Cage without a key

Depresson Day 5 - 11: Work, REST & Play

2011-05-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

Well a combination of internet disruption and utter exhaustion proved a little too much for me as I spiralled into the depths while trying to smile, listen to music, exercise and be disciplined all at one and the same time.

My brain went dead and I struggled just to get up. It’s the one thing I loathe about depression it cuts the feet right out from under you. BUT with a little bit of rest I bounce back. OK not quite like an india rubber ball more like a low impact worn out tennis ball but it is a bounce even if only a small one. But it serves a point. You have got to get the rest thing right. If you know you haven’t slept that well you know, if you are anyting like me, that you ain’t gonna function at a “normal” level for a few days.

So I have altered a few things and tweaked a few things and reorganised my life to accommodate a nap. Now a nap of under an hour is good for you but over that not so according to the scientisit and I agree. A power nap is good for you. I found this at http://stress.about.com/od/lowstresslifestyle/a/powernap.htm

Why A Power Nap? Facts on Sleep:
While small children typically take naps in the afternoon, our culture generally frowns upon mid-day sleep; however, even in those who get enough sleep (but particularly in those who don’t), many people experience a natural increase in drowsiness in the afternoon, about 8 hours after waking. And research shows that you can make yourself more alert reduce stress and improve cognitive functioning with a nap. Mid-day sleep, or a ‘power nap’, means more patience, less stress, better reaction time, increased learning, more efficiency and better health. Here’s what you need to know about the benefits of sleep and how a power nap can help you!

How Much Sleep Do You Need? The body needs 7-8 hours of sleep per day; 6 hours or less triples your risk of a car accident. (Interestingly, too much sleep--more than 9 hours--can actuallybe harmful for your health; recent studies show that those who sleep more than 9 hours per day don’t live as long as their 8-hour-sleep counterparts!)
The Effects of Missed Sleep: Sleep is cumulative; if you lose sleep one day, you feel it the next. If you miss adequate sleep several days in a row, you build up a ‘sleep deficit’, which impairs the following:

Reaction time
Judgment
Vision
Information processing
Short-term memory
Performance
Motivation
Vigilance
Patience

Fatigued people also experience more moodiness, aggressive behaviors, burnout and more stress.

The Benefit of a Power Nap: Studies show that 20 minutes of sleep in the afternoon provides more rest than 20 minutes more sleep in the morning (though the last two hours of morning sleep have special benefits of their own). The body seems to be designed for this, as most people’s bodies naturally become more tired in the afternoon, about 8 hours after we wake up.
How Long Should I Sleep? When you sleep you pass through different stages of sleep, known together as a sleep cycle. These stages include light sleep, deep sleep (which is believed to be the stage in which the body repairs itself), and rapid-eye movement sleep, or REM sleep (during which the mind is repaired).
Many experts advise to keep the nap between 15 and 30 minutes, as sleeping longer gets you into deeper stages of sleep, from which it’s more difficult to awaken. Also, longer naps can make it more difficult to fall asleep at night, especially if your sleep deficit is relatively small. However, research has shown that a 1-hour nap has many more restorative effects than a 30-minute nap, including a much greater improvement in cognitive functioning. The key to taking a longer nap is to get a sense of how long your sleep cycles are, and try to awaken at the end of a sleep cycle. (It’s actually more the interruption of the sleep cycle that makes you groggy, rather than the deeper states of sleep.)
As there are pros and cons to each length of sleep, you may want to let your schedule decide: if you only have 15 minutes to spare, take them! But if you could work in an hour nap, you may do well to complete a whole sleep cycle, even if it means less sleep at night. If you only have 5 minutes to spare, just close your eyes; even a brief rest has the benefit of reducing stress and helping you relax a little, which can give you more energy to complete the tasks of your day.
Tips For a More Effective Nap If you want to obtain more sleep, and the health benefits that go with getting enough sleep, here are some tips for more effective napping and sleep at night:

Avoid caffeine after 3pm. It’s a stimulant that can disrupt your sleep and stay in your system longer than you think; its half-life is four to six hours!
If you don’t want to nap a long time, set an alarm.
If you don’t have time for a power nap, or don’t feel comfortable napping during the day, try meditation; it gives your body a rest and produces slower brain waves similar to sleep

