A Pilgrim’s Digression

Friday afternoon, I saw a therapist for my depression for the first time in about fifteen years. It was a positive experience, primarily because I am now considerably older and more comfortable talking about my past, my feelings, and even my sexual history. What surprised me was that I was comfortable talking about these things with a man; I had previously expressed concern that I would not feel at ease talking to another male.

This therapist is different than the one I saw 15 years ago, however. Whereas my previous therapist was non-responsive, preferring to listen to me talk, my current therapist is quite willing to offer ideas and opinions. We had more of a conversation than a therapy session, and that meant a lot to me. I need to be able to judge a person’s reactions to what I am saying.

That may sound counter-intuitive, but a therapist who is an impassive stone leaves me with the impression that it does not matter what I say because everything I say gets an equally blank reaction.

For our first session, he asked me questions about myself and my history. We discussed my childhood, of course, which made me feel odd. I had come to the conclusion recently that the one thing I don’t need to dwell on is my childhood. I had resolved to stop blaming my parents for my illness, but the therapist, not knowing my past, needed to get that information out there, too.

The therapist assured me that depression did not have to have a triggering cause or event, and that viewing it as a “problem” that could be located and solved, like a leaky faucet, was only asking for frustration. However, since my depression goes back at least twenty years, we do need to look back over that time and try to locate the source of this fount of pessimism that sometimes overwhelms me with obsessively negative thoughts and feelings.

In the meantime, he asked me to see my family doctor and have her prescribe a mild anti-depressant. I saw her early Monday morning, and she put me on 50mg of Zoloft.

I have only been on the drug two days, and so cannot speak to any noticeable effects as of yet. Any changes I have noticed are probably due more to taking some positive steps to correct my situation, and any supposed beneficial results are perhaps the placebo effect we get when we take any kind of drug we believe will help us.

Both the therapist and my family doctor did tell me a few things to expect: I might notice increased brain function and greater placidity of temperament. Many events or things that might once have resulted in anger, frustration, or depression will roll off my back.

There are also negative side-effects to look out for, however. Anti-depressants can cause weight gain, for example. But the sexual side effects are probably of the most concern. My therapist jokingly referred to it as the “dead dick” drug (I have no idea if that is scientific terminology or not). Difficulty having an orgasm (Anorgasmia) and decreased libido are possible side effects of the drug.

If I had thought of it at the time the subject came up, I could have quipped that there are probably many women who wish their husbands were on Zoloft just for one or more of those two particular side effects. However, joking aside, I know a man a decade younger than me who is on Zoloft, and whose lack of libido is a problem in his marriage. It is not a side effect I desire to have to “live with.”

But anyway, I am not worried. I am on a relatively mild dose of the drug, and it takes four to six weeks for the drug to reach full effect. If at that time I am experiencing the most undesirable of the side effects, I have an appointment with my doctor again in April and we can reconsider the type of medication I am taking.

In the meantime, I feel better already, as the saying goes. I don’t know how much of this is the drug, and how much is psychological, but in the two days I have been taking it, I have not noticed the negative thoughts creeping in. Usually, my walk to work in the early morning hours before daylight is a prime time for me to begin feeling bad, and those feelings often carry over throughout the day.

This morning, it almost seemed like the negativity was banished. I would use the term “Firewall” to describe that process: it was like even as I saw the negativity creeping up on me, a barrier went up and I thought of other things, instead.

When I left home to return to Washington last night, I even pulled a book off my dusty bookshelf and brought it back with me. I began reading it on the bus this morning, continued reading on the train, and I do believe I am likely to finish it sometime in the next few weeks.

Appropriately enough, it is D. M. Thomas’s The White Hotel. I have had this book for a decade or more, having picked it up as a young man because of the hint of pornography in the cover blurb (”lush sexuality”). I was considering reading another book that was right beside it on the shelf, Pauline Réage’s The Story of O, but I had already read that book several times over the course of my young adulthood, and I decided I wanted to finally read a book that was new to me.

The White Hotel is a good book so far. I had an early interest in Freud, so much so that my best friend once made me a present of the Modern Library edition of Freud’s work. I read a significant portion of it, including The Interpretation of Dreams. I also long ago read Peter Gay’s biography of Freud–an excellent read I highly recommend–so the subject of Freud’s psycho-sexual case studies is passingly familiar to me.

My only ‘complaint’ about Thomas’s adaptation of a Freud case study is that he is a man writing about a woman writing about her erotic history and fantasy life. At one point, Thomas actually has his female protagonist use the phrase “juices ran down my thighs,” either to describe her particular state of sexual excitement, or to describe a mishap with an orange. Either way, the formulation is trite and ought to be removed from any self-respecting writer’s lexicon of erotic expressions.

Right now, having read only a small portion, I would describe the book as a brilliant poet’s voyeuristic sexual fantasy. Most men want to believe that women are secretly as nymphomaniacal as ourselves, if only we could figure out how to unlock their chastity belts. Thomas quite literally gives us a peek at the interior world of a woman in a chastity belt, as it were, and (for a male reader) the fantasy is entertaining. I wonder if a female reader will find it a convincing portrayal of female sexuality, however.

It will be interesting to see if my opinion changes, as well, as I read further. Right now, I am just happy to be reading something.