I wrote way back in October / November of last year about how I was battling some really dark clouds in my life. I put it down to turning fifty and being in constant pain and I was determined to overcome it without the need for medication.
Just after Christmas I thought I'd beaten it. Things began to look brighter. I was still in chronic pain and I had, in the time since I last wrote about being depressed, been prescribed Oramorph to take alongside my Cocodamol - despite my being unwilling to go down the drug guinea pig route again. But, up until last week, everything seemed fine. I'd beaten my depression.
Then, a week or so ago, I woke up feeling really miserable one day. Nothing specific that I could put my finger on as the cause, I just felt glum. I thought I might be getting another cold and brushed it aside, but I was very snappy with the family and really easily irritated.
On Tuesday my poor, long-suffering wife, made some innocuous remark about something (I can't even remember what it was) and I blew my stack. Said some awful things and really lost control. The worst of it was that I lost control in front of our thirteen year old daughter.
Now, even when I'm in the wrong and I know I was in the wrong on this occasion, I'm a stickler for not backing down and I used the old "well if you hadn't said / done such and such, I would never have said what I said" chestnut - which only served to amplify my wife's anger towards me and the row went on for several days. In fact, it was still going on this morning - six days later.
I had a pre-booked appointment to see my GP to review my medication at 10am today and when I walked into his consulting room everything (apart from the row) was fine. I sat down and he asked how I'd been and I just burst into tears and let it all pour out. I felt such an idiot. Normally when people ask how I've been I say "Fine" or "Not so bad" - it's a standard for fibro sufferers the world over. Today I let the standard fall. My wall, usually so impenetrable, collapsed to dust and the flood barriers opened.
Clearly my depression had not been beaten. I'd just bottled it all up, put the cork in the bottle over Christmas and New Year only for it to explode today in a spectacular, embarrassing and totally non-British way!
I walked out of the room fifteen minutes later with a prescription for Duloxetine in one hand and a wet tissue in the other, dabbing tears away from my bloodshot eyes as I walked into the waiting room, where my wife sat waiting with a smile on her face. We wrapped our arms around each other and hugged. I blubbed a pitiful, guilt-laden "Sorry" into her shoulder.
She'd known all along that this day would come.