Depression Day 4 - Music

2011-05-04T13:12:00.000-07:00

If music be the food of love play on…music is the something that can be as evocative as a scent transporting you to places and times of highly emotive memory. A lot of the time it is involuntary you catch a tune on the radio but the thing with music is that you can use it to alter your mood more effectively than you can imagine just by making a play list – I used to love making my own personal tapes of all the tracks I enjoyed the best as a teenager. I’d spend hours with my friends doing it. Now it can be done so easily on your own computer or ipod all the best tunes that make you feel great about yourself.

I play CDs that I love in my car and sing along to every track driving my boys insane on the way to and from school but it helps me get through the crap hours, prevents me from stressing about the little stuff and mithering about unimportant things (which of course don’t seem unimportant at the time).

I love thumping great anthems and rock, stuff that’s got a great beat and clever lyrics. Songs that I can sing along to. Everything from the Beatles to Boney M, Train to Lady Gaga. I am always on the look out for new stuff to try just started on Kings of Leon and heaven forbid Take That (I loved Robbie but never followed Take That until Patience).

As I write this I am plugged into my ipod listening to Train… check them out…

Depression Day 3 – Reasons to be cheerful

2011-05-03T14:17:00.001-07:00

There is a saying smile and the whole world smiles with you cry and you cry alone and it is true. We are naturally attracted to people who smile and there is also the truth that if we smile even though we don’t want to we can actually change our mood from a negative one to a positive one.

I am not sure I go along with it but I have been trying today to smile and it’s been a good day, so maybe there is something in it after all!

Here are ten top reasons to smile

1. Smiling Makes Us Attractive

We are drawn to people who smile. There is an attraction factor. We want to know a smiling person and figure out what is so good. Frowns, scowls and grimaces all push people away -- but a smile draws them in.

2. Smiling Changes Our Mood

Next time you are feeling down, try putting on a smile. There's a good chance you mood will change for the better. Smiling can trick the body into helping you change your mood.

3. Smiling Is Contagious

When someone is smiling they lighten up the room, change the moods of others, and make things happier. A smiling person brings happiness with them. Smile lots and you will draw people to you.

4. Smiling Relieves Stress

Stress can really show up in our faces. Smiling helps to prevent us from looking tired, worn down, and overwhelmed. When you are stressed, take time to put on a smile. The stress should be reduced and you'll be better able to take action.

5. Smiling Boosts Your Immune System

Smiling helps the immune system to work better. When you smile, immune function improves possibly because you are more relaxed. Prevent the flu and colds by smiling.

6. Smiling Lowers Your Blood Pressure

When you smile, there is a measurable reduction in your blood pressure. Give it a try if you have a blood pressure monitor at home. Sit for a few minutes, take a reading. Then smile for a minute and take another reading while still smiling. Do you notice a difference?

7. Smiling Releases Endorphins, Natural Pain Killers and Serotonin

Studies have shown that smiling releases endorphins, natural pain killers, and serotonin. Together these three make us feel good. Smiling is a natural drug.

8. Smiling Lifts the Face and Makes You Look Younger

The muscles we use to smile lift the face, making a person appear younger. Don't go for a face lift, just try smiling your way through the day -- you'll look younger and feel better.

9. Smiling Makes You Seem Successful

Smiling people appear more confident, are more likely to be promoted, and more likely to be approached. Put on a smile at meetings and appointments and people will react to you differently.

10. Smiling Helps You Stay Positive

Try this test: Smile. Now try to think of something negative without losing the smile. It's hard. When we smile our body is sending the rest of us a message that "Life is Good!" Stay away from depression, stress and worry by smiling.

Depression Day 2 – Exercise

2011-05-02T12:57:00.001-07:00

Exercise, the last thing you want to do when you are feeling crap but it always makes you feel better. Yet despite knowing that why do I find it so difficult to do? I suppose because I always equate exercise with going to the gym or swimming pool I forget that exercise can be done with the minimum of fuss and I can do it anywhere. I mean just going for a walk is exercise and I don’t need special shoes or clothes nor do I have to pay for it. Instant therapy there whenever I want.

