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Depressing Depression — Still Not There Yet pg199
Colorful companion to my memoir The Incompetent Psychic
After a suicide scare a few years before getting sober I had tried an experiment. I didn’t drink for three months, hired a psychiatrist and took a prescribed daily dose of Prozac. It was a mixed blessing. Having flat-lined emotions got me a safe distance away from the self-destructive zone, but it also did something to sever that connection to a higher place where ideas come from. Technically I could still make decent pictures, but there was no passion in them. The Muses were no longer popping by for tea. Ending the medication made it worse for a while. Then my drinking became more severe, but I could paint again.
Five years into sobriety this frightening depression hit. Not willing to risk being disconnected from my channels of inspiration, I tried every holistic suggestion and did world-wide research as by now I had the web. I would get a little better, and then sink deeper to where insanity lurks. The worst panic was from a fear I couldn’t pull out. — From Chapter 10
For almost two years I thought my emotions might kill me. I eventually discovered why I had to go through it (tomorrow’s post), but the journey through that long ordeal was a daily struggle to simply keep wanting to live. That took some effort…
