De Profundis

Excepting you, who has the fortitude and loyalty to be reading this drivel, the nonexistent readership can kiss my gringa ass. I haven't been writing this blog for its reader(s?) so much as for myself. It is a method of processing life, largely confined to events and circumstances. I see now that I have neglected a chunk of my story that has bedeviled my inner peace for over half a century. I regard my depression less as mental illness than as a glitch in brain chemistry. After all, I have succeeded at least 90% of the time in having a fairly interesting and challenging life, raising a reasonably wonderful son, and have succeeded sometimes in ferreting out opportunities to have a good effect on the lives around me.

So, to answer my rhetorical query of the last post, I suppose the "point" is living.

Living lately has been in a trough of misaligned brain chemistry. It is like a parade of utterly sleepless nights, watching the digits change on my bedside clock, tossing about and screaming "I NEED SLEEP!" Daytime hours drag on, punctuated by absurd crying jags, hoping for death - the ultimate cure - and teetering about in slow motion, feeding my chickens, washing clothes, paying bills. Weeping. Feeling an absolute fraud.

Everything I wanted for my post-US life is here. I love my little house and its large garden, I love my routine and my hours at the university, I ride the bus system like a pro and daily discover new things to enjoy about my adopted country. True, I have few real friends, but that has ever been my story. Many friendly acquaintances, my adored dogs, my gang of gallinas in the chicken coop. All is well, except that I cannot seem to climb out of this morass on my own.

I hit bottom the other night and contacted my lawyer. He must have been appalled by my desperate, rather chaotic tearful plea for help in finding a psychiatrist to help me find a medical solution to this agony. It embarrasses me to have been so pathetically out of control, but it did the job. I have met with this new doctor and tests have been ordered. I am still stuck in the trough, but I think I can see someone extending a lifeline far above me. And when my sister called me last night, I could practically feel her love for me buoying me up. Oh, let this dreary, heavy burden fall away. I am so very tired.