Tag Archives: anxiety

Mental Health Update, August 2018, 3

21 Tuesday Aug 2018

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How can it have only been 4 days since the last entry? It feels like a fortnight, and every second of it stressful.

Waiting for an assessment with the mental health team (not to be confused with the crisis team, who already saw me) and hoping for some long-term support. I’ve been so afraid of being thought of as weird for so long, I’ve avoided getting help and to some extent, let myself get to this state; at times, even been smug about it… I’m trying to get it sorted out now, but dear God, the waiting.

Will it always be like this? Will *this* feeling always be just around the corner?

To put it into perspective, though–it has been years since I’ve felt this terrified, for hours and days on end. It lasted about 3 weeks last time, before settling noticeably… awful as this is, I have to believe that if I can hang on a little longer, this, too, shall pass.

My Christian upbringing is showing, again. Well. There’s nothing wrong with that, as long as you don’t let your upbringing turn you into a dickhole.

Always a risk with me, but I’m trying my best.

Mental Health Update August 2018

13 Monday Aug 2018

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Just what it says on the tin.

I was doing so well. Volunteering with a suicide prevention helpline, making tentative plans to see actual people out in the actual world, had a mini-vacation with my husband and kids… now I’m spiralling. Down, not up, but not happy… just anxious.

I got 5 hours of sleep Saturday night, and less than 4 last night, despite being exhausted both nights. The real acid test is this, though: I couldn’t sleep right now, in broad daylight, with another adult in the house, despite being so tired I’ve had a fatigue headache since before going to sleep this morning (it was light outside before I dozed off, despite having been in bed for 5+ hours, at that point). I just can’t switch off enough to rest.

If it makes me feel any better (it does not) I have yet more evidence that social media is the trigger. I joined a large Facebook group about a week ago, and I’ve been more and more cheerful each day–as soon as I got some genuinely negative feedback in the group, eventually getting one of my posts removed (they disliked a pic I shared, despite it being a legitimate reference to the overarching theme of the group) I was ripping at my nails, crying a little bit, starting to hyperventilate, the whole 9 yards. I tried to move on; I engaged in what I thought was going to be a civil discussion on a friend’s FB Wall.

After a few opening comments were made (both by me, and by other people) some random suggested I “find something more productive to do with my time” rather than joining in a discussion between several of my friends, and someone I’ve known for the best part of a decade liked the comment.

The same guy (who has never met me, as far as I know) went on to call me self-righteous, a horrible person, not a real friend of my friend, etc, because….? I genuinely don’t know. I didn’t launch a single ad hominem attack at him, nor at anybody else.

I can’t understand why my “friend” would like me being bullied (that’s what it is, when someone singles just you out, tells you to leave the conversation that’s open to everyone, and then starts hurling abuse at you). I don’t understand what to do about it.

Yes, I do. It’s just hard. Wish me luck.

Is It Me?

03 Thursday Dec 2015

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A weird thing just happened (or it might be me, I really can’t tell)…

I went to bed with someone last night (not for sex, although I was fairly grope-y and stroke-y and whatnot) and me, I just couldn’t really properly sleep, and I was (in my half-asleep state) being what was probably overly cuddly and a bit too talkative.

I can see how they might not appreciate that. Makes perfect sense to me. Seems completely fair, right?

So I ask them, at several points when I think I’m disturbing them, “Do you want me to go in the other room?” and variations on, “Sorry, doing it again, should I stop?”

And they answer with several variations on, “No, it’s fine, just don’t expect me to reciprocate because I’m sleeping,” (fair, I thought) and also, “No, don’t go in the other room, stay here,” and at least 2 or 3 times, “No, it’s nice.”

So, about half an hour ago, I realize I’ve started talking again, and I ask if we can swap sides in bed (I’m now back-achey and wanting to cater to my sciatica) and they do–way too quickly, and I think, shit, for all their naysaying, they are awake, I am keeping them up, gotta be quieter/sleepier/whatever, and so I proceed to do that.

