Actually, I've never been happier.
Media - movies, novels and "true life narratives" - give drugs a pretty bad rap. My favourite of them is probably Harvey, a charming fifties comedy about a woman whose attempts to marry off her ward well are continually scuppered by her mad alcoholic uncle and his invisible rabbit friend. Presumably the link between bohemians, depression and creation means that most creative enterprises would naturally champion an unhappy individuality over dull contentment.
Perhaps this is accurate - I've heard mixed reviews from real people too.
...the thing is, at present, I'm not really enjoying anything, I don't have the motivation to work either at uni or on my own projects and I keep feeling unmotivatedly tense and threatened when out with friends and family. All things I've experienced fairly more often than I'd like throughout my life, but over the past few months I've had all three at once and pretty constantly. Once you've got work, play and socialisation out of the window, then I'm willing to give anything a go regardless of what the cinema says. This is especially true when you think my antipathy towards chemical solutions extends as far as paracetemol.
I think the "talking treatment" is very useful, especially for me in particular whose main problem is being bad at talking to people - peverse, I know! Perhaps "bad at communicating" would be a more accurate, Personal Life Skills way of expressing it. The problem is, after a point all it can do is shift these horrific soul-destroying feelings onto someone you care about ("It is the fault of X and Y, because...") or at you personally ("I'm sorry, you simply can't cope with leaving the house because that's just what you're like.") Now, perhaps I'm an inherently useless person and all my friends and family are heinous harpies - but it doesn't seem likely. And even if that is the case, it's hardly a positive step in the right direction. Encouragingly, my GP also seemed to think that three years of counselling was too long without a practical boost as well.
So if you were to ask me when the last time I felt really, really happy I'd actually say recieving a nice shiney box of Citalopram yesterday afternoon. Which testifies to placebo power if nothing else - it's always easier to feel better about anything when you're working towards a solution. Hope is good enough, in the absence of Better.
Mind you, I'm having second thoughts since seeing the side effects list which, as my doctor warned me, is "as long as my arm". Not quite true. It's as long as my elbow to my fingertips, which is still pretty damn long.
In some cases, there's nothing to worry about. 1 in 10 patients experience:
menstrual pain. Impressively, there is also a 1 in 10 chance I will suffer impotence or erectile disfunction - frankly a miracle of modern science, as that's statistically far higher than me suffering either at present.
Of course, it's not all good news. There is only less than 1 in 100 chance that I will experience:
On the rarest end of the spectrum - less than 1 in 10,000 - I may experience "loss of contact with my own personal reality". What that might do to me in particular I daren't speculate. Possibly relocate my own personal reality, profile stalk and invite it out for an awkward catchup coffee...
Media - movies, novels and "true life narratives" - give drugs a pretty bad rap. My favourite of them is probably Harvey, a charming fifties comedy about a woman whose attempts to marry off her ward well are continually scuppered by her mad alcoholic uncle and his invisible rabbit friend. Presumably the link between bohemians, depression and creation means that most creative enterprises would naturally champion an unhappy individuality over dull contentment.
Perhaps this is accurate - I've heard mixed reviews from real people too.
...the thing is, at present, I'm not really enjoying anything, I don't have the motivation to work either at uni or on my own projects and I keep feeling unmotivatedly tense and threatened when out with friends and family. All things I've experienced fairly more often than I'd like throughout my life, but over the past few months I've had all three at once and pretty constantly. Once you've got work, play and socialisation out of the window, then I'm willing to give anything a go regardless of what the cinema says. This is especially true when you think my antipathy towards chemical solutions extends as far as paracetemol.
I think the "talking treatment" is very useful, especially for me in particular whose main problem is being bad at talking to people - peverse, I know! Perhaps "bad at communicating" would be a more accurate, Personal Life Skills way of expressing it. The problem is, after a point all it can do is shift these horrific soul-destroying feelings onto someone you care about ("It is the fault of X and Y, because...") or at you personally ("I'm sorry, you simply can't cope with leaving the house because that's just what you're like.") Now, perhaps I'm an inherently useless person and all my friends and family are heinous harpies - but it doesn't seem likely. And even if that is the case, it's hardly a positive step in the right direction. Encouragingly, my GP also seemed to think that three years of counselling was too long without a practical boost as well.
So if you were to ask me when the last time I felt really, really happy I'd actually say recieving a nice shiney box of Citalopram yesterday afternoon. Which testifies to placebo power if nothing else - it's always easier to feel better about anything when you're working towards a solution. Hope is good enough, in the absence of Better.
Mind you, I'm having second thoughts since seeing the side effects list which, as my doctor warned me, is "as long as my arm". Not quite true. It's as long as my elbow to my fingertips, which is still pretty damn long.
In some cases, there's nothing to worry about. 1 in 10 patients experience:
- sleepiness, difficulty sleeping
- reduction in weight, gain in weight
- increased appetite, loss of appetite
menstrual pain. Impressively, there is also a 1 in 10 chance I will suffer impotence or erectile disfunction - frankly a miracle of modern science, as that's statistically far higher than me suffering either at present.
Of course, it's not all good news. There is only less than 1 in 100 chance that I will experience:
- a state of optimism, cheerfulness and well-being (euphoria)
On the rarest end of the spectrum - less than 1 in 10,000 - I may experience "loss of contact with my own personal reality". What that might do to me in particular I daren't speculate. Possibly relocate my own personal reality, profile stalk and invite it out for an awkward catchup coffee...
Comments (3)
On a scale of 1-10, where 1 is 'meh' and 10 is watching your entire family be eaten by sharks, knowing you are next, most problems score around 2 or 3.
Hey the last security word I had to type was Spondshi which soulds like an alien race, or possibly a martial art. The one I'm about to type looks like a prescription drug.
Todays verification word is a Zulu regiment