Roof repair

Today I’m seeing Dr. Two-Fifty (as in hundreds of dollars per session). She’s not my new therapist; she’s the shrink the therapist is sending me to for meds for the Other D.

I’ve thought and read and fretted a lot about taking this step. This kind of internal debate is a cliché of postmodern American life, yes? Medicate the problem vs. staying with it (whatever that means) in search of personal growth or insight or at least some nonchemical cure. There’s a faction out there that posits the choice of medication for depression as the easy road, a turning away from the harder, worthier path of dealing with one’s shit head-on and with authenticity.

I thought about personality (what is it and why and whether medicating my brain will undermine some essential Violetness that I won’t want to lose and whether, if I do lose it, I will be able to get it back). I thought about how, before resorting to medication, I should probably explore exercise or yoga or at least not lying around on the couch all the time. I thought about how an antidepressant could mess up my BGs--from what I can learn, almost all of 'em have the potential to do so, though they often don't. (Cymbalta, one of the newer ones that does not, is a "step" drug on the NIP formulary, meaning that Dr. Two-Fifty has to try me on other drugs first and turn to Cymbalta only if they don't work.) I read about the myriad other side effects to which I can look forward, depending on the drug of Dr. Two-Fifty’s choice and my body’s personal, idiosyncratic response thereto.

Then I thought about my other thoughts, the nonbloggable ones, and I came to understand that sometimes you reach a moment when you have, say, a large and gaping hole in the roof of your home, caused maybe by the antics of squirrels or your roommate's fondness for illegal fireworks or the mediocrities of bargain-priced shingles or the little kid next door who likes to hit his baseball up onto your roof several times every Saturday--the cause is not the point; the point is that the hole is there--and outside the thunder is clapping and the lightning is sparking, and you know that the rain on the way is not just any ordinary storm but the kind that generates Significant Media Attention. At such a time you do not look into your toolbox and say to yourself, I will work alone, using only the small nails and the small hammer to repair this hole because by doing so, I will grow immeasurably in my knowledge of carpentry, and that will make me a better person. No, you pull out every tool that might help, small, large, and in between, and you give one to your roommate, another to the kid next door, and whatever remains to the squirrels, and you all go to work on the damn hole.

In other words, you Take. The. Freaking. Drug.