LIZ JONES: I’ve hit all-time low and began taking anti-depressants. The side-effect I’m frightened of is one you’ll by no means suspect

On Wednesday, I went to peer my GP. Even making the appointment to assist with my anxiousness made me apprehensive. 

When I walked in, I realised the physician used to be the similar one I consulted after I reduced in size cystitis and a horrible sore throat after having intercourse with my ultimate boyfriend. I had quizzed the German, asking when he’d ultimate had intercourse, and he had responded over 9 months sooner than. 

He requested me after I had ultimate had intercourse, and I responded that I feel there used to be snow at the floor. So we hadn’t used any coverage or warning.

I hadn’t factored in that he may well be mendacity, which after all he used to be.

On my earlier surgical operation consult with I had advised this exact same GP that I used to be apprehensive I had reduced in size an oral STI. She very kindly didn’t even lift an eyebrow. I used to be then rushed to clinic, the place my tonsils had been tired of pus whilst I used to be nonetheless aware. 

I had my pc, held subsequent to my mattress via Nic, and used to be additionally submitting reproduction for that Saturday’s newspaper whilst the poison used to be tired. 

In 40 years there hasn’t ever been a second when I’ve no longer been to be had to document. I crawled beneath desks within Ian Fleming’s villa in Jamaica to discover a telephone socket to dial up the web. I filed the afternoon my mum died. 

When my then husband published he had cheated over again, we had been on a faraway African island. My first idea wasn’t, ‘What a waste of my 26 grand’ however, ‘This will make a great two-parter.’

I learn a stupendous piece this week concerning the blue plaque being erected out of doors the previous London house of novelist Barbara Pym. ‘In life,’ historian Lucy Worsley stated sooner than unveiling the plaque, ‘she often sabotaged her own best interests in favour of strange relationships that would end up as good copy.’ My insane paintings ethic is what will get me into hassle.

The GP requested me what appears to be the difficulty. I advised her I’m discovering it arduous to respire because of tension, I wake at 3am each and every evening, which in point of fact disturbs Mini, who’s on most sensible of me, and I can’t consume.

I don’t have any pals the place I are living (my one good friend right here, the lady I moved to North Yorkshire to be just about, now not speaks to me because of my column, and hasn’t even been to consult with my new area in over a yr). My left listening to help is damaged, now not beneath ensure, so it’s like paying attention to an early Beatles unmarried: the whole thing is in mono. 

She requested what’s inflicting the anxiousness, and I advised her I’ve advanced PTSD, this means that I’m extremely at risk of tension, realizing the worst can certainly occur. That I’m repeatedly trolled on-line. One feminine reader contacted me to wish my Gracie is ‘rotting in the earth’. Another reader, a person, attempted to get my canines taken off me.

I advised her I used to be prescribed citalopram when dropping my area, however used to be too afraid to take it, considering it would trade my writing. I will’t stand assured, smug writers who by no means check out, who by no means push limitations, who all the time assume they’re proper, who cling again the juiciest or maximum shameful facets in their lives for concern of no longer being favored. And that I’ve attempted each and every treatment beneath the solar, from neurofeedback to eye motion desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) to hypnotherapy. 

The GP stated the one recourse is to prescribe the drug once more, however that I in point of fact should take it this time. She advised me I want to take a ruin from my pc, opt for lengthy walks. ‘Your house backs on to a river, there’s the Pennine Way, Raby Castle, you wish to have to get out extra. Appreciate the geographical region, nature, birdsong.’

I’ve all the time pooh-poohed this kind of recommendation (I as soon as reviewed The Natural Health Service via Isabel Hardman, which is all about nature as a mental-health cure-all, writing I used to be enraged when the ebook advised me to pressure to a countrywide park: ‘I can’t have enough money the diesel or the parking charge, and inevitably an indignant notice will likely be put on my windscreen – “Keep your dog on a lead. Nesting birds!” – and the precipitous Buttertubs Pass scares the hell out of me’), however on Thursday Nic persuaded me to take Teddy alongside the Swale, within a National Trust wooden carpeted with wild garlic and bluebells. 

Ted wore a muzzle, 3 leads and a tabard that reads, ‘Give me space.’ I wore a tabard that claims, ‘Deaf rider, please pass slowly’, a fluoro relic from when I used to be courageous sufficient to journey my horse. Teddy used to be superb, no longer reacting to different canines. (He’s been having weekly coaching classes; the teacher’s folks convey out canines from her area to stroll previous him. It’s like a Miss World contest.)  

We took him right down to the river the place, as an alternative of swimming and diving to catch a ball, he simply stood within the water as much as his tummy. As he used to be in a Romanian kill safe haven sooner than I were given him, he has no idea of a laugh: similar to his mummy. I’ve a terror of drowning. On that ill-fated African scuba-diving vacation, I used to be the one particular person to be tethered to the boat via a rope. The trainer agreed I used to be too apprehensive to not panic underneath the skin.

And so I swallow the tiny pill. If subsequent week I begin to write about how I load my dishwasher, you’ll know the results are kicking in.