Last week started off well and finished well – but the bits in between I could live without repeating. If I’d charted my emotional well-being, my mood, my perspective, I’d have gotten a somewhat erratic line drawing with highs and lows and bits in between. And as the highs and lows were extreme – it was exhausting – and I’m knackered.
Some time ago, when the best of medical minds were wavering about how to treat my MS-like symptoms, given that I don’t have MS, they came up with the bright idea of anti-depressants. Those little white pills would, apparently, make me feel right again. No more pins and needles, no more fatigue, no more legs giving way, no more mind/brain disconnect where my reactions are a second behind my brain’s instruction to the point when I drop stuff and burn myself. Just one pill a day and all this would disappear. Or so they said.
Strangely, I wasn’t at all tempted. I’m not a doctor. I don’t have a medical degree. And I’m not that into a Google-ised self-diagnosis. Many lifetimes ago, however, I did suffer from depression and for two years took those pills and lived in a world that was flat – no highs, no lows. They gave me time to heal, took away the anxiety, the paranoia, the despair. They helped me function. For that period in my life, they worked. And I was grateful for them because I was depressed. Today, I’m not.
The symptoms still come and go and always the recommended treatment stays the same. But I’ve gotten attached to my highs and lows and can’t imagine going back to flatlining where everything was the same. Instead of popping little white pills, I prefer the company of good friends who understand the madness and don’t feel the need to fix me.
Saturday was a case in point. What was to be a quick spin around the Christmas market at Vörösmarty tér turned into dinner at a restaurant I’d not been to before, followed by a turn on the Eye (another thing off my bucket list), followed by some good music and great conversation. Lost in another world on the way home, I missed my stop and ended up in a part of the VIIIth I’d never seen. Walking through the streets of Budapest at daybreak on a cold December morning was all the tonic I needed. To see the world slowly waking and to have the time to pause and reflect on my part in it was therapeutic. To have people in my life who can turn my mood and make me laugh and bring me out of myself when the doubts set in is a blessing. To know myself well enough to be able to avoid the pills and ride the waves – that’s something for which I’m truly grateful.
Share this:
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
- Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
- Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
5 responses
Oh Dear Mary, You say everything wo beautifully!!! This is one of my fovorite sayings, which sums up your marvelous message… ” Life is like a roller coaster , so, strap your ass in and go for the ride!” Author unknown. I love your writing and subjects.
I am most grateful for friends who are not afraid to tell me about my flaws and encourage me to correct them. Sometimes personal growth requires external input.
Sometimes – and sometimes people want to fashion us into who they think we should be… and sometimes that’s good and sometimes it isn’t, no matter how well intentioned.
There’s little joy in a flat lined life. The “lows” are what makes the “highs” special, and are at times responsible for our most creative moments. Nothing to do, but go with the flow. You Mary are who you are, and that’s what makes you so special to so many of us . It’s a privilege to share this time and space with you, thank you.
It’s not a good plan to try to fashion someone, anyone, into the someone we think we might prefer. Many relationships have foundered on that rocky shore. Didn’t a rather special person suggest, that “we should love our neighbour as ourselves”, and didn’t that same person counsel something about, the “mote/log” in ones own eye !!
Mary you’re an “OK” person, change if and or when YOU want, not at the behest of anyone else.