I had forgotten in the last ten years of fighting it, how good it felt to give in.
The sheer relief of just not being that interested in the world that not eating gives one. The feeling of detachment and liberty. It isn't my problem. I'm not participating in any of this.
I have no part in life and life has no claims on me.
Surprised too how easy it has been to go back to it. How much of the moment to moment mental discipline is still there, like the skill of driving.
And how much of it is really a matter of conscious choice. It is a pure exercise of the will, to overcome temptation each and every time. To be in control, to regulate minutely how much one eats, is really a thrill. To say, "No. Not now. Not for another six hours." or "No more today."
It's early days yet, but I feel liberated. Nothing much matters.
It's not euphoria, just relief. And no depression. None. It's over as long as I can maintain this physical detachment.
Where to next?
Doesn't seem to matter much, actually.
Thursday 18 February 2010
Tuesday 16 February 2010
Uncle
This morning I whispered back to the Whisperer. Standing in front of the mirror, I told it that I give. I give. I give.
Uncle.
It has been telling me so long what the solution is, there just seems no arguing with it any more.
I have brought down the chopper on K. I had swallowed everything that I could get down and it was enough.
It is enough.
Uncle.
It has been telling me so long what the solution is, there just seems no arguing with it any more.
I have brought down the chopper on K. I had swallowed everything that I could get down and it was enough.
It is enough.
Thursday 11 February 2010
"The sorrow of the world worketh death."
I suppose I am not the only one thinking about depression outside the psychological box. The phenomenon of depression, "melancholia", has been noted by writers in the west for centuries.
The Catholic thinkers in the Middle Ages called it Acedia and Tristitia (sadness).
John Zmirak writes today on Inside Catholic:
Thomas Aquinas said:
Thomas further answers the objections that Acedia is not a sin, saying when it is indulged, it is the sin of ingratitude, at least:
He even recommends a cure:
The Desert Fathers, those pioneers and spiritual alpinists, warned that Acedia is particularly the downfall of solitaries.
John Cassian wrote about it, calling acedia a "tedium or perturbation of heart ... akin to dejection and especially felt by wandering monks and solitaries, a persistent and obnoxious enemy to such as dwell in the desert."
He goes on:
Well, I'm pretty solitary, I suppose.
Amma Theodora said:
Vigilance.
Others suggest, essentially, keeping busy. But these are monastics and their advice is for the problems of novices in keeping to strict routines of prayer, fasting and spiritual exercises. Keeping busy with praying all night and making rush baskets by day isn't going to be very helpful now.
But it certainly is true that for years, a large part of my suppressed fury (which is what the Head People say depression is) has been at God. I have done my share, I'll freely admit, and so have others. But the basic facts of my life, the founding situation, was God's alone. And it is that one thing that I look upon as the insurmountable wall, the thing that makes every effort look futile.
Thomas warns that the effect of Acedia is to make one hate holy things, and have an aversion to the spiritual goods of religion.
He quotes Gregory the Great who assigned "six daughters" to Acedia, "malice, spite, faint-heartedness, despair, sluggishness in regard to the commandments, wandering of the mind after unlawful things."
Thoomas argues against Cassian and the earlier writers that it is not merely a condition of the soul, but a vice and if acted upon a sin. And depending upon the circumstances, mortal:
It "is opposed to the precept about hallowing the Sabbath day. For this precept, in so far as it is a moral precept, implicitly commands the mind to rest in God: and sorrow of the mind about the Divine good is contrary thereto."
Acedia, then, is spiritual depression and it results in the hatred of holiness and the extinguishing of joy.
For some reason, Puddleglum's great profession of Faith has suddenly come into my mind.
In a dark place, where there was little hope of seeing daylight again, this good melancholic servant of Aslan said to the devil in a witch's body:
The Catholic thinkers in the Middle Ages called it Acedia and Tristitia (sadness).
John Zmirak writes today on Inside Catholic:
St. Thomas Aquinas warns that Accedia, unacknowledged and unanswered, is a sure road to despair and can lead even to suicide. It rarely urges us to sin, even by omission, but rather allows us to slog through our daily duties, jaundiced by a sickly tint of dismay and even disgust. Pleasures can start to weary us, and the prospect of Heaven seem not so much unattainable as irrelevant.Sounds depressingly familiar, doesn't it?
Thomas Aquinas said:
Sloth, according to Damascene ... is an oppressive sorrow, which, to wit, so weighs upon man's mind, that he wants to do nothing; thus acid things are also cold. Hence sloth implies a certain weariness of [spiritual] work, as appears from a gloss on Psalm 106:18, "Their soul abhorred all manner of meat," and from the definition of some who say that sloth is a "sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good."
Thomas further answers the objections that Acedia is not a sin, saying when it is indulged, it is the sin of ingratitude, at least:
It is a sign of humility if a man does not think too much of himself, through observing his own faults; but if a man contemns the good things he has received from God, this, far from being a proof of humility, shows him to be ungrateful and from such like contempt results sloth, because we sorrow for things that we reckon evil and worthless.
He even recommends a cure:
by resistance, when perseverance in the thought diminishes the incentive to sin, which incentive arises from some trivial consideration. This is the case with sloth, because the more we think about spiritual goods, the more pleasing they become to us, and forthwith sloth dies away.
The Desert Fathers, those pioneers and spiritual alpinists, warned that Acedia is particularly the downfall of solitaries.
John Cassian wrote about it, calling acedia a "tedium or perturbation of heart ... akin to dejection and especially felt by wandering monks and solitaries, a persistent and obnoxious enemy to such as dwell in the desert."
He goes on:
When this [acedia] besieges the unhappy mind, it begets aversion from the place, boredom with one's cell, and scorn and contempt for one's brethren, whether they be dwelling with one or some way off, as careless and unspiritual-minded persons.
Well, I'm pretty solitary, I suppose.
Amma Theodora said:
You should realize that as soon as you intend to live in peace, at once evil comes and weighs down your soul through acedia, faint-heartedness, and evil thoughts. It also attacks your body through sickness, debility, weakening of the knees, and all the members. It dissipates the strength of soul and body. ... But if we are vigilant, all the temptations fall away.
Vigilance.
Others suggest, essentially, keeping busy. But these are monastics and their advice is for the problems of novices in keeping to strict routines of prayer, fasting and spiritual exercises. Keeping busy with praying all night and making rush baskets by day isn't going to be very helpful now.
But it certainly is true that for years, a large part of my suppressed fury (which is what the Head People say depression is) has been at God. I have done my share, I'll freely admit, and so have others. But the basic facts of my life, the founding situation, was God's alone. And it is that one thing that I look upon as the insurmountable wall, the thing that makes every effort look futile.
Thomas warns that the effect of Acedia is to make one hate holy things, and have an aversion to the spiritual goods of religion.
He quotes Gregory the Great who assigned "six daughters" to Acedia, "malice, spite, faint-heartedness, despair, sluggishness in regard to the commandments, wandering of the mind after unlawful things."
Thoomas argues against Cassian and the earlier writers that it is not merely a condition of the soul, but a vice and if acted upon a sin. And depending upon the circumstances, mortal:
mortal sin is so called because it destroys the spiritual life which is the effect of charity, whereby God dwells in us. Wherefore any sin which by its very nature is contrary to charity is a mortal sin by reason of its genus.
It "is opposed to the precept about hallowing the Sabbath day. For this precept, in so far as it is a moral precept, implicitly commands the mind to rest in God: and sorrow of the mind about the Divine good is contrary thereto."
