We Admitted We Were Powerless… that our lives had become unmanageable.

They tried to catch a falling star.
Thinking that she had gone too far.
She did but kept it hidden well.
Until she cracked and then she fell.

If all the history is true.
She’s gonna end up just like you.
You made it to the other side.
But tell me who will be my guide?

They build you up so they can tear you down.
Trust the ocean you’ll never drown.
Who is next? Who’s gonna steal your crown?
You’ll see…

Northern Star, Mel C

If anyone still reads these pages, then it will be worth having written this.

I am sorry, sorry to the people whom I may have hurt or worried.

Please know that I did not intend to hurt you – my intentions were to help you, to save you from what I felt was going to happen.

One might feel that having accomplished the isolation that I craved, I would feel happy for once, ensconced in my own Folly.

But as I survey my ravaged Queendom, note the ashes of my bridges, I feel regret along with acceptance.

For what I had was precious, though I did not see that at the time. And though the ruining of my life was my choice, I almost feel that my hand was forced, that my control was illusionary at best.

And yet, I made choices, and must live with them. I see the updates of those who once counted me a friend on Facebook – they have moved on.

But if any of you chance to glance this way, please know that I am sorry.

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NHS Dont-istry

Sadly, as I’ve mentioned before, some of my teeth are, quite literally half what they used to be.

When I was a kid I had no such problem – not boasting, but my milk teeth were perfect, as were my adult teeth for the first few years.

However, what’s now nearly a decade (eek!) of my mental health problems have obviously left their mark. Very obviously so.

I’ve tried my best to keep up my dental hygiene when I could, but, to be honest, there’s no escaping the fact that what I really need is a good dentist. Admittedly I’ve looked about occasionally over the past few years, but never with my full heart in it.  The NHS website happily provides a list of dentists in my area, but won’t separate out the ones that are accepting NHS paying patients, making the process rather a pain.

So, when I found out today that my area’s PCT has a phone line that helps with finding NHS dentists (among other things), I gave them a ring. Lets just say, it wasn’t a good experience. The lady on the other end of the phone insisted that I tell her the number I was calling from “in case we get disconnected”, despite the fact that I didn’t know it, and told her so. It seemed to go downhill from that point.

I finally gave her my mobile number, which satisfied her, and gulped out the fact that I was looking for a dentist, then my control slipped from my grasp. During the duration of the call, I shouted (“Hey, you don’t need to shout at me” in a very offended tone)), cried (“Are you alright? Do you need to talk? You can phone NHS Direct on… <whatever their fecking phone number is>” ), and was generally a bit of a problem caller, albeit through no fault of my own.

She really didn’t seem to be able to ignore my crying and realise that I didn’t want to “talk about it”, I wanted a dentist. Frankly, if I wanted to talk, I would have phoned the Samaritans, not her! I did try to explain as matter of factly as I could that it was just anxiety about seeing a dentist/finding the phone call difficult/fairly run-of-the-mill for me, but I don’t think I really got through to her. Finally I managed to find out from her that there wasn’t a dentist with his/her list open for several miles around, and she suggested I call back on Monday(!).

I hung up, and promptly had a small panic attack.

Let’s see how Monday’s phone call goes… can’t say I’m looking forward to it!

Anyone know how I go about finding a dentist who’s sensitive to dental phobia/mental illness issues, and won’t cost me an eye-tooth to see?

---

PS: To the unknown someone who ate all the cream off the top of my trifle in the communal fridge, could you not have been a tad more subtle about what you nicked?

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Good Riddance to 2008

Christmas is over (almost), family arguments have broken out at the other end of the house, and I’m trying to revise.

Christmas was good in the end, though the turkey was undercooked, and I only had a couple of presents to unwrap. The biggie was a new graphics card for my computer, which will indeed be much appreciated, but, given that my computer is back at uni, it’s been deposited un-loved in the corner of my bedroom until I return…

…which will be in only two days! I’m really looking forward to escaping the clutches of my familly. Tally has made the whole thing a lot more bearable than it would have been in a different mood, but I think I’ve been snapping too much at people, and it will be nice to be able to be alone again (without my mother coming to find me just to tell me she’s feeling lonely).

I’m also glad to see the back of 2008, though to be honest I don’t have coherent memories of most of it. Not sure I could expect coherent memories, given that I spent it going subtlely bonkers in different ways. On the upside (?) I do have this blog to remind me what occured, should i fancy some self-flagelation.

