Taboo subjects
Since starting this blog over a year ago there are some topics which I intentionally haven’t written about. One of those topics is something that has always been a part of my life - depression.
There’s no real reason not to mention it here except for the fact that it tends to freak people out a bit. I’m not talking about major depressive episodes here – that’s another story for another bottle of vodka. Nor am I talking about ‘feeling a bit low’ or ‘having the blues’. It’s nothing to do with sadness.
The depression I live with is a fairly simple illness. I’m less good than an average person at producing serotonin in my brain and now and again I get a bit ill. It’s a bit like having a cold or iron deficiency when pregnant, just a bit of temporary brain chemistry discombobulation which passes in a matter of days.
Over the years I have learned to manage the illness much better, mainly by becoming much more aware of life factors like diet, stress, tiredness And the like. Not running around like a mentalist, drinking and doing lots of drugs helps too. There are signs I can pick up on – drinking too much without getting drunk, certain trains of thought which only crop up at these moments, and strangely - physical symptoms like getting eczema on the palms of my hands. All these are simply warning signs that simply mean I need to slow things down, relax, eat better and generally look after myself.
Now and again, however another factor which is out of my control might crop up at the wrong time. In this case it was a solid dose of the flu when I was in the UK over the weekend when some of the warning signs were already in the post.
It will have passed in a few days and normal life will resume. In the mean time I just have to accept that I can’t really get much work done, that I’m a bit quiet and weird to be around and that I find it difficult to focus on anything.
So with those limitations in mind, and seeing as it was a beautiful sunny day I decided it would be best spent on Grande Montets with Sarah and Johnny Slippers getting a tan and not skiing too hard.
I often like to storm up the mountain with military precision, ski for a couple of hours and then get on with the rest of my day, but today it was really good to just slowly get my stuff together, get up the hill and just hang out for the rest of the day in no rush. Good for whatever ails you.