Health update
In early September 2005, I was diagnosed with acute depressive episode. Sometimes I heard the doctors refer to it as acute agitated depression. It was my decision at that time to go public with the disease in this blog and I was amazed and grateful for all the messages that indicated an understand of this elusive and perservering ailment. There are many sufferers out there who know of what I speak. Just when you think you have it licked, you find yourself in one more round with an opponent who is strong and unyeilding.
So here i am coming up on my 2 year anniversary (nothing to celebrate) with a disease that has evolved and seems to be never-ending.
In the first 4 months of the critical phase, I found I could practice saxophone and write music. The current phase offers no such release. All my will power is needed to write and I have all but given up playing saxophone. Thanks to my good friend Joe Amato, I’ve had piano gigs from time to with the wonderful Pat Collins, Joel Haynes and others. At those moments I feel I am okay and that I may be worthwhile in some ways.
I write this, not out of self pity or for some need to be understood. I just know that there are some out there who are suffering this disease just as I am, and I hope that you hang in there.
There are times when I feel I am overmedicated and other times, I wonder if I am incorrectly medicated. At the same time, I have put my faith in my psychiatrist and my psychologist and hope that their wisdom and professional experience will get me to the end of this ordeal.
Most days, I sleep a lot (even as much 15-20 hours). When I want to work on a new chart I sit and work for 15 minutes and self judgement takes over. Its a bit of a bugger, but it will pass from what I am told.
At any rate, I pass this along to anyone who might read my blog and either find comfort in knowing that another is on a similar journey. Or perhaps, there are others who have words of wisdom to keep the self destructive tendencies at bay.
That’s all I have today
Paul