depression
"My life has been more difficult than most and I experienced an intense emotional life of ecstatic highs and darkest despair. It was wearing, but I enjoyed the drama of it all. GPs often suggested medication, but I considered my depressions to be 'justified', the intensity a means of 'being human' in all its extremities. However, the energy to carry these extremes ebbs, and in a particularly unhappy period my brain shut down. I work with my brain, so finally succumbed & trialled a number of anti-depressants. Didn't like the effects until I took Cymbalta. Finally, a normal emotional range. Two years later I stopped, the only side-effect a half-tone tinnitus, eased by taking half and I'm still fine two years later."