I’ve started off small a quick 20 minute walk down to the brook and back again taking the dogs with me. That was yesterday. Today I walked for 30 minutes and really went at a pace swinging my arms and thinking nothing I was pushing myself too hard to think. The dogs loved it even more and it blasted away a few niggles and I felt so much better.

Tomorrow I am going off to see my trainer Jim, he’ll make me run a couple of miles and do a whole load of circuit training. I always leave on a high even if I was feeling foul at the start.

It’s just a case of getting those endorphins going and pushing that serotonin around. I can quite understand why people get addicted to exercise the feeling afterwards is fabulous a total natural high.

However, like most things it needs to be done regularly. I am going for the everyday dog walk and a once a week blast with Jim just to see if it helps. I am beginning to feel very virtuous!

Depression Day 1 – Disciplina

2011-05-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

I have just been watching the Madness of King George and in the scene where he is confronted by the doctor who eventually saves him I realised how very like my own madness poor King George’s was. Not that I piss blue wee or that I have porphyria, just that it is a battle of will over inclination. I am inclined to depression, to melancholia, to the megrims, blues, whatever and if I am to lead a full life I have to battle that inclination and the only thing I have to do it, is will.

Sometimes I find my will is just not strong enough. It fails me and the downward spiral is as terrifying as any pit of hell. It is only by will that I recover.

Many a time I have no idea where the will comes from, it is as if it is on auto pilot, something, some tiny elemental spark that wants life manages to grow strong enough and I recover.

Now watching the movie I noted something that struck a chord; I need to nurture that spark if I am to be strong enough to call upon my will to overpower my inclination. I need to make it easy on myself.

So first thing is routine, discipline and organisation. Pretty big things I know and they won’t happen overnight so what can I do to get the ball rolling so to speak? It must be the small things, the practical things that will make my life easy.

So tonight, I washed up and put away everything. I laid up the table for breakfast and filled the kettle for my morning cup of tea. I got all the boys things ready for school; I have made it so I am ready for the morning.

A pretty small thing I know but one that will start my day off in a more relaxed style than normal and it might just help me to begin on the right foot so to speak. I won’t be confronted by an untidy kitchen as soon as I wake up; I won’t feel the guilt of domestic inadequacy before I have touched my first sip of tea, I won’t have to rush about trying to find knives and forks, cups and saucers as well as cook breakfast for the boys, I won’t have to rush about trying to find things shouting and screaming that we are going to be late because everything will be in place ready for us and the start of our day.

Depression: Doing something about it....

2011-04-30T13:28:00.000-07:00

I hate having depression. It is pants. It is worse than pants, it is a bugger. I get tired and I never seem to be able to catch up with myself. I can last a long while but then I collapse and can do nothing. And I feel weak, and silly and stupid and I hate myself for it.
So during May over a period of 31 days I am going to do something about it. So as not to bore everyone I will blog daily here at "Cage without a key" and update you on my progress. I cannot guarantee any of it will work but I am going to give it a try.
If anyone has any top tips on how to deal with the perennial blues then I am up for it as long as it does not involve eating fish, which I hate. Especially mackerel. Unless it is smoked then I am OK with it.
PS You can also read my other meanderings at Tattie Weasle!

Lifelines...

2010-11-21T14:01:00.001-08:00

Where do you start when you really don't want to? I don't want to write about my depression and I avoid it if I can. Last week was hell. It constantly amazes me that I am still here and I know that if it weren't for my boys I probably wouldn't be. Sounds terribly dramatic doesn't it?

Let’s get it straight when I think, talk and write about my depression I sound like an introverted, self-centred, attention seeking moron and that is why I try very hard not to do it. But just because I isolate myself doesn't make it better, so maybe taking another tack and becoming more open might just get the opposite affect - yeh right!