I ask them a question a few minutes later (because I’m starting to drift off, finally, and unfortunately I sometimes start to talk as I’m relaxing into sleep–so do they, come to think of it….) and they give a kind of snappy answer and I think, alright, fair, I get it, but I also make some half-jokey reference to them being like a drug (so, like, I can’t help myself, right?) and which point they really sharply go, “I don’t care,” (as if they can’t tell it’s a joke, maybe? or they’re just not in the mood, which is fair enough too) and then a few minutes later (out of nowhere–I’ve been completely silent since then, I’m again just starting to drift off) they announce, “It really HAS got to stop now, it’s time for sleep,” and I go, “….I’m not doing anything…?”

And they go, “Well I’m going in the other room now.”

“….but…. I’m not doing anything…?”

“Well, I just require coolness and space.”

Giving it’s one way to get it, I suppose.

The thing that makes it all a bit off, for me, is that literally last night–like, an hour before going to bed?–I said to them, “You have to make peace with the idea that I don’t always sleep well, I’m an insomniac, and sometimes, you’ll just have to let me go in the other room, so you can sleep,” and they were all, “No, once we’re in bed you must STAY in bed, I want the cuddling,” etc etc, and I was laughing a little, but I thought they were more or less serious (all the more so, when I kept offering to go in the other room and let them sleep, and they said no repeatedly)….

…so to me, that means they a) perceive being left in the middle of the night as some sort of rejection or slight, and b) they intentionally did that to me, rather than “let” me do that to them…

….and I dunno, I just feel that’s not on. A dozen conversations, more, we’ve had about this, over the last year or so, about it being okay to pet them and snuggle them in the middle of the night, about how they prefer that to sleeping alone, the last of which took place LAST NIGHT RIGHT BEFORE BED….

…and then they stormed out of the room after telling me I was fine, and left me wondering what I did wrong, wide awake (well you would be, wouldn’t you, if you’d finally started to get to sleep and then the person you had your arm draped over–which is often how you sleep with this person, who actually asked you if you’d mind spooning them at the start of the night, rather than the other way ’round–suddenly shot up and snapped at you and huffed out, huffed back in again to retrieve something, and then went to their room) and, let’s be completely honest, crying because I suddenly felt in the wrong… after checking all night (and many times previously) that what I was doing was okay.

What makes it worse is that this person pretty regularly does this (or something like it) when they’ve got something other than me to look forward to (dinner this evening with an old friend, and I have to leave town this afternoon) and so it begins to look like they don’t mind my (admittedly excessive)  levels of attention when they’re alone and without plans, but as soon as they’ve got something on, I’m too clingy/needy/in-your-face…

…I can’t, can I? I can’t be with someone who finds me indispensable and irreplaceable and mostly charming, right up until they have something else to do. As far as self-esteem goes, I’m just asking to have mine gradually eroded.

Aren’t I?

The Amanda Show, Episode 2

01 Sunday Nov 2015

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So. That was said to me, several months ago now, and anytime I feel a little worthless or down, I use that as a stick to beat myself with: “Of course no one’s invited you this weekend, why do you expect them to?–it’s not always The Amanda Show. Of course your semi-friends/acquaintances didn’t recognise you in the shop, even though you recognized all 3 of them, even the one you’ve only met twice–I mean, why should they recognize you, it’s not like it’s The Amanda Show. Of course no one’s replied to your emails about your uni assignment, why should they, they all have lives, and just because you’re doing group work doesn’t mean it’s The Amanda Show.” On and on and on it goes, until I can barely assert myself even when I know… I mean, I’m 90% sure… I mean, I’m fairly certain… I mean, is it even possible I could be in the right? Maybe not. I’ll just stop talking. It’s not always The Amanda Show, after all.

