Having moved the computer to my desk in the middle room (actually I should keep it here, as this is much more of a 'work area' than the front room and couch, where I have spent far too much of the past five years) – I can see fireworks: the municipal celebration of New Year's Eve, the end (or perhaps, more traditionally, the verge of the beginning) of a year.
The top half of them, anyway, not covered by the bare winter trees and small row houses.
The fireworks are impressive, even from this distance; their energetic celebrations and implicit social contract make me feel a bit ridiculous, a bit ashamed – over the past week I have increasingly slept during the day, read part of the night, felt poorly. And even missed several doses of medications: I'm usually pretty good about them, but in midwinter and under the mark of depression I tend to lose track – I have missed perhaps three or four doses over the past week, which is of course not acceptable, at least not for any length of time.
Reading Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections – at first I was rather put off, then became fascinated: his memories of his own introverted confusions in his teens, and the resultant neurotic physical symptoms; it really turns into an engaging story, and one that reflects all too plainly my current depression/anomie/mild illnesses.
And I was reading sections of current technical (medical and psychiatric) textbooks on HIV/AIDS, downloaded from one of those illegal Russian websites: reading, especially, about the biochemistry of HIV depression. Depression is something most of the authors take for granted with HIV; it's apparently very common indeed (50% to 85% of patients, depending on what your defining factors are). Most of the writers are much more concerned with dementia and its biochemistry; depression is a side issue, with some of them prescribing minor stimulants for it (none of which I've ever heard of).
Of course, over the past year, I've become increasingly dependent for any successful energy on tea – especially exquisite, tangy green tea – and, very occasionally, coffee (though my stomach can't really stand it). And therefore, the obvious conclusion is reached: among my various resolutions, I should make a point of making them happen by drinking tea, regularly, in the morning.
Rather than, for instance, staggering from my bed to the sofa at 11 am, and sleeping until 4 pm, without eating or taking medicines... as I did today. Yes, I know, you don't need to tell me.
N.B.: I can't imagine how 'self-medicating' turned into such a negative term, unless it's the panic generated around AA, NA and associated programs. Given the tendency of doctors to allow non-life-endangering problems to drift... sometimes until they become quite real... it seems to be a survival need. For some of us, anyway.
***
And those resolutions, tame as they are – for the purpose of recording them in (horrible, accusing, demanding?) public – so that I can't pretend they never happened:
(1) To work DAILY on research projects.
(2) To get exercise at least once every week – moving towards
twice a week if possible.
(3) To prepare classes and meetings beforehand whenever
possible.
Signed, with a legalistic flourish,
Me
***
A later small addendum: I note from various casual messages on Facebook, as well as from certain comic strips, that there is leftover anger and exasperation in the US aimed at 2008 – that people are ready for the year to be over, because they almost blame the year itself for so many disasters. As an American living abroad, I don't feel that way myself about 2008 – this was a year when I put myself back together psychologically, more than I've been since 2000 – but I do understand.
However, admittedly, some of the horrors of the past year were visited on the country by its own structures – why was Bush ever elected, and why did people let him stay in power even after the illegalities of the 2004 election were obvious? Why did so many allow the financial and industrial powers to continue to operate scams that have been floating about since the 1980s? Perhaps because of the smug assumption of being a chosen land, of being immune to consequences. Like a twenty-year-old: pathetic, really... I hope that most Americans understand that these miseries did not come from some chance-driven, external force.
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