Other people, those without depression dogging their heels, just don't get it and to be honest why should they? Because guess what folks you could be next! However, nothing is worse than listening to someone ramble on about how sad they are, how hopeless things are and complaining about their lives especially when they won't listen to your great solutions. Please bear in mind that your solutions probably are not great but what is great is your time and your ability to listen without judging. A hug and emphatic pat on the shoulder are sometimes the difference between a day near unbearable and one that ends with the sun shining.

At the end of this week my sun is shining because I had the friend who knows how to just listen, who gives me a hug, sits me down to a cup of tea and helps me unburden myself without making me feel like a total selfish monster. He makes no comment about the fact that I shout at the children, he doesn't raise an eyebrow while I rage against the world, and he calmly sets me to rights then checks up on me throughout the day and then the next. I am incredibly lucky.

But even though I know I have this lifeline it doesn't mean that the battle to exist isn't hard. I steel myself as soon as I wake up silently pleading to God to help me get through the routine of getting the boys up and fed and ready for school without me imploding, going ballistic and screaming like a banshee that we are all going to be late.

I feel I am on a permanent treadmill from the moment I open my eyes to the second I close them and then it is a tick tock, tick tock, until I start all over again. I watch the clock throughout the night one o'clock, two thirty, three fifteen, four thirty, five, five fifteen, six. Time to get up! This can last for weeks on end. Is it any wonder I feel I go mad?

Then it is the drive to school and the thoughts that go through my sleep deprived mind about how easy it would be to swerve in front of that beet lorry or to lose control down the hill; the fact my children are with me seems to be the only thing that stops me.

I curse myself for my dreadful behaviour towards them knowing I am marring their childhoods and knowing that they will hate me for it and I feel so very very bad and I truly believe, when I am in an episode, that they would be so much better off without me. Then I stop myself, I call on something within me to get a grip, to stop it and get on with it. I try to calm myself and set myself small steps. Goals. Very small goals such as: Get the boys to school. Get out of the car. Say good morning to every fifth person. Get back into the car. Remember I have dogs at home that need feeding.

On the drive back I talk to myself in the car almost as if I were two people one ranting and crying longing for it to all end. For it to stop, to rest. To just get off for a while, a little bit while the other me, the stronger one calls upon that elemental spark that clings to life like something possessed and I make it home I know not how. And I watch the hands on the kitcen clock sweep by, longing for my lifeline to get into work so I can grab on and hold tight. Just till he gets in, just hang on until he gets in then I'll be OK. I should be able to call on my family shouldn't I? But I think I frighten them too much, I frighten so many people and I need them all so much. Little do any of them realise that one call, one shoulder to cry on and I'll be strong enough to get through the day and each day I get through means one less in the episode and then it will all disappear until the next time and that may not be for months and months and months maybe even years....

Parenting and Depression: the sum of all my fears...

2010-04-26T10:47:00.001-07:00

...is simply this, that somehow I will damage my children beyond my capability to repair with mere hugs and kisses.
I live in a world where every time, and I mean every time, I lose my temper and land up shouting I am racked with guilt. Sometimes this means my poor sons have on the one hand a serious bollocking and on the other a sobbing woman who keeps apologising. I don’t know how a normal mother works. That obviously presupposes that I no longer think of myself as normal.
And that I fear is the crux of the matter, for it is only when I am in an episode that I am not normal, so to speak, but the problem is, I don’t necessarily notice when I am going into an episode so I don’t know how long I have not been normal for – are you with me?
During a course of a year I may have one or two major episodes and perhaps several minor episodes, a minor episode lasting a few days while a major one can last a few weeks’ maybe months. At present I am in a major episode, one that is exceedingly deep and I am struggling. In fact, on Friday I called in the BIG guns, something I have not had to do since I had PND four years ago. I stabilised over the weekend and Dad has been stood down and is now on Amber Alert, bags packed ready for my call.
It sounds silly but having Mum and or Dad with me while I go through this gives me the confidence to go about my daily life and more importantly acts as a brake on my temper when I am so tired. I can safely leave my boys in their capable hands while I go to the bottom of the garden or else hide in the Holly by the moat and silently scream.
Imagine always dreading the morning, I do. I dread it because I don’t know how I will feel, will I wake up refreshed enough to cope with the demands my children throw at me from not finding clean pants to helping them put on their socks, from persuading them to wash their teeth to eating their breakfast. It is the smallest of things that can set me off and I cannot control it, or at least feel that I can’t, and all I want to do is run away.
Other days I cope fine, I presume these are normal days but my memory is shot and I forget how many of those I have - the joyful peculiarity of depression being that I tend to focus on the crap days rather than the normal ones and forget that I probably have more normal than not.
Whatever happens in the day I always manage to say goodnight to the boys with a huggie and a kiss to each, hoping that somehow this makes up for it all.
For them to have this mother who one minute is like the sun, the next like a storm must be bewildering in the extreme. I know sometimes it scares them. How will they turn out? How will they deal with it? How do they deal with it? For them, I am told, this is normal, they know no better. My job is to tell them that this is NOT normal and to always always apologise for my bad behavior. It seems to work for my youngest, but his ego rivals the world. For my eldest, I save my biggest fear - what happens if he is like me?