When it happened, I told someone what had been said to me (someone who, at the time, I considered one of my closest friends–someone who I thought loved me) and I’m pretty sure they laughed. (Can’t be completely sure, it was a FB chat.) Last week, we were talking about… oh, let’s call it the differences in our perspectives on morality… and this is how one part of the conversation went:

Me: The point’s not whether or not ____ could stick around forever, it’s that he doesn’t twist everything to be my fault, as if none of the other people involved have any say in it. You try to pretend I’m the one calling all the shots, and it’s just not the case

Them: It isn’t always the Amanda show.
Do those words, from a fairly objective place, not haunt you?

From a fairly objective place. A woman who’s several years older than me, who’s just gained a lot of weight while I’ve lost a bit, who’s very ill and understandably jealous of people who are not, who wants to be up on a stage again but who doesn’t have the energy, who remembers what sex was like and thinks she’ll never have it again (whereas I do, admittedly, have it fairly often with some of my friends)… this is an “objective” place? (She also spends a lot of time chatting to my friends, including some of the ones I sleep with, but not really to me, so… she’s not even possibly going to be “on my side” really, is she?) First of all, who could see her opinion as “objective”?

And secondly, how can that even be an objective thing to say? “Your own life is not about you. Stop living it as if it is. Don’t…” (well here I get stuck, since I genuinely don’t know what it is I’m supposed to do–sleep with fewer people? Do it, but don’t be so open about it? Don’t talk when I’m in a group?–although the very person who said it, once *also* made the statement, “I can see why people fall for you, because I’m talking absolute drivel right now, and you’re looking at me like I’m the most fascinating person in the world”–so I’m guessing I do an alright job of listening to other people talk…)

Objective, huh? In the vernacular of Inigo Montoya, you keep using this word, but I do not think it means what you think it means.

I’m uploading pictures from a night out, right now. It was meant to be my early birthday (because I’m in lectures on my actual birthday, and the closest weekend to my birthday, the day after my birthday, we’re going to someone else’s birthday weekend) and every time I go to upload a picture of myself, I stop and think, “Is this too many? Will this one make it too much? Are there other people in the shot with me? It’s not always The Amanda Show, and it wasn’t even *really* my birthday…” (a fact which I kept apologising for, and when someone else had “Happy Birthday” sung to them by the bar staff, one of my friends wanted to have the same done for me, but I begged him not to, because I hate having a roomful of people looking at me and it’s not even my birthday anyway; but I might’ve borne it with good grace and just felt a little awkward, if I hadn’t already been thinking we were spending too much time on The Amanda Show…)

It took me years to get to the point where I could take a selfie and upload it, like, without taking 50 and picking the best one (I still do a bit of weeding out the worst ones). Getting to the point where I didn’t die of embarrassment to see my make-up smudged, or a little belly bulge, or my hair looking a bit dirty… that took years. I’m still not comfortable having my picture taken–but I’m *also* not comfortable with the fact that, most of the time, I feel utterly out of place and far from home and as if one of these things is not like the others/one of these things just doesn’t belong… I’m trying to ground myself, trying to put myself into some sort of group, trying to form some sort of attachment to my surroundings, trying to make a habitat where I feel like I can live and grow and be happy, and now, I feel like I’m completely in the wrong for that.

In the end, I took fewer pictures of everyone than I normally would. I usually always have my phone out, I’m constantly getting group shots and selfies with people, and I DID have a few bursts of that, but… I just couldn’t do it, last night. Not like I usually do. I mean, someone had set up a tabletop game for me, and it wasn’t even my birthday. Someone else wanted to get the bar staff to sing to me, and it wasn’t even my birthday. Someone else bought me a drink, and I tried to refuse, because it’s not even my real birthday (in the end he said, “Aye but we’re celebrating your birthday now, what’re you having?” and I did)… and I had a good night, because lots of my friends got up and sang, and they were all surprisingly good (except one of our friends, who we all know has the voice of an angel, no one was surprised by her bringing the house down) but I was also constantly talking myself down, reminding myself that it’s not all about me (we were meant to be out for my birthday, I repeat again…) and if I thought people didn’t want pictures or video taking I just stopped, I didn’t ask for clarification or go take a photo of someone else or whatever, I just put my phone away.

