Monthly Archives: May 2012

secret wedding

Lisa and Rolf got mar­ried on the fifth anniver­sary of their first date. It’s a fun lit­tle secret they’re keep­ing from peo­ple (includ­ing their par­ents), and as the actu­al wed­ding will be a non-tra­di­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion in August, the paper­work was done in advance. I was hon­oured to be the only one to know, as well as their pho­tog­ra­ph­er, and on Sunday we did the engage­ment pho­tos, fol­lowed by a quick stop at the offi­ciant’s house to sign and wit­ness1, then a trip out to Denny’s for break­fast. Denny’s holds a spe­cial sig­nif­i­cance for them, as it was where Rolf took Lisa after he pro­posed, and ever since, they try to eat at a local Denny’s when­ev­er they trav­el.

It’s been a long time since I had a project to work on, and to see how well the pho­tos came out has been a delight.

couch in the woods

In the back­yard.

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  1. The paper­work was about 20 min­utes, and the actu­al “cer­e­mo­ny” only took about four sec­onds. [↩]

better living through chemistry

I can’t pin­point the exact moment I start­ed to feel bet­ter, which is a very pecu­liar feel­ing in itself. There has­n’t been any event to which I can attribute the fact that I’m not so anx­ious about how scary the future is any­more, or how I’m not depressed about every­thing that’s hap­pened. The only vari­able has been the med­ica­tion, which means it’s work­ing.

The side-effect that still affects me most is the insom­nia. I sleep for two hours, do some­thing mind­less for two hours, then go back to bed. Lather, rinse, repeat. I don’t feel rest­ed until night, at which point I’m soon ready to sleep again. It’s wreak­ing hav­oc with my moti­va­tion — not to men­tion my col­i­tis — which is why I haven’t start­ed rebuild­ing my life yet. For now, I try to do one thing every day that will make me hap­py, so I can say it was a good day. Baby steps.

But I’ve also lost all inspi­ra­tion, and I’m left won­der­ing if this is anoth­er effect of selec­tive sero­tonin reup­take inhi­bi­tion. When I walk the streets, it feels like a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent world from what I knew.

I used to pick up my gui­tar through­out the day and noo­dle. I used to car­ry my cam­era with me every­where in case some­thing caught my eye. I used to write almost every day. Creativity was a dri­ving force in my life, and a huge part of how I used to define myself. Now I nev­er feel like cre­at­ing. I used to be ter­ri­fied of going on med­ica­tion for this exact rea­son, but I’ve dis­cov­ered that the med­ica­tion makes it all okay. It’s like Cipralex is both the cause and the cure.

At least I can go out­side now. I can face the world, and start fix­ing what needs to be fixed.

the tide you swim against will carry you back home

How quick­ly my world fell apart. How sud­den­ly things have changed, nev­er to be the same again. No one blames me for being unable to cope when so much has hap­pened all at once.

When diag­nos­ing the sever­i­ty of your mood, the pro­fes­sion­als always ask if you have a plan. Even the two cops who show up at your door at mid­night cause your friends fear the worst will pose the ques­tion. I guess a plan is the sign that you’re in imme­di­ate dan­ger, and I had three.

It means I get to be self­ish now. I get to do what I need to sur­vive. I get to think of myself for once in my life.

Even if my friends have nev­er been through this, even if they don’t under­stand, they still care, and they prove it to me with every lin­ger­ing hug, every meal they leave me, every call to ask how I’m feel­ing, every mes­sage left to let them know if there’s any­thing they can do, every reminder that they don’t want to lose me spo­ken through tears from those I’ve nev­er seen cry.

I used to have noth­ing but guilt for wor­ry­ing them, but now I under­stand that guilt is the last thing they want me to feel. They only want me to be okay. They’ve done so much to make me believe this, and that’s exact­ly what I need right now.

morbid self-attention

My life has tak­en anoth­er turn again. The days can go on with reg­u­lar­i­ty over and over, one day indis­tin­guish­able from the next. A long con­tin­u­ous chain.

—Taxi Driver

Time los­es all mean­ing when you can’t sleep more than two hours in a row, and every­thing else becomes mean­ing­less along with it. Some days I can’t eat, exer­cise, or face the world. All I can do is won­der when it’ll all end, and fight every thought that tells me to give up.

They said the med­ica­tion may make me feel worse before I start feel­ing bet­ter. This is how I dis­cov­er rock bot­tom is always rel­a­tive. A strange lit­tle hole I find myself in, where the days grow brighter with the chang­ing of sea­sons, insom­nia means I nev­er miss a sun­rise or sun­set, and I have noth­ing but free time, but none of it mat­ters.

pharmaceutical intervention

Sanity is sup­posed to come from lit­tle por­tions of Cipralex, but I have to sur­vive long enough for the doc­tors to find the right dose. It may well be sev­er­al months before they dis­cov­er what works, and every day in between ter­ri­fies me.

Until then, I can’t sleep, I can’t come, I can’t eat more than half of what I used to before get­ting full, and I can’t go with­out Gravol to fight the nau­sea. The side-effects are sup­posed to be bet­ter than the alter­na­tive — and I sup­pose cot­ton­mouth is good way to get me to drink more liq­uids — but every wretched day makes me ques­tion whether this unique form of hell is worth it.

This used to be one of my great­est fears, and here I am faced with it cause I could­n’t han­dle life by myself any­more.