Depression

Suicide is not chosen; it happens
when pain exceeds
resources for coping with pain

I have found it hard to write this blog post, I will be honest and admit I still suffer from depression and thus the post will not have a happy ending unfortunately. I have been depressed most of my life, but I clearly remember these feelings from 14 onwards. This gives me over 6 years with near constant low mood. I cannot pin point one thing that made me this way, I do believe I am genetically inclined to be this way as depression as well as other mental health issues run in my family on both sides. Depression is often described as an intense feeling of sadness, and whilst this is quite true, I feel there is more to it than just this.  There is lots of diagnostic criteria that is related, but I don't want to talk about that, as it is clinical and boring.

I will mention that whilst I am clinically diagnosed with depression, I am not actively in treatment for it at the moment or taking medication to control my moods.

Depression for me, is a weight. A weight I carry in my chest and my stomach. It feels heavy and empty at the same time, and it feels like it is clouding over every good moment. It stops you eating, as you no longer feel hungry for anything. The sadness seems to occupy every space of your mind, eating away at anything good, twisting it into something bad. Personally, I am very self hateful as a depressed person, I know others who are outwardly hateful. I feel like a ghost, moving through the real world with no experience of it.  I feel numb to everything, other than this one feeling of utter despair. I am in my own plane, observing a world I don't quite feel part of, or good enough to be part of. 

This feeling takes over, limbs want to stay in bed never to see the light of day again. I clearly remember one morning when I was around 15, literally being too depressed to go anywhere. I was so consumed by these feelings that I couldn't do anything. Happiness is something I feel eludes me, but I fear it is my own fault due to my depression. I have moments of happiness throughout my life, but they always seem dimmed by this ever present figure of depression. This has before driven me to the point of rock bottom. Rock bottom is not pretty. There is nothing more horrific than sitting on your floor with the knife, on the bath side with the pills or standing waiting to jump. It is not about death, it is an escape. At escape from the prison of fear and misery, self loathing and utter despair. It is about relief. For me, it was also about not deserving to live. I have very low self esteem, and with depression, all bad things were twisted into being my fault. I am to blame for everything. I should be perfect, I am not, I am a disappointment. The dialogue goes on. I do not deserve to live, life is wasted on me, I am wasting their time, it would be better if I was gone. 

For me, there has always been this theme of not being good enough, and self blame for everything. This carried throughout my depression, into other issues such as anxiety, self harm and an eating disorder. I crave perfection and yet, cannot obtain it. I am a failure. I don't often ask for help, because I am scared of 'bothering' someone and ruining their day/night/life. Relationships have been hard, as I have never been 'happy enough' and I can see how hard it is to be with someone who is chronically depressed. It takes a lot to deal with. I never thought I would make it past 16, so I am doing ok I think, but I would be lying if I said everything is ok now. 

I can deal with it, as it is something I am used to. I am attempting to recover from various other issues, but my depression is still very much an impact on my life. It stops me going out occasionally and has made me very ill in the recent past. It is an emotional and physical strain like no other, literally it feels like you are being torn apart from the inside out. 

I wish I could better explain it, but it is something you only know if you have ever felt that way. It is horrific, like the light will never come. It is wanting to curl up and never emerge. It is like being a ghost.

x

Sheepish Hello.

Been a while right, I've had a bit of a rough few months which has seemed to have accumulated in a mild breakdown and thus blogging was not a huge priority.
So, yeah. I am planning on writing a few very personal blogs soon, about some of my experiences with mental illness and try to explain what going though these things is like. I really want to do this as I study mental health and the phenomenology of these illnesses is very objective and easy to misinterpret. I'd like to shed some light into that.
My life has not been that exciting really, I've been going out, met some nice new people. Got money stolen, sang karaoke, drove drunken people home, attracted creepers, the usual sort of things. Oh and I have somehow managed to do university work too.

Yeah so.
Stay tuned.

x

Update

Daily posting and thus NaBloPoMo will not be happening for me. I have more uni work than I expected and I am dealing with some other things going on in my life that are getting in the way of blogging. If I am going to write this, I want it to be interesting and well thought out, not just crap typed in 5 minutes as I have to be off to do work of some sort.

I hope you'll come back to read when things are calmer.

x

Ill

I'm sick again, so just a quick post, saying I'm sick, again!
x

Money Woes!

Hello nice people who read my daily rambles. Today is a ramble about how I am useless with money, and as a consequence am now nice a settled into the dregs of my overdraft. I have NO income, at all and my shitty bank are shit (HSBC) and will not increase my overdraft, even though I have kept my 1st year limit, and have always had an income previous to this year. So yeah, I am basically pooing myself, as I am off to the clothes show in a few weeks, also I have 2 birthdays and a few more christmas presents to buy. So this will be an interesting few weeks for me. I am lucky in that I am getting money for christmas presents because I am so poor, so with any luck, I will not be destitute for long.
If I was any good with money, this wouldn't have happened, but I'm not unfortunately. Well I have been these past few months, as I have noticed my balance getting lower and lower. And now, I am officially worried, I haven't maxed out my overdraft yet, but yeah. I am an idiot...one that shouldn't spend money she doesn't have. SO. The next 6 months is going to be scrimping, to get out of this overdraft so that I can tell my bank where to shove their student bank account. I have applied for 3 jobs as the one I have has no work going at the moment.
If anyone has a sure fire way that I can make a few grand, hit me up with your ideas, I damn well need them. Might become a pop star, or a high end prostitute. Same difference.