And I tried so hard to smile and be friendly and go along with everyone else, and when a drunk acquaintance kept wanting to kiss me I’d give him a hug and a peck, and when my friends were onstage I cheered and danced (so nervous dancing in public!) and when another friend was sat down with back pain I offered her some painpills (non-prescription) I had in my bag… and all I can think now, while trying to get the pictures on FB, is how many can I upload, before it looks like all I do is take pictures of myself? How many of my own face am I… allowed?… to add, before it’s The Amanda Show, and all I care about is myself?

The Amanda Show, Episode 1

27 Tuesday Oct 2015

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A few months ago, in the middle of what I perceived as a traumatic event (a relationship breaking up, I thought because the other party wanted it to) someone made this statement to me:

“I love you, but you have to remember, it’s not always The Amanda Show.”

The person who said that does *not* love me–she knows me a little, and largely disapproves of my living a life that actually looks a bit similar to hers, but LESS self-centred–but more than that, she doesn’t even know me enough to understand how those words would hit me.

End of 2011, I went through a bad patch. By which I mean, I was past the point of wondering if I should kill myself, and planning it out as carefully as I could. In the end, a few things stopped me (as they always do, for people who genuinely want their pain to stop but don’t manage to do it): 1, I was the primary carer for my very young children, at the time, and although I was *pretty* sure they’d be better off without me anyway, I still held out a little hope that that was just my depression talking; 2, even if I *did* think they’d be better off without me, I didn’t want them to find me (I didn’t think THAT would do their little psyches any good–better for me to just disappear, rather than them finding Mommy unresponsive in a pool of blood); and 3, I wasn’t sure whether I needed to take them with me.

I know how that sounds, obviously. It’s the ugliest thought in the world, but… I mean, they were so little and helpless, and I was clearly their favourite person out of all the other people in their lives, though I couldn’t see why… so yeah, I was struggling with the, “Well it’s wrong to kill them, but they’re SO young to be without their mother, and I’m not sure how much longer I can stick around….?” –and then of course, I started taking some medication (just a basic anti-depressant and an anti-anxiety med) and within a month, less I think, I was looking back at that and thinking, “Oh Jesus CHRIST what was wrong with me, how could I have even…?????”

Fast forward a couple of years, and I’m trying to make up for lost time. On my good days, I take the kids out (sometimes spending more money than I have, further racking up debt I can just about afford to pay off in another 30 years, no I’m not exaggerating there) and we do as much as we can, before I just can’t do any more.

When I’m with my friends, it’s much the same; I will pick up the bar tab, if I can, and cover someone’s meal, if I can, and I will get my partner to give lifts and lend out my sofa and spare room and do whatever is possible, to get as many of us as possible, all in the same place, having a good time.

And for all of it, I am the undisputed *queen* of the camera phone. This year alone, I managed to fill 4 separate folders (kept on my desktop, sloppy I know) all with at least 200 pictures in them, of us all just out having normal friendship days. That’s not counting the folders full of pics of the kids; although there are probably less of those, since I’m happier to push adults to let me take pics, than I am to push my (still semi-non-verbal, autistic) children. In a number of the photos, I am front and centre, grinning a pretty unattractively toothy grin, make-up on, pushed into a good bra and wearing colours that suit me and doing everything I can, to make it look like, on that day, I was happy and I had a good time and there were people around me that love me.

Is that what’s meant by “The Amanda Show”? My admittedly unending need for people to show me signs of affection, and, where possible, to have it documented? “On this day in 2015, from approximately 21:30 to midnight, Amanda was in a pub surrounded by people she knows, who are all smiling and laughing and some are even posing for selfies with her, and even though she’s at the edge of the group and struggles to talk to more than 1-2 people at a time and she’s so drunk she’d have trouble standing if she closed her eyes, hey, she looks happy” (and even though I know that I was probably a little too drunk–I *am* drunk, or I’m not laughing and smiling, in a large group–I still feel a little better, looking at a photo like that)… is that what they mean?