Acedia, then, is spiritual depression and it results in the hatred of holiness and the extinguishing of joy.
For some reason, Puddleglum's great profession of Faith has suddenly come into my mind.
In a dark place, where there was little hope of seeing daylight again, this good melancholic servant of Aslan said to the devil in a witch's body:
"One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word... All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder... Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.
Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say."
Wednesday 10 February 2010
Time
I've been thinking about time and how strange it is.
I just had a message on Facebook from a friend, B, whom I knew in elementary school. Sixth grade. There were two 6th g. classes at our school and she was in the other one. She was really the first real friend I made at school, and we stayed friends until well into our twenties. Then the usual things happened. She got married and I moved to the mainland. But we never lost touch until I had my big conversion in my thirties.
I had moved to Halifax (sort of by accident, really, though come to think of it, it seems odd to move 3500 miles unintentionally) and one day was sitting in my cafe reading Mclean's magazine. Her father, R, was well known and I saw a picture of him in the obits column. I had known he wasn't well, but I didn't think we had expected him to die. I jumped up and used the payphone to call my friend, forgetting the three hour time difference.
About a year after that, I heard from someone else (another character from my youth who is since lost in the crowd of the deep past) that her mother, S, had died. This was a blow to me, since S and R had taken care of me when I left home and was alone in my mid-teens. I had lived with them in their big generous house and owed much of my survival and sanity to them.
But after that, B and I more or less lost touch. I had assumed that her interest in me, as it had been for most people I had known Before, would have more or less disappeared. I no longer lived in their world, and had little in common with most of them, so complete had my change been.
But B had always had a very generous nature, and her graciousness had always been the leading feature of her character. As it is with the small number of other pre-conversion friends I had kept. Ideological and religious differences sometimes don't matter if love is strong enough.
Sometimes time is enough to make the tree too big to kill.
I was thinking about death today too, and how it is related to time. In the last five years, two of the more important figures in my life have died, both of cancer, and one of the worst parts of this is that time is taking me further and further away from them. When I was still close in time to them, though the pain of their loss was like standing in a fire, I could at least feel that they were real, and so was I.
But in death, it is as if they have found their way to the shore and I am still in the middle of the stream, being carried helplessly away from them. Sitting in a canoe without a paddle, all I can do is look back and try to keep them in sight as long as possible.
Now that they have slipped far behind me, not only do they feel less real, so do I. Relationships with people make one real. Lose them, and you start to lose yourself. As if I am fading away with each loss. Disappearing.
I just had a message on Facebook from a friend, B, whom I knew in elementary school. Sixth grade. There were two 6th g. classes at our school and she was in the other one. She was really the first real friend I made at school, and we stayed friends until well into our twenties. Then the usual things happened. She got married and I moved to the mainland. But we never lost touch until I had my big conversion in my thirties.
I had moved to Halifax (sort of by accident, really, though come to think of it, it seems odd to move 3500 miles unintentionally) and one day was sitting in my cafe reading Mclean's magazine. Her father, R, was well known and I saw a picture of him in the obits column. I had known he wasn't well, but I didn't think we had expected him to die. I jumped up and used the payphone to call my friend, forgetting the three hour time difference.
About a year after that, I heard from someone else (another character from my youth who is since lost in the crowd of the deep past) that her mother, S, had died. This was a blow to me, since S and R had taken care of me when I left home and was alone in my mid-teens. I had lived with them in their big generous house and owed much of my survival and sanity to them.
But after that, B and I more or less lost touch. I had assumed that her interest in me, as it had been for most people I had known Before, would have more or less disappeared. I no longer lived in their world, and had little in common with most of them, so complete had my change been.
But B had always had a very generous nature, and her graciousness had always been the leading feature of her character. As it is with the small number of other pre-conversion friends I had kept. Ideological and religious differences sometimes don't matter if love is strong enough.
Sometimes time is enough to make the tree too big to kill.
I was thinking about death today too, and how it is related to time. In the last five years, two of the more important figures in my life have died, both of cancer, and one of the worst parts of this is that time is taking me further and further away from them. When I was still close in time to them, though the pain of their loss was like standing in a fire, I could at least feel that they were real, and so was I.
But in death, it is as if they have found their way to the shore and I am still in the middle of the stream, being carried helplessly away from them. Sitting in a canoe without a paddle, all I can do is look back and try to keep them in sight as long as possible.
Now that they have slipped far behind me, not only do they feel less real, so do I. Relationships with people make one real. Lose them, and you start to lose yourself. As if I am fading away with each loss. Disappearing.
Symptoms VII ~ Blanking Out
I realise that I spend a lot of my time on the 'net, and that it tends to suck time away, but I've noticed a lot more lately that time seems to just slip past me in blocks. I can sit down on the sofa and look up and find an hour has passed without me noticing. I just kind of phase out and forget that I am there. Or that the room is there. It's not like time is standing still, but more like I am and time is rushing past me faster than usual.
The Piano
Paralysed by the utter, crushing pointlessness of myself. It's almost a physical sensation of weight.
It occurred to me on the train home last night that it mattered not one whit how I feel about K. It doesn't matter to him, and the only other person in that equation is me.
All kinds of things have been going through my mind. I should leave town, move to another city. I should forget about K. I should hunker down and sever my ties with people. I should climb into my cave and wall up the doorway. I'm panicking, and the flight half of that old instinct is humming right along.
I should get a brain transplant.
It occurred to me on the train home last night that it mattered not one whit how I feel about K. It doesn't matter to him, and the only other person in that equation is me.
All kinds of things have been going through my mind. I should leave town, move to another city. I should forget about K. I should hunker down and sever my ties with people. I should climb into my cave and wall up the doorway. I'm panicking, and the flight half of that old instinct is humming right along.
I should get a brain transplant.
Tuesday 9 February 2010
K + 2 months, 2 days
My thoughts about K are not entirely coherent, and are further jumbled together with the constantly rising levels of both anxiety and self-hatred that seem to boil up together as though from a tar pit. Sticky. Very hard to get free.
The progression of thoughts go something like...
a clutching panic as another month since our "break-up" on Dec. 7 slides quietly past
the conviction that I should never have expected anything that good to happen in the first place
the remembrance of my status with my parents as the doll they kept for a few years to play with but threw away when their interest waned
a return to the conviction that it is for the best if there are no further personal complications in life
then of course, finding it impossible to face who knows how many more years alone
Another forty years like this?
Back to praying for an honourable out.
The progression of thoughts go something like...
a clutching panic as another month since our "break-up" on Dec. 7 slides quietly past
the conviction that I should never have expected anything that good to happen in the first place
the remembrance of my status with my parents as the doll they kept for a few years to play with but threw away when their interest waned
a return to the conviction that it is for the best if there are no further personal complications in life
then of course, finding it impossible to face who knows how many more years alone
Another forty years like this?
Back to praying for an honourable out.
Praying
I haven't been doing that well in the last couple of days. With K gone away, I find the days very empty. I go to work and am adequately distracted by it, but find it difficult to concentrate.
But the real dread comes in when I am finished and there is the long train commute home. Perhaps worst of all of it is the walk from the train station, a half-hour plod through the dark town, past all the walled gardens and closed gates. All the houses containing happy inmates. Dogs barking at me. How many times I've wanted to just sit down in the middle of the street and not move. Or shoot one of those goddamned dogs.
The chores of the day, the getting up, the making tea, the eating food, the showering, the blowdrying and face-painting, the dressing, then the walk and the train. Arrive at the office, surf the net, find something to write about.
Then the usefulness of the day is over and I'm left in my own care again.
