Number 5 is alive!
I’ve had a couple of people ask where I’ve been recently, as my Twitter quota has been a little down, and blogging non-existent, which is a shame because it’s been an interesting few weeks. Welp, I’ve been remedicating. I’ve never been backwards about my situation and here’s (more or less) what I wrote to a friend the other day:
I’m the one keeping four of you sane, according to statistics. 
I had a breakdown in 1999 which resulted in permanent clinical depression, and I’ve been on various medications since. Mainly anxiety-driven, but it brings my tolerance thresh-hold waaaaay down, and I tend to explode. Usually only verbally, but the other week I lifted a guy off his motorscooter by the neck.
Admittedly, he had just run it into me on a non-vehicular footpath, so legitimate self-defenced, but still not an appropriate response. Time to visit the doctor and let him experiment on my brain some more, I thought. So he’s switching me from the SSRI (paroxetine) to an MAOI called Parnate, but I have to completely detox from the paroxetine first. That means a week of hell, with no medication then two weeks (ish) of more hell while we wait to see if it has any effect 
I’m not hugely hopeful, as he’s already started the paper-work with Pharmac to get funding for the next stage of medication. You may be able to deduce why I’m so keen to determine what ACTA’s effect on Pharmac will be…
This is the principal reason I work from home. The stress of an office is just too much, on me and my workmates.
Add to that, I’ve had M.E. since I was a teenager (and I’ll be 50 next year) which we found out about 15 years ago. That puts some physical limits on me as well. I think Julia was looking for a refund, but Mum refused to take me back.
I decided back then I wasn’t going to hide from the depression. It is an illness and not something to be ashamed of, blahdeblah, etc. Kirwan’s revelations have been a huge boost, and Mike King is waving the flag too.
My symptoms are mostly anxiety, and anger. I’ve had temper issues since I was a kid. I try to focus the anger onto causes, like ACTA and such, and general injustices that need to be yelled at, godammit! and it was probably a singular factor in my public service career. My Hospital Anxiety Depression scores tend toward the anxiety side.
My wife Julia has been brilliant, and I couldn’t have managed without her. Yeah, it’s a lifetime thing – my doc told me that after my third crash that the drugs weren’t fixing the problem, but just helping me cope, and they would now be a permanent fixture. Oh, well, better than sitting in a darkened room playing FreeCell.
One of the great things about this sort of period in my life is realizing that I have great friends and family who have been ringing me regularly just to see how I am and to chat, y’know, like normal people do And I want to say thanks especially to my sisters, who are wonderful people, and to my friends Daniel, Nic and Julian who have been awesome about keeping in touch. Family kind of have to (thought it is hugely appreciated, guys!) but friends who bother to go that extra mile are friends indeed.
So, I’m already at the end of the first week of new pills, and feeling a bit better. I’m looking forward to a month’s time when I should be through all the settling in, side-effects period. Until then, I’ll be sporadic, I guess, though I note Twitter is creeping back (apparently, I average about 54 a day – eeep!).
Ka kite, people.
UPDATE: It occurred to me, as I drove to pick milady up from the train, that family DON’T kind of have to. I sort of expect families to work the way mine does, with love, support and respect, even when we disagree on things (had a delightful barney with my brother on law and justice the other day), but I realise that many families don’t work that way. When I think about it, I praise whatever deity may be listening that mine does.
May 6th, 2010 at 7:25 am
Loving your (hard) work, brother. xx
May 6th, 2010 at 7:30 am
Wishing you all the best.
The good bad news is that there will probably be enough issues to direct your anger towards!
May 6th, 2010 at 9:49 am
Thanks Vikram. You ain’t just whistling Dixie!
May 6th, 2010 at 9:49 am
@jane Kissy kissy, babe
May 6th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Kia kaha, Mark. Hang in there.
May 6th, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Cheers. Thanks mate.
May 6th, 2010 at 10:21 pm
Best of luck. Had bouts of depression myself and found meditation really helpful (& not in a hippy way …)
May 7th, 2010 at 3:15 am
Over the years I have discovered we are the exception to the rule re families. Tres weird.
May 7th, 2010 at 3:39 am
*Big hugs* Mark. Wishing you all the best and thinking of both you and Julia.
May 7th, 2010 at 6:36 am
Thankee kindly ma’am!
May 7th, 2010 at 6:36 am
Thanks, Anthony. Yes, I’m giving that a try.