Is it as simple as the fact that if I’m sleeping with someone and they suggest I sleep with someone else, I usually do it? Is that what they mean by “The Amanda Show”? But… I mean… I’m openly polyamorous, so why would that surprise anyone…? And actually, the person who made the comment has had A LOT more dick than I have, and you know what? I think that’s great, more power to them. But unfairness gets to me. I genuinely don’t understand why it’s okay for one person to have multiple lovers but not another–how can someone accuse me of being a narcissist for engaging in behaviour that they themselves engage in?

Also. I am a person who has to be drunk (are you seeing a theme here…) to get up and sing karaoke with a friend (I have literally never sung on my own, in front of people, since reaching adulthood) and this is a person who made their living on stage, for a while (not on a proper stage, I mean they did a sort of entertainer-at-Butlins style job, but even so). I mean. That’s an ACTUAL show. This person left their child with grandparents to travel around singing onstage when the kid was 14 or so–I’m currently suffering the tortures of the damned being away from my kids 3 days a week, to try to get a university degree, to eventually make my kids’ lives better–and I’m the one who’s obsessed with my own personal show?

I just don’t get it, I don’t understand. I mean, I get that the person who said it is unwell (seriously unwell, think of a bunch of life-threatening illnesses and it’s one of those) and may well have been high when making the statement (morphine is not the friend of cognition) and maybe it just sounded glib and amusing in the moment, because I *was* fairly upset over a romance gone wrong (and I have a long-term partner, and it was not that relationship that was going wrong, and polyamory is not widely accepted, evidently, even by people who practice it themselves….).

But for me. For someone who spends every day feeling useless, ill-equipped to deal with life, for someone who’s grabbing onto as many lifelines as she can (because *I* have a life-threatening illness too, it’s just that no one believes depressed people are in any real danger until they actually kill themselves) to be told that, actually, she’s taking up too much space and other people’s time and energy… I mean…

Is it *not* always the Amanda Show–in the same way that your show is the Whatever-Your-Name-Is Show, and everyone is the star of their own show, etc etc–just, how am I supposed to take that? “You have to remember, it’s not always The Amanda Show.”

What does that even mean? It means… stop talking about myself? Stop asking for help with my problems? Stop taking multiple lovers? (I was with 2 men at the time, not a hundred, not that it even matters; but if you’re stuck off uni for a year due to a registration cock-up and both the guys work full-time and your kids go to school full-time and EVERYONE is getting on with their lives except you, for the moment, it’s not inconceivable that you can give a reasonable amount of love and attention to 2 other people.)

I don’t know how it was meant, but I know how I took it. I took it as someone telling me that my entire life (aka The Amanda Show) had run for too long, and should just be taken off the air.

Daft Poetry

20 Friday Jun 2014

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I’m currently sitting here in my under-things. The house is too hot and no one in the Northeast of England has air conditioning (including me) but that’s not really the reason… really, the reason I’m sat here, half-dressed, is because I can’t be bothered to put the rest of my clothes on.

Or do much else.

However, when I woke up this morning (because I just could not do any more sleeping–and may I just say, 12 hours of sleep is ludicrous, both in general, and in the specific) and went to lie down on the couch (I shit you not) this little bastardization of, “Green Eggs and Ham” was bouncing around inside my brain. As far as I know, in spite of all the rip-offs of that poem in the world, this one is mine:

I do not like this wonky brain,
I do not like it in the rain,
I do not like it in the sun;
It is not fun for anyone.

I do not like it with the meds,
They make me less fun in the beds.
I like it even less without,
Without, I rant and cry and shout.

I do not like this panic attack,
It makes me tend to over-snack,
I do not like this mood that lags,
I do not like these crying jags.

I do not like these sleepless nights,
But the sleepful ones just don’t feel right.
I do not like my crazy brain,
I wish that I could just be sane.

And there you have it. What I woke up feeling like, today… while off my meds.

