Early January 2007 Monte Report

Okay, so things seem to be tending towards "worse" rather than "better." My anxiety at work is getting worse, controlled to some extent by Xanax. But each day is harder than the last. And things aren't getting any better when I'm not at work. I've got a long list of things I "want" to do - books to read, projects to work on, people I'd like to see, that sort of thing. But instead I nearly always go straight to bed when I get home from work. Sometimes I sleep twelve hours, all the way through til it's time to get up for work again. Other nights - like tonight - I wake up at 1 or 2 in the morning and just toss and turn for hours, wishing I could get up and DO something.

I see my psychiatrist on Thursday, and I intend to make it clear that drastic action is needed. What that will entail, I don't know - but I'm ready to consider anything. ECT (Electro-convulsive Therapy) has been suggested to me by a couple of people. Going back to Menninger has been suggested. Vagus Nerve Stimulation - a cutting edge treatment involving the implantation of electrodes in the brain that deliver periodic small shocks - has been suggested. Quitting my job, going on to full-time disability, or just taking a long leave of absence are all on the table. Jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge even sounds appealing, even though no one has suggested that. Every option has its pros and cons, and I'm trying to weigh them all. ECT is well known to mess with one's memory, for example. Leaving the area is fraught with cons, not the least of which is leaving behind a loving group of coworker friends who care very deeply for me.

Five weeks from now I leave for Maui where I'll spend a week in one of my favorite places with two of my favorite people. Maybe that will help. But five weeks seems like an eternity to wait.

But, to be honest, not EVERYTHING is all doom and gloom. I spent New Year's Day birdwatching with my New Year's Day Birdwatching Friends, and I managed to enjoy myself. Since then I've also managed to force myself to get outside and do a little bit of solo birdwatching. The fact that it's time to start a new list of "year birds" provides some momentum to go find birds to add to my Year 2007 list (especially since my Year 2006 list was embarrassingly short). And my social life isn't entirely non-existent, despite my social anxieties. The worry, I suppose, is that things just aren't getting better, despite the passage of time. It's essentially been six months since I've had a good stretch of contentment, and my struggles are becoming so wearisome as to lead me to wonder if the time for some drastic intervention is here.