Frankly, the fate of the world is coming to seem less important every day.
I couldn't read on the train this morning. I had brought my book, (about archaeology in Britain) but didn't even take it out of my handbag. I stared out the windows without seeing anything.
The thoughts? Oh yes. I suppose.
I matter to no human being on earth. Imagine one's existence having not the slightest impact on another person.
But the fact is that I have no right to complain. My situation is of my own creation.
I have an enemy in our social circle, (an odd sensation for anyone past high school age) who has decided to condemn me for immorality. It doesn't matter the details. He's right, of course, but doesn't know why. What he thinks I have done are not in fact the things for which I deserve punishment. I have had the strangest urge lately to tell him exactly what those things are. To give him a list. It keeps coming back to me.
Imagining this conversation, these words ran through my mind again and again on this morning's train ride, as the fields and palm trees and little towns flicked past: "there are two people for whom I was an actual necessity, and I betrayed them. There are two more for whom I was of material importance, and I betrayed them too. All four of them are dead. I know know exactly what I deserve, to the dregs of the cup, and you, sir, can add nothing whatever to that."
I have often said that I feel as if I don't exist. This is not really true. I am only too aware of my own existence, but can find no reason for it whatever. There isn't anyone at all whose lives would be substantially altered at my disappearance.
I find I am praying for the honourable out.
But the real dread comes in when I am finished and there is the long train commute home. Perhaps worst of all of it is the walk from the train station, a half-hour plod through the dark town, past all the walled gardens and closed gates. All the houses containing happy inmates. Dogs barking at me. How many times I've wanted to just sit down in the middle of the street and not move. Or shoot one of those goddamned dogs.
The chores of the day, the getting up, the making tea, the eating food, the showering, the blowdrying and face-painting, the dressing, then the walk and the train. Arrive at the office, surf the net, find something to write about.
Then the usefulness of the day is over and I'm left in my own care again.
Frankly, the fate of the world is coming to seem less important every day.
I couldn't read on the train this morning. I had brought my book, (about archaeology in Britain) but didn't even take it out of my handbag. I stared out the windows without seeing anything.
The thoughts? Oh yes. I suppose.
I matter to no human being on earth. Imagine one's existence having not the slightest impact on another person.
But the fact is that I have no right to complain. My situation is of my own creation.
I have an enemy in our social circle, (an odd sensation for anyone past high school age) who has decided to condemn me for immorality. It doesn't matter the details. He's right, of course, but doesn't know why. What he thinks I have done are not in fact the things for which I deserve punishment. I have had the strangest urge lately to tell him exactly what those things are. To give him a list. It keeps coming back to me.
Imagining this conversation, these words ran through my mind again and again on this morning's train ride, as the fields and palm trees and little towns flicked past: "there are two people for whom I was an actual necessity, and I betrayed them. There are two more for whom I was of material importance, and I betrayed them too. All four of them are dead. I know know exactly what I deserve, to the dregs of the cup, and you, sir, can add nothing whatever to that."
I have often said that I feel as if I don't exist. This is not really true. I am only too aware of my own existence, but can find no reason for it whatever. There isn't anyone at all whose lives would be substantially altered at my disappearance.
I find I am praying for the honourable out.
Symptoms VI ~ Cold
I was told once by an Official Head Person that depression is the most physical of the mental illnesses. I'm interested in the variety of physical sensations that must, I suppose, be created by the various chemical signals emanating from my brain.
Anxiety can give one an amazing array of physical symptoms. In my case, depression and anxiety are more or less indistinguishable. I look in the mirror and see the new streaks of white hair and am flooded with fear: Running out of time. Too late to fix anything. It's already over.
The thrill of terror is quite real and it creates a strange kind of moral paralysis. I find it very difficult to function in even the simplest way in the grip of it.
But the feeling I have most of the time, at various levels of severity, is of cold. I have lain awake at night, with the heater up as high as it will go, curled around a hot water bottle and with the cat under the covers, and I am cold. Cold from the inside out. I have wondered if this is real or entirely the product of my brain. It is winter, after all. But the cold I feel certainly comes from a region between my ribs in the front. Adrenaline. My heart races and I can't warm up. I shiver uncontrollably at night, even when there is no physical sensation of cold from the air. I have bought more blankets, worn socks and cardies to bed.
I'm cold.
Anxiety can give one an amazing array of physical symptoms. In my case, depression and anxiety are more or less indistinguishable. I look in the mirror and see the new streaks of white hair and am flooded with fear: Running out of time. Too late to fix anything. It's already over.
The thrill of terror is quite real and it creates a strange kind of moral paralysis. I find it very difficult to function in even the simplest way in the grip of it.
But the feeling I have most of the time, at various levels of severity, is of cold. I have lain awake at night, with the heater up as high as it will go, curled around a hot water bottle and with the cat under the covers, and I am cold. Cold from the inside out. I have wondered if this is real or entirely the product of my brain. It is winter, after all. But the cold I feel certainly comes from a region between my ribs in the front. Adrenaline. My heart races and I can't warm up. I shiver uncontrollably at night, even when there is no physical sensation of cold from the air. I have bought more blankets, worn socks and cardies to bed.
I'm cold.
Wednesday 27 January 2010
Pain redux
Back from US.
Woke this morning to the abrupt end of jet-lag and the return of the pain. After a day sitting at home in a fog, was wide awake at 6:30 am, but not exactly bushy-tailed.
I lay there with the covers over my head until The Sob burst out at about seven. No point in just lying there crying so I got up, staggered to the bathroom and stood under the shower, my mind shouting, "STOP", drill sergeant style.
Someone has found that piano and helpfully given it back to me, thinking I had dropped it by accident somewhere.
I am work. That's the only thing I've got that makes me real.
Some time soon, I'll tell you about my theory, that K calls a simple philosophical misunderstanding, that I don't really exist. I try to do things that make me seem real to myself, but I'm afraid it is very unconvincing.
He's going to spend his birthday next week in North Africa. Tunis. (It's not as exotic as it sounds; we're actually quite close. To a North American living in, say, Denver, it would be the equivalent of driving to LA for a weekend.)
Woke this morning to the abrupt end of jet-lag and the return of the pain. After a day sitting at home in a fog, was wide awake at 6:30 am, but not exactly bushy-tailed.
I lay there with the covers over my head until The Sob burst out at about seven. No point in just lying there crying so I got up, staggered to the bathroom and stood under the shower, my mind shouting, "STOP", drill sergeant style.
Someone has found that piano and helpfully given it back to me, thinking I had dropped it by accident somewhere.
I am work. That's the only thing I've got that makes me real.
Some time soon, I'll tell you about my theory, that K calls a simple philosophical misunderstanding, that I don't really exist. I try to do things that make me seem real to myself, but I'm afraid it is very unconvincing.
He's going to spend his birthday next week in North Africa. Tunis. (It's not as exotic as it sounds; we're actually quite close. To a North American living in, say, Denver, it would be the equivalent of driving to LA for a weekend.)
Monday 18 January 2010
Love's a sweet passion
It's love that burns, so much that it is how we can tell that the soul is a real thing. The pain of love is real, and nothing abstract. I understand why Hell is the last horror, and also why it is, as the great theologians said, a manifestation of the love of God. It is God's love rejected, and unrecoverable.
It is separation, which is the one thing that love cannot abide. Separation makes love a torment. Hell is a fire, a separation which cannot be escaped. But even so, it cannot stop being love, even in separation, even when it is only torment.
It is separation, which is the one thing that love cannot abide. Separation makes love a torment. Hell is a fire, a separation which cannot be escaped. But even so, it cannot stop being love, even in separation, even when it is only torment.
