I’m not a medical professional. The following is my personal experience. Please talk to your Doctor before you change your medication or take painkillers.
In what could be an outtake from a bad episode of Star Trek, I’m talking to my Mac, trying to find the form of words that will persuade it to add punctuation to my latest blog post. I have tried the dictation in the past, but whatever magic Apple has worked in the interim, it’s far more accurate.
I established that I need to say ‘period’ instead of ‘full stop’, and I can cope with that. However, if my USA friends have a secret word for ‘paragraph’, I haven’t found it. (update: apparently, the key is to say ‘new’ paragraph)
The ongoing side effects of antidepressant withdrawal forced me to look for alternative ways to amuse myself. A new discovery is how much I enjoy writing, particularly in this blog. I continue to be dreadful at it; that’s a given. I rewrite each one several times. But my lifelong tussle with the written word is something I came to terms with a long time ago.
Almost no one, other than a few lovely friends, reads it, but that doesn’t diminish the pleasure of the writing. Photography is too personal; if the results of a shoot are disappointing, I can’t shake it off. I have carried them with me for years. I appreciate that it shouldn’t be like that, but that’s how it is. Writing is akin to a hobby. One that I don’t mind not being good at. I enjoy the process, maybe I’ll do better tomorrow, maybe I won’t, and that’s OK.
I’m far too easily distracted to concentrate for any length of time on a laptop. So, inspired by the author Mark Boyle (The Way Home), I picked up a pencil and a pad; the simplicity of it is refreshing. No logging in, no apps, no syncing, no staring at another screen, and no distractions. With pencil and paper, I can write anywhere.
I’ve gotten slightly off track. I’ll talk about the joy of writing some other time. So why dictation? Well, I have developed a pain in my right hand. The difficulty when going through something like antidepressant withdrawal is that its all-encompassing nature results in your blaming it for every ache and pain. However, in this instance, I am beginning to think this is more likely a simple case of RSI (repetitive strain injury). Good in a way, but the only treatment for RSI is rest. Writing has become a sanctuary, and this seems an unnecessarily cruel blow.
The world is still out there. It is waiting. We will return to it. Remember that!
I have tried writing with my left hand, which was a short-lived experiment. So, here I am in a room alone, talking to my laptop. Speaking my thoughts out loud before they are fully formed isn’t comfortable, and I already doubt that dictation is going to last. But the inability to write is one of the most frustrating aspects of my current ill health, and I’d love to find a solution.
The challenge, as always, is to stay positive. It is now over four months since I stopped taking Amitriptyline; over a year since I started tapering. The discomfort and the poor sleep. The repetitive daily routine of work, cook, TV, and bed seems as though it may last forever. Every so often, I have to stop and remind myself that this will come to an end. That this is temporary. You will spend time with friends; you will be able to walk with carefree abandon; you will ride the bike that taunts you whenever you go to the shed. The world is still out there. It is waiting. We will return to it. Remember that!
For Professional Advice
Dr Mark Horowitz’s website offers the most practical, professional advice I’ve found online. The academic papers are impenetrable to the non-professional. But he has useful links to newspaper articles which explain things in layman’s terms. The UK mental health charity, Mind, is also a good resource.
Broken Biscuits 