10: Stasis or Stability.
“Here’s the thing,” Alice says to me.
We’re sitting outside a coffeeshop, she’s knitting something blue, I’m writing something blue, it all works, if you think about it. “Yeah?” I I ask, pretty sure of what’s coming because we’ve talked about it before.
“The thing is I don’t know what to choose. I can choose to be where I am, which is kinda comfortable and kinda suck.”
“Or?”
“Being well, I guess, maybe. I mean, this sure isn’t well, but I don’t know if the next change will be better or worse.”
“Ah,” I’m busy writing, so I’m not paying as much attention as I should, but I know where she’s coming from.
The question is simple, yet complicated: Do you choose to stay where you are, which isn’t great? Or do you choose to make a change, and hope for very good, but risk very bad? It’s a common question to people living with a mental illness, because there are levels of insanity, and it’s easy to settle for not bad, or good enough.
“I think you should try,” I say, but how can I know for sure? I’m not her. Our brains-to be so corny-are unique snowflakes. No one has the same brain chemistry, so medications can react in wildly different ways.
I just don’t know, and neither does she. We may never figure it out, but we can always try.