For a while, I was having trouble at work. Small mistakes accumulated. Things I ordinarily knew how to do acquired the peculiar difficulty of a foreign language. Stress magnified everything, and the medication I was taking seemed to complicate matters further. I was struggling in vain to find the right chemical arrangement for a mind increasingly difficult to inhabit.
Eventually, I had what might politely be called a psychological break. There was no single dramatic moment, only the gradual sensation of becoming estranged from my own competence, my own routines, even from the person I had expected to remain throughout the ordeal. Work became frightening. Ordinary failures assumed the proportions of omens. I was exhausted, ashamed, and increasingly unable to distinguish the immediate problem from everything I imagined it meant.
I have since recovered. At least somewhat.
The circumstances have improved. I have found a little more stability, a little more distance from the wreckage, and some sense that a bad season need not become a permanent geography.
So I am going to try again.
