So as a chronic depressive, I managed myself without medication for a few decades, during which I met my wife, had kids, jumped from job to job and did all sorts of silly things with the occasional hiccup along the way, leading to a few stints "inside" locked wards of the various psych hospitals local to where-ever we were. Then I hit a few heavier speed bumps and jumped the curb, ploughing sideways, on fire, through the bushes with the music cranked to eleven. Metaphorically.
Skip to now, various medication rotations and trials later, 3rd party observers commenting that I look better, they wouldn't know I had been depressed, etc.
Except I feel the same or worse most days, the meds just make maintaining the façade easier. COVID-19 has also helped, reducing the amount of contact with others who might otherwise have opportunity to observe and comment.
Which brings me to now v.s. then.
On the meds, I am meant to be "better" and more the person I actually am, and I note that I have become or am disengaged emotionally from my wife and children. They exist, I am aware of them and that I have responsibilities and obligations in keeping them alive and well, but there is no sense of affection. I check in, help out, etc. because that is "the thing to do".
They are strangers to me otherwise. I don't seem able to empathise with them, I just analyse who and what is in front of me and deduce if the situation requires my intervention or to get out of the way.
I can recall that I used to feel something else, I can see pictures from years ago where the person who could have been me, seems to have been happy or excited. Its all facts now, like looking at an old newspaper article that tells you the temperature on the day but not what it was like to walk around in it.
Everybody else seems happier with me on this blend. My wife has stated so, which begs the question as to why she married me then when I was not who I am now?
Why keep taking the meds at all if I am not feeling a benefit?
The doses I am on to get to this state require my GP to phone the prescription through to some national centre for authorisation to get more because they will slowly kill me by poisoning my organs. Every month I shovel out more money that could be put aside for the wife and kids. Every day the cost vs benefit skews more to the former than the latter.
I am not ok, at some point I'm going to fail at pretending to be ok.
Have some calls to make.