This is in answer to a question posed on British Mummy Bloggers by Deer Baby about how depression can affect children.

What's it really like?

2010-04-22T15:26:00.000-07:00

Ok so I am stopping and starting this blog. I am stopping and starting my life. Well I'm not stopping it but I don't seem to be starting it either - a perennial problem when you are depressed or at least it is with me, but that's beside the point.
I am trying for the umpteenth time to control something that is as uncontrollable as Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano and equally as dirty. The past few weeks have been hell and the number of times I have thought to jack it all in, innumerable. But the anchors I have cast hold strong.
I have thought about writing it as it happens to see how I rationalise it, to see if by writing it down at the 'moment jus' makes any sense at all, which would be surprising as I have yet to make sense ever.
So to tonight.
Tonight, I sought control and was promptly sick.
Not with the thought of control, or lack of it, but deliberately. Not something I've done in a long time but good to know, in a strange sort of way, that I can still go through the motions and get it to happen. For you see in a past life I was also a bulimic.
Recently I found out there is a strong correlation between bulimia and depression - bet you never knew that then.
Bulimia and depression, hand in hand and don't they make a lovely pair.
Strangely though, very apt, as both, well certainly for me, are about control and more importantly getting the control back after losing it.
Being sick was an act of getting control into my life when I feel totally at a loss. It was also an act of rebellion.
Thought ptrocess on this one roughly went along the lines of:
Shit I've just eaten a whole chocolate Easter Egg. This is not good. This is crap. I do not feel good. I've done this thing and it is bad. Seriously bad, I am not allowed dairy anymore, nor caffeine and added to that, it's not even mine and I've just eaten it in under 5 minutes...Better get rid of it, all evidence of it.
Did that and then basically thought I need to purge myself of this bad thing, so did the classic drank some water, waited a few moments, then trotted off to the loo and was sick. Felt MUCH better.
All this, I tell you, is bonkers thinking. No idea where the bonkers thinking will take me tomorrow...better go and brush my teeth.

Going pear shaped....

2010-04-13T12:41:00.000-07:00

Both my boys are in bed. There’s nothing unusual in that as the clock strikes a quarter to the hour this evening. What is different is that there is an eerie silence. This follows an almighty outburst by me and the breaking of Bog Boy’s melamine Elmer Plate. I am as usual not proud.

Today has been a particularly stressful day but there is still no excuse - rather an explanation of events and how easily things can go very, very, pear-shaped and how easily you can lash out at those most dear.

Everything should have been fine today even though Charlie was back at work but right from the outset it was just going to be one of those days. Firstly his car would not start and that meant he had to get me up to take him to the station at 5.45am. No worries I used the time on my return to have a lovely quiet breakfast as I let the boys sleep in a little.

I asked them both what they wanted and let them watch TV until breakfast was ready. Bad move. Never, ever let your kids watch telly until they have had breakfast as you’ll not get them to the table without a fight even if only moments before they were telling you how hungry they were.

Trying to get cereal, toast and bacon and eggs eaten in the few ad breaks before Dinosaur King is bound to be a hiding to nothing.

