Depression nine times out of ten is down to some fundamental aspect of your life that you are in denial about. Of course a few suffer clinical depression with roots in imbalances of certain neurotransmitters but your normal depression, that which blights modern society, the illness responsible for more lost work hours than any other condition is usually a response to living a life you don't want. This maybe a marriage to someone you don't truly love or being in work you are not suited to. But it is the denial of this fundamental duty that is the cause. Drug addiction is a coping strategy many use to endure the life they have found themselves living. It can seem impossible to imagine a career change or spouse dumping so drugs or alcohol enable one to get by.
This year I became repossessed by a crack demon I thought I had long ago excorsized. Six years was the length of my first possession and ridding myself of it and the accompanying diazepam addiction took a good six months of hell where I was unable to work. Once free I hated it. I hated everything to do with it. Then, in January, whilst under immense work pressure from a job I couldn't seem to finish and a debt to my main client a parcel came through the post from an old freind who owed me a little money. It contained two big rocks of crack cocaine and two bags of high quality heroin. Due to my prescription of the partial agonist bupronorphine heroin has no effect on me. This has protected me from relapse in to heroin addiction for over fifteen years. The crack, however, took hold and for two months I was possessed. This accompanying self hatred led to what may have been described by some as a suicide attempt but I think of it more as an excosism or bursting of a psychic boil. So angry with myself I took an overdose of methoxphenidine, a dissociative anaesthetic. Previously I thought I had taken twenty times the average dose but a recalculation this week revealed I had taken 75 times the beginners dose. It didn't kill me but put me on a three week trip or psychosis that I have described in earlier postings.
Recovery from this coincided with retraining dook. Dook was mad when I first got him from Claverton dogs home. His weight was down to 23 kg and he was that paranoid he'd bite anyone who came too close who he didn't trust. At the time, sharing a psychosis we began rising before dawn and walking miles together. I would be rambling on to him about the hallucinations and gradually we both regained sanity. Now he seldom misbehaves. Only if someone that doesn't know him acts like he's a long lost lover or if some idiot approaches him whilst tied up outside a shop. For this they deserve a snap.
I'm packing in making furniture. These last few years have nearly seen me dead more than once through taking drugs to cope with the pointlessness of my work. I am grateful for being able to make a living but all I do is make trinkets for the rich. No one I know can afford my work. I set out to be an artist. To express myself but have ended up trying to draw out what I guess a rich man would find beautiful. I spend hours of my own time on making flawless pieces. I spend much of my own money making sure the details are alright. Because I have been paid I have felt duty bound to work my fingers to the bone. My mental health has deteriorated to the extent where now I must sign off as my appointment with my clinical psychologist begins in ten minutes.
The desk I am making is one of my best pieces and one I am proud to sign off on.
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