Really Not Quick Description of Depression–Part 3

31 Saturday May 2014

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And then one day, the butterflies are gone. The next day, the bee’s disappeared. The day after that, the flowers have all died, and the day after that, the sun stops shining. It doesn’t shine for a week, 2 weeks, 3 weeks, and then one day you go to look outside again, and and the window’s gone. Then the door. Then all the furnishings and electronics and books and music and everything else disappears from your house, which has somehow shrunk to 1 room. In that room, you sit on the floor, with no blanket or pillow, and it’s okay, you’re not cold anyway. You’re not anything. All your food tastes like water and dry bread, or not even like water and dry bread, but that’s okay too, you’re not really hungry. That person there, holding your hand, at least you still have them, and you remember when you cared and were grateful and loved them the way they seem to love you, but you can’t feel it anymore. You can’t feel anything. And slowly, you stop hearing them when they talk; you have earplugs in, permanent ones. Soon, their features start to blur. You realize you’re wearing sunglasses, in an already dimly-lit house, but you can’t take them off. And eventually, you realize you’re walking through water, and it’s okay, because apparently you can breathe under water, or you don’t need to breathe anymore, and some part of you is academically aware that that ought to be the coolest thing that’s ever happened to you, but since taking 5 steps from the couch to the computer–when the computer’s even visible, to you–is too much effort, and you’re sleeping 14 hours a night anyway, you can’t really muster any enthusiasm. And one day, you realize 3 months have passed since you stayed awake for more than 10 hours in a row, since you laughed at a joke, since you made love with your partner, since you did anything other than exist… and after a month of telling yourself not to, you come off the meds.

A week passes, maybe 2, and all of a sudden, you look at that person who holds your hand and you think, “I love you.” This is magic, this is heaven. Another week or 2, and in spite of a dozen mood swings and an episode of self-harming, you feel better than ever. You can hear music again. Your food tastes like whatever it is, not dry bread and warm water. Your chairs and couch and bed and tv all reappear, and you know exactly what you want to do with each of them–you sit in the chairs and talk, really talk, to the hand-holder, and you lie on the couch and snuggle them or watch dvds, and in bed, you do all kinds of stuff you haven’t done in half a year or more, and you record half a dozen things to watch on the tv because it’s all so INTERESTING. Maybe you even start writing a blog, or a book, or you start taking night classes in something you’ve always wanted to do, or you join a gym or get married or take a vacation to the Bahamas. Whatever you do, you can FEEL yourself doing it, and it feels good.

And one day, you go to your back door, and you walk through and onto your patio like there’s nothing to it. You bring some orange juice and a bagel, you sit outside in your dressing gown in the sun and you just ARE. And even without your partner, you’re okay. Better than okay. You’re great. When a butterfly lands on the back of your hand and has a sniff of your juice, you’re careful not to damage it’s wings, and by the time you’ve finished your breakfast and wandered back inside your house to get dressed, you feel invincible. It’s the best time of your life, and it’s made all the better by the memory of what came before. Your mornings on the patio are resumed, and you are pathetically grateful for every precious day you spend sitting in the sun.

And then, one day, you go outside… and you have this feeling. A feeling like you’re being watched, and you don’t know how, but you know the intruder means you harm… and you realize you have 2 choices. Live in constant terror, unable to function in any meaningful way, or live underwater, completely cut off from everyone else, unable to relate to anyone in any meaningful way.

And suddenly you realize that this is your life. Forever and ever, amen. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing, you can do about it.

(THE END)

Really Not Quick Description of Depression–Part 1

28 Wednesday May 2014

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I’m going to try to describe depression, now. ‘Depressed’ is a word that gets bandied around a lot, and although it’s a valid title for a lot of things, there’s a huge difference between what some shrinks call “reactive depression” and “clinical depression”. I used to have the one (and it was treatable, even curable, with more social contact and eating better and getting more rest and exercising and developing coping mechanisms). Now I have the other (and it’s treatable with medication, but never curable, and eventually the medication goes too far and puts me right back into the place I started out). Hence the need for an explanation… so here goes.