If Love's a Sweet Passion, Why Does it Torment?
It is such an ancient question, one wonders that anyone still asks it. But it won't leave us alone. Poor humans...
Sunday 17 January 2010
Symptoms V
The night waking has stopped, but I am six time zones away and my poor wee brain can't remember whether it is the middle of the night or first thing in the morning. For all I know, they are actually continuing.
I am about to embark on a week of distraction. I hope it all goes along without pain. There are important things to do, and people to meet. It all has to be very upbeat. I can fake upbeat.
Watched a film tonight about human love and human evil.
Love did not win.
I am about to embark on a week of distraction. I hope it all goes along without pain. There are important things to do, and people to meet. It all has to be very upbeat. I can fake upbeat.
Watched a film tonight about human love and human evil.
Love did not win.
Friday 15 January 2010
Washington
Off on a plane tomorrow v. early.
Had two days off with fever and swollen face from tooth infection. Happy to be able to spend two days loafing about doing nothing much. Antibiotics, however, work and am now back in the world again. Drat.
I understand why the happiest news my mother ever received was that she was dying of cancer. She had wanted a legitimate out for many years. After the death of her husband, (not my father) she seemed to decide that there really was no point in trying to get back into life. She hovered around the edges of it for years, just waiting. I sometimes wonder if she died because she was just fed up. People survive cancer. But maybe they are the ones who want to survive it.
But for me, nothing so nasty as cancer. Just an infected face and headache. Plus, all the fun and excitement of a root canal in a foreign country when I get back.
They do say that the way to beat depression is to give yourself things to look forward to.
Had two days off with fever and swollen face from tooth infection. Happy to be able to spend two days loafing about doing nothing much. Antibiotics, however, work and am now back in the world again. Drat.
I understand why the happiest news my mother ever received was that she was dying of cancer. She had wanted a legitimate out for many years. After the death of her husband, (not my father) she seemed to decide that there really was no point in trying to get back into life. She hovered around the edges of it for years, just waiting. I sometimes wonder if she died because she was just fed up. People survive cancer. But maybe they are the ones who want to survive it.
But for me, nothing so nasty as cancer. Just an infected face and headache. Plus, all the fun and excitement of a root canal in a foreign country when I get back.
They do say that the way to beat depression is to give yourself things to look forward to.
Tuesday 12 January 2010
Eating
I'm eating.
There is a Chinese place around the corner from my office and they do great duck.
So, I'm eating.
The Evil Brain is screaming, but hey...
it's Chinese roast duck!
So, shut up.
There is a Chinese place around the corner from my office and they do great duck.
So, I'm eating.
The Evil Brain is screaming, but hey...
it's Chinese roast duck!
So, shut up.
Keeping Up Appearances
I once knew a young man who had just been ordained to the priesthood. After a year, he was asked what his impressions were now that he had been on the job for 12 months. He replied, "Before I was a priest, I had no idea there was so much suffering in the world".
People hide it. You just can't go around being outwardly miserable all the time. It can be lonely, hiding, but it is worse when everyone knows. Much worse. But maybe I'm just being English about it.
I think one of the worst long-term effects of the hippie-generation, has been the idea that one must share everything.
No, really. That's OK. I don't want to know.
I don't want to be known either. So the blogging impulse is a funny one isn't it? Maybe I do want people to know after all. I just don't want them to know about me.
People hide it. You just can't go around being outwardly miserable all the time. It can be lonely, hiding, but it is worse when everyone knows. Much worse. But maybe I'm just being English about it.
I think one of the worst long-term effects of the hippie-generation, has been the idea that one must share everything.
No, really. That's OK. I don't want to know.
I don't want to be known either. So the blogging impulse is a funny one isn't it? Maybe I do want people to know after all. I just don't want them to know about me.
Like a Prowling Lion, Seeking Whom to Devour
I have long ago decided that most of the stuff that Professional Head People write about depression is rubbish. It is also boring. "Dysthymia"! Hmp! Who would ever use that word in real life?
So I have decided to use my own terms. You may have noticed a few of them thus far.
Evil Brain: I have, like many depressed people, particularly people whose preferred mania involves food-related problems, have two "voices" (no, I don't "hear voices") in my head. One of them is me, a nice, normal person who just thinks ordinary stuff like "what should we have for dinner" and "I really need to buy cat litter before going home". The other is what I have always called my Evil Brain. The Evil Brain is a monster, and as a Catholic, I have sometimes wondered if it is not actually some demonic voice trying to destroy me. It often sounds like it. When I am badly depressed (not so much today), my Evil Brain will whisper, and sometimes shout, all those terrible things that make me depressed. It will sometimes not need to use words, but will just project images and memories or ideas that are upsetting. Ten years ago, when I could not eat and was losing weight drastically, I described the whispers my Evil Brain said to a friend of mine, and she exclaimed, "Your Evil Brain sounds like the Devil!" I've been told that if the things my Evil Brain whispers to me were to be written down, they would be exposed as a bunch of obvious nonsense. This has been suggested to me by several people, both Professional Head People, and normal people.
The Evil Brain is particularly exercised about food. It often forcefully forbids me to eat and threatens me with awful consequences if I do. And when I ignore it, it often becomes a kind of screaming torment, a punishment for breaking the rules. But this is only when things have really moved along. We're not there yet.
The Litany: Some time when it is running in my head, I shall remember to write down in a note book the actual words of The Litany, but the general gist is the same. "You're bad. You should die. No good thing could possibly happen. You do not deserve this nice thing. You have allowed all the things that you should have done to slip past you in life and now it is too late..." etc. You get the idea.
So I have decided to use my own terms. You may have noticed a few of them thus far.
Evil Brain: I have, like many depressed people, particularly people whose preferred mania involves food-related problems, have two "voices" (no, I don't "hear voices") in my head. One of them is me, a nice, normal person who just thinks ordinary stuff like "what should we have for dinner" and "I really need to buy cat litter before going home". The other is what I have always called my Evil Brain. The Evil Brain is a monster, and as a Catholic, I have sometimes wondered if it is not actually some demonic voice trying to destroy me. It often sounds like it. When I am badly depressed (not so much today), my Evil Brain will whisper, and sometimes shout, all those terrible things that make me depressed. It will sometimes not need to use words, but will just project images and memories or ideas that are upsetting. Ten years ago, when I could not eat and was losing weight drastically, I described the whispers my Evil Brain said to a friend of mine, and she exclaimed, "Your Evil Brain sounds like the Devil!" I've been told that if the things my Evil Brain whispers to me were to be written down, they would be exposed as a bunch of obvious nonsense. This has been suggested to me by several people, both Professional Head People, and normal people.
The Evil Brain is particularly exercised about food. It often forcefully forbids me to eat and threatens me with awful consequences if I do. And when I ignore it, it often becomes a kind of screaming torment, a punishment for breaking the rules. But this is only when things have really moved along. We're not there yet.
The Litany: Some time when it is running in my head, I shall remember to write down in a note book the actual words of The Litany, but the general gist is the same. "You're bad. You should die. No good thing could possibly happen. You do not deserve this nice thing. You have allowed all the things that you should have done to slip past you in life and now it is too late..." etc. You get the idea.
Whom resist ye, stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.
Sunny today
Was in the office, hiding, until the ten o'clock train home. Not accomplishing much, but at least quiet for several hours. After initial feeling of OKness through most of the daylight hours, physical anxiety flared up at dusk with shakes and The Sob simmering down just under the surface followed, as usual, by The Litany. Hard time concentrating on work through all this mental noise. Managed to produce two of three daily deadlines, one of which was a feature, so that's holding up at least.
