Sep 15

 Mixed bag today. Which at the moment meant it was pretty fucking terrible, with some tolerable moments.

I am struggling hardcore to keep it together. I have retreated into my absolute deepest cope hole - still coping, barely, but really far down in the hole. I get up, shuffle about, get something to eat, retreat to bed, and rinse and repeat this throughout the day. At most I will sit up for a few hours before feeling ill and or the pain in my foot getting too bad and I will retreat back to bed to sleep / doze.

This is my life. Pushed to the absolute twilight level of existence. I don't have any more backwards steps from here. Backwards from this means I don't get up at all.

My foot has varied today from tolerable but sore, to appallingly painful. It seems to flare up and down during the day and night - previously it was only doing this during the night, but of late seems to not care what the time is and just flare. Painkillers are definitely helping, in fact, they are probably doing all the heavy lifting. I am on a constant dose of ibuprofen, and I am taking the cocodamol when I hit overnight sleep hours.

My mood is also severely struggling. I can feel myself lose it for parts of the day, and then sometimes peek above the parapet for a few hours before being dragged back into crazy town.

Not good.

I have, of course, been off my mental meds for arguably the longest time I've ever been off them. Whilst I did start them back up around Athena passing, I didn't keep them up. I halted them fairly quickly, and never went back on them.

You can make a fairly strong argument that I have been severely depressed since somewhere around the start of the year, but, have, untypically, not entirely lost the plot during this. Usually I lose the plot somewhere in an untreated depression.

Anti depressants are a complex bag. There is absolutely no doubt that in some circumstances they can be the difference between life and death. They work. They do shit. They do things you can't get elsewhere.

That being said. They are no silver bullet, and as much as they can and do work, the effects are variable, poorly understood and different from person to person, and, the kicker, they can have some pretty fucking heavy side effects that in some circumstances can be arguably just a different kind of hell.

In the past I have found that anti depressants chop off the "bottom of the curve" for me, meaning I can be left miserable, but not critically out of control miserable. I tend to hit a hard limit. Ish. In more recent years and experiences with them, this rule has been broken a few times, and I can dip below the crazy line, but, crucially I don't stick there when I am on meds. I come back up again. In the distant unmedicated past I have gone beneath that line and then stuck there. Which is to understate it, pretty awful, and a constant russian roulette of existential threat. Will today be the day I commit suicide. So. Anti depressants, good. At least at stopping that ?

However. Anti depressants also make it slower for me to recover. A lot slower. I don't get the lows. I also don't get the highs ( not a big deal if I am not getting fuck all highs ). But. The small wins. The small laugh at something. That also tends to get eliminated under the anti depressants meaning the world turns a bit more grey all round. You lose the capability to snap back up fast. There is no fast. There is only slow.

Also the other kicker, is that for me, a lot of the anti depressants strangle an orgasm. In fact one of the side lines they can prescribe people the pills is for premature orgasm. If you don't have that then the meds can strangle that. Either completely. Or make it very very difficult to orgasm. I am talking like hours. It can be frustrating and miserable.

Which is not great in a med that's trying to make you less miserable.

In the end I have bounced continually between on and off meds for years now. Taking them when I start to lose control. Tossing them when things seem more in control. I have long since stopped bothering talking to the GP about it. And just self medicated. They are pretty ineffectual at this shit anyway. And it also tends to leans into the NHS failure point of being more than happy to just dish out a pill so long as you don't talk to them.

This evening I have decided to start my mental meds back up again. A low dose to start. Which is what you are supposed to do. Start gentle, ramp them up. I am going to do that. Because I am really losing that mental health battle right now. My physical health is fucking my mental health. And I have a lot of headwinds there anyway - and very very non arguably have been in a major depression for months anyway.

So no orgasms. Less laughs. Just grey.

A small factor that has tipped me onto starting them again is the fact that at the moment I am not orgasming anyway. It seems to have... died. Perhaps it's the pain. And the mental miseries. And no doubt age. But a month ago I was fine. Now I am not.

So. Taking the pills. I am at least not losing that. Because I've lost it already.

Foot is throbbing again.

The pain has shifted by something like a half inch to an inch on my left foot. Slowly, slowly shifting backwards towards my heel. It is now sat on the the side of my foot just below the front big pad. It started on top. I have found that gout sometimes does this. Slowly shifts. Or if you fuck with it can suddenly shift and then pop up an inch lower in your bloodstream. I guess this is the crystals slowly bumping their way along your vascular system - no doubt puncturing and fucking everything up along the way.

Treated gout is supposed to last a few days. Untreated gout can go on for up to 2 weeks.

That my doc has waved me off for a pharmacist consult some 2 weeks in the future doesn't feel like they are taking it or me seriously. At this point, I am effectively untreated. I have a problem. It's not being dealt with. There is a bookmark in the calendar for someone to talk to me in 2 weeks though.

If this is timely effective healthcare then I am a leprachaun.

The NHS is as ever, useless. Run for its own benefit, not yours.