Suffice to say Bog Boy got the short straw as once he ate his cereal he was off only to return a moment later asking for bacon. Problem was as he’d told me he did not want to eat a cooked breakfast; I ate the last piece of bacon in the house moments before. There was a lot of sulking and stamping of feet and how much he hated me.

Top tip: No use trying to reason with a three/nearly four year old…

So feeling I was not exactly heading for the Mother of the Year Award, next on my agenda was to let the chickens out or not as the case maybe.

It’s a long story but suffice to say neighbourly disputes especially when they get nasty are hardly pleasant, And it’s not very nice when you are the one in the middle. Before 9am this morning apart from being told what a horrid mummy I was I was also accused of being a thief, a liar, an hysterical woman and that I was pitied because I was married to Charlie – who basically was the devil incarnate.

Joy.

I always find it edifying knowing that I am some sort of buffer zone between warring factions. A bit liek Poland during WWII and liek that poor beleagured country I got well and truly invaded.

I don’t like it when I am shouted at and intimidated or when someone is overtly aggressive. (Yeah I know I did it to my kids this evening – add hypocrite to my list of crimes…)

Anyway, I did not let my chickens out; I arranged for the builders, to turn their hands to building a massive hen pen so that my chooks would not be able to trespass onto my neighbours land – but hey that didn’t work. Well it did, in that I now have an amazing all singing, all dancing, hen pen, but my neighbour was still not pacified.

I have a feeling he did not want to be and he went ahead with his threat to take his goats across my land because my chickens invaded his even though they had not. The chickens he was referring to were chicken that had adopted his wofe and were on his land all teh time anyway but in the kiddle of a deispute you're not going to be interested in semantics especially if you have a point to prove.

I spent all day in a state of heightened anxiety sometimes fine, sometimes crying, mostly agitated and worrying. Not looking forward to telling Charlie then not looking forward to the inevitable showdown that would follow.

I made the boys supper and as they were eating it I went to call Charlie to find out when he was coming home. That was when the boys decided to have a fight. I could not hear clearly and just when I thought I had got through the line switched to ansamachine. I called again, the noise the boys were making made it difficult for me to hear. I told then to shut up.

Having failed to ascertain when my husband would return I watched as the sun started to go down, any minute now and the second part of my neighbours threat would start, he bringing his goats back across the garden from the field where they had been grazing all day. Added to that I was not too sure how much attention would be spent on preventing the goats from having the inevitable nibble here, and quick bite there, of hubbies precious Populus nigra.

I brusquely told the boys to pipe down and didn’t pay them attention much but the whining was increasing and the calls on my attention were getting more persistent.

The Boy: Mum, Mum, MUM! I have to tell you something.....

Me: Not now Boy

The Boy: But I have to tell you!

Me: No I do not want to hear! Not now...

The Boy: But I have too...

Me: NO!!!!!!!

The Boy, carrying on regardless: Bog Boy put a bit of sausage on my plate, it’s not fair…!

I grabbed his plate, deftly scooped all the sausages, potatoes and peas and deposited them on Bog Boy’s plate them slammed down The Boy’s plate on the table. Unfortunately I was a little harder than I expected and the plate shot across the table and spun like a frizz bee across the kitchen smashing against a teh metal vegetable rack and splintering into four pieces before landing on the floor.

There was a deathly hush.

Then Bog Boy started to wail: ELMER!!!!! MY Elmer plate, you broke my Elmer plate!!!!

I’d like to say my response was one of a contrite mother but my brain was a little behind my actions and I snarled out: "Bugger your plate!" At the same time as my brain focussed on the fact that it really was Bog Boy’s favourite plate that I had broken. I was a little taken aback to realise it was in pieces and thought: "Berlimey! I had no idea plastic could break."

By the time my brain registered that fact; I had already told the boys to get thee hence to bed and supper was over. They shot up the stairs, sniffling and sobbing and quickly got undressed ready for bed. I sat on the stairs staring out the window aware and not aware of what was going on, reflecting on the fact that I had thought myslef so under control , so calm but patently I was not and once again it was my boys that bore the brunt.