LOVE YOU.

x

Dear Friends

I owe all of you more than I could ever put into words, but I think now is right to write this. Some of you I have known now for longer than I care to remember! I have been so lucky to have these people in my life and I think they should know that. I am lucky just to know them, and even more so to be so close to these people. Most people think they are odd  N. I am so glad we have found our friendship again. It's fantastic talking to you again and it is sad that we just realised how well we still got on just when you had to go away! You are fantastic and have helped me through so many difficult times recently, you know everything that is going on and you are one of the people I can tell literally everything too, regardless of importance. Z. I have known you through everything. Through the shit and fabulousness of the schools. You know me better than anyone, and I love you so much you would not believe. There is no one who makes me laugh like you, and the stupid memories we have together (pumpkin cake!) make me miss the time we used to spend together. You are elusive, but it's ok, because even if it has been months, it seems like no time has passed when we meet up. C. dear lord, I love you so much. You are mad and loud and outgoing and just fab. There is no one like you and there never will be! I don't think the world could handle it, but you truly are a gorgeous person throughout. M. You are epic, you have seals dressed as other things, for that reason alone, you are just epic. Seriously, you are adorable and so funny. T. I only spent some of 1st year with you, but because you are so lovely and cuddly and everything you became a fixture in my life. You introduced me to a pub nicer than the scAbington and when the shit hit the fan, you were there for me. A. I still have no idea how I am friends with you, but to be honest, I am so glad that I am. Your sense of humour is truly fantastic, and you are one of the most talented people I know. All those car journeys home from the pub will stick for a long time, and I will never be able to drive past that chinese again without being reminded of a still drunk/hungover, sleep deprived you. Sherif J. epic times at 6th form, further epic times outside of it. Not only are you fantastic when drunk, when sober, you are still willing to see a mildly neurotic post-break up me, which is nice. I will also never forget your face as you walked into my house one Halloween to see a 6ft lad dressed as a lady in fishnets or the millions of times you called him your life partner last time we were at the pub!
I have been so lucky to have friends that I can count on. At university I have met some of the most amazing people I ever could, and people who are just as neurotic as I am. H. you are simply amazing and lovely and gorgeous. S. you make me laugh so much, your spongebob obsession, and how keen you are, and also how we both sit in the crack of love.  N. you are so strong, even though you might not think you are. You are girly and sweet and strong, it's gorgeous.
Other N. I know things didn't work out with us, but you are lovely, and sweet and funny, and I am so looking forward to building a friendship between us despite what happened otherwise.
T. remember band practice with Hairy Pork? You are so sweet, it's sad that you are up North, but you know, bad things happen to good people.
M. I have known you since that crappy Academy school. You are one of my best friends and I treasure you so much. Despite the fact we have argued when we were younger, it is so nice to have a close friendship with you even though you are far away. I love being a part of your life, and I hope you like still being a part of mine. You know me so well, and you know everything, you always have. I am so lucky to still have you in my life despite school changes, uni etc.
I could carry on, but to be honest, I'd be repeating myself. My friends are one of the key reasons I am still here and regardless of whether I have known them 10 or 2 years. I love them all dearly. I be perfectly honest, I lost a lot of friends and gained friends who now I don't know what I would do without. For me it's not how often I see them, it's just how good it is when I do see them, and the fact that we still manage to stay in contact despite distance and work and uni and everything. I'm so lucky as I never found a reason to like myself, but these people found something that I didn't see, and for that I am eternally grateful.
This is a bit of an odd post I know, but I have been thinking about it for a while, as you rarely get an opportunity to say these sorts of things.

Love.

x

I AM A TERRIBLE BLOGGER

Ahh right, yesterday I was fully intending to brighten (murder) someones day by blogging. HOWEVER, I forgot I was going up north for some birthday family related things, and so it ended up out the window as did my internet. I am DISGRACEFUL. So here is a quick Saturday blog. I actually have no idea what I am really on about so I will tell you about my eventful (boring) yesterday.
SO. I went to university, and had a lecture on mediums. Which to be honest, was pretty sucky however we did get to watch a video in our seminar about some cold readers and stuff. Seriously, it's not hard and people proper fall for it. There were also some twins, one who went into a trance and contacted a dude called Blue Mountain, I must admit, it's pretty amusing. However, the module is parapsychology, and in this short video included only one instance of a dude going into a house where a woman supposedly saw spirits by her bed. They conducted some field work but didn't see anything. The cold reader medium however did. It's very interesting how quickly he works, our lecturer had seen him in person and he says all the same generic things and does 'automatic drawing' of a person in these spiritualist churches. The person he draws, is always the same, it is a genetic old person! Parapsychology is a bit of a looked down upon subject but I have to admit it is interesting to see how these so called paranormal activities can be researched and interpreted to appear as normal. Also it is interesting to see that some cannot be explained in terms of normal means.
So yeah, then I missed a lecture on depression (as I know far too much about the symptoms and diagnosis) and went to Chester to surprise my sister as she is 30 and had gone up there with her partner and son so we surprised her, had a few bevvys and then complained about the lack of phone signal in the North.
Also I am half way through the first final fantasy game, which is AWESOME.

Yeah so, there we go.

Love

x