Doctor: “Let’s try you on a different antidepressant..”

Me (in my head): “Why not, I haven’t run naked giggling through the streets after maxing out my credit card or tried to drive my car into a tree while screaming and crying for WEEKS! Why don’t we just start hitting me in the head with bricks now AND SAVE ME THE EXPENSE OF HAVING TO GO TO THE CHEMIST!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGH!”

Me (out loud): Sure.

It was a bit of a wild ride getting on to this particular brand (Pristiq) and possibly even worse increasing the dosage. Ideally, an antidepressant should work like this:

You’re in the depths of despair, crawling around with Lindsay Lohan’s career prospects, expired cartons of flavoured milk and that ‘Dorian Gray’-style painting of Demi Moore that keeps her looking 14. Then you swallow the magic pills and slowly but surely you climb out of the pit. You shower, dress in decade-appropriate clothing and before you know it you’re talking to people about your plans for the weekend. And those plans don’t involve crying, eating or crying about how much you’ve eaten. You may have slight bumps in the road, but it’s nothing you and your newfound bucketful of serotonin can’t handle.

My experience was more like this:

People learned not to ask how I was pretty damn quickly, lest the answer be ‘Well, this MORNING I was good but THEN I plummeted only to feel BETTER half an hour later but NOW I think I…..” (goes on for ten minutes, punctuated with sobs and inappropriate laughter).

But I think I am now happy to report that I have had ten days of normalcy. During the process of increasing the dosage I’d had a day here and there where things felt better but they were often followed by a crushing low. Like someone baking you a cake, showing it to you and then stomping on it….. mmmmmmm, stompcake™. But I digress. I’ve had good days, one after the other – in a row. Nice wake-ups, no dread, no bleakness, off to work where I’m actively enjoying my new role then home to a night of attempted cooking (getting better with practice if I do SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS say so myself) and then a pleasant night’s sleep.

Ten days, including right now, where I’m on the second day of two weeks annual leave, listening to the Bangles ‘Greatest Hits’ CD and feeling like I finally have the strength to work toward improving my life. Being the screaming, flaming car wreck slightly dysfunctional adult that I am, there’s a lot of work to be done but at least I’m not wishing I was dead the whole time I’m trying to compose a shopping list or crying while washing a frying pan. I’ve got that bit of gas in the tank that allows people with depression to take those tiny steps forward we’re unable to when crippled with the grief our disease so wrongly fills our hearts and minds with.

So here’s to ten days, and cross your fingers, toes and eyes that there’s more where they came from. Because my to-do list for Project Seb is pant wettingly terrifying enormous.