Took a big chance and showed K this blog, and the post below. He said he has great faith in me and that writing it out is probably a good idea, esp. considering drug therapy is not an option.
Chatted on facebook with mutual friends in Denver about troubles with K. They say that K, though he is "one of the best men" they know, he can be difficult, sometimes even cold. They are praying for us. For me. It's good to know.
Ran into K on the train on the way home. (I mentioned we live in the same town). At first felt only surge of panic. Calmed down and had a pleasant ride home chatting about simple things: politics, religion...
Night waking continues. Three am to four, right on schedule. My troublesome molar has infected again and the anxiety was all about whether I was going to be able to get treatment for it in Foreignland. Laid awake worrying and squirming. Cat, v. annoyed, went and slept in the sitting room. Finally slept with head resting on hot water bottle.
Sun came out today. First sunnuy day in weeks of rain. Rode into the city with K, as we used to do every day. It was quiet. I watched the countryside, he read and worked. Parted with smiles. No pain.
Ran errands before going to the office. Starting to think about Washington next week. Turns out that in this country you can get anti-biotics easily over the counter. All anxiety for nowt.
Feeling almost lively. Probably the sun and cold. Winter should be cold and crisp, not this upsy-downsy humidity and freakish mid-January warm days. Must buy a pair of waterproof boots for Washington.
Took a big chance and showed K this blog, and the post below. He said he has great faith in me and that writing it out is probably a good idea, esp. considering drug therapy is not an option.
Chatted on facebook with mutual friends in Denver about troubles with K. They say that K, though he is "one of the best men" they know, he can be difficult, sometimes even cold. They are praying for us. For me. It's good to know.
Ran into K on the train on the way home. (I mentioned we live in the same town). At first felt only surge of panic. Calmed down and had a pleasant ride home chatting about simple things: politics, religion...
Night waking continues. Three am to four, right on schedule. My troublesome molar has infected again and the anxiety was all about whether I was going to be able to get treatment for it in Foreignland. Laid awake worrying and squirming. Cat, v. annoyed, went and slept in the sitting room. Finally slept with head resting on hot water bottle.
Sun came out today. First sunnuy day in weeks of rain. Rode into the city with K, as we used to do every day. It was quiet. I watched the countryside, he read and worked. Parted with smiles. No pain.
Ran errands before going to the office. Starting to think about Washington next week. Turns out that in this country you can get anti-biotics easily over the counter. All anxiety for nowt.
Feeling almost lively. Probably the sun and cold. Winter should be cold and crisp, not this upsy-downsy humidity and freakish mid-January warm days. Must buy a pair of waterproof boots for Washington.
Monday 11 January 2010
K
I wrote below:
K is an American graduate student who lives in the same town and goes to my church. We both inhabit the same social circle of English speakers living abroad in this big city, and we have many of the same cultural, political and religious ideas and we share a similar sense of humour. For these and for no reason, I suppose, we hit it off last year and shortly after I arrived, he was, as he put it, "chasing" me. After a short period of hesitation and doubt, (mostly self-doubt), I allowed myself to be caught.
Things went well and we grew very close. Closer than I have allowed myself to become to anyone in my recent history. We talked about marriage, because we both believe that that is the natural end of "dating" (faugh! what a horrible neologism!). Then, a month ago, after we had begun to experience various problems, he suddenly broke it off. It was not completely unexpected. I had done the same thing to him in June, then changed my mind. We had had problems, things had been difficult.
But he was serious. He believes he has done "the right" thing for reasons which I can't really understand. But I knew it was wrong. It was wrong like water flowing up hill was wrong. He has since said that he is "open to reconsidering". I still do not know what this means.
It has been a month plus a few days and I find that I almost panic when I think of the time flowing along, taking us further away from the time when we were happy together. And of course, the memory of our happiness is now like swallowing a red hot coal. Pain seeing him. Pain not seeing him...the usual thing with love.
We had our break-up discussion on December 7 and I felt as if I had been cut in half. That was the most memorably bad week I have experienced in the ten years since my previous serious depression.
There is more to all this story of course, but I have many reasons to not write about it too much now. I am finding it difficult to get this much out and I can feel the pain starting to build like a fire of dry paper as I write. I also do not want to write about K in a public forum. It is his life as well and he has his right to privacy.
But the depression that had grown from low levels into the middle range during this year's dreadful summer, suddenly flared up after this and took possession of most of my thoughts.
We still see each other a great deal, and that has been very hard. I made the decision right away not to withdraw from him. Partly because I hoped to mend things, but also because he is at the centre of our social set and to withdraw from him would have meant withdrawing from everyone else, and changing churches. How things are now, I can't really say. I don't know where we are going, but I cannot give in. Something in me refuses to let go, and K has not withdrawn either.
How commonplace, though, to be pining for love. How sad to be doing so in one's forties.
"I live in Europe now and recently fell in love, most unexpectedly, with a younger man. Even more recently, he gave me the boot, which was the trigger for my current interesting situation."and promised to say more about K later.
K is an American graduate student who lives in the same town and goes to my church. We both inhabit the same social circle of English speakers living abroad in this big city, and we have many of the same cultural, political and religious ideas and we share a similar sense of humour. For these and for no reason, I suppose, we hit it off last year and shortly after I arrived, he was, as he put it, "chasing" me. After a short period of hesitation and doubt, (mostly self-doubt), I allowed myself to be caught.
Things went well and we grew very close. Closer than I have allowed myself to become to anyone in my recent history. We talked about marriage, because we both believe that that is the natural end of "dating" (faugh! what a horrible neologism!). Then, a month ago, after we had begun to experience various problems, he suddenly broke it off. It was not completely unexpected. I had done the same thing to him in June, then changed my mind. We had had problems, things had been difficult.
But he was serious. He believes he has done "the right" thing for reasons which I can't really understand. But I knew it was wrong. It was wrong like water flowing up hill was wrong. He has since said that he is "open to reconsidering". I still do not know what this means.
It has been a month plus a few days and I find that I almost panic when I think of the time flowing along, taking us further away from the time when we were happy together. And of course, the memory of our happiness is now like swallowing a red hot coal. Pain seeing him. Pain not seeing him...the usual thing with love.
We had our break-up discussion on December 7 and I felt as if I had been cut in half. That was the most memorably bad week I have experienced in the ten years since my previous serious depression.
There is more to all this story of course, but I have many reasons to not write about it too much now. I am finding it difficult to get this much out and I can feel the pain starting to build like a fire of dry paper as I write. I also do not want to write about K in a public forum. It is his life as well and he has his right to privacy.
But the depression that had grown from low levels into the middle range during this year's dreadful summer, suddenly flared up after this and took possession of most of my thoughts.
We still see each other a great deal, and that has been very hard. I made the decision right away not to withdraw from him. Partly because I hoped to mend things, but also because he is at the centre of our social set and to withdraw from him would have meant withdrawing from everyone else, and changing churches. How things are now, I can't really say. I don't know where we are going, but I cannot give in. Something in me refuses to let go, and K has not withdrawn either.
How commonplace, though, to be pining for love. How sad to be doing so in one's forties.
Symptoms IV
Hard to type. Normally, that is, in an undepressive state, my typing speed ranges between 60 and 80 wpm with few mistakes, if I'm concentrating.
