Kitty Litter

I am writing this in the aftermath of a terrible depression that came over me for the past three months. I guess there’s also a small bit of shame involved in that the whole thing was caused not by nasty personal circumstances but because of my hormones. (Remind me to fund research on killing mind-altering hormones someday!)

And I've been starting several entries then dropping them, all of which try to explain myself: lots of work, frustrated plans, and so on. But it comes down to one thing: where have I been and why has Kitty Litter been empty for months?

No, I haven't died. Yet. (Too bad for those who'd love that). But several disasters (a lightbulb falling on my car in SM City, an impatient pedestrian breaking my side mirror then trying to pin the blame on me, medical emergencies, and so on) have kept me busy.

I began taking a certain medication for my blood sugar in October. Wynn says that my mood slowly began taking a downturn, with me preferring to stay and work at home than go out. I withdrew from people at work and stopped doing many of the things I liked doing: cooking (or attempting to do so), going to the gym (and mentally mocking the people I saw there), playing VTES, seeing my friends, even writing in this blog.

And then there's the matter of the horror I felt when I discovered how easily my body can be affected by drugs.

Let me explain. I've been taking preventive medication for my diabetes. (I prefer to call it the full fledged disease, despite the fact that two doctors are arguing over it. Makes it easier to accept.)

Round about late November, my mood became so bad I sometimes couldn't leave the house. I don't remember much, honestly, but I tried to exercise and eat right. No go. Poor Wynn had to nurse a chronically depressed, confused girlfriend, and it's to his credit that he's still around. I got weepy, emotional, angry, unhappy, irrational. I don't remember Christmas or New Year 2006. In fact, I don't remember much about that period except a growing paranoia about the very people I loved and trusted. Not a good feeling, really.

And I never noticed, not much, at least. I was sleeping anywhere from 8-14 hours a day, losing my appetite (then having binges), and facing a mighty struggle to pull myself together and work. Poor Wynn spent Christmas with a weepy, confused, paranoid girlfriend who suspected him of everything.

I knew something was wrong but didn’t know it was me. Friends began texting and e-mailing. “Galit ka ba sa akin?” was the most common question, and I had no reply.

In mid-January, the medication was out of stock at my local drugstore, so I switched to another, cheaper brand.

It wasn't sudden; gradually, food tasted better, my Wynn stopped "persecuting" me (and so did everyone else, including the hapless bantay boy in our parking lot), and the world was a lot less gray.

It embarrasses me to realize that I am, after all, vulnerable to certain substances. After all, I'm impervious to caffeine; I once downed three shots of espresso in a desperate attempt to stay awake, and nothing happened.

I won’t say that the world suddenly became brighter. Instead, it was like waking up. Things tasted better, I stopped picking fights with Wynn, and, noted a friend at the office, perked up again.

I guess I am embarrassed because medication shouldn’t affect people that way. I used to laugh at some of my overly dramatic former students, so I wasn’t prepared for it to happen to me. How could a drug affect me so? Shouldn’t my mind be stronger than some pill?

Perhaps one of the most sobering things is to realize that you have no power over something. It does not feel good to feel helpless, and for me, that’s scarier than a ghost encounter or an aggressive insurance salesman any day.

But what keeps me going is the thought of the “After.” I’m here. I don’t even know where the storm is, or where it went, but what matters is, I’m still here. More cat photos. New layout. Same old cheerful, non-deep, coffee-klatsch writing and occasional rants.

Do check in again, as I intend to write once a week from now on

Labels: depression, recovery