Life, the Universe and the Melancholic

I have been on the new meds for almost three weeks. I haven't really noticed much of a difference. Perhaps I am coping with life a bit better, but there certainly hasn't been a dramatic improvement. The new medication is not an SSRI. It's called Zyban, or Bupropion is its actual name. It is a NDRI. My Google research was not extensive, other than that most reviews were relatively positive. My doctor said that it is relatively quicker to work than the SSRI medications. Yet, my improvement is minimal and could also be due to where I am in my menstrual cycle. I suppose I will keep taking it and see how things progress. Happy to report that I have had very minor side effects. Flushing and nausea the first day or two. If I don't do much in the first hour of taking my medication, I notice a weird prickly head flush. It's really nothing to worry about. Last year I went from one SSRI to another, from bad to worse each time. Prozac was awful, induced heart palpitations and r...

Tomorrow I start my new meds. With much trepidation. But I know I can't function at a reasonable capacity in my current state. I also know that new medication could also set me back. Perhaps months. A year even.  If things go bad and I don't post an update. I may be very sick. Maybe I'll be dead.  This blog means so much to me. It's the most creative and meaningful outlet I have had for myself, along with my Instagram account, for a very long time.  Writing honest thoughts and feelings about life and my universe while navigating my way through a mental breakdown. It has been one of the bravest things I have done. Sending it all out to the internet. Scattering thoughts through time and space, like wishing upon a dandelion in the wind. I wish for a simple life. That feels beautiful.

It always seems when I think I'm doing well, something comes and knocks me over. I shouldn't ever speak of being stable. It's all relative after all. So the past couple of weeks I have been feeling the descent into melancholy, depression, sadness, stuck, miserable...Constant hamster wheel of life is taking its toll. I sobbed and screamed in my car today, between picking up children and grocery shopping and my psychiatrist appointment. My psychiatrist wants me to trial another medication. I want to not trial another medication, but I also do not want to die. Suicidal thoughts have been popping up a bit more. A telltale sign I'm not coping so well. My food hasn't been optimal, exercise has not been optimal. All the things and a bag of chips. I have considered running away, moving out, separating from my partner. I am so stuck and miserable with my life. I have a very good friend who says I should stop being a doormat. I barely have time to breath space into life for m...

A few weeks ago the last person I ever thought would ever contact me, did. And he did so because he stumbled across my last blog post and he was concerned. After initially being gobsmacked and engaging in polite niceties, which all went well. Me being me, couldn't leave it at that, so after a little reflection I wrote the following message to him. 1,026 words. That's roughly how many words you wrote in your message to me. 5,298 characters. Woven together to turn words into sentences For me. Thank you. When we spoke a couple of weeks ago, you mentioned that you had been thinking of me all week. Which was very sweet and I was a little surprised by. I was remarkably chilled out prior to our reconnecting over the phone. Actually so much so that I wondered if maybe I just assumed that I wouldn't actually hear your voice on the phone that day. Your admission to thinking of me all that week, has now led to my admission that I have been having conversations with you in my head sinc...

Sometimes I feel like my soul is separating from my body and that's why I panic.  That sounds bonkers. I know how it sounds. I have often felt like that in the last 18 months. Somehow, I feel like I exist in two dimensions. Overlapped and intersecting each other. Perhaps I have to make a choice of which one I belong in. Or which one feels most like home. Or which one wants me the most.  Maybe I have gone crazy.  I don't know anything about anything anymore. I'm trying so hard to stay. The hardest story to write, is the one of your own life. I don't think I am the one with the pen anymore.

In Disney's 1953 Peter Pan movie, one part of the plot is Captain Hook seeking revenge for Peter Pan cutting off his hand. His hand is eaten by a crocodile who evidently has also eaten a clock. The crocodile, having had a taste of Hook, seeks out to devour the rest of the Captain, with the clock still ticking away inside him. Captain Hook is tortured by incessant tick tocking whenever the crocodile is close by and he descends into abject fear at the sight of the beast. This premise is a good analogy of my experience over the last 12 months. The abject fear of myself and my mind. Evaluating reality from unreality, fact from fiction. And when I would feel out of reality, I would panic. The tick tocking descended to get me. The beast about to devour me.  "I suppose it's like the ticking crocodile, isn't it? Time is chasing after all of us."  Time  indeed felt like it was chasing me, like my time was almost up . Now ,  over 12 months on, it all seems so far away. Ye...

I have always been prone to depression. Well I wouldn't have called it that, I just feel sad most of the time. I remember in high school my band teacher said I was prone to melancholy. I quite liked the ring to that, so melancholy and sadness just hung about like a dark cloud. In a way I see beauty in the darkness. I have a journal full of sad poetry, I read it back and it is of weird comfort. My teenage angsty sadness turned into intense adult melancholy as each year progressed. Some of it embarrassing unrequited love. Still some of it embarrassing unrequited love and other things. Always through out it, I just wanted someone to see me, to be able to hold space for it all, to see that much of my existence was spent alone in the dark being sad and that it was okay. Much of the time the intensity of how I experienced the world and expressed it, was too much for many. I was often told directly and indirectly that I was attention seeking, too dependent and clingy, weird and sad. I was...