A part of me that works just like a child
This week has been an experiment. I was never completely sure about how I would react to being alone. I never warmed to the idea. There's a point during the day when the house should be bustling and burning with voices and radio and box scores. I really missed that. I began to think that my parents had been marvelous cooks and thought about how deprived my diet was.
My diet was deprived, but my parents hadn't cooked a meal for the month before they left home.
I found that the house was too big for one person. I started to live only in the old section of the house: the living room, dining room, and study. But mostly just in the living room. There's a monstrous white couch - a regular barge. And it isn't unlike quicksand; I just sunk into it every evening.
I'm reluctant to say that I dislike a book. I always try to blame myself for not being able to finish it. And I don't really know if there's any rhyme or reason to the books I've loved and the books I can't seem to break through fifty pages on. I've been reading The Winter of Our Discontent for a few years now. I'm half way through it, and have just begun to gain some insight into the plot. Every time I've ever picked it up, I've fallen asleep. It sounds like a horrible statement about the book, but I insist that I really do like the book. I find the characters engrossing, and I've always liked Steinbeck.
I can't finish it. Every night I would crawl into the folds of the white couch and curl up with oatmeal and The Winter of Our Discontent, and every night I would fall asleep with the furnace roaring and every light left burning.
I've been accused of making large issues out of non-events. To some extent, I fear that I'll have nothing to talk about unless I make an issue of small things. My life is mundane. It's quiet. I sort of resented being told that being left alone in an old house for a week was a non-event. How could it not matter if it was all that I thought about? I spent the week gathering evidence, seeing how I'd fare in the future when I'm on my own.
When I was depressed, and when I was having fights with my parents about grades and how much part they could have in my life, one of the things my mother said stuck with me. She said, "The thing you have to realize, Margaret, is that sometimes we're afraid that we haven't instilled in you the ability to work when you don't have to - to take care of the basic crud of life. You contribute nothing to this household." Her first point might have been a valid concern, and the second might have been true at the time.
If they were worried about how I would fare in the adult world, it shouldn't be because I shirked my duties in the household. When I was alone, I was a whirlwind of cleaning. I did dishes and laundry. Saturday evening I vacuumed steps. I fed the rabbit and drove out for cat food in a downpour. Every chore that I did related straight back to me.
What they should be concerned about is the fact that I seem to lack any sort of social or economic skills. I abhor telephones. I'm terrified of making appointments over the telephone. I wouldn't know who or when to call to schedule an appointment with the mechanic. I couldn't tell if my brakes were just locking because it was raining and I slammed on them, or because they're faulty and need replacing. I don't understand how to pick up laundry from the dry cleaners. My doorknob came off into my hand, and I was stuck inside until I figured out how to screw it back in.
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Parents came home last night. It was nice to see them. I have so little to say these days.
I decided to start taking prozac again. Just after I had stopped taking it, and just after I had told my therapist I'd like to stop, I realized that I just might need it. And I just might need it to help me cope some days, and I probably shouldn't have ever stopped taking it. But I wouldn't have known that I needed it unless I took a break. Physiologically, it probably wasn't a particularly sound decision. My therapist told me that I would have to phase out the prozac.
I'm in a bit of a bind now, though. I wasn't taking prozac when I told my therapist that I wanted to stop. And now I am taking it, because I was beginning to deteriorate. I decided that crying myself to sleep one night a week was acceptable - a normal mood swing. Twice, however, and I needed to take the antidepressants again. But now, I am taking it again and my therapist thinks that I want to end it.
I have a sinking feeling that I'm not the best judge of my own depression. I desperately want it to end, want it to go away, want to not need prozac. As soon as I took the pill, it had a placebo affect. I felt less nervous, and weights lift from my therapy conscience. I felt like I was returning to the right thing to do. It's hard to make sense of it. It all feels so irrational. I didn't want to take prozac, so I stopped. Now that I'm taking it, I've convinced myself that it was the right thing to do all along.
My English teacher asked me if I could ever see myself without depression. I said that I could - because when I was on prozac I was without depression. But I cannot imagine life without prozac. Over the week, though, I felt more anxiety and sadness than I had in months. I felt twisted up inside. And it really bothered me, because I want it to go away. I suppose it has gone away, and the desperation and defeat that I felt at Christmas has gone away too.
2000-04-25, Depression, revisited
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