TheBanyanTree: Continuing Out of Darkness

[Sally Larwood]

I haven't had this, Monique, but my best friend has, so I have a small 
amount of understanding, but mostly I have sympathy for what you're 
going through and hoping against hope it all improves soon. You know you 
are loved and that we are thinking of you.  I hope it helps.

Sal
On 25/05/2014 12:16 PM, Monique Colver wrote:
> Last Monday I made a doctor’s appointment, after it occurred to me that the
> ever-present smell of death and decay wasn’t all in my head, and that I
> might actually be sick. These are the sorts of things that one in recovery
> from major depression may not realize at first, because one, and by one I
> mean me, may be dense and not really as smart as I tell people I am. I know
> enough to know that I know virtually nothing, which is just smart enough to
> be trouble.
>
> Anyway, I made an appointment, and good thing too, since I was really sick,
> as in constant running off to the bathroom. My usual doctor, who usually
> greets me with a bit of trepidation, wasn’t in, and I said I would be happy
> to see anyone at all, because I had a sinus infection and didn’t want to
> wait.
>
> And so I saw another doctor. She looked me over and pronounced me healthy.
>
> “No, you don’t understand,” I said, “I’m pretty sure I have a sinus
> infection.”
>
> “No, I don’t think so,” she said, in her vague eastern European accent.
>
> “It’s okay, I never present typically,” I told her, which is true, “So
> couldn’t we just try the antibiotics and see how it goes?”
>
> I was convinced that I had a sinus infection, you see, because it would
> explain why I couldn’t taste food, and why the smell of death followed me
> everywhere. It didn’t explain everything, but hey, my diagnostic skills
> only go so far.
>
> “It wouldn’t explain the diarrhea,” she said, and I said, “Look, I’m sort
> of in a hurry here, I may need to run off to the bathroom any time now.”
>
> We reviewed my most recent labs, which indeed showed I’m pretty healthy for
> someone of my age and disposition (rotten, in case you were wondering – I
> have a rotten disposition). She’d like all her patients to have an A1C like
> mine, which I thought was very nice of her to say, since she didn’t really
> know me or anything.
>
> She decided antibiotics certainly wouldn’t hurt, and gave me a
> prescription, though it was obvious she thought it a pointless exercise. I
> didn’t really care.
>
> I’ve been feeling my way back so slowly, so feebly, so absent-mindedly,
> almost, as if my head is filled with cotton, as if I’m entering a new
> territory, but it’s the same place, there’s nothing new here, only my
> perceptions, which are still quick to skew sideways if I’m not careful.
> It’s constant vigilance, and sometimes I let myself down, and sometimes I’m
> not sure I can see where I’m going, but I know where I want to be. I just
> want me back.
>
> Picture me batting around clouds of fluff, innocent clouds of fluff, but
> I’m flailing so energetically that I can’t even tell they’re harmless
> because I’m too intent on getting free of them. It amuses me to picture
> that, which is something.
>
> Something is better than nothing.
>
> Anyway, the antibiotics kicked in pretty fast, and the smell of death and
> decay left me. This is no small thing. Sure, when one knows it’s just a
> sinus infection, one can discount the annoying smells, but when one thinks
> it’s all part of the depression, well, it gives one pause. The prior week
> I’d asked for a refill of an anti-anxiety, just to get me past the rough
> spots, and sometimes I couldn’t tell what was anxiety, and what was
> depression, and what was simple fear, and what was physical. It was all
> jumbled together, and pulling out the separate strands so I can deal with
> them and move on has been rather labor intensive. It’s exhausting work,
> this getting better, and sometimes it feels like taking one step forward
> and two back. But sometimes it’s two steps forward and only one back. Some
> days I feel as if the sadness of the world is all within me, a well of
> despair and grief, and I push back at it, because it’s not my place to feel
> all of that, I want only what is rightfully mine. I don’t want all of it,
> and I don’t know why I feel it. But I’d rather not, thank you very much.
>
> I hope you have no idea what I’m talking about, that all this talk of
> depression is a mystery to you, because if you understand, you’ve felt it
> too, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
>
> Especially you.
>
> M

-- 
Sal