Therapist

I'm a big fan of nature and exercise being a natural antidepressant.

This, this here is my therapist....

The road of 2017 has been tough so far, so very tough.  I've been on my knees sobbing more times than I can bear to think about.

I've had days when anger and frustration have taken over me, days when I'm consumed by grief and bitterness, days when I just don't want to 'people' and days when the voice in my head Just. Won't. Shut. Up.

It's a lot to carry even for my broad shoulders.

I do my best to be a functioning adult, but there are moments so dark I can feel myself sinking further, so I lock myself away with my therapist until I can face the world again.  Sometimes it's 20 minutes, sometimes it's an hour and other times I'm coming back day-after-day-after-day, muscles sore and cramping, knuckles and elbows skinned but I am there.  Each punch is an inarticulate emotion, a thought, a fear, a release.  Each kick is a wordless shout to be understood.

I will keep being there.

Faking It

I don't know if its the jet lag - I've had a grand total of 4 hours sleep - or L going away so soon or even a combination of both (quite likely) but I'm well and truly in a funk.

I'm anxious. I'm withdrawn. My chest and back are tight with tension. I'm binge eating rubbish food. I have zero motivation or energy and I have absolutely no desire to visit my mum - for her birthday - or see my sisters to receive my Christmas and birthday presents.

I don't even want to have to go through the rigmarole of faking happiness and pleasure. The thing that strikes me most, saddens me most I suppose, is how wrong that is. How wrong all of it is; feeling this way, hiding it and wanting to hide it, not wanting to see family.

I want all of the above to be nothing more than the fault of exhaustion, my ability to over analyse, and being upset that L is gone but...I don't believe that it really is.

When you cut yourself the cut hurts, it bleeds, it scabs and begins to heal and sometimes you're left with a scar but that's about it.

Why isn't it that easy when the hurt is emotional?

Why does the body, the heart, remember emotions that the mind wants to forget?

Day 26 Have You Ever Thought About Giving up on Life? If so, When and Why?

Well, there's no easy way to say this but yes, yes I have.

I have gone to bed, in the past, and not wanted to wake in the morning. But I have never thought about taking that desire in to my own hands.

When and why? *big deep sigh* err well I felt besiged on all sides by everything and like all the most important people in my life had abandoned me in my time of need.

Simply phrased I couldn't see a light at the end of the tunnel. I couldn't talk about how I felt - and even if I could there was no one for me to turn to - I didn't know how to get myself out of what I'd got myself in to.

In the space of 18 months here's what I went through;

1. I moved house
2. Started a new job in a new area in a company where the women I worked with make me ashamed to be female
3. My husband went away for 4 months
4. My husband came back and had shit to deal with at work - people making his life hell and trying to damage his career
   
5. I fell out with my mum over getting married
6. I fell out with my sister over getting married
7. I fell out with the rest of my family over getting married
   
8. I got married on a Saturday, any way (see stubborn)
   
9. I buried my nan on the following Monday
10. My husband's grandfather was diagnosed with cancer
11. I started my Masters
12. I moved house again
13. My husband went away, again
    
14. His grandfather died
15. We buried his grandfather
16. I struggled with my Masters and rallied again conforming to the university's dictations on my writing style, topic and presentation (more examples of being me being stubborn)
    
17. My husband went away, yet again

Oh and I failed my driving test 3 times as well in and between those above. I really am a good driver though;-)

And I was diagnosed with depression that I point blank refused - good thing or bad thing I don't know - to take anti-depressants for.

So, there you have it. The whole schbang.

Am I ashamed that I thought about and wanted to give in? A little yes. I don't do weakness and that's what I felt above and beyond all else. Weak and pathetic and like a better person would have coped.

The Monkey on your back

I’m not entirely sure I can do this subject justice and if I shouldn’t just leave it well alone... But here goes...

Those of you who know me (and those who have read my previous blogs) will know I’ve often referred to having gone through a difficult time in the last few years. That said, as frank as I’ve been in my writing I have avoided or skirted around the one word and topic that never fails to silence everyone in the room and make most shuffle uncomfortably in their seats...DEPRESSION. Those who feel unwilling to go any further now is your cue to leave my page... go on I won’t be offended. I won’t even be surprised.

Now I’ve opened up this topic I don’t know where to begin. I’ve been begging and wishing for people to see me, to really see me and to listen to me (albeit to myself) and now that I’ve got the chance ... I am somewhat lost. I don’t know what to do with the attention. After some thought I’m going to start with the hardest thing I have to admit...

I have often gone to bed at night wishing and hoping that I wouldn’t wake in the morning. There, I’ve said it. I didn’t want to wake up in the morning and have to try to make it through another day feeling all the awful things that I did. After a while though I feared the night as much I feared the mornings. Sleep was the one place that I could hide in, that I could seek refuge in and where I didn’t have to have all the thoughts I was having. That was until the nightmares and lucid dreams came. Then there was no place to hide and no sanctuary.

It’s hard to pick out one thing as the worst thing in suffering with depression. Is it the nightmares? Is the being unable to stop crying (when I start this can and does last for days)? Is it the all consuming sense of isolation? Is it the panic attacks? Is it crippling fear and doubt? Is it the aching body? Is it the inability to make sense of it and yourself? Is it the desire to sleep and never to wake? Is it the being unable to love and be loved? Is it the need to run far away yet feeling you have nowhere to go and no one to turn to? Is it being told ‘to pull yourself together and to just get on with it’? Is it being told ‘to stop wallowing in it’? Is it being advised ‘to try to get out more and to do some exercise’? Is it the deep sadness that won’t leave you? Is it the belief you are going mad? Is it being dismissed by everyone as being a drama queen? Is it not being able to think about anything else? Is the feeling of being entirely overwhelmed by everything? Is it the loss of your voice? Is it the paranoia? Is it the mask you wear in an attempt to safe guard and hide yourself? Is it the emptiness? Is it the lack of trust in yourself and every thought or feeling you have? Is it the pushing people away?

I don’t know; they all hurt immeasurably. Oh that’s right I forgot to mention the hurt. I forgot to say how much that one seems to stay with you as a constant companion while the others ebb and flow, replacing each other.

I think one of the saddest things about depression is that you start measuring days in terms of being a good day and a bad day. A good day is when you are able to get out of bed and go through the motions of living. A bad day is when you are unable to stop crying – even in public – and it doesn’t make you feel better like you’ve always been told a good cry will. A good day is when you are able to feel reasonable rather than emotional. A good day is when you don’t feel like a disappointing failure. Ironically a really good day is when you don’t measure the day in terms whether it is a good or bad day – when it is just a day.

The best day, the kind that you aspire to having, is one that is full of hope.

How do I feel now? Like there might be just that. And, that is the key; to have hope and to know that it is out there. One day you will start to feel it. One day things will start to get better and the first step is to say that to yourself, to say ‘Things won’t always be like this and I won’t always feel like this.’