In the last few weeks, I have slowed considerably and have difficulty typing even straightforward sentences and simple words. Most common error is transposing letters. My fingers, which usually fly over the keys, are awkward and don't seem to remember where they should go. The thought of a particular word and the movements of my fingers to type it normally have very little lapse, but now there is a notable time lag.
It's been years since I've read a book about depression. Do any of them note a fall in manual dexterity?
In the last few weeks, I have slowed considerably and have difficulty typing even straightforward sentences and simple words. Most common error is transposing letters. My fingers, which usually fly over the keys, are awkward and don't seem to remember where they should go. The thought of a particular word and the movements of my fingers to type it normally have very little lapse, but now there is a notable time lag.
It's been years since I've read a book about depression. Do any of them note a fall in manual dexterity?
The weekends are the hardest
I don't know about anyone else, but I find that weekends and holidays are a source of dread when I am depressed.
I live by myself and have a long commute and I like my work so the times when I am not at work are times spent alone at home. When I am not depressed, I cherish my home-time and spend it doing a lot of different things. I live in a town near the sea and love beachcombing. I have a garden and in winter I like to draw and I have a lot of books that always need to be kept company. I also have a lot of friends.
My sleeping patterns have shifted and between night waking (usually three or four am and awake, in considerable mental pain, for more than an hour before getting back to sleep) and just wanting not to deal with the world, I have been getting up later and later. On weekday mornings, I can usually get myself going at a fairly reasonable time, say 9 am or so. An indication that the depression is still in the "moderate" range. This gets me to the office in the early afternoon and I can work comfortably through into the evening. This suits my editors well because they are six hours behind me. I like my work and I find it helps me to not listen to my Evil Brain, so it is a useful distraction, at least.
But weekends are a horror. In the Twilight World, the first moments of wakefulness are very hard to take. There seems no reason at all to get up and the day ahead looks like a bleak empty road up hill under a grey sky. When I am up, I want only to go back to bed and being alone for many hours at a stretch means that the pain can gather and the negative thoughts can really spiral.
On Saturday shortly after I got up, the crying just started suddenly. I found myself doing those horrible loud gasping sobs that sometimes simply burst out from nowhere. A single thought can intrude and the emotion that rides with it is so horrifying that I am incapacitated instantly. At that moment, I knew there was no way I was going to get through the weekend unless I got out of the house. I dressed and went into the city and to the office. Even sitting in the office in front of the computer is better than being alone at home. Or I should say, better than being left at the mercy of my evil brain that seems bent on my destruction. I had intended to go for a walk through the city and then to a late Mass, but found that I was unable to bring myself to move from my desk. I stayed much later in the city than I had intended, and ended up on the last train home. I ate nothing on Saturday, having had a plate of pasta on Friday. My Evil Brain was telling me that having eaten pasta the night before, anything more than an orange and a few walnuts was too much. Besides, I was in too much pain to want to eat.
Sunday started out not too much better, and I slept until 11 after glaring at the window a few times. But for some reason, or no reason, the depression just lifted shortly after I got up and I felt better. I put some music on and bustled about doing housework. I called K and invited him over for a movie and dinner. We ended up having a nice time. (More on K later). I ate a whole meal, chicken, rice, asparagus.
That's the funny thing about depression. One day it can make you feel as if someone has handed you a piano and has instructed you to carry it around on your back; the next day, you wake up and the piano has just disappeared and you wonder if you imagined it.
I worry (of course, a huge part of depression for me is anxiety and worrying is one of the big warning-signs) that it will get worse. I have taken about four of those online diagnostic tests and each time have come up about half-way between "moderate" and "severe". I remember depression that was called "severe" and I remember that in the middle of it, I could do nothing at all. I couldn't possibly have held down a job that required concentration and the ability to organise my thoughts into sentences. What if it gets worse and I can't work? I have no savings and in this country cannot really expect to receive any sort of government help.
But today, at least, things seem to have lifted. The same searing pain does not seem to be laced through all my muscles and bones; the same ideas ('getting older') do not induce the same sense of panic. For some reason I can't understand, sometimes it is just like that. One day the volume is turned way up, the next day I can hardly hear it.
Had a nice lunch just now with a friend. Appetite just fine. But I can feel the worry simmering away under the surface.
I live by myself and have a long commute and I like my work so the times when I am not at work are times spent alone at home. When I am not depressed, I cherish my home-time and spend it doing a lot of different things. I live in a town near the sea and love beachcombing. I have a garden and in winter I like to draw and I have a lot of books that always need to be kept company. I also have a lot of friends.
My sleeping patterns have shifted and between night waking (usually three or four am and awake, in considerable mental pain, for more than an hour before getting back to sleep) and just wanting not to deal with the world, I have been getting up later and later. On weekday mornings, I can usually get myself going at a fairly reasonable time, say 9 am or so. An indication that the depression is still in the "moderate" range. This gets me to the office in the early afternoon and I can work comfortably through into the evening. This suits my editors well because they are six hours behind me. I like my work and I find it helps me to not listen to my Evil Brain, so it is a useful distraction, at least.
But weekends are a horror. In the Twilight World, the first moments of wakefulness are very hard to take. There seems no reason at all to get up and the day ahead looks like a bleak empty road up hill under a grey sky. When I am up, I want only to go back to bed and being alone for many hours at a stretch means that the pain can gather and the negative thoughts can really spiral.
On Saturday shortly after I got up, the crying just started suddenly. I found myself doing those horrible loud gasping sobs that sometimes simply burst out from nowhere. A single thought can intrude and the emotion that rides with it is so horrifying that I am incapacitated instantly. At that moment, I knew there was no way I was going to get through the weekend unless I got out of the house. I dressed and went into the city and to the office. Even sitting in the office in front of the computer is better than being alone at home. Or I should say, better than being left at the mercy of my evil brain that seems bent on my destruction. I had intended to go for a walk through the city and then to a late Mass, but found that I was unable to bring myself to move from my desk. I stayed much later in the city than I had intended, and ended up on the last train home. I ate nothing on Saturday, having had a plate of pasta on Friday. My Evil Brain was telling me that having eaten pasta the night before, anything more than an orange and a few walnuts was too much. Besides, I was in too much pain to want to eat.
Sunday started out not too much better, and I slept until 11 after glaring at the window a few times. But for some reason, or no reason, the depression just lifted shortly after I got up and I felt better. I put some music on and bustled about doing housework. I called K and invited him over for a movie and dinner. We ended up having a nice time. (More on K later). I ate a whole meal, chicken, rice, asparagus.
That's the funny thing about depression. One day it can make you feel as if someone has handed you a piano and has instructed you to carry it around on your back; the next day, you wake up and the piano has just disappeared and you wonder if you imagined it.
I worry (of course, a huge part of depression for me is anxiety and worrying is one of the big warning-signs) that it will get worse. I have taken about four of those online diagnostic tests and each time have come up about half-way between "moderate" and "severe". I remember depression that was called "severe" and I remember that in the middle of it, I could do nothing at all. I couldn't possibly have held down a job that required concentration and the ability to organise my thoughts into sentences. What if it gets worse and I can't work? I have no savings and in this country cannot really expect to receive any sort of government help.
But today, at least, things seem to have lifted. The same searing pain does not seem to be laced through all my muscles and bones; the same ideas ('getting older') do not induce the same sense of panic. For some reason I can't understand, sometimes it is just like that. One day the volume is turned way up, the next day I can hardly hear it.
Had a nice lunch just now with a friend. Appetite just fine. But I can feel the worry simmering away under the surface.
Saturday 9 January 2010
Symptoms III
Out of breath.
Catch your breath.
Try to breathe in, but it staggers sideways and stops, not knowing where to go next.