As usual I apologised and explained that it was not them but that sometimes they needed to listen to Mummy and to do as they were told, not to interrupt when she is on the phone, to wait until she is ready to listen, to hear when she says she is tired and is grumpy. Hard lessons for little boys, hard lessons for any child, whatever age.

So what’s your poison?

2010-04-06T15:06:00.000-07:00

Me? I’m a pill popper. Pain is not for me, in any form. Nor is blood. You won’t catch me slitting my wrists in the bath or even being as stupid as to hang myself, though I will admit I have tried - to hang myself that is but really could not get my head around it.
I’m a total girl about it.
Come on most people in a serious episode must have alt least thought about it, maybe even got as far as planning it. We all know of those who did it even if it is only because we’ve read about it in the newspapers. It is the last taboo. The one everyone is scared you’ll do. The one that you are scared you’ll do.
Suicide.
What brings us to that point?
For me, a period of exhaustion, disappointment, failure…whatever. Loneliness. Knowing I was all on my own and life was never, NEVER, going to get any better.
In fact probably worse.
Quite literally there was nothing to live for. At least that is what I thought, at that moment in time.
THEN.
And none of it was rational although I was convinced that I was. Totally convinced. Looking at the reality of my life perhaps there was an element of truth – there is always an element of truth in these things. Just because I’m a depressive doesn’t mean I can fool myself totally.
So I was a single girl in my mid 20s, living in a flat in London with a job I loved but, which as far as my colleagues were concerned, I was crap at: honestly they thought me totally awful. Some days I got it and other days well I was hardly going to win a Pulitzer Prize. I had no ambition and for a young journalist in London, in the early 90s…well that’s not what it was all about. I have no idea why I stuck at it, no idea at all. I just did, which must have been wildly annoying.
I seemed to be going nowhere and when a friend of mine plucked up the courage to ask me if I was a Lesbian, I took a long hard look at my life and realised I was not exactly living it. In the brightest most exciting City in the World with a job others would have killed for; I felt a total fraud.
I popped the pills; sleeping pills and then just sat in the dark on the sitting room floor. There was no particular plan, no note or anything. Maybe I didn’t really mean to do it. Perhaps I was just pushing myself to see just how far I would go. I landed up at Westminster Hospital having my stomach pumped out.
I was so ashamed. Quite rightly, the nursing staff were furious, though to give them their due no one actually said anything but you could just tell. Movements were brusque. Words were spoken in code. Looks were cold, scathing and condescending. You knew that you were thought of as being a total waste of space; a selfish, spoilt idiot. And I so wanted not to have called the ambulance. I wanted to go back in time and just not done it. I had to fill out a whole load of forms and then I had to find someone to come and fetch me, if not I faced being sectioned. Humiliatingly I was not allowed to be on my own and an orderly was posted to watch me and everything I did. We made a show of not talking to each other and remained in utter silence for the two hours until I was handed over into the custody of a good family friend. I sniffled and let the tears fall down my face but neither a move nor a twitch did the orderly make. I was utterly pathetic and I so longed for someone to hold me and say it was going to be all right. It did not happen. THEN.
I’m glad my sense of self preservation was stronger than my annihilation complex that night. I was not well. The only other time I came close to fulfilling that sick scenario was when I had Post Natal Depression and I was tired, oh so very tired and feeling useless and hopeless but it was because I was angry that I did anything. I REALLY was out of my mind.
I am not always out of my mind but then I was, totally and utterly out of my mind. Problem was I didn’t know it and I certainly did not feel it. I think that is what is the scariest thing about my depression; I am terrified that one day I just might try again and that one day I may even succeed.

