you return to it. You can't escape its orbit. It's imperfect but nevertheless a balm of sorts.
Some of these relationships are bad from the start, and they make you wonder how you ever came to be involved in them in the first place. What was I thinking? You notice, but ignore, troublesome signs right from the beginning. You give it time. You persist even after you've overcome the illusion that it will work out. But eventually you come to your senses and return to the familiar, sometimes begrudgingly.
Other times, when the routine grows tired, you invite another pill to join in. A threesome, if you will. Then you open the door to your other mistress, a bottle of a different type, to further spice up the interaction. No jealousy. No obligations the next day. Kick any one of the components out at will. Not so simple, though, really. They're all demanding in their own right, not to be abused or regarded casually. Alas, there's no easy solution, but the magic bullet could be lurking right around the corner.