Today, I took my first pill. Nothing illegal. It is from a package of St. John's Wort, which Sylvia bought for me. It costs about €36 and contains 60 pills. I'm supposed to take one pill each day. Each pill, huge and yellow, contains about 900mg of dried St. John's Wort, and the purpose of the pill is to help me getting out of mild depression.
I regard myself as an often unhappy person, and Sylvia is pretty much like me. Actually she not only thinks that she feels worse than I do, but she also feels bad about feeling bad. She does not want anybody to know how she feels. So please keep this a secret between you and me, okay?
So I'm on the drug right now. The package insert says that I'm supposed to feel first improvements after about 14 days, but, strangely enough, the drug has an immediate effect, and being a sensitive person, I noticed pretty quickly.
I would compare it to a very mild dose of ecstasy. Sensations on the skin are amplified. Smelling is enhanced. I can feel my body better. I feel like I'm more in the moment, as if a veil has been lifted from me. The usual tiredness of a workday is almost unnoticeable. Back at work, I even felt a silent rush of euphoria. Nothing overwhelming, just a kind of "ON" feeling. Like I'm actually there, in the present, taking part in life as a real being.
Sylvia feels like shit right now, because she can't go with me. She is on the "anti baby pill". Being on the pill, she can't take St. John's Wort. Using this natural antidepressant, she would certainly be less depressed, but more pregnant. I don't mind that. I would love to have a baby. But she's studying right now, and she's convinced that it would ruin her career. I don't know. Perhaps it does.
Now when we have sex, it's beautiful. It's beautiful, but short - that's my fault, I'm sorry. And we only sleep with each other on the weekends. We hug and kiss a lot, but I feel like we are supposed to have more fun in bed. And I think that it's in some sense my fault as well. I rarely feel like it. I used to be a devil ten years ago.
So, not only does the anti baby pill of happiness deny her the yellow pill of happiness, it also gives her nothing because I'm usually not in the mood.
Why is it that I lost my Mojo? I'm constantly feeling stressed out and under pressure. When I feel relaxed and good, and this goes on for a few days, my mojo is coming back. But in a work week? No chance.
I weigh about 120kg. This used to be different. I love to eat, and I certainly eat too much. Sometimes I feel like I'm trying to eat happiness., as if the food was "the happy stuff", and eating it would make me happy as well. But once it's in my stomach, I feel blown up and sedated. I know from experience that when I'm happier, I eat less. When Sylvia and I started meeting each other, I lost about 10kg out of lovesickness.
But! If everything goes to my calculations, the antidepressant will make me happier. I will eat less. I will have more interest in Snusnu. She will enjoy it as well. And her anti baby pill will pay off. Let's hope this equation makes sense in some way.
There is still a lingering moral question here: Is it bad to take a drug that aids you in enjoying life more? Aren't you supposed to feel right without anything else? Everybody feels down once in a while, right? We're all stressed out, right? We take it with pride!
I somehow think that a drug, legal or illegal, is simply just another tool in the human toolbox, like contact lenses or clothing. Everybody is dependent on a multitude of things. We are the tool-enhanced beings. And we are willingly taking part in a vicious circle. We use tools to heighten our chances of survival and fertility. Natural selection now also favors the less favored. We lose hair because we don't need them. Our eyesight deteriorates, because it does not matter anymore. We change our landscape. We move into cities. We get less sunlight, more smog, more dirt. The things that used to make us happy are now amiss. The pills help us to new joys: having sex as much as we want. Feeling good, even in a city full of noises and dirt, without the naturally pleasing aesthetics of wide open fields and clear rivers.
I hope that you can see this as another one of these inconvenient truths. It feels like we are supposed to turn back time, at least in some regards. We must bring the countryside to the cities. We must learn to rediscover our free time. The 8/5 work week is a terrible invention, and we must find a way to overcome this situation.
I feel as if we never left the middle ages. We should be looking back and thinking: wow, good that this gruesome period is over, with its diseases and witch burnings. But instead we re-imagine the past as fantasy. Millions play World of Warcraft. I would love to be in this world of nature and quests, if it only were real - and if it only had less battles.
We still have no other choice but to love right now, right here. There is still enough left to like, and it awaits discovery. I'm a temporal being. I can't hold on to the moment. Everything that is precious passes, and, luckily, so does everything that is painful.
My plan is to take St. John's Wort each day until I have no more pills. Judging from some reports that I read, I'm supposed to feel a strong withdrawal symptom: a tough depression that will bring me into fetal position, crying for hours. I'm looking forward to it.
And I'll keep you posted.
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About Me
- paniq
- Leonard Ritter, aka "paniq", is an electronic music artist, multimedia & open source programmer, writer and psychonaut.
