In High Gear

I feel good today. I feel a sense of well-being. I still don’t feel like doing anything, but I do feel like thinking, talking, walking, joking, and otherwise behaving much like a human being.

Is it the drug? Or is my depressive episode passing, as it eventually always does? Eh, well. We’ll see. Doctor’s appointment next Wednesday to evaluate.

Comments(1)

Today

was

a

very

bad

day.

Not a single bad thing happened. Good things happened. No reason – no excuse – to suffer.

I suffered so painfully, even though spc476 brought me flowers and kires came over and visited and did nice things to my windows and wlofie was sweet to me all day and gave me some of his root beer to go with fig newtons and the kiddos were rather quiet and well behaved and kind to me. When I wasn’t careful, my teeth clenched until they hurt. When I was careful, the muscles of my face ached from trying not to clench my teeth. My whole body felt as though I were wearing plate armor under my skin, something under the surface pulling me downward heavily. Especially my face. I felt on the verge of tears, but couldn’t cry.

I put up a fairly good front until late afternoon, when there was just no more strength for it. I sequestered myself in spc476‘s room and went to sleep.

It wasn’t any better upon waking, but there was a bit more strength to deal with it.

Gonna try to see the doctor tomorrow. The drug literature says that if things take a turn for the worse, to do so. I need to get wlofie seen tomorrow for his probably broken toe, so maybe I can squeeze in.

Me, me, me, it’s all about me. Wah.

Comments(2)

It’s been almost three weeks, and I’ve not improved.

Well, okay, maybe a teensy bit. I picked up a dirty towel off the bathroom floor. On purpose. The very sight of it has been filling me with despair for weeks now, and nobody else will pick it up, so it stayed. I also threw out the impromptu trash bag raincoats from two weeks ago that have just been hanging around in there. Same deal.

I snagged some discarded metal shelves off the curb. wlofie got them cleaned off and I inserted them into our bedroom with a shoehorn and swearing. Am still too overburdened with unstored crap, and still too listless to tackle it.

I want a drink so badly I feel weepy over it. I want a smoke but am out of cloves and can hardly bear the thought of the regular kind. I want to eat but I’m tired of food.

I was tired from getting up early, and wanted to take a nap, but my body temperature just wouldn’t regulate. The cold-hots. Sweating, sweltering, steaming one moment, then shivering into blankets the next – only today it was far worse than it often is. Today individual body parts picked their own arbitrary temperatures, shoulders going cold, thighs hot, hands cold, feet hot, then everything changing, then all cold, then mixed bag again, then all hot – lather, rinse, repeat.

My jaw hurts from clenching my teeth.

What I haven’t been writing is that when I’m depressed, I’m tired of people. All people. I’m tired of being around people and talking to people. I’m tired of living in a populated world. I’m even tired of the people I love, which is the clearest indication that I’m plainly sick – these are wonderful people.

The only pure joy is driving, especially on the way home in the middle of the night, with nearly no traffic, Coast to Coast on the radio, the windows down, wind whirling around me, smells of rubber and asphalt and dirt. I feel not just like I’m flying, but that I’m also skimming, like a sea skate just above the floor of the ocean, but so much more powerful. I’m not even touching the surface, just gliding, gliding, strong but effortless.

Bilbo Baggins says it’s a dangerous business going out your door. Before you know it, your feet have found the road and they may never stop. I feel like that on the road, especially if by some chance my errands take my on the Interstate north. How hard to turn away, to take the exit, when the wind beckons and the road sings, and the land is a wrinkled mystery, rippling on and on, with secrets nestled into valleys, and wonders upon hilltops. On and on, things to discover.

Comments(3)

So, I’ve been on Paxil for a week. It’s too soon to know whether it will be of any help, but it seems like a mile marker. It’ll be another week before I should start seeing changes, and the trial prescription is for one month, so at the end of that, it’ll be time to take stock.

The first two days were very strange for me. I was anxious, antsy, fidgety, even a bit panicky. That’s subsided, though, and I feel my usual depressed self. I accomplished nothing this weekend, beyond a bit of cleanup involving the refrigerator. No yard work. No rubble pick-up. No budget. No bill-paying. No sewing. No wasp-slaying. No cleaning.

I take it back – I did finish the site updating system for my church’s website, said system consisting of nine salad-tossed instances of guestbook with some ganked upload code thrown in for flavor. Most everything was done before this weekend. It was just bug fixes.

I read. Then I read some more. Granted, it’s a gripping novel.

I smoked. A LOT.

No alcohol, while on Paxil. Verboten. Aspirin and Motrin discouraged. Thank God the literature didn’t say anything about coffee, or I’d have to find some other medication.

Hope this works, really do.

Comments(4)