Life, with all its activities and places to go and things to do, is like a sunny backyard patio. There are some flowers around, in pots, with maybe the odd honeybee pollinating them, and a few butterflies fluttering about, and the day is mild and bright and although nothing’s particularly right or wrong, everything’s pretty peaceful. And even if the sky gets a little dark, or some rain falls, or the butterflies go away for a bit, or you maybe get stung by a bee, it’s okay, because, well, it just is. Into each life a little rain must fall, and all that jazz. And you’re a reasonably mature individual, you take some time looking after your own mental health, and so you understand that just because you’re not happy in the moment, that’s alright, that’s normal, that’s the way life is, and after all, how could you appreciate the good without the bad? (You obviously speak to yourself in clichés, just like me.) And everything is more or less fine.

One day, though. One day, you wake up and walk outside to your patio, and there’s just… a feeling that you can’t place. A feeling like someone’s watching you; here, in your safe, private backyard, where no one should be able to get in, there’s an intruder. And you don’t know how you know, but you know they mean you harm. You try to ignore them, maybe back slowly into your house, out of the light and into deeper, lockable safety, behind closed doors and bolted windows, but your back door slams shut before you can reach it, and then it just disappears. Your house is still there, but there’s no way in, it’s just 4 walls and 1 tiny window that’s big enough to show you all the things that used to be yours, but it’s nowhere near big enough for you to crawl through, and get back inside to safety. For just a moment, amidst the rising tide of panic, you are so, so profoundly sad for the loss of your things, yourself, that you forget to be frightened.

But all too soon, you realize you can hear the intruder again. You KNOW he is out there, creeping around in the woods, maybe climbing up the side of the house to pounce on you from the roof. You try to think of some way to fend him off, but you know you are ill-equipped, and any fight you get into, he’ll win. With no warning, the sky grows dark, and it’s so cold, the 1 lone bee and his butterfly friends have all flown away; and then hours pass, and eventually, from sheer exhaustion, you fall asleep, right there on the concrete floor of your patio, and you pray that the sun will come up as normal the next day. You’re not asking for much–you’re not even trying to get back into your house yet, because you know that’s impossible–but you’ll settle, and gladly, for a few hours in the sun, where you’re not being stalked by a stealthy, murderous trespasser. You fall asleep shaking, and even you can’t tell if it’s from terror or cold or maybe it’s God punishing you.

(TBC)

Quick Intro to Depression

19 Monday May 2014

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Depression is different for everyone. Mine actually manifests itself as extreme anxiety and numerous daily panic attacks, normally while thinking I’m about to die. Just as a quick example, some entries from my mood diary a couple of years back:

“31st January:

Had forgotten that D__ gave me penguin pyjamas for Christmas,
until he reminded me. Wondered if I have a brain tumor.

Told myself not to be ridiculous, and tried to think of something to
prove my brain was functioning normally–came up with ‘no severe
headaches recently, last eye test showed no behind-eye pressure,
can coordinate both sides of my body, it’s fine’.”

“20th March

Not only will he never fight for me–hard to stomach, but a thing I’ve mostly accepted, by now–he won’t even speak up for me. Thinking back, I honestly can’t recall a time ever has… and tonight, he’s admitted that he probably never will.

I want to go home. I want to be the one being looked after, sheltered, taken care of. I miss my Mom and my sister. I miss my own friends–the ones who were always my friends, no matter how many times I let my mouth get away from me.

I’m sad and tired. I think I’ll go to bed.”

There would be more, but I was depressed. I stopped bothering with the mood diary not long after that (and instead, began sleeping 14 hours a day and still being exhausted–yay, happy pills). For the record, most of the entries contained things like me having an itchy armpit, and then losing all my breath and starting to hypverventilate, because WHAT IF IT’S BREAST CANCER.

Depression is no fun, folks. No fun at all.