Memories

Memory

A couple of months ago I was so convinced that I had Alzheimer’s disease I ended up getting a battery of tests done.  They did an MRI, EEG, and a complete psychological evaluation filled with all sorts of mind tests, questionnaires and even a consultation with a family re: my personality changes, etc.

Turned out that I do not have Alzheimer’s disease and that my forgetting could be partially due to the statins I was taking for cholesterol.  Plus they felt I was extremely depressed.

That was odd because I had always recognized my depression in the past and this one had crept up on me.  I didn’t FEEL depressed…. I just didn’t feel.  l of my free hours I just played mindless games on my phone.  I did what I had to do… work, family, mom… but wasn’t feeling.

They set me up with a psychiatrist for meds and a talk therapist.  Ultimately, I tried the meds for a few days.  I had stopped taking Cymbalta about two or three weeks prior to my first seeing the doctor for new meds.  I tried a new med… can’t even remember what it was… and started the talk therapy.

Amazingly, after just two sessions of talk therapy, I decided to try going w/out the meds altogether.  An incredibly GOOD decision on my part.  At first I WAS somewhat miserable but I was feeling.  Then, as  explored more — not issues… but I guess paradigms, with my therapist, I found myself sort of entering life again.

A man who, in the early 90s, asked me to turn one of my little novelas into a screenplay contacted me and is now actually going to film it.  It’s independent and he and his wife are funding it so I get no pay, nor does anyone else… basically the guy is just going to provide catering.  We collaborated a bit then I re-wrote the entire screenplay from start to finish on my train rides to and from work.  I felt SO alive… it had been so long since I had written anything.. fiction-wise… or even non-fiction.  

I found myself actually looking forward to something and was stunned when I realized how I had been living life just waiting to die… feeling as if I was in my winter years (not that I’m exactly young… but I’m not all THAT old).

Yesterday I had a struggle, telling myself that my writing is not that good… so mediocre, and that the movie will probably suck.  The guy that’s doing it has directed about 16 more movies than he had when we first discussed the project – none are Oscar winners — but at least they’re real movies.  He thinks we have a chance of winning some awards with this piece.  He has always said that.  Nevertheless, I was in the sort of squelch myself mode.  My therapy “homework” for this week was to NOT use adjectives (except when writing ;))

She said that everything in life has a flip side… people who are careful with their money also may not use it while they’re alive to enjoy themselves is a simple example of this.  She told me that the adjectives that I had used about myself regarding my mothering especially were disturbing and extreme (ie: I used the word “heinous” — that’s the only one I can remember at the moment.)  Anyway, she took an example I had given of my causing my son to become cynical because I was constantly sharing a cynical world view with him.  She explained that no matter who raised him, he would still have issues… there are no perfect parents.  We just ARE.  And every bad thing we find in ourselves seems to have a reflective flip side… 

I don’t feel as if I am conveying this concept well, but it doesn’t really matter because it may not be of importance to anyone but me.  But our “bad” traits are there for a reason and have a good side to them.  I guess what all human beings are striving for (if they’re not psychotic or something) is balance and  moderation of all things…. but we will never achieve that perfect balance so keep trying but, on the other hand, accept that we are flawed.

That said, I had an odd experience this morning.  Without checking notes or my last entry or anything, I began to read my friend’s diaries.  The first one I read had a quote from another diary and, as I read it, it sounded familiar.  I thought, “this must belong to one of my friends because I think I’ve read it before.”  Then I thought, “Wait a minute, I THINK this is mine…” then “No, it’s not mine.  This is somebody saying how I have felt but just doing it much better than I could have written it…”  Then I thought, “No, this IS mine…”  Finally I went back to my diary to see if I could find it someplace.  There it was! In my very last entry (it’s been awhile!)  It was really frosting on the cake to realize that somebody identified with what I had written so much that they put it in their own diary… what validation! Secondly, the fact that I, one of the toughest writing critics I know ;-), declared it to be better than something I could have written only to find I DID write it, was sort of eye-opening and encouraging.

I’ll let you all know when the movie comes out IF it really happens.  It will just be a short independent film… probably run about 70-80 minutes… so if it happens it would probably end up on dvd rather than on a screen.  It’s very adult, so you won’t see it on Lifetime LOL