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Again With the Damnable Bootstraps

First, a very sincere thank you to everyone who has written encouraging messages to me in my comments or in e-mail. I truly appreciate your kindness, concern, and support. It is difficult to describe how your messages touched me... in valuable ways while I was in the very pit of my despair. Your words helped me to see that sunshine still did exist.

As the title of my essay suggests, I am once again trying to pull myself up by my own bootstraps and bring back ORDER to my life as a way to push the depression and saddness away. When I keep myself ordered, in terms of the tasks I wish to accomplish day-to-day, and have a plan of attack from the moment I get up until I fall into bed at night, I feel significantly less grief and pain about my loss. Whether this is due to A) changing my hormonal profile through increased activity or b) if I am simply pushing my emotions aside temporairly by not having much time to think... I am not sure. But regardless, I end up feeling better on that day.

Therefore, I have geared up to again awaken at 5:30am to begin physical exhertion (walking) which I had let slide now for 5 days. I also have created a full slate of teaching, research, household, and general activities to keep me busy until I fall asleep (new plan is to be in bed by 12:30am).

It seems that this past weekend was a turning point for me in that I lost my routine, my patterns for keeping busy. Added to this was a disagreement my wife and I had during the weekend that helped me to become more cognizant of my feelings of being utterly alone in the world (a thoght that has always terrified me to my core... not of being by myself, but of having no one and no contact and no one who cares about me... the being in a void... of both space and time) and it is easy to see how I slipped back into the utter saddness I have been trying to keep at bay.

It is during these times that I again contemplate if I may benefit from a serotonin reuptake inhibitor (Prozac or something similar). Having not taken these medications previously, it gives me pause as to what the effects will be like:

1. I presume, the additional serotonin being held longer in the synapses will stimulate longer the neurons in the hypothalamic and amygdaloid regions of the brain thereby decreasisng the negative emotions that are typified by low neuronal activity in these regions. I know this from the standpoint of being a neuroendocrinologist (I study both endocrinology and neurobiology). But what I truly wonder is the following...

2. Would I feel a blunting of my emotions across the whole spectrum? [I hope not.]

3. Would I feel intoxicated through their effects? [An interesting idea... which could be entertaining, but I doubt there is that effect.]

4. Would I be one of the unfortunate few who have decreased sexual function while on these medications? [A definite negative, as the beautiful intimacy I share with my wife enriches me physically, mentally, and emotionally.]

5. Would I lose sight of who I am while on these medications? [A negative, because in general I think I am at least a moderately kind, good-hearted person.]

6. Would these medications cause me to ignore my beautiful mother? [A negative... I want to feel more accepting of inevitablity of her passage... I do not want to ignore her nor do I ever want to forget her.]

7. Would these medications become a crutch so-to-speak that allow me to return to a rather disheveled life and not need to exercise and exact order and discipline upon myself? [A negative... if this is only an easier way out of pain, all that would mean is I want to be a lazy worthless cur.]

I do not know the answer to the latter questions, and perhaps no one can really know. But I do think about them, especially when I go through a period of being so distraught like I have the last several days.

Cheers, and wish me luck on working myself into a heavy lather of activity that will exhaust me so that I can no longer feel sad.

PipeTobacco