Testing Times

There's a fight going on in my psyche between composed rationality and something threatening my equlibrium that's causing me unprecedented feelings of heaviness. It's been a year-long process, this struggle, and there have been times I've felt like I'm cracking under the strain of trying to be strong and level-headed and yet feeling like I'm treading water and sinking, no matter how much effort I put into staying afloat. I don't know if there's a breaking point to this or if it dissolves into a state of serene beatitude, but a friend I work with is a clinical psychologist and on Friday afternoon she said, given a five minute summary of symptoms, that it sounded like depression and suggested a good therapist and a course of medication. I raised an eyebrow - well no - I would have if I could, but I can't raise only one: I've tried and tried, much to the kid's amusement. They can all do it. Must be genetic via their father. I had to raise both eyebrows.

Now this is a good friend and she's only 28, but she said she felt so bad when she moved to New York to do her Masters, had just split with someone and everyone she loved was in Israel, so she took a course of some dopamine stimulating pill for about nine months, felt much better and came off them herself.

I've always derided the state of the world, of humans needing something to fill them and turning to medication; was stunned to find out half the mothers I knew in London were on Prozac and couldn't figure out why someone with a loving husband, a big house, sweet kids and no real problems in their lives could need something to get them through the day. Why? I figured for ages that it had to do with a lack of spirituality or depth, of not being in tune with the needs of their soul, or maybe that they wanted life to be one way and it was another, but hey - there are so many people in the world living in heinous conditions, there was perspective and it needed to be accounted for.






So my friend's suggestion came as a surprise to me. This Shabbat I read 'Passages' a best-selling psychology book of the Seventies that Mum bought me, as it explained the 'predictable crises' throught the passages of adult life. According to the author, this is all perfectly normal for a woman my age who has been a caregiver for years but now needs her own authenticating thing and finds she's been left behind somewhat or doesn't know where to start.


This made me feel better. She also stated 'intellectual starvation' as a very serious problem for a thinking person, and I realised that was and has been my problem all year. The one person I met here who I could have decent conversations with went back to Chicago in June and I'm so hungry for mental stimulation that I wrote to my former teacher, the great Sean Gaston, to ask if he thought I could tailor make a PhD including topics x y and z. He very sweetly said my email reminded him I was 'a gifted writer and whatever you do, I hope you will not forget the difficult and demanding world of fiction ... It also sounds as if you are on the path to becoming a philosopher, and I think this venerable tradition of religious meditation and philosophy an excellent and important place to direct your questing mind.' I could do the PhD with more luck in the US, he thinks, but unless I can find a correspondence course and/or a grant, it's not going to happen soon. If at all.






Should we just move back to Londres? This has been the question we've pondered for the last month or two. So many lives to consider now, so many issues to take into account it gets boring. Where did sponteneity go? When you have kids life takes on a new tilt.

Friends came over this morning; they moved to Jerusalem from Sydney a few months ago and are finding it tough. Bondi - say no more. They plugged the virtues of Oz and I had to agree - we rented a pad in Bondi, lived there for nearly a year and it was one of the most exhilarating times of my happy hippy traveller existence. Not that we're about to jump to Sydney, although my husband was into it. Anything but London. At least the sun shines in Bondi.






Depression is such a depressing word, don't you think? Sounds like someone's sitting on your head. Someone really overweight. I don't know what it is, this thing sitting on my happiness, but unless I find some friends to rap with, I'm going to have to make an appointment to see that shrink.