13 comments:
On your question of whether it is bad to take a drug that aids you in enjoying life more, and feeling right without anything else (which I understand were more rhetorical than anything else) I would say this:
For one, we don't live in a world "without anything else". Not only were we all born into a world with a multitude of substances in the air we breath, the food we eat, the water we swim in, that all most likely influence us in a variety of unknown ways, but we are also constantly exposed to a wealth of information and stimuli that bombard us all the time, without or permission. And again, most of this will have effects on us both physically and mentally in ways that most likely won't be understood in our lifetimes.
So living in this imperfect world, being born into the world and not living in some sort of blank slate vacuum, many things are going to upset whatever balance and equilibrium nature has worked out over the millennia.
It then seems that have every right to try and restore some of that balance. To try and put back in what is missing. To correct what my be slightly askew. Not to achieve some sort of perfection, but to hopefully nudge closer to some balance and harmony.
I personally think that the amount people medicate away problems these days (especially in the US) is most likely doing more harm than good, as it tends to ignore the potential real problems that could be at the root. But that doesn't mean it is all bad and should all be avoided.
I guess my main point is we should try and do the best with what we are given, and try and improve things if we can.
And just for the record, YOU have already messed with my universe by creating amazing music that has both inspired me and fueled me creatively! I have used your music to aid my mood and lift me up. So thank you for helping elevate my mood from time to time. :)
good point. and thanks for the praise :) i'm glad you like it.
Are you sure it's really a depression? It's a fallacy to think that you should be happy every minute of your life - it's natural to have "good and bad days". (A job you love would help, of course.)
Considered that food is a drug too - i suggest you should start reading about eating habits and nutrition; how it influences your body and mind.
And what about some physical activity? Running can be a (natural, good?) drug too - i always welcome the rush of endorphines when finished.
I know i'm a bit generalizing when saying: Taking pills is a false hope for a quick fix - You can't stay on them forever..?
I picked up on your reasoning in the middle of the article, and proposed an answer for it. Have a look. The issue is that in order to eat healthy, and to do sports, you need to feel okay already. If you feel too depressed to do anything, it's kind of a downward spiral. An antidepressant could leverage healthier eating and more physical activity.
I hear you. But i'm not sure if it's that bad if you do recognize it as a "mild depression" yourself. And i'm not convinced that you are without any own will.. Even fat people have the choice to get up and do some sports instead of staying miserable. ;)
Anyway, that's why i didn't say "eat healthier now" but "start reading about" - just telling you to do something won't help, you have to see for yourself what and why. Everybody need's a reason.
Oh and it's not that easy - i struggle myself, but i know my reason.
If it works for you, that's fine, hooray for you. But it does certainly not work in my case. If it did, we would not have this conversation right now.
No need for sarcasm. And let me point out that you're a bit ignorant here - You're fighting the symptom not the cause and reject my suggestion without even giving it a second thought.
I'm sorry if I offended you. I will consider your suggestion.
thanks for sharing
Wikipedia says: "Some research shows that St John's wort may adversely affect fertility in both men and women." and even provides a citation! (Obviously not a perfect contraceptive, but it's something to think about.)
And since I'm going through something similar, thank you for the heads up; I may just try this stuff. Of course, as has been mentioned, music (including yours!) is great for temporarily lifting moods. Perhaps enough to go outside and do some running and further boost your mood... An upwards spiral?
Thanks for this description. I was just thinking that I need to try St. John's Wart because I am struggling with what I think is depression. I have never taken any medication for it, so I figured I'd give this a shot, since you can get it without a prescription at any health food store. I'm going to by some right when I get out of work!
Keep in mind that St. John's Wort is an SSRI, as much as Prozac or Zoloft or the myriad of other patentable variants. It is a powerful drug with significant side effects, especially when coming off (which you should plan to do when you begin with it).
I have found it to work for a couple of months, and then it will insidiously begin to make me progressively more anxious to the point of near panic attacks (which run in my family, but which I don't experience without the effect of medication). But as you note it can raise the blinders of depression for a while, perhaps enough to remind you of what the world really looks and feels like. It's a tool with which you can gain some insight into the limits of your perspective when depressed, and all antidepressants work better when combined with some cognitive-behavioural therapy.
A follow-up post on your extended experience with SJW would be appreciated.
Very short reply: the experiment has failed after two weeks. I wasn't depressed, but I didn't feel much anything else either.
Sylvia and I watched a movie that was actually rather sad, and she cried, and I was just sitting there numb, understanding the severity of the depicted situation, but unable to respond.
At that point I realized that the drug is pulling us apart, because I can't feel the same way she does, and this is more important to me than anything else. I can live with depression when it keeps me connected to somebody ;)
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