The long dark tea time of the soul.

I can't find the full quote from Douglas Adams' wonderful, Life, the Universe and Everything... But, I know the Long Dark Teatime of the Soul strikes on a Sunday and comes, 'after you have had all the hot baths you can reasonably have'.

I've had two baths today and it's only five o'clock. Is that reasonable? I know it's not good, in fact it's bad. But baths are all about safety and comfort and warmth and that's why I crave them, they are an antidote to fear.

When I got that wonderful advice, psycho education (typically, I can't be arsed to link back to the original post but I did write about it at some length), on dealing with anxiety hot baths were a pretty big no no. The physical symptoms of anxiety heat the body up, to counter it you should be cooling the body down, drinking water for example. I, on the contrary, am currently indulging in as many hot baths I can have - reasonably or otherwise - smoking dope, not eating properly, not getting out of bed and drinking giant mug after giant mug of hot tea.

It's even physically bad for me - the one thing I know, guaranteed and for sure, that will make my eczema worse is having a bath, and the more I have the worse it will get.

Do I want to be ill? What kind of an idiot am I? No, I don't want to be ill and, yes, I am all sorts of an idiot - but we know this don't we... evidence, as cited above, has shown.

I really have gone into quite a serious down, which is why I've come back to the blog. I'm hoping to purge myself of some of this stuff, it's weighing down heavily to the extent that it feels almost physical and it feels exactly like it felt last time I felt like this, which is the last time I went loopy, got in my car, drove to London and did a huge number of stupid, self-destructive things that were supposed to culminate in suicide.

Don't worry, this is not a cry for help in that direction, I feel sure I won't end up there again, but I'm in the same continuum and I need to get out of it.

Positively, I had a really excellent appointment at the doctor's on Wednesday (was it Wednesday? Time's a bit blurry and loopy at the moment but no matter).

It's a lottery who you will see at the surgery I use and, while none of the doctors I've seen actually been bad, some are better than others. I won the lottery this time with someone I'd never seen before and had the longest GP's appointment I can remember: it was a good 15minutes and it was actually a conversation - she listened to me!

She agreed a trial timetable to change my antidepressant to something that is less sedative - I think it's going to be Fluoxetine, which off the top of my head has had its fair share of horror stories in recent years. We'll see, I've convinced myself that Trazadone isn't doing me much good at all - I get a good night's sleep, and I know that's important, but I think it's contributing to my general lethargy through the day.

So, I'm headed towards uppers. She's also continued my Antabuse beyond the six months it is usually prescribed for to help me get over Christmas and the New Year without recourse to dry sherry, and that's a relief. I went in for a blood test today to see if it's damaged my liver (call the irony police) at all and if I can continue safely. I'm going back in two weeks to see how I'm doing at reducing my dose of Trazadone. She signed me off sick for another five weeks - aiming for the New Year - and gave as the reason depression rather than alcoholism.

Well well, in order to check the spelling I've looked up Fluoxetine, and it's Prozac, meaning I was wrong when I told the doctor I've never taken it. I have. It was the first antidepressant I was ever prescribed in fact, all those years ago. In the end I had to stop taking it because it made me so nauseous, but I do remember it made me feel better - up, even. That would be great, and I think I can cope with feeling a bit sick if this mood will lift. It came in a rather snazzy yellow and green capsule when I was necking it too.

And, as I am now going on too long, I shall split my posts, and start a nice new blank sheet.