However, I do get to enter 2009 with a brand spanking new outlook on life, more support than I’ve ever had before (albeit some of the chocolate teapot variety), and a dashing red coat that I alternately hate and love, depending on what pills I’m taking at the time.

Happy New Year… or whatever is most appropriate.

*hands out champagne and slabs of christmas cake*

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What is Depression, Anyway?

So… I’ve not done anything particularly crazy since July; I’ve not felt particularly crazy since sometime in August. Things are fairly obviously improved (thanks to the Mirtazzy), and I can finally be trusted to use sharp implements sensibly – rather than running them lightly down my arm while trying to size up where and how long.

I went to a large public event today, and I’m proud with myself for not feeling paranoid, or scared of touch, or like each casual glance is a sharp needle straight into my brain. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realised that only a few months ago, attending it would have been impossible.

I’ve come so far in such a short period of time.

And yet, I’m still out of touch with how I feel, and the mechanisms by which silly behaviours and beliefs come out of those feelings. The one thing everyone always wants to know is, “What triggered it?”. And I still don’t know. No answer seems sensible enough. I can’t even explain why I became how I was. How this illness of feelings and thoughts affects my body, my life, my personality. I’m usually percieved as a quiet, gentle, wouldn’t-hurt-a-fly kind of person. So what drives me to shout at people… to percieve that nothing can be right in the world till I am dead… to stare into space for hours and not notice that any time has passed at all… to plot my own death in cold blood?

I cannot get my head round this.

Why is that I cannot control these things, while other people manage to live their lives without once troubling “services”? Why I have entered this world at all? This place where one speaks calmly of “behaviours” and “medications” and “services”? I don’t belong here, this is a place for people who are ill. I just don’t think right…

EDIT: I’ve been wavering over whether to private this or not. For the moment I’m leaning towards not-private, but don’t be surprised if it disappears again.

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Then and Now

I suppose it’s natural that I keep comparing “now” with “then”. It’s like one of those chidren’s picture books, that show both ye olde street scene (with lamplighters and hackney carriages) and a modern metropolis, and the reader is asked to spot the differences.

Trouble is though, I can’t quite untangle things. The Mirtazzy, my rising mood, my hormones, my “just me”… all collude to form a potion. And I was never really much cop at analytic chemistry.

Things have changed. Heads still turn as I walk down the street, but this time they just gape, rather than pointing and sniggering. I’ve tried to convince myself it’s not me they’re looking at, but there’s a limit to the number of times I can turn and stare at the empty space behind without feeling a prat. Two people tried to chat me up this week; someone else yelled “Hey beautiful girl!” at me, and looked like he might have said more had I not developed a very acute sudden-onset deafness, and walked off completely unaware of him.

I’m well on the way to loosing my depressive waif-ishness. I’ve gone from not understanding why anyone struggles to diet (it was more effort to eat than to not), to wolfing down so much ice cream that I start shivering and have to find a cardigan and a hot drink! There is a plus side tjhough – perhaps now I’ll stop half-fainting every time I stand up too quickly.

Incidentally, I’d been priding myself on not getting the “sedation” side-effect of Mirtazzy. Unfortunately, I’ve turned into a complete dizz… well, more so than usual. My friends are despairing of me. I’m despairing of me! It’s only just occured to me that this may actually be a manifestation of that. I’m somewhat relieved to think that my brain cells may not all be rotted away. It’s only a matter of time before I get arrested for shoplifting though – I keep forgetting to pay for things. Yesterday, I tried to pay for something with my paperback book instead of my bank card! The clerk was very nice about it, but he did laugh rather an awful lot.

I have to go see my doctor next week in order to get another green piece of paper for more Mirtazzy. I don’t really want to, and I feel so well I’m starting to wonder if it all really happened. Yet I have this blog for proof, and a couple of concerned friends. So the first step forward is to make the phone call and book the appointment. Actually attending the appointment is something I’ve got more time to talk myself into.

