It's like this, really; every day is a little death, each lie down in bed like shutting the lid on the coffin. One more shuffling step to oblivion stuck in a multitude that pulls me along without choice like Japanese subway passengers. Each night I can feel myself sliding right off of the cliff, hands scrabbling at the gritty crumbling edge and not finding purchase, slipping down into the empty gulf of air.
It's the light, once the old black and white television is turned off, shrinking smaller and smaller into the dead black field, tinier and tinier until its undeniably gone.
Retroactive non-existence.
I don't have the tools to fight these feelings, I've been under drugs and therapy for years and I'm no closer to living with this express train of thoughts. When the meds are high enough I don't sit up and scream in the night. That's the big difference. How can I be of help to anyone, much less myself, when I don't believe in happy endings?
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Gallows Walk
My entire day, the other day, was a gallows walk.
It was a whole week really, but it was that last day that was the worst. That day at 2:30 in the afternoon, my dog was scheduled to die.
It was time, and I knew it. She had made it a good fifteen and a half years, remarkable for a dog who tipped the scales like clockwork at 55 pounds, every year at her checkup. She had survived abdominal surgery at the age of thirteen, acute gastritis at fourteen. But the combination of all the skeletal ills inherited from the German shepherd part of her and a suddenly unmanageable immuno-skin disease took any real choice I had away. So I called my vet and scheduled it for as soon as possible for me and the vet; the middle of the following week.
So began the walk. I spoiled her rotten that last week, Science Diet may have got her to fifteen and a half years, but it's not much of a last meal. So she finally got scraps from the dinner table, other things, even some chocolate (what could it hurt?) But I couldn't touch her. I couldn't run my fingers through her fur because she didn't like it anymore; it was a combination of discomfort and the recent memories of my trying to treat the sores she was starting to get. So I felt cut off from her that week. The gallows walk that we walked together, still seemed like I walked it alone. I took extra pills every day that week.
I worked that morning. I didn't think it would do me or her any good if I stayed home all day, watching her morosely and listening to the booming tick of the clock. Everything had that curious time-altered feel to it; the morning seemed to drag miserably, until it was time to leave and it felt that it had rushed by. I got home early in the afternoon and cleaned up, put her bed in the back of the van and rode in the back with her over to the vet's. We took her right in and put her on a rug on the floor. We said some long goodbyes, she was sedated, and then she was given the shot to end it. Her heart was so strong it took two doses to put her to rest. The gallows walk was over.
Later we buried her ashes in a place she loved; a place where she used to gallop wildly and grin derisively at the thought of being tired. I hope she's happy, I hope she's out of pain, I hope she's running there again. These are the things people are telling me. Mostly I just wish I could have done better by her when she was around.
It was a whole week really, but it was that last day that was the worst. That day at 2:30 in the afternoon, my dog was scheduled to die.
It was time, and I knew it. She had made it a good fifteen and a half years, remarkable for a dog who tipped the scales like clockwork at 55 pounds, every year at her checkup. She had survived abdominal surgery at the age of thirteen, acute gastritis at fourteen. But the combination of all the skeletal ills inherited from the German shepherd part of her and a suddenly unmanageable immuno-skin disease took any real choice I had away. So I called my vet and scheduled it for as soon as possible for me and the vet; the middle of the following week.
So began the walk. I spoiled her rotten that last week, Science Diet may have got her to fifteen and a half years, but it's not much of a last meal. So she finally got scraps from the dinner table, other things, even some chocolate (what could it hurt?) But I couldn't touch her. I couldn't run my fingers through her fur because she didn't like it anymore; it was a combination of discomfort and the recent memories of my trying to treat the sores she was starting to get. So I felt cut off from her that week. The gallows walk that we walked together, still seemed like I walked it alone. I took extra pills every day that week.
I worked that morning. I didn't think it would do me or her any good if I stayed home all day, watching her morosely and listening to the booming tick of the clock. Everything had that curious time-altered feel to it; the morning seemed to drag miserably, until it was time to leave and it felt that it had rushed by. I got home early in the afternoon and cleaned up, put her bed in the back of the van and rode in the back with her over to the vet's. We took her right in and put her on a rug on the floor. We said some long goodbyes, she was sedated, and then she was given the shot to end it. Her heart was so strong it took two doses to put her to rest. The gallows walk was over.
