Eating Without Chewing

The Regatta at Saint-Adresse, Monet

Writing certainly helps me get some perspective on the direction things are going in. And as for the paintings, they make me smile everytime I open up this blog. They've been appearing since I wrote 'Alchemy'.

I saw a very good friend for breakfast this morning. We are as close as brothers without the infighting you get in families, so I guess that makes us even closer. He made me laugh so much I could barely breathe. Every time we walk into that café I feel like we light the place up. That’s a pretty positive generalisation from me, given that for a long while I haven’t been feeling like myself. We can talk about anything, or comfortably nothing, and it’s all ok.

In previous episodes of depression I isolated myself from everyone and it took so long to come back. I could talk all day about what I’ve been doing this time round to get better, but I won’t. I’ll just say that whilst withdrawing is inevitable with depression… I fought and my friends fought with a ferocious persistence to stop it from happening altogether. I can’t remember the last time I actually answered a phone or responded to a knock at the door. Alicia does a lot to protect me and keep us functioning despite my disconnection. But friends do come round, we eat together… we laugh… we laugh a lot… and in between they read the blog so there are no secrets. Sometimes the see my glazed eyes and look back at me with kindness. Sometimes, when I haven’t made it downstairs they even come up to sit alongside me. My friends… I have never known such friendship.

Around midday I started to feel strange and took myself upstairs. I can remember reading a letter from the bank shortly before going up… usual stuff about the account being empty and a direct debit bouncing. I must have fallen asleep and when I woke up I could hear Alicia talking to me and then rocking my shoulder too. I’d fallen back into the same catatonic state I wrote about in ‘Has Anyone Seen Mehdi?’ Between us, we have come to realise that is something to do with the way my medication acts on me when I haven’t eaten. I don’t tend to be very good at looking after myself during a depressive episode and I hadn’t thought to eat anything all day. She lovingly fed me freshly made scrambled eggs and toast… and slowly my body returned to me. At first it seemed barely possible to open my mouth and thankfully scrambled egg doesn’t require chewing! Laughing over breakfast, catatonic by teatime; it isn’t a great advert for being medicated is it, but it’s working for me.

The rest of the day was pretty good. I went out and did a couple of quotes which involved seeing other people. Alicia and I started to plan the work diary for the next few weeks. I’ve been completely away from work and responsibilities and everything this week – just concentrating on getting better as I said in ‘Wolves at the Door’, and it has done me a lot of good. Getting my thinking straight, breaking a few bad habits and getting out into the hills has all given me a buoyancy that even teatime crashes can’t destroy.