**ANNOUNCEMENT
- I'm going to be taking a break from Contact over December. This is
because over the next four Sundays I will be, in order: in Eastern
Europe; recovering from being in Eastern Europe/dealing with the
annual Christmas party pile-up; at more Christmas parties/having a Christmas; recovering from
December as a whole. So the next Contact update will be posted on Jan 6
2013 and normal service will be resumed from that point. I hope you
all have a lovely holiday season****
Following last week's unnecessarily melodramatic blood-fest, my doctor and I have mutually decided that I need to go back on medication.
Amanda
and I did not tell anyone at the hospital that I had been
self-harming, because I was worried they wouldn't let me go home.
This was probably not true, but I didn't want to take the risk, so I
convinced Amanda to let me tell them all I fell over on a broken wine
bottle and they dressed the wound and sent me off.
However,
the incident meant I scared myself enough to go back and see my
doctor. He is a gruff 60ish man, who likes to deal with things like
ingrowing toenails and sprained ankles; women with histories of sex
abuse who sit in his office and won't stop crying are out of his
comfort zone and make him extremely uncomfortable. His tendency,
whenever I bring my mental health problems to him, is to throw drugs
at me till I go away. This suits me fine. I like drugs.
I’ve
been on antidepressants, off and on, since I was 17. My doctor likes
to give me selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Before
these were in common circulation I was on tricyclics, which I didn't
like as much. They made me fat and they made me feel like my head was
stuffed with cotton wool. SSRIs don't have such bad side effects
and also have the double-whammy effect of treating anxiety as well as
depression, which works well for me since I suffer from both.
This
time he threw in a prescription for sleeping pills too.
The
only things that really bother me about drugs are - firstly, when you
start taking them and your body is still adjusting they knock you
out. The last time I was on them, I remember a day in the first week
when it took me nearly 20 minutes to put my socks on (sit on edge of
bed staring at socks. Pick up first sock. Stare at it. Stare into
space. Lift foot. Stare at it. Drop sock. Stare at sock on floor.
Pick sock up and work it over toes, rinse and repeat) I occasionally
wonder whether the reason anti-depressants work is that they force
you to concentrate so hard on everyday tasks that you haven't got
time for any depression any more.
Secondly,
they make not only my sex drive but also any attraction to and sexual
interest in other people disappear completely. Effectively, while I'm
on them, I'm not a sexual being. This is a common side effect and
considering my sexual issues it is one that I quite often welcome. On
this occasion, though, I think of Chris with a tinge of regret.
Something might have –
SOMETHING
MIGHT HAVE WHAT? YOU MIGHT HAVE GOT INTO BED WITH HIM AND THEN
STARTED CRYING AND BEEN UNABLE TO STOP?
Much
as I loathe Matthew, on this occasion he actually does have a point.
At the moment it’s quite possible that, rather than capturing
Chris’s heart, I would have a meltdown and freak the shit out of
him.
I
know a lot of people with mental health problems, probably because I
have them myself and we can all relate to each other much better than
we can to allegedly mentally healthy people. We all deal with each
other’s various meltdowns, crises, phobias, depressions, and fits
of the screaming heebie-jeebies with aplomb, so much so that I
sometimes think as a group we forget that behaviour of this kind
makes people who aren’t used to it freak the hell out.
I
strongly suspect that Chris has not dealt with stuff like this. I
like him. I’d rather not put him through it. I will probably, now,
never get to go out with him, but that’s ok. I’m too scared to be
with anyone anyway. He needs a nice normal girlfriend he can have a
good time with, not me.
Outside
the doctor's surgery, it is a beautiful sunny day. Amanda is waiting
in her beaten- up, bright yellow car. A tiny penis carved out of dark
wood hangs from the rear-view mirror, with a voodoo doll in a bright
red dress. Buffy is sitting on the back seat on a blanket and barks
at me when I open the door.
“How
did it go?” Amanda says.
“Go
back on your meds. Go directly back on your meds. Do not pass go. Do
not collect two hundred pounds,” I say.
“Congratulations,”
Amanda says. “Better living through chemistry.”