Later we buried her ashes in a place she loved; a place where she used to gallop wildly and grin derisively at the thought of being tired. I hope she's happy, I hope she's out of pain, I hope she's running there again. These are the things people are telling me. Mostly I just wish I could have done better by her when she was around.
Thursday, February 28, 2008
New Data
So a new study has come out from England suggesting that the modern anti-depressants are not clinically more effective than placebo. I don't really know how I feel about that. Half the time I'm not sure if my depression is real or if I'm engaging in some sort of cowardly escapist self-deception, so why should I be any more confident in the treatment. I know it does something. The dreams and the sex don't seem to me to be placebo effects. Something is going on in my brain and it's something I can feel. I don't know if Prozac is better at causing side effects than it is at treating depression and anxiety. That would certainly be irony.
I know the stuff isn't perfect, I believe if it were I would feel better. The motor wouldn't run all the time, the anxiety wouldn't consume me the way it does. The waves of self-hatred, the unseen, unheard, breakdowns in the shower or at work, the self-destructive thoughts triggered by frustration, all these would ease. It seems that Prozac is a lifeboat with a leak, and I don't know if it will float, swamp, or sink. I just know that jumping out of it is more than I can face.
I know the stuff isn't perfect, I believe if it were I would feel better. The motor wouldn't run all the time, the anxiety wouldn't consume me the way it does. The waves of self-hatred, the unseen, unheard, breakdowns in the shower or at work, the self-destructive thoughts triggered by frustration, all these would ease. It seems that Prozac is a lifeboat with a leak, and I don't know if it will float, swamp, or sink. I just know that jumping out of it is more than I can face.
Monday, February 11, 2008
Fluoxetine Dreams
There is an apparent blood-level of medication that I tend to pass on the way up and on the way down where my dream-life becomes very active. Usually it happens when I change levels of medication, run out and skip a few more days than I should, or when I start to get attenuating effect from my current dosage. In fact it seems to be a decent barometer of when things are about to go south with my condition. Right now I'm getting used to my new higher dose and I'm still in the vivid dream stage. As a matter of fact I've been there longer than the normal couple three days, and I wonder about this. I guess we'll have to wait and see.
In the meantime, I just need to deal with the night-time strangeness. The other night I dreamt a party at my parents' house and late in the evening all the parents of these adult people at the party came to pick them up and they were all of a really advanced age. One of the people at the party was a coworker, only for some reason her name was Mavis.
Another time I had a dream about being chased through my best friend's backyard by a couple of hippopotamus'. Then there was the strange carnival where I had to play home-run derby using a tightly rolled towel as a bat, and the one where I wandered through a labyrinthine parking garage, mad at my wife because she let the car get stolen.
It's entertaining, anyway.
In the meantime, I just need to deal with the night-time strangeness. The other night I dreamt a party at my parents' house and late in the evening all the parents of these adult people at the party came to pick them up and they were all of a really advanced age. One of the people at the party was a coworker, only for some reason her name was Mavis.
Another time I had a dream about being chased through my best friend's backyard by a couple of hippopotamus'. Then there was the strange carnival where I had to play home-run derby using a tightly rolled towel as a bat, and the one where I wandered through a labyrinthine parking garage, mad at my wife because she let the car get stolen.
It's entertaining, anyway.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Sex and Prozac
Guys on Prozac probably know where this is going.
I may be making an assumption here, but I feel safe in generalizing that the great majority of those suffering from depression have associated image and esteem issues. That being the case, it's terribly ironic that the popular treatments for depression cause difficulty in sexual performance. Obviously there's a disconnect (heh) here. Even when everything works it still becomes much more like work and less like fun. Which sucks. So you get depressed, take medication, impact your sex life, feel worse about yourself, take more medicine... you can see where this is heading.
I can often tell how effective the level of medication I'm on is by how easy sex is. A bit of a catch 22, really, once sex starts getting easier and more enjoyable then I know my depression is about to get worse. And in reverse fashion, once I start feeling better, there goes the sex. Of course, one could always respond by more medication, but the insurance companies are awfully stingy with Viagra, seems they want to try and tell you how often to have sex.