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When the Scars Are Inside, You Can’t Pick Them Off and Eat Them

Soundbite from a conversation I had on Sunday…

It’s… like… I grew up thinking the world works one way, but now I’ve grown up and it doesn’t, it works another way – and now I feel I’ve lost those years that I could have had learning to fit in this world

I don’t subscribe to the feeling that I had a bad childhood (I did have a bad adolescence, but that’s a different matter), but I did have a slightly different childhood. In primary school I was ostracised by my schoolmates, so I grew up thinking I was worth less than other people, that it was a kindness to people to avoid them – that if I sat down next to people, I should leave an empty chair between me and them to avoid the pain that having me sitting next to them would cause.

And I can still see the echoes of that coming down the years.

Backtrack a few hours to yesterday evening. I went to a fellowship group organised by someone at my church – I go every other Wednesday, as it gets me out of the house and in the company of other people. I walked into the room where we were all meeting that day, and had a common dilemma – all the sofas were partly occupied… so where should I sit? I settled for sharing a two-seater with my conversational partner of the Sunday… and then realised that I was squished up against the arm of the sofa in order to provide as much space between her and I as possible.

Another example…

When I was a young teenager (13 – 14) I was quite talkative. Still quiet and thoughtful, because that’s me, but I thought nothing of yelling across the classroom to butt into a conversation on the other side (and indeed got picked up on that by my teachers), backchatting my teachers, or having long conversations with people I didn’t know very well about random things.

Then, at about 15, I stopped talking at school. I physically couldn’t talk, the words just wouldn’t get past my throat. Some of the more understanding teachers stopped calling my name out with the rest of the register so that I wouldn’t have to answer, some of the unobservant ones would wait for me to finally squeak out a “Yes” (to the amusement of everyone else), and one of the misunderstanding teachers would give me long passages to read aloud in class, and yell at me for being so quiet (I still somewhat wonder why on earth he thought that would solve anything, but he remains one of my favourite teachers for other reasons).

Fast-forward to the present day.

I do talk now… most of the time… and I sometimes don’t even have to think about it. But it feels a bit as if the bit of my brain that translates what I’m thinking into words that flow of my mouth sort of… disengages occasionally. And then I revert to mutism, and garner odd looks, without even realising what I’m doing, or that there’s any difference.

So, aside from the lack of opportunity for self-carnivorism (is that even a word?), I do wonder how to tackle these kind of behaviours, because (for me), they feel instinctive. I don’t have much choice in the matter – I behave that way because the old conditioning holds so strong.

However, there are no scars I can point to to show my past. I don’t walk around with a sign saying “I am occasionally a bit strange”. So I’ve struggled to make friends, because people misinterpret how I behave. And though I’d like to learn more appropriate social skills, it’s proving a bit of an uphill struggle, as I almost never get feedback on them (go on… when was the last time you praised someone on how they interacted with you? Yeah, I thought you might say that… me neither!)

So, here I am, a child of my past, in a future I haven’t quite figured out yet and never really envisaged to be this way. And I think my map might be upside down…

*twists the other way*

…no, still doesn’t make much sense. Hmmm…

Anyone up for a spot of orienteering?

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I’m So Happy (for a change)

Yeah, that’s an odd post title for a blog about depression, but things have been going well these past two days, and I’ve been spending so much time with people.

I actualy think this might mean that I’ve regained “normalilty”. There’s a line from a hymn – “Mornings of joy give for evenings of tearfulness, trust for our trembling, and hope for our fear” – which I used to identify with so much when I was a kid. Used to comfort myself with that thought, when I was crying my eyes out in the small hours, that it wouldn’t last forever.

And then of course I got depressed, and found that when you’re depressed, it does last forever. Ho hum.

I think I’d quite like to stop seeing my counsellor, we’re just not on the same wavelength.  The last time I told her a humourous anecdote, she said it made her want to cry. And then there was the time she forgot she was supposed to be supportive and accepting, looked very shocked, and suddenly said “but that’s not normal!“, almost as if I’d just told her I enjoyed eating dog poo (no offence meant to anyone who does, mind). I think she’s probably best at dealing with bereaved people and so on. I don’t really get the feeling she’s had a client like me before, and sometimes I feel like she’s learning more from the sessions than I am…

But on the other hand, I’m not sure what to do. I’m still on the waiting list for the young-people place (what is it with the word “young people”? I have a friend who counsels children, and she uses that phrase all the time too. It sounds so terribly PC). I figure I must be about halfway down now… it’s been almost 5 weeks, and they said it would be “8-12”. So, theoretically, it could be this month, though I think that’s being rather too optimistic.

