My Journey from Desperation to Hope

By Sarah

My journey from desperation to hope really started in January 2017. I have a long history of depression and anxiety, particularly social anxiety. On the whole, like many others, I have forced myself to battle on without any support, other than from my family.

I Understood I Had the Same Symptoms

In January 2017, I woke and found that I was completely incapable of getting out of my bed. My daughter was very concerned and tried to encourage me to get up and go to work to see if I could get through this. It just was not possible – the effort of even lifting my head from the pillow was too much, never mind raising my whole body into an upright position.

This continued for a week and my manager pointed out that I would need to get a sick note from the doctor if I wasn’t well enough to work. So, this prompted me to seek help from my GP. I was diagnosed with ‘post-viral fatigue’ and signed off work for the next couple of weeks. Then I realized that this was the second year running that I had experienced the same symptoms at the same stage of the year.

I Felt Like a Zombie

Unfortunately, my condition did not improve – all I wanted to do was sleep, I didn’t want food and I was constantly questioning my purpose for living. Let me stress here that I did not and do not contemplate suicide – I think because I am too much of a coward to actually take the necessary steps.

Returning to the doctor I explained how I was feeling. The solution was to increase the dosage of my antidepressant medication, citalopram. We did this by doubling the dose to 20 mg per day. Still no change and I was still craving sleep.

I felt like a zombie and  had no levels of concentration. Then I couldn’t find humour in anything and lost interest in my favourite pastimes like knitting and reading. Even watching TV was too much effort.

I Wanted to Enjoy My Time There

This continued unabated until the end of May. At that point, I decided that I was going to make positive changes in my life. That was easier thought than enacted! I forced myself not to go for a midday sleep – that was really hard and my temper began to fray at this time.

However, I persevered with my resolution. I was being spurred on by the knowledge that I was to attend my second Glastonbury Festival at the end of June and I wanted to enjoy my time there as much as I could.

Things Were Improving

My doctor increased my citalopram to 30 mg per day but, still, I did not feel any benefit from the medication. We discussed the possibility of me combining talking therapy with the medication. I gritted my teeth and arranged to attend an anxiety management course that would run over a six-week period.

The timing was perfect as it would finish the evening before my daughter and I was to go to Glastonbury. I put the details in my diary, set reminders and I received text reminders on my mobile phone. Feeling good about this group – I was getting better, and I was planning again, I was looking forwards once more. Things were improving!

Deciding It Was My Fault

The day arrived for me to attend the first anxiety management group meeting. I was quite hyped about going, looking forward to it, strangely. However, as the time got closer, my anxiety levels began to increase. It became so severe that I just couldn’t leave the house.

That led me to go into a decline of blaming myself for being useless and hopeless. I could not reconcile that it was a genuine manifestation of my anxiety, rather I saw that I was the failure. Feeling I had let myself and the group down, I decided that it was all my fault.

I realised that my depression had dipped again, and that caused me to start blaming myself all over again.

Looking Down the Abyss Again

Gathering my nerves, I contacted the organisation that was running the group. They were lovely because they absolved me and said that I could just pick up the following week. This certainly made me feel better about the lapse and I started to feel more positive.

I Beat Myself Up

A week went by and the second evening arrived – time to go to the group again. This was a repeat of the previous week. When it came to the time to go to the group… again, my anxiety overcame me. I convinced myself that I would not be welcome because I had failed the previous time. Also, I was certain that people would not accept me and blame me for changing the dynamic of the group. And so it continued and, yet again, I couldn’t go to the group.

This time, I didn’t contact the organisers. I pulled into myself. Shut me away. Beat me up for being pathetic. Talked it through with my daughter – she was brilliant and very supportive, but I still felt hopeless. I was looking down the abyss again, just waiting for one last thing to fling me down into the depths again.

I was still looking forward to the Glastonbury experience – the previous year had filled me with so much energy and positivity that I was looking forward to getting that same boost again.

In my logic, it was not worth pushing myself to attend the anxiety management group if the very thought of it was making me worse. I managed to convince myself that I was doing the right thing. This was the right thing – to brush it under the carpet… pretend that it wasn’t important.

Boy Did I Sleep

The time for Glastonbury arrived – we set off to travel to the site. The journey was straightforward and without incident. But the day was very hot indeed but we made progress towards the campsite. As I have mobility difficulties, we were in the campsite for disabled festival goers. We selected a pitch for our tent and proceeded to erect it – perhaps this was not advisable in the full heat of the day but we persevered.

