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0 By Nadene
It’s been nearly two years since I wrote my last blog. I had intended to keep it going, but my recovery hasn’t amounted to anything worth shouting about really. I’ve done plenty of that on my own social media pages, anyway!
For the past three years I have suffered from clinical depression (recurrent depressive disorder, to give me my correct label) and anxiety. I won’t bore you with all of the ins and outs and if you do manage to reach the end of this blog and still want to know more, there are several others available, which could no doubt double up as a sleep aid.
I have had more varied therapy sessions than you should be allowed to shake your NHS stick at. When I reached the end of the road with them, I began having weekly counselling sessions with a psychologist, through my employer’s private healthcare insurance. I was also under the watchful eye of a psychiatrist, who I was able to see whenever the need arose and for regular check-up appointments.
My medication kept being increased on every other visit, until it was agreed that what I had previously been told was true. My own awkwardness had spread to me having a very high resistance to antidepressants. I didn’t expect any less!
I hit a brick wall
As I’ve already began to do what I said I wouldn’t (going all around the houses for an hour to explain what anyone else could in a few sentences. It’s my speciality, after all!), I will try to get back to the reason for my blog. I feel as though I am stuck. At a complete dead end. Long ago, I hit a very big brick wall, which I’m just too small to overcome.
At the beginning of this bout of illness, I could not stop crying. I have always been one of the soppiest old gits going but this was completely different.
I remember, one particular night, my husband was trying to get me to eat some of my dinner. At that point I had gone from a size 16 to a skin and bone size 6, so you may be able to understand why he was so persistent. I sat at the table in front of my two poor children and I just could not stop. Although I did not know the reason why.
At that point, I would never have guessed that I would soundlessly beg to be able to cry, or to at least be capable of showing some genuine, not manufactured for others, but real emotions.
Early retirement
In November of last year, I was informed that my employer would be starting the process of early retirement due to ill-health. I did not think for one minute that I would qualify. People recover from depression and I had already done it when I kicked the butt of severe PND.
Time rolled on and after agonising months of waiting, it was settled. I had qualified to be medically retired. But hold on. I was only at the not-so-spring-chicken age of just 46!
I had a meeting with my Team Leader, which I presumed was to go through what would happen and when. The last thing on my mind was that this meeting would mark the end of my employment, from a role I had been doing for many years and which I had continually fought to return to.
Most people commented how lucky I was. But inside, my world was falling apart. I had already failed as a mother and I still saw myself as an evil monster.
I knew I couldn’t let all this beat me. I’d put my family and friends through too much already.
The mask I wore in public became a permanent one, because I had to appear as strong as people kept telling me I was. I knew I must not give up working my way through the longest chapter of my life.
A new and different place
As all the electroconvulsive therapy, CBT, mindfulness and counselling had only seen me peak to a constant flat, emotionless state, I knew that I needed my medication to be looked at and something changed.
I’ve heard so many times, ‘It’s not medication alone that cures any mental illness’, but there was nothing else that I could try.
I had already started going to a weekly meditation evening. I am still finding the actual meditation bit hard going. My concentration is still rubbish but I am getting out there and managing to be around other people on my own. Under my own, albeit very low, self-esteem. Not as a mum, or a wife. Simply as a person who is struggling in life.
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I am finally looking for answers in a new and very different place. A safe space where other people are doing exactly the same.
Another win
Another win has been being very persistent with my GP. As a result, I had a referral to see the Secondary Mental Health Team. Knowing that they seemed more worried about the level of medication I am on doesn’t matter. A psychiatrist is finally going to review them and who knows, my never-ending story might actually reach the end of series two.
Throughout my illnesses I have always been very open and honest about my struggles on social media. It’s my own therapy. My way of helping others not feel so alone. A way of getting what is going around and round in my head out there. My updates and tweets have always felt good at the time of posting them but after, I have always realised that they were either upsetting people or making them believe that I was just doing it for attention. That there was nothing wrong with me. What did I have to be depressed about? After all, I was now retired and carefree!
A bit brighter
I have very recently decided that I needed to help others in a more constructive way. One which wouldn’t lose me any more loved ones or friends. I have applied to become a volunteer with the local branch of the mental health charity MIND and my initial interview is next week.
There have been a few weeks recently where I have been in a better place. I have laughed and messed around, yet still I came crashing back down.
The chapter, let alone my story, has not come to an end yet, but it is starting to look a bit brighter.
Reproduced with permission, originally posted on skybluenadworldpresscom
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