Oh, I dunno…

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Depression, Visually (and some success with the job-thing)

I forgot to say (think I was too lethargic…), I got the job! Hurrah! I’m having trouble getting very excited about it, possibly because of how far away it is, but other people have been reminding me how great it is that I did, so, errr… yay and stuff?

Still don’t have anything to do this summer though, and that’s where the familial pressure lies.

In other news, I just found an old mindmap of my depression which I made at Easter when I was far enough out of my depression to be able to put fingers to keyboard, but not so far out that I’d forgotten how it felt. I’ve always been a visual learner, though it took me until I was 17 to realise this, and mindmaps have been an absolute godsend to me. I had to do regular essay plans for my French A-level (along with the actual essays), and never could get the hang of the way that we’d been taught to do essay plans, because it was linear, and the plans in my head utilized 2 or 3 dimensions.

Even better was an unexpected benefit – my French teacher stopped asking me for essay plans once I started handing them in in mindmap format, because she couldn’t make head nor tail of them (I got at least one of them back with that as the comment, plus “10/10” – apparently because it “looked good”. Not that I’m recommending bamboozling your teachers as a good method for getting full marks…)

It’s funny, looking back. I don’t remember half of this, and yet it’s there, in black and white.

(click on the image to enlarge it – and obviously, it might be triggering for anyone who’s going/gone through the same thing)

Looking at that now, I can see that my thoughts were distorted… twisted… ever so slightly round the bend. And to that extent I’m really rather glad that my brain has drawn a veil over those few months.

But, I’m also glad that I have this record. Because next time I think I don’t have an illness, or that I’m just making it all up, or that I shouldn’t have dropped out when I did, I have this as proof to myself.

I do wish I could put pretty pictures on it, but given the content, I don’t think full-color illustrations would exactly be appropriate!

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“What I Did This Summer”… perhaps

Still fueled up on the sugar from the remainder of my pic ‘n mix, I’m going to admit to how truely pathetic I am how much I’ve let depression impact my life…

Forget the “getting a job” thing – that’s important, yes, but the following are my three major I-want-to-improve-my-quality-of-life goals for the summer:

• Get my computer fixed

• Have a haircut

• Register with a dentist

I should perhaps explain a little :

EDIT: Clipped the moaning

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Relapse and Recurrence

Just as I thought you’d gone,
You come again
The old familliar pain,
Burning within me,
Moving though me.

Out of the night you come,
Touching me gently
Like an old friend.
Repelled, I reach out my hand
And draw you in,
Feeling you as part of me
Knowing who I am

(poem from here)

It’s hard to let go of something that’s been a part of you for a quarter of your life. Even at some of my happiest times, there’s been a little internal voice telling me that I should kill myself there and then, and go out while I’m so happy. Kinda like people who die in coitus, I suppose. This is something that I’d find quite hard to talk about in person, because, everybody knows that people who have suicidal thoughts are usually depressed… right? Somehow suicidal thoughts seem easier to comprehend when the world seems such a dark and dreary place than when your dreams are coming true, and life has never seemed rosier.

My life up till now is all a bit of a funny blur, really. Well, that’s the nature of memory (except for what I’ve heard called “flashbulb memories”), but some bits are more blurry than others. I can’t, for instance, remember much of what I did between about September and March, which co-incides with the worst bits of my most recent depression episode. Spring and Summer 2007 are quite close to my mind in contrast, especially with the glorious weather we’ve been having recently. When I close my eyes, or I’m still for a moment, my mind slips back to those days, and I almost feel slightly shocked to realise that I’m living in a completely different area of town, and the year is 2008.

– – –

I don’t want to duplicate my previous existential whining,but I’m still having a little trouble bending my mind round the idea that one day I won’t have “issues” any more. I can’t claim that I think about them much when I’m not having problems with them, but they have shaped my choices and behaviour.

For instance, I avoid alcohol these days, because

1. my suicide plans always involve alcohol
2. there have been times in my life where I’ve felt that my inhibitions are all that stood between me and an impulsive suicide attempt

…so I feel a lot safer not drinking, and being known as a non-drinker, as that way people tend to keep an eye out for me on whether I’ve been drinking or not, and stop me if I am.

Having said all that, I can definately remember not being able to comprehend what life would be like when I left school – it just seemed so impossibly far away. And, well, here I am now, and the universe hasn’t imploded! I guess this stuff is analogous to that…

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