After having food, drink and a rest, we set off to explore the festival site. It was so very hot that we ended up looking for patches of shade, wherever we could find them. Every time we stopped, I fell sound asleep sitting on my mobility scooter and this became the pattern of the day.

When we returned to our tent, I fell on to the bed and promptly fell asleep and I slept the whole night through. That is the last full night’s sleep I can remember having.

I Finally Went for Help

Although we enjoyed being at Glastonbury Festival, I felt somewhat cheated because I did not get the same buzz as I had the previous year. It was most disappointing. After returning to our real lives, I realised that nothing was going to change unless I made it happen. However, the thought was the easy part… putting it into action was the real challenge.

I eventually gathered enough energy and will to contact the mental health support organisation that I had let down. I must say that the contact with PositiveStep was very easy and they were very supportive.

They Made Me  Feel Totally Supported

We agreed to work through the initial assessment process, which proved to be extensive and looked at my mental health, my general health, my lifestyle and my expectations. Although the assessment was carried out over the telephone, I felt totally supported.

When we had finished the adviser explained that she was very confident that I would be able to access support through them. However she would need to review my assessment with her manager to determine the most appropriate interaction for me.

We agreed a date and time for another telephone interview.

I Found a Wonderful Counselor

When the adviser phoned the following week, she explained that her manager had agreed to offer me support on a 1 to 1 basis. We arranged an appointment for me to meet with a CBT counsellor who would help me to cope with my chronic illnesses and issues.

I attended for the appointment and met a wonderful counsellor who explained the process to me. The assessment for her intervention took place over two 50-minute sessions and was, again, very detailed and thorough. At the end of the assessment process, I was offered six sessions of 1:1 counselling in which we would start by exploring the issues around my insomnia and the impact that was having on my daily life.

I Kept a Sleep Diary

Because of the first counselling session, we agreed that I would keep a sleep diary in order to record the times that I was in bed but awake and how I was feeling during the following day. I kept the diary and found that I was consistently lying in bed, wide awake for hours on end. I would then sleep very deeply for about 4 hours, wake up sluggish and that feeling of fatigue would remain with me throughout the following day.

This led to discussions around relaxation techniques, breathing exercises and getting up after lying awake for 30 minutes and taking part in a relaxing activity. I tried the first two techniques but not the third as it was the middle of winter and it was too cold.

It Was Like an Epiphany

I truly did not notice any positive change in my sleeping routines. However, my mindset did change – I was no longer allowing the sleeplessness to leave me feeling stressed. What I found was that I still laid awake but I decided to use that time by catching up with my reading and learning. Also, when I did fall asleep, the sleep was of a better quality. I am still fatigued but I have now accepted this as part of my life for the time being.

This was like an epiphany as I found that, with less stress, I could focus on me and the future for the first time in a very long time.

Starting a Blog

I plodded on until November when I suddenly got the urge to start writing a blog. This was something I had always resisted in the past. I was fired up and subscribed to WordPress and made a start on the writing process. The words just flowed, and I didn’t need to think too hard about what to write. It was an amazing feeling and one that certainly helped me to gain a new perspective on my life. I think this was the actual start of my come-back from desperation to hope.

I scheduled six blog posts to appear up to the middle of January – that bought me time to contemplate how to develop the blog and how to make it so that it could begin to generate an income. Part of my blog posting procedure was to also share the entries on social media. I am not a social media geek by any stretch of the imagination but the blog was and is shared on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Google+ and Twitter.

Scammers!

What happened next just blew me away! At the beginning of January, I began to receive messages from men! They were all offering me the world and more! Oh boy, was I an innocent! It turned out that they were scammers and very good they were too. Once I made that discovery, I decided to have some fun with them and would get them to the stage of scamming me, generally for money, and then I would report them to the respective platforms.

One Offer Was Different

However, one approach I received on Twitter was different – this was someone that I did not know but he re-introduced me to the power of positive thought, which helped me start to move from desperation to hope. He talked me through a very simple method that he asked me to follow. I did take his advice but really without any expectations.

My life has completely turned around. I now have a wonderful friend, reconnected with people that I had lost touch with, made new friends from all over the world, been offered paying work. It is unbelievable, very exciting, breath-taking, uncertain – but I am determined to enjoy the experience.

From Desperation to Hope

I, once again, have a future ahead of me and it is shaping up to be wonderful!

Please read about this incredible positive thinking method on my blog. Please leave comments, if you would like to.

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