Depression - a Nearby Country

I was advised to take an antihistamine recently, for cold-like symptoms that are not going away. I tried Zyrtec. The following day I made a short visit to the land of depression, a neighboring country to where I live, and one I inhabited for some months several times in my late teens and twenties. I suspected the drug, because the trip was so sudden (former visits always felt like I went on a train I could not stop, but through a progression of places along the way that I would recognize if I passed them again). It felt like flying to Denver at night and waking up there in the morning with no sight of the landscape between. Turns out depression is not a listed side-effect, because it did not come out in the trials, but further studies of antihistamines have found higher incidence of depression among Zyrtec users than for the other “modern” antihistamines. Two days after stopping the drug I was back to normal.

I did this pastel last summer, and it sat unfinished in the garage (it’s still there, in fact) because I had zero enthusiasm for it. I could not understand how I felt. Then one afternoon I just made myself finish it, to move on to the next pastel, and I realized as I finished the lower bird that the piece shows how my depression felt. No matter what I did I could not get up into the light, even though birds just like me were flying up there in droves. I do not remember how I finally got out. It was decades ago, and I suspect weather, or longer days, or a chemical change gradually resolved it. I feel fortunate. I know others who will always need help to live outside that country, and I know many never leave.