I may be making an assumption here, but I feel safe in generalizing that the great majority of those suffering from depression have associated image and esteem issues. That being the case, it's terribly ironic that the popular treatments for depression cause difficulty in sexual performance. Obviously there's a disconnect (heh) here. Even when everything works it still becomes much more like work and less like fun. Which sucks. So you get depressed, take medication, impact your sex life, feel worse about yourself, take more medicine... you can see where this is heading.
I can often tell how effective the level of medication I'm on is by how easy sex is. A bit of a catch 22, really, once sex starts getting easier and more enjoyable then I know my depression is about to get worse. And in reverse fashion, once I start feeling better, there goes the sex. Of course, one could always respond by more medication, but the insurance companies are awfully stingy with Viagra, seems they want to try and tell you how often to have sex.
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Sore Throat
I spent fifteen minutes screaming at God the other day.
Actually it was my therapist who suggested it. I'm angry, and the one I'm most angry at is God, if you want to put a face on it. I'm not going to go into the details of my reasons, even a blogger gets a little privacy, but my life has felt like the target of a bored cat, something to be played with. So right or wrong, that's how I feel and the anger and frustration I harbor fills me more and more. So she says I won't heal until I deal with the anger.
So I shouted at God, told the deity(if any) what I thought of someone who would play around with someone's life as it feels mine has been played with. Said things that two-thirds of the christian community would no doubt declare put my down payment on lake-front property in Hell. If so at the moment being damned feels neither better nor worse than I was before.
All it really seemed to get me was a sore throat.
Actually it was my therapist who suggested it. I'm angry, and the one I'm most angry at is God, if you want to put a face on it. I'm not going to go into the details of my reasons, even a blogger gets a little privacy, but my life has felt like the target of a bored cat, something to be played with. So right or wrong, that's how I feel and the anger and frustration I harbor fills me more and more. So she says I won't heal until I deal with the anger.
So I shouted at God, told the deity(if any) what I thought of someone who would play around with someone's life as it feels mine has been played with. Said things that two-thirds of the christian community would no doubt declare put my down payment on lake-front property in Hell. If so at the moment being damned feels neither better nor worse than I was before.
All it really seemed to get me was a sore throat.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
WhenTheMotorWon'tStop
The motor won't stop. When I get hit by something, the motor starts, and becomes the energizer bunny.
My mother's car broke one day on the highway, years ago. A piece inside the engine somewhere broke off and rattled around in the guts of her minivan until it stuck in the mechanism that controls the accelerator. The car behaved like the pedal was floored no matter what she did. She started flying down the highway faster and faster, the engine roaring louder and louder. It took her a while, but she finally got it out of gear and coasted it to a stop.
This is my nervous system. When life takes one of its normal innumerable little shots at me it knocks something loose and the heart pounds, the hands shake, fight or flight cuts loose, rattling around inside a small box. I can't find the way to get it out of gear. A thousand unhelpful visions flash across the screen inside my head and like Alex amidst the Ludovico technique, I can't stop it. Last night it took an hour of computer trivia at 2am to make it stop.
My brain doc was outraged, in his mild idiom, when I told him the HMO wouldn't pay for enough pills for 60 mgs daily. "Let me know if I can help..." he said.
My mother's car broke one day on the highway, years ago. A piece inside the engine somewhere broke off and rattled around in the guts of her minivan until it stuck in the mechanism that controls the accelerator. The car behaved like the pedal was floored no matter what she did. She started flying down the highway faster and faster, the engine roaring louder and louder. It took her a while, but she finally got it out of gear and coasted it to a stop.
This is my nervous system. When life takes one of its normal innumerable little shots at me it knocks something loose and the heart pounds, the hands shake, fight or flight cuts loose, rattling around inside a small box. I can't find the way to get it out of gear. A thousand unhelpful visions flash across the screen inside my head and like Alex amidst the Ludovico technique, I can't stop it. Last night it took an hour of computer trivia at 2am to make it stop.
My brain doc was outraged, in his mild idiom, when I told him the HMO wouldn't pay for enough pills for 60 mgs daily. "Let me know if I can help..." he said.
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