I sleep for ten or twelve hours straight, or I get no sleep at all. My mind wanders, and when it settles in one place for very long, it is somewhere dark and forboding. I have no desire to do anything, and nothing gives me any kind of pleasure.
Sounds like I'm depressed, eh?
Assuming that putting a .45 in my mouth and pulling the trigger isn't an option (since, after all, a shotgun would be so much more effective...joke. JOKE!), what do I do about this?
Therapy? Uh, yeah, I suppose I could...but you know, I was in therapy when my marriage ended, so that didn't help much. And I was in therapy again later, and I tended to use it as a crutch. I'm not against it, it just hasn't worked for me.
Meds? Boy, oh boy. Done that, too, and I never want to go back. You can be on varying doses of varying meds before they find the mix that actually works for you--assuming they find it. The thing is, the meds screw with your head so much you can lose all perception of reality, can think you're doing fine when your moods are actually swinging like Sinatra on meth. But the doctors prescribing this shit don't necessarily see that, they only know what you tell them, but your psyche's been so mixed up, you don't even know what's real.
So what to do?
Easy. I'll just let it happen. Like Fabian and Tab Hunter, I'll Ride The Wild Surf and see where the Big Wave takes me. Maybe I'll drown, maybe I'll land in paradise, maybe I'll just be exhilirated and grateful for surviving. Life's an adventure and all that crap, right?
(Incidentally, I went with a Fabian/Tab Hunter/Ride The Wild Surf reference because I figured the Robert "Wingnut" Weaver riff I used originally was too obscure. Also, I substituted that "Sinatra on meth" line for my original "moods swinging like the Gashouse Gorillas" for the same reason. Hell, even the title of this post is utterly pointless if you don't read Funky Winkerbean and/or The Comics Curmudgeon...but I went with it anyway.)
For now, I suffer. Things turn around, though. They always do. I know this, intellectually, but my soul is less certain, peering at the horizon, saying, "I dunno, man, I dunno..." My soul sounds a lot like Harvey Pekar, my intellect sounds like Marcus Welby, so instead I listen to my heart, which sounds kind of like my mom, and which is telling me to hug my cats.
Monika squirms and Delmar bites me, but it's a start.
