I figured something was wrong with me. It does not feel normal to be constantly sad and tired and lacking concentration and feeling useless. These feelings had been floating on me for a long time by now and I thought the best thing I could do was to see a doctor.
Thus I explained my situation: I feel constantly tired, I can’t even do my job anymore. I can’t concentrate, the only things I can think about are bad thoughts about myself and I feel heavy all the time, as if someone was pressing my chest. I even mentioned how my head was aching all the time and I had migraines far more frequentely than usual.
I had become terrible company. The only thing I could be was sad and the only thing I could think about was about how sad I was. I would all so frequentely think why would anyone want a friend who’s always feeling low and complaining about how her friends aren’t there all the time for her. I thought it was absurd that I had to loudly ask for help. Asking for help is something I’ve always been bad at, and asking for help because I was feeling low seemed more like attention seeking. I would find myself thinking that I was faking everything just for attention, just to make sure someone would be there for me. But then I thought “this isn’t me, this is wrong”. I was feeling low because I was feeling low. I felt bad for thinking those things about my friends,for thinking that they weren’t really there for me, that they didn’t love me as much as I loved them, that they thought I was a good friend for as long as I was feeling positive and, as soon I felt anything but that, I was meant to be left alone. I felt like they wouldn’t take time from their lives to help me, which made me think I was more of a passer by friend: the kind of friend you keep for a short time, while you need them, and that you leave as soon as they have no more use for you. I felt I wasn’t interesting, I wasn’t necessary. Or worse, that I was necessary, but not important.
Doctor told me I was, most likely, not depressed. It seemed more like something of the anxiety kind. So I was prescribed pills to lower my anxiety and other pills to raise my concentration. I didn’t have time to buy those before I went to work, so I was doomed to at least another miserable day with little productivity.
I took anxiety pill at night, before going to bed. I didn’t know what to expect: I had read the pamflet, sure, but you know those things; they state all those side-effects. It said I would feel worse before I felt better and that I cuold also get addicted. Those things got me scared, but I had to try. I really had to try and see what it would do.
There didn’t seem to be much difference at first. I do the first part of the morning – travelling to work – in automatic mode. I do not really activate the brains until I get there, and by the time I arrived I felt… normal? Not normal as feeling the same as the previous days, but normal as in the way I used to feel before that fever started. I was just normal again and it felt good. I could enjoy music and I was finally able of having good thoughts and not thinking I was a second-rate human! I no longer feel like I was just an appendix on my friends’ lifes, that I could easily be chopped off. It was a good feeling.
I would only take te second pill – the one for the concentration and foccus – by lunch time, but I was already feeling good during the morning. Sure my head hurted a little, but at least I was able to look at things through a positive light! I could laugh at jokes again and I felt jolly. I almost wanted to go outside and enjoy the sunny day.
So I took the concentration bug and went back to work. The box said the pill’s effect was rather quick to kick in, but I never expected it to be that fast. I could solve all of the week’s problems I couldn’t even look at on the previous day before it was time to leave and I even had the motivation to look at some papers for my thesis afterwards. I wanted to do everything: talk to my friends, jump, ride the bycicle, go outside, have fun. It was so hard to just stay sit at the desk, I felt like some hyperactive kid. But I was extremely foccused at the same time: I could do everything I put my thoughts on. I haven’t feel that kind of motivation since I graduated.
But I would feel the pills’ effects fading away as the day went by. By dinner time, I wasn’t feeling close to euphoria anymore. I was also no longer super confident or highly motivated. But that isn’t the same as being sad – it was kind of a middle ground. But anything was better than being like the day before. Oh, how weird it was to think about the previous day. Yesterday I could barely build a sentence and in the next day I could have recited an entire thesis. So fascinating!
However, I must keep in mind that these things come with side-effects. They can make me addicted and I’ll have to know when to stop. I can’t rely on this forever to make me normal again; I’ll have to figure it all out. But the first day was motivating enough to keep me on taking these pills for a while.
I feel sick today, but not the same kind of sick anymore. It’s my throat. I want to see what’ll happen when I take the concentration pill and get all hyped up again – my batteries will get super charged and I’ll want to do everything but I don’t think I should leave the house for today. Either it will be torture, or I’ll be super-productive. I just have to wait and see.
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