Invisible Monkeys

Depression is something I have acknowledged fighting all my life. My stroke has exasperated these struggles and so I sought a prescription of sertraline, the generic name for Zoloft. A friend of mine in my men’s group mentioned it after hearing of my emotional response to my wife and having a similar response helped by the anti-depressant.

My stroke rehab doctor prescribed 25MG a day and recommended I see a psychiatrist in conjunction with it. I figured why pass on free therapy from the VA?

I had my evaluation on Monday. It was, to say the least, an eye opener. The first thing the psychologist I met wit first mentioned is that this is not my first stroke. The MRI’s I had taken while in the hospital showed a previous stroke on the frontal lobe. Apparently, sometimes they don’t tell you. It was the neurologist decision, I assume, so as not to freak me out. My rehab doctor did not know. There is no way to tell when it was, only that it was old; three months, three years, they can’t tell.

I’ve talked to my wife about it and we think it happened during the spring of last year, when I lost all my patience and started feeling really tired all the time. I also remember some confusion at work and an inability to concentrate.

The previous stroke was revelation enough, but it was also suggested that I have long term, low-level depression. It was first broached as a possible negative aspect in my view of things, the question being weather it was long term or brought on by the strokes. In the men’s work I do we often as each other to try something on, to see if a thing fits. As soon as I heard it, I knew it fit.

I can best describe it as a nagging question, a constant asking if I am enough, and the answerer being, not quite. You can see where the fatigue comes from, the never ending striving for something jut out of reach. Is it Sisyphus? Or is he the guy continually rolling the rock up the hill? I looked it up. He’s the rock guy. All day long her rolls the rock up a hill. Every morning it’s back at the bottom. I think there another guy chained just out of the reach of food. Same difference. A never-ending, never fruitful labor.

The new information answerers a lot of questions for my wife and me, like why, from my wife’s point of view, I went off the rail last spring. I didn’t catch it. I notice now in retrospect. For my wife, she doesn’t have to take my moodiness and outburst of anger personal. It’s a brain thing. Chemical imbalance, maybe. She knows it’s not directed at her.

For me, I can understand she was not making everything up and, with the sertraline; I have something of an answer on the horizon. I’m actually beginning to be excited about it. It seems I don’t know what it’s like not to be depressed, that learning to live with it, to function in a basically sociably acceptable way is not the same thing as living. I had been asking myself why I couldn’t figure this marriage stuff out, why I couldn’t get hold of my emotions.

I don’t like finding out I’ve been carrying this low level depression thing all my life, like an invisible addiction I couldn’t quite make out, a nagging suspicion I’d catch glimpses of every once in a while, a monkey on you back is one thing. An invisible one is something else. There’s something wrong but you can’t quite put your finger on it. You suspect sometimes you’re just making shit up to give yourself an excuse. I recognize knowing is better than not, but I feel like the hole I sometimes suspected I was in just got confirmed and it’s a lot deeper than I thought it was.

The up side is the sertraline. They increased my prescription to 50MG. I’m wary of it, but they say it’s supposed to help; it addresses the chemical imbalance or whatever. I have this idea that it’s going to fix the not quite, that for the first time in my life I’ll like myself with out reservation, that I’ll be able to trust myself, that my thoughts will be clear and not a confusing jumble I’m forever trying to sort out. That’s a scary thought. I think I’m on the edge of it. But I’m not there yet and I don’t know how to live over there and I feel like for the first time I’m about to find out what I really think.

Ready or not, hear I come.