Breathing out comes in quick little gasps, interrupted by little chokes.
Catch your breath.
Try to breathe in, but it staggers sideways and stops, not knowing where to go next.
Breathing out comes in quick little gasps, interrupted by little chokes.
More Symptoms
Sleep comes late, usually some time after midnight. Then the world intrudes again at three or four. The pain wakes you up and you lie under its weight, with enough room to shake. You struggle to keep the crying down under the threshold because if it gets out it will blaze through you and leave nothing sane. It will become a mania that can't be stopped, you will end the night screaming and clawing your skin. You lie still, hoping the pain will leave you alone if you do nothing to draw its attention.
You remember to pray, but the only prayer you can think of is to beg to be released. Suicide is not allowed, but you can pray for death.
You can ask, can't you?
You remember to pray, but the only prayer you can think of is to beg to be released. Suicide is not allowed, but you can pray for death.
You can ask, can't you?
People are funny
Not funny ha ha...
I think it's funny that I am willing to bare my innermost stuff (probably not all my innermost stuff) to the whole world, but I don't want any of my friends or colleagues or relatives or co-workers to know what's going on.
Not that they aren't figuring it out anyway.
I've been careful here to make sure that nothing of the blogger information identifies me and I think I'm going to more or less keep it that way. Though, of course, anyone who knows me even more than a little will recognise a lot of this, enough to identify me.
But something, I suppose, has to be said about who I am.
I am, more or less, a professional writer. That is, I write things on various topics and email them to a place in North America and the people who work in that place give me money. Doing something for money is what "professional" means. It doesn't mean I'm good at it. Every now and then, I've written things that I think are really good. I was just reading one today, in fact. But it is still hard for me to think of myself as a successful writer. Or really as a successful anything.
I sort of stumbled into what I do when I was looking for a real job. After a while, I figured I would just keep doing it, since it paid the bills and allowed me to live nearly anywhere. Now I do, in fact, live anywhere and it has actually just contributed more to my perpetual feeling of disconnectedness. So it seems absurd to me to describe myself as a writer. It sounds so important and high falutin when the reality of it seems a lot more squalid and silly. Words on the internet. What a laugh.
I am also a Christian, but not a very good one. I really do believe that everything the Catholic Church teaches is true, without exception. But being a "believer" I have noticed, does not make one "devout," no matter what the media thinks. I might write quite a lot about this later.
I am white, a woman, over 40 but under 50. I was born in Canada and have lived in nearly every part of it over the years. My relatives live all over the place but most of the ones I know about live in the US and Britain. I have lived in Britain as well.
I live in Europe now and recently fell in love, most unexpectedly, with a younger man. Even more recently, he gave me the boot, which was the trigger for my current interesting situation.
I wear glasses.
I have a cat.
(There, if that isn't enough to give all my friends the clues, I don't know what is.)
I think it's funny that I am willing to bare my innermost stuff (probably not all my innermost stuff) to the whole world, but I don't want any of my friends or colleagues or relatives or co-workers to know what's going on.
Not that they aren't figuring it out anyway.
I've been careful here to make sure that nothing of the blogger information identifies me and I think I'm going to more or less keep it that way. Though, of course, anyone who knows me even more than a little will recognise a lot of this, enough to identify me.
But something, I suppose, has to be said about who I am.
I am, more or less, a professional writer. That is, I write things on various topics and email them to a place in North America and the people who work in that place give me money. Doing something for money is what "professional" means. It doesn't mean I'm good at it. Every now and then, I've written things that I think are really good. I was just reading one today, in fact. But it is still hard for me to think of myself as a successful writer. Or really as a successful anything.
I sort of stumbled into what I do when I was looking for a real job. After a while, I figured I would just keep doing it, since it paid the bills and allowed me to live nearly anywhere. Now I do, in fact, live anywhere and it has actually just contributed more to my perpetual feeling of disconnectedness. So it seems absurd to me to describe myself as a writer. It sounds so important and high falutin when the reality of it seems a lot more squalid and silly. Words on the internet. What a laugh.
I am also a Christian, but not a very good one. I really do believe that everything the Catholic Church teaches is true, without exception. But being a "believer" I have noticed, does not make one "devout," no matter what the media thinks. I might write quite a lot about this later.
I am white, a woman, over 40 but under 50. I was born in Canada and have lived in nearly every part of it over the years. My relatives live all over the place but most of the ones I know about live in the US and Britain. I have lived in Britain as well.
I live in Europe now and recently fell in love, most unexpectedly, with a younger man. Even more recently, he gave me the boot, which was the trigger for my current interesting situation.
I wear glasses.
I have a cat.
(There, if that isn't enough to give all my friends the clues, I don't know what is.)
No Cure
There is something about depression that the doctors and Mayo Clinic websites don't tell you. There is no cure. They cheerfully tell you that if you are in some kind of extreme situation, that you must "contact a health care professional". It sounds very comforting, but it is, unfortunately, rubbish. Health care professionals are utterly at sea with most of this stuff, where they are not outright incompetent.
My own past experience with doctors in North America has taught me to stay far away from them, even in situations that others might regard as emergencies.
Depression is usually called the "common cold" of mental illnesses, but it is also one that remains stubbornly difficult even to treat effectively. In our awful world, nearly everyone is at least moderately dysthymic and most people will experience the symptoms of a major depression at least once in their lives. And yet...
Despite what is said about the "new" anti-depressants, they are not miraculous. Often they don't work at all, and in some case, actually make the symptoms much worse.
This last happened to me. Ten years ago, I was treated in the now-usual way for depression by being loaded up with drugs. Nothing was offered in the way of talk-therapy (for which I am now grateful). I was given the standard SSRI drugs, plus helps for sleeplessness. I got worse. They increased the dosage. I got much worse.
This continued until I was a walking experiment. I ended up on five or six different anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications and I was a basket case. I slept two or three hours every other night. I walked compulsively and was unable to stop moving. One day I walked for 18 straight hours, sitting on park benches and garden walls for only a few minutes at a time. I lost 40 pounds and could only eat tiny amounts of fruit. My short term memory was shot (Ativan) and I often could not remember if I had spoken with or seen someone only a few minutes after leaving them. I repeated myself in conversations with people, being unable to remember what I had said or where the thread of conversations were going.
In my brief visits with the doctor, sometimes with six weeks or more between appointments, he would ask me how I was feeling. I would tell him and then he would prescribe me either a new drug to be added to the rest or an increase in the existing ones.
At one point I protested, saying that I was not soup, that you couldn't just keep throwing different things into me to see how it would work out. There had to be some kind of plan. He responded by getting personally offended. "Don't you trust me to prescribe the right medications?" This after nearly a year of steady deterioration and incapacitation.
Finally, I was told during one of my many short visits "inside" that if I didn't improve, I would probably die. They started to use the term "non-compliant," which technically meant that I was not responding to any treatment, but was used as if I were somehow doing it on purpose.
Finally, something in me woke up and said 'enough'. I had been told by a friend about a pschyopharmacologist who had helped. I had to insist on a referral to this guy (under Canadian health care rules, you can't just call a specialist, you have to be referred by your attending physician. If the physician doesn't approve the idea, or if he is offended at your lack of trust, he won't refer, and you don't get a second opinion.) But I managed to convince my GP to send me to him.
In a five minute interview, he asked me questions about my medical history (no one else had ever done this) and discovered that I had been diagnosed in childhood with temporal lobe epilepsy, which exacerbates the symptoms of depression. I had never recieved treatment for my epilepsy which, in 1979, they told me would "naturally burn itself out" when adolescence hit. And it is true that after age 16 or so, I only had seizures extremely rarely, and then only under heavy stress or when I was having a high fever. I had even stopped thinking of myself as someone with epilepsy.
