The Reburied Life.
rorschach test
Originally uploaded by conformerWhile reducing and minimizing one's physical possessions is one thing, and streamlining one's personal and professional workflow is another, their sentimental tug-of-war and shoulder-brusing box-breaking still pale in comparison to what one faces when it's decided to make a change in our thinking, in our philosophy, in our belief system. Anyone can fill up a box of stuff and remove it from the premises, and it takes a certain leap of faith to dispose of a box, still sealed, sight unseen; but these are still just acts against tangible objects.
One of the more significant batteries of side effects attributed to mood-manipulating pharmaceuticals, prescription or otherwise, is the repression of additional emotional abilities along with the target condition. For example, people who suffer from chronic depression who are given a regiment of antidepressants often report the inability to cry, even when they find themselves in situations where crying would be appropriate or expected.
Not all depressions are the same. Elizabeth Wurtzel, who bought her own plight to the fore of the public consciousness with Prozac Nation, was actually documenting atypical depression; which, despite its name, is actually the most common subtype of depression. Its symptoms are reactive; that is, a person with atypical depression will brighten in more positive situations, like a club or party, and feel worse in more neutral or negative happenstances, like alone at home. The more familiar "melancholic" depression is what the general population thinks of when presented with someone having the "blues;" a person who has difficulty feeling positive, even when good things happen.
Sometimes the worst part about having this disease (and it is a disease with actual physical symptoms) is the prospect of getting used to living with the pain, of establishing the palette of daily muted emotions as a new standard, of accepting this state as "normal."
On the other hand, if you can name a thing, perhaps you can control a thing. A problem is a problem, but if it's your problem, you can own it, like a project. Possession is nine-tenths of the law, but what about the law of being possessed? I often think that there is something otherworldly taking up residence inside me; a demon, an angel, an alien, whatever. If so, and nine times out of ten I'm pushed this way and pulled that way, then there should logically be at least one time out of ten where I'm given the wheel.
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