I really don’t think I can take any more of this. I keep hoping that I die somehow in an accident but of course it doesn’t happen.
I am so agitated that I couldn’t even sit still for my morning mediation. Nor, can I read a book. I feel like all the chickens have come home to roost. And I can’t cope with the mess I have created for myself.
It seems that every time I experience a period of “depression” I think that it’ the worst I’ve ever experienced. But this time I really do feel so lost.
Spent an inordinate amount of time over the last weeks googling suicide and methods — reading the stories of suicide survivors is a great way of putting yourself off. I really don’t want to kill myself but I can’t see any way out of my current predicament. But there may well be a way that I just can’t see.
So now what…?
I keep looking for stuff on the web about suicide as I’m thinking a lot about it nowadays. I have to keep reminding myself of all my good reasons for going on living. One of them — and it’s not insignificant — is the thought of what it would do to my family, my friends and particularly my wife, K. Here‘s a good article by a woman whose husband ended his own life. You can read lots of heart-wrenching testimonies by survivors of sucide here on a forum for people who have lost loved ones. Scroll down to the “Communities” section and take your pick. Everyone is a real case of how a single person’s action can cause a hurt that never heals. I almost felt like I had a prurient voyeristic motive for reading these but it’s very good to remind you that suicide does not end the pain, it increases it.
The important thing about the experience of depression is that the feeling of terrible pain and sickness is physical. For the last couple of months it has been unbearable for me. And yet I have born it. The mirtazapine seems to dull the pain somewhat but brings uncomfortable feelings of its own. Sometimes I wonder whether this anaesthetic quality is slowing down my recovery.
Last night we went to a classical concert. Sitting there, unable to move, listening to Sibelius was excrutiating at times but I did feel better afterwards. Distraction is such a normal reaction to depression but it might prolong it somehow.
It’s time that I started writing this blog again. I’ve just been at the very bottom, lower than I thought that I would ever go. Real madness this time (of which more later perhaps). But I’m back on Mirtazapine and that seems to have stablized me somewhat although the hunger pangs and worst of all the numbness and mind-fog makes it seem like I’m paying a high price to appear sane.
Do I surf the net when I’m depressed or is it surfing that makes me depressed? Just something to think about.
One of the drawbacks of being a depressive is that you are never sure when you really are ill. By “really ill” I mean having flu, bubonic plague or at least a bad cold. I wake up this morning feeling nauseas and dizzy and go back to bed. But that is not really very different from most days, well not qualitatively. I just feel quite a bit worse. And I have an appointment with my therapist who hasn’t been around for three weeks. K thinks that is why I am feeling ill — because I don’t want to go. After some agonising, I cancel the appointment anyway.
So there seems to be a contradiction between my drawing a distinction between feeling ill and being really ill and my view of the mind and body being identical. Not only that but does it make sense to suggest that you can feel ill but that somehow, there’s nothing “really” wrong with you?
I know that I am very anxious about going back to college in a couple of weeks. I haven’t done enough work over the Summer and that scares me. I stll find studying painfully difficult and that disappoints me. So there’s stuff to feel bad about. And what’s the difference between feeling bad because of worries and feeling bad because of a virus?
I’ll return to this but right now, I feel too dizzy to think about it.
…to go to bed by 9.30pm and read rather than mess around online or watch TV.
Will I make it?
It’s my Birthday in a week or so, the 23rd if you want to send me a card. In a way I would rather do nothing but I also fear the sadness that comes from not doing something for my birthday. So I invite some of my oldest friends to come for a meal at the gastropub at the end of our road. The biggest table takes 12, so I think I can take a chance on inviting 13 people as someone is bound not to be able to come. I send out an email, carefully counting the people in the “To:” box and yes, that’s right, six couples and a single male friend.
Then as I get the first yeses, I realise (duh!) that I didn’t count myself or K, my wife. So now I’m panicking that the whole thing is going to be a disaster and praying that some of the people who said they weren’t sure, say no. I mention this to K, last night and she says, “You do like to make your life complicated, don’t you?” She points out that since I’ve given people until Sunday to reply, I can deal with it then. Any case we could actually book a second table. But all this sends me whirling in a maelstrom of anxiety.
I realise that any of my brothers or sisters in depression reading this would be amazed that I can be upset under such circumstances. I am clearly very fortunate to have friends who want to celebrate my birthday with me. Some people would love to have such a problem. But what it represents in me is a pattern or symptom which associates socialising with complication and anxiety. It’s like I have a dread fear of somehow messing up, upsetting someone or looking bad in some way.
And don’t get me started on whether I should have invited other friends who I left off the list. What if they find out? Will they feel hurt? Will they ever talk to me again? Thinking that makes me wonder if I am more afraid of causing other people suffering or being ostracized myself. If it’s just the latter, then I have yet another reason to feel bad about me. If it’s the former, what gives me the idea that what I do has so great effect on other people’s happiness?
Saw my G.P. today. Apparently my blood test did show something. My gamma GT levels are a little high (67, under 55 is normal). This can indicate liver problems. And the bad news is that she wants me to give up alcohol for 4 weeks and then be retested. Not that I drink very much, a couple of units a day, sometimes nothing. I explained that it’s my birthday in the next couple of weeks and she said I could wait until after then.
Am I the only person who will a
dmit to feeling a twinge of disappointment that the world didn’t end today as a result of the switching on of the Large Hadron Collider? Some people, anti-scientists perhaps, were suggesting that this grand experiment could produce a miniature black hole or a strangelet that could destroy the Earth. Well maybe it still will.
It’s a sad reflection on me and my life that on some level I’d prefer the complete destruction of the planet to my continuation. And yet I support environmental protests, recycle, try and buy “green” products. You might ask me why I don’t just kill myself and leave you and the other 5 billion humans out of it. Well, I have a number of reasons. I care about my wife, my other family and friends and wouldn’t want to destroy their lives. I’m (quite sensibly) scared of pain. I’m scared of screwing up and living a life of shame and/or incurable illness or disability as a result of the botched attempt. But there is a reason more important than any of these which is that deep down, I want to live. I know that I have the potential for a happy fulfilled life. I just need to make it happen.
Anyway, if the world had ended, I wouldn’t feel any better for it.
