Ressurection

One of the great ironies of depression is that it’s hard to see from the inside. From the inner perspective it can look like moodiness, frustration with everyday events, an inexplicable loss of good judgment or an intense desire to be alone in a small world that you can control. From inside, nothing ties all those things together and names them symptoms of depression.

The irony continues when one gets treatment for depression. As the medication begins to take effect, all of this becomes clearer, the parts fitting together into a whole. And the depressed person realizes acutely just how dark his life had become. From within depression, the darkness seems normal. Outside of it, it leads to questions like “Why couldn’t I see this?” and “Shouldn’t I have known?”

That’s the punch line: depressed people often cannot put a name on what’s changed in their lives other than that they are unhappier. They say “stressed” or “under pressure”. They say “I can’t sleep”. They say they’re lonely and/or don’t care about anything and want to be alone.

No part of the experience makes sense until the depression begins to lift. Then the picture gradually becomes so clear one wonders how they missed it. Why they didn’t see it before.

And contrary to popular myth, antidepressants aren’t “happy pills”. They don’t create an artificial happiness that wasn’t there before but had been superceded by the dark side. Pills don’t create happiness: they only allow happiness to be more of an option. They don’t mask or dilute pain, but they do allow the individual to deal with those emotions more sanely.

It’s been about a month for me on Celexa, and I kick myself for not talking to my doctor sooner. I suppose that I didn’t want to admit that I was weak and needed help. I really don’t know. Nothing was very clear when I was teetering along the edge of the abyss.

A month in, things are much clearer. I’m back to being me. Hopelessly romantic and optimistic. Instead of seeing what is and retreating inside myself, I see what is and what could be. I can laugh at the absurdity of daily life instead of taking it as a personal affront.

The only side effects have been some dry-mouth and loss of libido ("dead dick" in the parlance). I can always drink more water, and since I gave up promiscuity a decade ago, not caring about sex is something of a blessing. I ain't getting none any time soon, but I don't care. It's one less thing to distract me.

In short, I have a perspective that I lacked a few short weeks ago. A perspective that is more in line with normal functioning for me than what I had become.

People have noticed. They ask me if I’ve changed my hair or lost weight. (“No” to both: my hair is still gray and I’ve put on 10 lbs.) They say I look “healthier”, whatever that means. They know something’s different, but they can’t quite put a finger on what it is.

The difference is that I’m back. The real me is present again. I'm in the house.

I feel almost like I’ve been raised from the dead.

Life Support

For the last nine months I have struggled to write meaningfully and intelligently about Shannon's death, but intelligence and meaning elude me. I want to give a name to what grief and loss feel like, but all words disappoint me: none are good enough. I want to work out in my own mind how to learn to be alone and move forward, but I see only here and now. The future is a concept I don't really believe in any more. I fight for meaning or reason or anything that makes sense, and I end up where I started: confused and psychically mute, unable to speak because I have nothing to say.

I have diversions enough that keep me from wallowing in the psychic void where pain lives. Work keeps me busy, although I find it increasingly irrelevant except as a way to generate honest cash. I care about doing a good job, but that's more a manifestation of neurotic perfectionism than anything else. Managing my health takes more time that it ever has, but I've never had surgery or a blood clot before. It takes time and slows me down, but I don't want to die or live with complications of a mismanaged surgical recovery. I see and talk to friends and family who are always there if I need them, but they generally give me the space I asked for while I try to rebuild my life.

And that is where I hit the wall: rebuilding. How do I do it? Where do I begin? What do I want it to look like? Are my best days behind me? What happens now?

I'll be 46 on Friday, but I am as unsure of myself as I was when I was a teenager starting college. Less sure of myself, to be honest. Back then, I was too naive to understand that I didn't know everything. I didn't have the weight of life and experience tugging me down. I can't think clearly about anything that isn't immediate these days.

I have maintained enough sanity, however, to realize that I was on the edge of an abyss, staring down into its eternal darkness. If I teetered and fell, I might or might not be able to claw my way out. Through my clouded perceptions, I could see that fact clearly. It's happened before, and even the prospect of it happening again scared me to my bones.

It scared me so bad that I called my doctor to talk about “mental health issues”. I told him about the abyss and my fear of falling. To my surprise, he listened and believed me. I spoke honestly and even cried a little. And he listened.

The long and short of it is that Celexa (an antidepressant) is now a part of my nightly pill regimen that also includes a blood thinner and blood pressure medicine. The last two are supposed to prolong and safeguard my life, and the first is supposed to help make me care about it again.

He's a good doctor, and I'm fortunate to be his patient.

It's been a couple of weeks, and I'm thinking a little more clearly, but not always. The crazy pills take 21 days or so to reach full impact, so we'll see where I am on clarity in a week or so. Somewhere, deep inside me, there's a will to live. A lust for happiness, in whatever form that might take. That part of me isn't dead, but it's on life support.