Better living through pharmaceuticals

I don't know exactly to what I should attribute the slight parting in the clouds but there is a slight parting in the clouds, the sort of parting that a hopeful person would say augers a change in the weather. Surely the Paxil* that I started taking a week ago is doing most of the heavy lifting though there is probably also a placebo effect as it's a bit early for the medication to really be making much of a difference. Then there is the fact that there has been a literal parting of the clouds: for the past week we've had about ten hours of sunshine a day, beautiful blue sky days with crisp temperatures of 6 or 7 degrees (Celcius). Unabashed good weather, ostentatiously beautiful days. I've been spending loads of time outside, getting away from the narrow Gasschens of the Old Town where the sun does not penetrate and which hold a chill well into the late spring. Walks along the river, up at the Rose Garden, even just kicking a ball with Small Boy around the Grosse Schanze which looms above the city and collects the sun. It helps, the sun, the tall blue skies, the fresh air. But as much as I would like to believe that a change in the weather can bring about a change in my weather, I know perfectly well that right now the Paxil is necessary.


I'm not entirely comfortable taking medication; there is enough multi-generational alcoholism in my family to lift an ordinary degree of caution to levels approaching paranoia in my case. But then again, I'm not at all comfortable with my three year old son telling me that it scares him when I cry, which is what happened two weekends ago, so for the time being the medication is most definitely the lesser of two evils. And I have to say, I feel better. I feel rational. I feel like I can find a way out of this snowstorm. I feel like it won't be this way forever. I didn't cry today, and I didn't cry yesterday, and I feel like I won't cry tomorrow.

Here's how I see it. I'm on Everest and a storm is blowing in, and if I need supplemental oxygen to make it back to base camp then baby, pass the tanks and hook me up. Because somewhere down there is base camp where my family is waiting.

* which goes by the name Deroxat in Switzerland