October always presents a problem for me.
Guess how I found this out? By re-reading my blog. Every October I suddenly fall apart and wish I were dead, etc.
Except this October I truly want to live. Except I also wish I was dead. At bottom though, I actually want to live.
Is this going to happen every single freaking October for as long as I live? And why October? What is it about October?
I'm fairly certain it is the weather. Not 100% certain. I had some upsetting things happen to me during various Octobers. Particularly one October. Is it some memory of those events? I don't think so. I think it is something as simple as the length of the rays of sunlight reaching the earth.
It is strange because I think the Fall is beautiful and I am peculiar in that I love the rain. I love Halloween. At the same time, I'm plunged into a pit of despair that lasts until Spring. Except it is sometimes worse in October than it is at any other time. Or maybe I notice it more. By February, I might be used to it.
Isn't this odd? Obviously, I have SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder--which I used to think was called Seasonal Attitude Disorder). Or maybe it is not so obvious. It just seems like a good hypothesis.
In the past, I used to wonder: Will I survive? There would be certain points where I was a bit of a danger to myself. This time, it is too absurd for anything to happen to me, for me to do anything to myself. I lived this far, through all those Octobers and Novembers and Decembers. Except I am never entirely sure because the experience is so peculiar and unpredictable. I am fairly sure, though, that I can manage it all.
One thing that makes it difficult is not just my perspective, which goes beyond mere gloom to the apocalyptic but that I have a much harder time managing my life. I have a much harder time keeping things on the rails. (And I'm probably not so great at this at other points.) Then, because I have this extreme world view, the things that go wrong because of my inability to focus clearly on daily life seem that much more dire.
Ugh. I hate medication with a passion. I have a general skepticism mental health medicines that it is hard for me to overcome. I think many people take them and they do not work. I know many people who have taken them and the number of people generally helped by them is so small relative to the number of people that take them. But because people are desperate, they simply go taking this and that and the other thing. I mean, what else do you do? It's the ineffectiveness combined with the desperation I find so depressing. I admit, they work a teeny bit for people, even the people they don't really, truly help. It feels to me like this lures people in, and there is not so much effort to weigh the harms to benefits. I think when this is weighed carefully, it is often really a wash.
If you are one of those remarkable cases where you are genuinely helped, for a significant period of time, by these medicines, then I am glad for you. But we are such a fix-it culture that the real fact that there is no medical solution for this particular problem is concealed by the fact that medicines exist that are supposed to fix the problem. If you look at the studies, many of the medicines are only marginally better than a placebo.
I guess what is interesting to me at this point is that after years of resistance, caused by the knowledge that these medicines can cause health problems, because they did--lasting health problems--I am AGAIN tempted to take them. AGAIN. For me, mental health medicine is basically rolling the dice. A teeny alleviation of symptoms v. possible long term health disasters like weight you cannot lose, liver reactions, etc. There are real side effects. Why do I want to roll that die again? A: I want life to be easier. Am I copping out? Can't I just be brave? It's only suicidal misery until June. And then only off and on.
I sound like a Scientologist, I know. I'm talking about SSRIs, for depression and anxiety, etc. Not psychosis. With psychosis, one has no options. With depression and anxiety, there are options. I find it difficult to think, speak, go to sleep, get out of bed, remember to eat, remember anything. I take no pleasure in life. I'm like an automaton, projecting what looks like normalcy. Honestly, I am not in some kind of conspiracy theory about psychiatrists. I think there is a hope on the part of doctors to help people, there is an enormous amount of money to be made and there are possible medicines that have minute benefits for most people but more substantial benefits for a minority. So of course, people use the medicines. We have a very interventionist medical culture.
In general, I keep trying to teach my child this thing that might make her odd but for the fact that she doesn't listen to me: All her life people are going to tell her overandoverandover again that certain foods and drinks that are terrible for her are DELICIOUS and things she doesn't need are going to FIX HER PROBLEMS and MAKE EVERYONE LOVE HER. And it is going to be strange because she will like those things too. That is the oddest thing: You like the things they tell you to buy even when those things are pretty garbagey. If someone says: But this will work! This is great! And you buy it, sometimes it is even hard to tell--Is this delicious? Does it work? Do people love me more? You don't even know, most of the time. But you keep buying them.
It's like when I am in a casino and see all the people gambling. And gambling is just a crazy thing to do, objectively speaking. Roulette. I mean, if you are playing it to see the wheel spin, OK. But if you are playing it to win money--that's just insane. But all the other people are doing it! Could they ALL be wrong?
So there is a pill and some people say it will make me less anti-social and help me clean my house and so I want to buy it and take it. I have filled the prescription, actually. I keep taking it for a day and then I am like 'oh no some guy on the internet says this caused him liver damage!' And then I don't take it. Then I'm like: Well, I didn't feel better that day I was taking it, it must not work. Also, it gives me a headache. Then, my life gets more screwy. Then, I start again: Well, maybe I should take these pills.
Someone says they are good and they will work. Someone said it! Someone who was a doctor said it!
Note: If this sounds crazy, then recall that the reason I am struggling with whether to take this pill is that I am crazy.
I think that the reason it is more seductive to me than it was in the past (after I realized how pointless medicating myself was) is paradoxically, because I might be slightly more normal. I just want to be all the way normal. I feel like I deserve it. Don't I deserve to be normal? I work hard. Is it the: L'oreal: Because you're worth it? reason.
It occurs to me that I will have cracked to secret to life when I am at ease with the randomness of it all. Nothing is supposed to be this way or that. Things just are. My job is to make them better. For other people, mostly but also for myself.
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