When, back in the days when dinosaurs ruled the Earth (at least it feels that way), my GP concluded that my clinical depression could no longer be left to its own devices and prescribed actual antidepressants, it came with some warnings. Bad things, side-effects, were not uncommon. I might start feeling sleepy, tired or weak or I might be unable to sleep. The drugs might damage my liver and kidneys and it might put me at greater risk of developing dementia. Great, I thought. I’m depressed enough as it is and now I find the treatment might cure me of one thing can kill me with another. But there was another thing that did concern me: the possibility of ‘emotional blunting‘. I cannot function at all without antidepressants yet I am increasingly convinced that emotional blunting has happened and is happening today.
I have often wondered whether there are limits to one’s reservoir of compassion. These days, I am hugely troubled by what’s going on around the world and I am deeply affected by the trials and tribulations of people close to me. There is so much to take in and it feels like the gloom is unrelenting.
I am even tired of my voluntary work at our local food bank. While I do not, yet, dread my weekly stint on the frontline of actual poverty, I am wondering if the hopelessness so many of our callers feel is dragging me down, too. For sure, things don’t seem to be getting any better. Will I be doing this until I drop? And I don’t want to drop. I just worry if I have enough strength left in me to carry on.
Genuinely, I can understand why so many of us attach metaphorical blinkers to remove the misery peripheral vision gives us. Far easier to exist in, say, a make believe world of social media or pulp fiction and pretend the world is a happy place to be. I do myself to a limited extent, ignoring where I can the rolling news that beats us into submission, sometimes making us believe that everything is broken and cannot be repaired. But somehow I cling to the real world because, frankly, to ignore it might even bring forth insanity. Dealing with the shit world as it is and not how I want it to be.
I am not a great cryer. I cried once when my mother died and that was only when I called her brother who didn’t give a toss and never when my father and stepfather died. Some things make me sad but often the tears won’t come, even when part of me wishes they would. I don’t get overwhelmingly sad but I don’t get overwhelmingly happy, either.
Losing dear friends in recent months and seeing others suffer with various medical conditions draws me closer to them, not further away, but for how much longer? How much compassion remains? I get so tired sometimes and, as per the side-effects of antidepressants (see above), I can’t sleep. And often when I sleep, it’s rendered near useless by out of control wild dreams. I wake up more tired than I was when I feel asleep. I am no medic but I am not wholly convinced that this is supposed to be happening.
A couple of years ago, a GP cut my antidepressants prescription in half, presumably to preserve my liver and kidneys and to help put off dementia. When you put it like that, a choice between dying younger but with less depression or getting older with much more depression, how the fuck do you deal with that? Don’t ask me. As the popular beat combo outfit Take That so astutely put it, we’re all just pushing along.
Predictably, my recent annual health MOT went through the bits and pieces of my physical health, or the lack of it, but not a word about my mental health, or the lack of it. Yet, in my life, they are fully intertwined. When a medic suggests taking more exercise “because that is good for your mental health”, how many more times will I have to say it’s specifically and literally my poor mental health that prevents me taking more exercise, sometimes I’m taking no exercise at all. (If you’re wondering whether I did raise my mental health at the MOT, I did and they suggested making a GP appointment with all the shit that brings along, like having to explain a lifetime of mental illness to a doctor you have never met in about five minutes. I’m just not bothering this time. I’m not mad enough to require sectioning just yet.)
I do worry, though, that someday, maybe someday soon, my compassion will run out as I burn out and I’ll retreat even further to my safe places. As of now, I am compos mentis enough to keep on pushing along and maybe the longer days and lighter evenings will replenish my soul and lift my spirits. They usually do.
One thing I will be doing is seeking more medication. I might die sooner and I might be even less able to cry (or laugh) but maybe it will keep me a little more human (or am I dancer?). And if I am even more emotionally blunt, maybe that might not be such a bad thing?
