So I’m on a long strange journey of my own lately. It’s not terribly comfortable although I do seem to be spending an awful lot of time on the couch. I’m not really sure when it started, but the straw that broke this camel’s back came last Wednesday. I’m not even sure what the straw was. But I started having a panic attack and it lasted all day. And into Thursday. And I started thinking about how strange my thoughts have become over the last 3 or 4 months. It seems to have come about during the time I started a new medicine to control my seizure disorder. So I called my neurologist. He recommended decreasing my dose. And I asked for something to control the panic attack. But he could not prescribe that without seeing me and that he could not do until mid-February. He suggested a visit to my primary care doctor. So I made an appointment for Friday morning with one of the physicians in that practice. That doctor prescribed a well known anti-depressant.

Sometimes when you pause to say, “You … shall NOT … pass!” to a monster, even when it’s in your head, it can still grab you by the knees and pull you over the edge of a cliff. I’m in the middle of a long dark fall now. I went back and saw my actual primary care doctor Wednesday morning. I love her. She changed the anti-depressant because I’m not responding well to the original. Not well at all. I’ll spare you the gory details, but I’ve spent a lot of time on the couch and I’ve not been eating. I’ve lost 8 pounds in 5 days. That’s the upside. It’s better than the Special K diet (according to LightHusband). Then she prescribed a half hour walk every day. Every, every, every day. Outside in the full spectrum sunlight. And then she used her Jedi Knight powers and told me to, “… go home and rethink your life.” (a favored line from one of the first 2 Star Wars movies). Really what she said was that perhaps I needed to follow Jesus’ example of 40 days in the desert and take some time out or off to re-evaluate my life, how things were going and what I’m doing. She said it’s okay to do that every now and again. She even wrote it down as part of my prescription. She also ordered blood work to make sure that this is not being caused by something organic.

I have no grandiose misperceptions of myself. I am no Gandalf the Grey. This is frightening. Something mysterious is messing with my head. While I am prone to being melancholy, I am also far more likely to sing “It Is Well With My Soul” than anything else. So how on earth did I come to be in the Mines of Moria facing a Balroc? And how did it pull me over the edge of the cliff? I know it’s all metaphor and analogy, but that’s how this feels. The best thing I can hope for is that the fall did not kill Gandalf, but it did change him. He came out purer and stronger in the end. I guess that would be a good thing … but right now it looks pretty bleak and I’m not real keen on the falling sensation.