Well, since 1979 they have discovered a few things about epilepsy, one of which is that it does not go away, though the symptoms may change over time. This specialist reacted with shock when I told him how many and what kinds of different psychotropic medications I was on. He said I should not be taking any of them because with epilepsy, the effects of SSRI medication was effectively reversed. The more they gave me, the worse I would get. He said that they had 'lowered the threshold of seizures' in my brain and that the more I took, the more seizures I would have. This explained the weird symptoms I was having (the compulsive walking, the hallucinations and delusions...yes, it was just great!).
He gave me a strict schedule to ease myself off most of the drugs, keeping only the little oblong blue thing that was the only thing that would allow me to sleep (since forgotten its name, darn it!). I was to spend a lot of time sleeping and resting and not taking medication. Then when I was off most of it, he gave me a prescription for a mild anti-epileptic drug which I took for a year.
And it was only then that I had that experience they say you are supposed to get with the SSRI's. The sun did, finally, come out from behind the clouds. Slowly I got back to eating and sleeping normally and put on weight (a little too much!). I enrolled in a course in university and did well.
All this took a year. And I had been ill for a year. That was two years this fiasco took out of my life and if it had been the US instead of Canada, I would be suing the pants off everyone who had a hand in it.
So, now that I am no longer in North America, no longer in a country where medical care is easy to get, and facing another depressive state, what now?
Don't know, frankly. Am just gritting teeth right now and trying to keep my head above water. But even if I could see a doctor, who spoke English and was not trained in a third or second-world hell hole, I think I would give it a pass.
So the blog is a way of keeping track of what is happening. I am going to try to be as objective as possible. My model is CS Lewis who wrote a harrowing little book in which he criticially examined his reaction to the death of his beloved wife.
The idea of criticially examining my reactions, symptoms and thoughts as I go through a mind-altering experience, reminds me of that old Far Side cartoon in which a clown sits in a laboratory writing in a notebook: "Day fifteen. I can no longer resist the urge to throw a pie into the faces of my colleagues". Like one of those scientists in the movies who injects himself with the serum and then keeps a note book of what happens to him, until he turns into the monster and eats everyone.
According to the standard tests, I'm registering as somewhere between medium to severely depressed. I experience all the normal symptoms with a few extras I will probably write about.
We'll just see what happens, shall we?
My own past experience with doctors in North America has taught me to stay far away from them, even in situations that others might regard as emergencies.
Depression is usually called the "common cold" of mental illnesses, but it is also one that remains stubbornly difficult even to treat effectively. In our awful world, nearly everyone is at least moderately dysthymic and most people will experience the symptoms of a major depression at least once in their lives. And yet...
Despite what is said about the "new" anti-depressants, they are not miraculous. Often they don't work at all, and in some case, actually make the symptoms much worse.
This last happened to me. Ten years ago, I was treated in the now-usual way for depression by being loaded up with drugs. Nothing was offered in the way of talk-therapy (for which I am now grateful). I was given the standard SSRI drugs, plus helps for sleeplessness. I got worse. They increased the dosage. I got much worse.
This continued until I was a walking experiment. I ended up on five or six different anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications and I was a basket case. I slept two or three hours every other night. I walked compulsively and was unable to stop moving. One day I walked for 18 straight hours, sitting on park benches and garden walls for only a few minutes at a time. I lost 40 pounds and could only eat tiny amounts of fruit. My short term memory was shot (Ativan) and I often could not remember if I had spoken with or seen someone only a few minutes after leaving them. I repeated myself in conversations with people, being unable to remember what I had said or where the thread of conversations were going.
In my brief visits with the doctor, sometimes with six weeks or more between appointments, he would ask me how I was feeling. I would tell him and then he would prescribe me either a new drug to be added to the rest or an increase in the existing ones.
At one point I protested, saying that I was not soup, that you couldn't just keep throwing different things into me to see how it would work out. There had to be some kind of plan. He responded by getting personally offended. "Don't you trust me to prescribe the right medications?" This after nearly a year of steady deterioration and incapacitation.
Finally, I was told during one of my many short visits "inside" that if I didn't improve, I would probably die. They started to use the term "non-compliant," which technically meant that I was not responding to any treatment, but was used as if I were somehow doing it on purpose.
Finally, something in me woke up and said 'enough'. I had been told by a friend about a pschyopharmacologist who had helped. I had to insist on a referral to this guy (under Canadian health care rules, you can't just call a specialist, you have to be referred by your attending physician. If the physician doesn't approve the idea, or if he is offended at your lack of trust, he won't refer, and you don't get a second opinion.) But I managed to convince my GP to send me to him.
In a five minute interview, he asked me questions about my medical history (no one else had ever done this) and discovered that I had been diagnosed in childhood with temporal lobe epilepsy, which exacerbates the symptoms of depression. I had never recieved treatment for my epilepsy which, in 1979, they told me would "naturally burn itself out" when adolescence hit. And it is true that after age 16 or so, I only had seizures extremely rarely, and then only under heavy stress or when I was having a high fever. I had even stopped thinking of myself as someone with epilepsy.
Well, since 1979 they have discovered a few things about epilepsy, one of which is that it does not go away, though the symptoms may change over time. This specialist reacted with shock when I told him how many and what kinds of different psychotropic medications I was on. He said I should not be taking any of them because with epilepsy, the effects of SSRI medication was effectively reversed. The more they gave me, the worse I would get. He said that they had 'lowered the threshold of seizures' in my brain and that the more I took, the more seizures I would have. This explained the weird symptoms I was having (the compulsive walking, the hallucinations and delusions...yes, it was just great!).
He gave me a strict schedule to ease myself off most of the drugs, keeping only the little oblong blue thing that was the only thing that would allow me to sleep (since forgotten its name, darn it!). I was to spend a lot of time sleeping and resting and not taking medication. Then when I was off most of it, he gave me a prescription for a mild anti-epileptic drug which I took for a year.
And it was only then that I had that experience they say you are supposed to get with the SSRI's. The sun did, finally, come out from behind the clouds. Slowly I got back to eating and sleeping normally and put on weight (a little too much!). I enrolled in a course in university and did well.
All this took a year. And I had been ill for a year. That was two years this fiasco took out of my life and if it had been the US instead of Canada, I would be suing the pants off everyone who had a hand in it.
So, now that I am no longer in North America, no longer in a country where medical care is easy to get, and facing another depressive state, what now?
Don't know, frankly. Am just gritting teeth right now and trying to keep my head above water. But even if I could see a doctor, who spoke English and was not trained in a third or second-world hell hole, I think I would give it a pass.
So the blog is a way of keeping track of what is happening. I am going to try to be as objective as possible. My model is CS Lewis who wrote a harrowing little book in which he criticially examined his reaction to the death of his beloved wife.
The idea of criticially examining my reactions, symptoms and thoughts as I go through a mind-altering experience, reminds me of that old Far Side cartoon in which a clown sits in a laboratory writing in a notebook: "Day fifteen. I can no longer resist the urge to throw a pie into the faces of my colleagues". Like one of those scientists in the movies who injects himself with the serum and then keeps a note book of what happens to him, until he turns into the monster and eats everyone.
According to the standard tests, I'm registering as somewhere between medium to severely depressed. I experience all the normal symptoms with a few extras I will probably write about.
We'll just see what happens, shall we?
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