I finally got in to my doctor and told her my concerns: I am sleeping as much as I slept when I was depressed, except I feel fine when I'm awake. I do not have much of an appetite, but I seem to be gaining weight.
My doctor's diagnosis: Hibernation. I have been hibernating. People do not hibernate. Squirrels hibernate.
Among the factors that have triggered this denning are:
- endless Illinois winter darkness
- cold that makes it painful to go outside
- richness of filling winter food
- side effects of medication
As for the anti-depressant, it is time to scale it back. I will be tapering off of Effexor, which I've taken for two years, and switching to the milder Cymbalta, which is a much more attractive name for a drug. It makes me think of Cymbeline, though I do not take that as an unequivically good sign, since there are several poisoning attempts in that play.
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"Well Water"
What a girl called "the dailiness of life"
(Adding an errand to your errand. Saying,
"Since you're up ..." Making you a means to
A means to a means to) is well water
Pumped from an old well at the bottom of the world.
The pump you pump the water from is rusty
And hard to move and absurd, a squirrel-wheel
A sick squirrel turns slowly, through the sunny
Inexorable hours. And yet sometimes
The wheel turns of its own weight, the rusty
Pump pumps over your sweating face the clear
Water, cold, so cold! you cup your hands
And gulp from them the dailiness of life.
- Randall Jarrell
3 comments:
Makes me think of Jim Cymbala: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=jim+cymbala&x=0&y=0
And be encouraged that the word "Lent" likely finds it's origin in the word "lengthen." The days are getting longer!
Just when I think nothing weirder can happen to you. Next you'll be packing away nuts or attack bee hives for honey comb.
Maybe you're cold-blooded. Honestly... I'd check.
I've told this story to several of my friends of late, just so you know.
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