Story

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Tom suffers from severe anxiety.

Tremors crowd his back, forcing out room for true breath. Night sweats soak him well past the point of saturation. He clings to insomnia as to an abusive night guardian, perhaps responsible for this dangerous change. He experiences obsession, mania, sudden onslaughts of dreamy delerium…

If this sounds familiar, stop running.

You might be in love, like Tom. You might suffer, like millions, from a biological head-game that could make you seriously reconsider the state of your health.

Love is like a cold: steady, cheese-congested, impossible to see beyond. Facts of life become wary of themselves. The sound of one voice triggers the love as if it were Pavlov. Things may be put out of place on your list of priorities. It is more serious than a personality disorder. Something vitamins won’t solve.

Common symptoms include headaches, back pain, dry mouth, insomnia, heart murmurs, nausea, difficulty concentrating, peals of self-doubt, irrational responses, hysteria, shivering, and in severe cases, hallucinations.

This is not a quirk or a phase. This is a real sickness with real solutions. It need not wake you up into tiptoeing towards a cold tile floor for a kind of relief from disease-heat.

Tom took the next step. He asked his doctor about our drug, designed specifically for love. It is not for everyone. Its side effects may include ulcers and mirages, cracked teeth and cavities, sensations that a toilet plunger is mocking your uterus. It is not for everyone.

Only some are strong enough.

Treatment brings relief from all symptoms. It curbs every pang of devotion. Treats the palpitations and irrational concepts, every nerve-induced digestive problem. No more late nights of lying eyewide, trying to track warning signs wandering through your brain.No more gaps of concentration you must fill with a beautiful face. Watery eyes, say goodbye.

Say, I’m in love, and I want to get better.

And that cold twitch of fear, the one that starts in your toe and follows each fiber with a fever telling you to squeeze tight and never let go, that restless response causing so many suicides and psychological breakdowns per year—gone.

Ask a doctor about our solution.

You only get one life. Why waste it being in love?

“Advertisement” originally appeared as back matter in G.I.L.T. #5 from Ahoy Comics. Illustration by Carol Lay.