Storyteller's World: Beating the Blues

Monday, November 08, 2004

What the books say about it really does seem to work. I actually felt better over the weekend thanks to some or all of the following:

Physical Exercise. A walk into Oxford and back made some of the joints and muscles feel their age a bit, but it was a good ache.

Chocolate. Yes, after all that exercise I rewarded myself with a bar of chocolate. But I'm told what you should eat is the dark black strong variety (rationing yourself to one piece every couple of days) which gives you the fix without the calories.

A Dose of Progeny. Tom dropped in for a couple of hours yesterday, and it was good to go out for lunch with him and Naomi. We talked a lot about computers, naturally. (Oh yes, we touched briefly on the upcoming wedding.) Spend time with children, then.

Keep up with friends and people you love. The danger is you will avoid them, because you feel so awful and so unlovable that you don't feel anyone can want to be with you. Don't avoid them: they do love you.

Anti-depressants?.
(With thanks to Mumcat for the suggestion of a more balanced approach.)
Sometimes the crash is so great you may need help from medication. If a doctor you trust prescribes anti-depressants, by all means follow their advice, as I have down twice. At the moment, though, my preference is to try and avoid tablets and deal with the blues some other way. I found anti-depressants fuzzed up my thinking processes so much that I preferred the depression. But even that probably means the tablets 'worked', by giving me the incentive to get better enough to stop taking them.

Sympathies to all fellow-sufferers! Only intelligent, sensitive, gifted, creative people suffer depression, I reckon. :-)

Anonymous said...: Mumcat - you're quite right, of course, and I'm sure that's why I was willing to give them a try before. I'm seriously thinking about doing what one shouldn't (!) and editing my initial post to give a more balanced version. Watch this space!; 9:23 am