Let’s hear it for the boy

I find it very hard to take sick leave; even to admit that one is electively staying at home seems to be to take the attitude of Mr. Charles, above.  However, the head cold that has this week felled me saw me spend Friday in a condition largely similar to the pictured layabout, only sicker.

Physical illness usually plays havoc with my mental health, too, but aside from some wandering anxiety I have been feeling okay.  Indeed, the sorrowful torpor that I expected to take me down for a fortnight or more lasted almost exactly a week, then ceased, giving me a couple of healthful days before this virus made its home in my head.  So swift was the former’s duration that I felt somewhat embarrassed that I wrote about it.  What might have changed, then, to make my mental take-down that much shorter?

I rule out unexpected mental resilience, since there have been no major changes in my work routines in the last six months, and although my union work has toughened me up, I don’t think it’s toughened me up that much.  The major environmental change, I think, has been the presence of Señor Mojito, whose loving care while I went underwater has done much to facilitate my return to the breathing world.

There are at least two reasons for this.  One is that, as the señor himself puts it, he chooses to live with me, bound by no other tie than the exercise of his will (and, he added today, the amount of stuff he now has here).  The familial ties that bind us are at the moment made electively, which adds at present value to the care to which they lead.  The things I find the most difficult–eating sensibly and regularly, getting out of bed on time, not beating myself up about things over which I have limited control–the señor maintains for me.  In our relationship is an element of outsourcing of different kinds of emotional labour to the other, and this relieves me of some of the mental pressure of keeping myself together when my mood drops away.

Another is the novelty of this.  The fact that señor looks after me when I’m a mess, that he knew about my messful qualities before we made our commitment, and that these things never happened in quite this fashion in either of our previous relationships, is as remarkable to me as if a spaceship had landed on our lawn.  This takes from me the difficult task of asking for help from family or friends when I am not mentally well–difficult because so many of them knew me when I was young and seriously ill–and gives me some measure of privacy in my distress.

I didn’t apprehend these qualities in the señor when we first formed our social bonds, although I would have said I sensed that he was kind and without malice, and they are a wonder to me now.  I hope that the speed of my return to calm appears to him as an appropriate return on his emotional investment, and that we can continue to be each other’s wellspring in that way, a shared drawing of strength.

Tagged as: depression, illness, love