Part Five: The Camino Under Covid-19: when it all falls apart

• by Miranda Gavin
• in anti depressants blue camino Camino de Santiago Camino del Norte colour concepts Coronavirus cosmos Covid-19 Creative global pandemic Miranda Gavin nature nomad photography pilgrimage scientific space The Way of Saint James travel visual art walking writing
• posted August 20, 2020

I have little to write of joy at this time and I have a confession. If you hoped for an upbeat post, I’m afraid I can’t find the right words. An important impetus to do the Camino has been to walk the blues away. The blues are accepted when it comes to a genre of music, the blues are the primary colour of sad moods and yet, in contemporary post-modern societies, the blues are treated as an illness and a mental health condition that needs to be nullified.

Today the sky is blue, as blue as the first forget-me-not. Colour is symbolic and malleable, and primary colours are especially vital. I love the colour blue but I don’t know why it’s associated with depression. I do know that its gendered signification is a historical construct. Since the 19th century, pink became the favoured colour for girls and blue for boys. Before this white was the uniform colour.

This morning I thought that if I ran between the blue of the ocean and that of the sky (interconnected and influenced by each other), I would wash my blues away and for over an hour I did.

Then humankind took hold and I fell back into despair. I am attempting to come off Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) for the third time in 20 years and it can be a living hell.

Imagine your head as the inside of an empty church, then imagine pulling the skin from your face and turning it inside out.

Imagine being called mad, unstable, a loony tune and bonkers whenever you don’t conform, or if you show an emotional range that resembles the Himalayas.

In the time I’ve been on SSRIs (since 2000), the doctors have given me Paroxetine, Fluoxetine, Citalopram, Escitalopram and now Sertraline. Paroxetine, known also as Seroxat, has been subject to a successful claimants’ group law suit in the USA against the pharma company, GlaxoSmithKline. However, in the UK the courts ruled in favour of the company this year. Little was discussed in the UK regarding discontinuation symptoms and the need to withdraw very slowly, or of the waves of emotions and suicidal ideation it could bring on. I use the chemical names as the brand names vary in different countries.

Just pop a pill-20mg, 50mg, 100mg- and let your brain reuptake seratonin, then you too can be a functioning, non-depressive member of society. However, crashing from the withdrawal of antidepressants is completely underrated and misunderstood.

“With everything that is happening in your life, I’m not sure it’s a good idea to reduce your dose,” my GP said when I asked for a repeat prescription of a lower amount. “After all, while it’s still raining, it’s better to keep using the umbrella”.

From where I am currently sitting, looking at a racione of Padron pimientos, life looks good. But then we all carry our hearts with us wherever we are, and mine is shaking.

Under Covid-19 my work nosedived. I can’t compete with those in the creative industries who are on furlough and can offer mentoring, portfolio reviews and courses for free. The other challenges I face are emotional.

I’m lucky enough to have a flat in Brighton that I am in the process of selling, thanks to a mother who was kind enough to give me stability by putting her own inheritance (after my gramps’ death in 2011) into a home for me. If it goes through then I can rethink my life path. Until then, I follow scallop-shaped camino signs and am trying to keep intact. Sometimes I splinter.

I woke up with such good intent, ready to reinvigorate my soul, but then I plummeted like Icarus, drifted, and sank below the deep blue sea inside me.

This is partly due to disruptive human connections, my inability to deal with stress, and the fact that I have been cutting down my dosage from 100mg to 25mg.

Does anyone really know what we are doing to our minds? And how about the effects of long term use?

Have you ever heard of a test that measures the amount of serotonin in your brain?

Or a way of monitoring how different hormones affect brain chemistry and at different stages of life? If so, leave a comment and let me know.

All I want right now is to be held, comforted, to have my hair stroked gently, and for someone to really reassure me that it will be alright. However I took some photos this morning and shot a little film. This is my gift to you the reader, today.

All photos and film copyright Miranda Gavin, 2020. Except chemical formula for paroxetine and public domain forget-me-not photo.