Acceptance

2010-03-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

Somebody once said to me that I should just "snap out" of my depression; I should pull my "socks up and get on with life". I'd like to say this person was a stranger who did not know me, who had not even heard me speak but it wasn't; it was my sister.
As much as my depression has been with me it has also to a large extent been with my family too. And after 25 years I doubt my family is any nearer understanding it than they were to begin with. No, that would be cruel. The last 25 years has seen great leaps forward in the acceptance of the depressed as members of society. In time I am sure there will be plenty of people who will come out and declaim that their "BEST FRIEND IS A DEPRESSIVE" - to that I'd probably look at them in horror and think they are some sort of masochist. Because it makes out that people with depression are depressed the WHOLE time which in my experience I am not; it's just when I am in an episode that life becomes shit.
I think to begin with, before I was diagnosed with depression, I must have scared the bejeebers out of my parents with my funny turns. Actually only the other day I was talking to my Mum about it and she, being unusually quiet and contemplative for her, eventually admitted that she had asked my Grandparents if I was alright mentally. My darling Grandfather gave her extremely short shrift and said forcefully that there was nothing at all the matter with his granddaughter and that ended that conversation for his lifetime. Such a shame he didn't live longer...
So when did my depression start? Well it's kinda hard to tell for I didn't exactly wake up one morning and go: “Hey I'm depressed!” There's no fanfare of symptoms to mark its arrival, no sore throat or sniffles. You are basically mid way through the most enormous episode, one of many which have probably got progressively worse over the months and years and someone says something or you read something and you realise that maybe your normal is not everybody else's normal. And it hits you squarely in the face that perhaps there is a different way to live.
I actually believe there are hundreds of thousands of quasi depressives lurking about the country having these episodes not being any the wiser. You know the bellicose grumpy buggers you meet in way out heath blasted villages who are rude one day and extremely kind the next, and when you ask their history of the local hostelry owner, a look of panic flits across his face, he exchanges a knowing look with the regulars and then with a slightly forced jocularity he says: "Old Joe? No he's always been like that never mind him it’s just his way. Though perhaps you'd better not drop by his place on the night of a full moon...."
I was finally diagnosed with clinical depression in 1992; it was a big year. It was the year my Grandfather died, my parents moved abroad, I moved flat and I started a new job....is it any wonder that I may have been a tad stressed that it might all have finally become too much? For the most usual way I have heard of finding out that you are depressed is when you finally snap and admit that you cannot cope. By then though there is an awful lot of mess to clear up…

My Depression and I: We're a double act

2010-03-23T04:01:00.000-07:00

My depression and I have a symbiotic relationship, in that without it I would find it difficult to know who I am – I mean it’s been a long time.
I have had moments of utter obfuscation and ones of clarity so pure that I understand the essence of life and all its myriad meanings.
Can I honestly say that my life would have been better without it? I have a problem with that, for you see that would not have been my life. I have been defined by my depression but I have also been made by it.
In some of my blackest moments, I have never been more eloquent. It is rush. Words flood. I speak with an assurance that I never normally feel. The pen I write with creates a beauty on the page that usually evades me. There is a power and intensity about it all and then it bursts, and my tongue doubles up in my mouth and my pen spews spiders across the page. My anger and frustration crowds out reality and I sob and despair internally, secretly knowing deep down inside that there will be another ride, if I can just hold on.
I have cynically used my depression as a catch all to get out of things I don’t want to do and to disguise my failings because I am too lazy to do anything about them. Anything to make my life easier. Let’s face it if people think you are weak then they have a tendency to do things for you and, as long as you don’t mind them patronising you, life can be very pleasant most of the time.
I will admit, for it is on record, that my depression has almost destroyed me too. Sometimes that is what I feel I most want, what I need. Sometimes I feel that is what is best for everyone around me - it’s almost altruistic.
I confuse people, I know. For my depression has also spurred me to tackle feats of endurance both mental and physical that even the strongest would shy, from an expedition to the Magnetic North Pole, becoming one of the first two English women to do so, and latterly running the London Marathon. I don’t fit people’s expectations.
Perhaps in my efforts to be normal, to be accepted at every level I push myself harder than I should. Maybe that helps trigger the cycle of episodes and perpetuates the problem but what would I be without it? Who would I be without it? Like my shadow, I don’t think I could exist without it anymore.
My depression and I, well we’re a double act.

Places you might like to go: Breaking the Silence and posts you might like to read: Rosie Scribble - I am not stupid; Menopausal Old Bag - Depression is for the Middle Classes; Diary of a Desperate Exmoor Woman - breaking the silence