July (and playing the odds)

2004-08-11 - 3:41 p.m.

So, why did July go so wrong?

Everything was fine, I felt like I was in good spirits going into the summer, I had everything I needed and I felt, if I recall correctly, pretty decent about things.

And then, suddenly I'd gone two weeks, and then a month, without answering the phone without screening it, without doing any writing, without leaving the house except for work, without talking with my folks and loved ones, without going to gym or doing much of anything I enjoyed.

I think it was depression, but it could have been anxiety. The worrying thing is that it was new. It came on me completely unexpectedly, with none of the usual warnings: no moods, no overt avoidance. The symptoms I usually associate with my depression and anxiety didn't come along until really, really late in the month.

I hate to tie everything to my not drinking, but was this my first real sober depression? It's entirely possible that before I quit I would drink through the early stages, the stages when everything seems fine. I might not have noticed that things were getting dropped because when I was drinking heavily I usually didn't have much to drop.

I hope that's it, because I'm not ready for new, disturbing emotional disorders. And this felt really new. It freaked me out something fierce.

In other news, I wasted time at work doing online risk-assessment quizzes for varying diseases, mostly cancer. It turns out that I have a slightly above average risk of prostate cancer (mainly because I don't eat very many tomatoes), but for everything else (other cancers, particularly lung cancer, as well as diabetes, stroke, heart disease and, because it was there, osteoperosis) I had a below average or very below average risk for someone my age.

The great thing about that very scientific and surely infallible information is that it showed that quitting smoking was a good thing for me: I would have been at a much greater risk if I was still a smoker. Also, all of the exercising and eating right surely had a good influence as well.

Gee, who knew that smoking and eating poorly could have such a bad effect on your health? Someone ought to inform the media.

Cheers,

The Magus

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