Finding ways to get better

I am always trying to get better.  When I feel depressed, I listen to upbeat music.  When I feel bad about myself, I try to read self motivational books.  I have found that they somehow help me, although it doesn’t get me out of the whole.

I came across an audio book called “100 ways to motivate yourself” by Stephen Chandler.  Although to me, his voice is a bit dull, the ideas within are quite good.  There is one phrase though that has stuck deep inside me:

Don’t let how you feel ruin your life.

To me, that is powerful.  It means that it doesn’t matter what you are doing, how you feel, you can always continue with your life.  Of course, I am saying that now because I am actually climbing out of the whole and I am starting to feel myself again, but what about us? The ones who suffer this stupid illness and are at its mercy?  How can we not let the feeling ruin our lives?

I have tried to communicate with these “Motivational Speakers” and ask them specifically about Depression.  How they “think” it affects people’s lives and if they actually believe there is such an illness.  I will let you know my findings.

Still in limbo....

I’m still in limbo.  Not feeling much.  Not wanting much either.

I wake up in the morning and feel miserable and with no enthusiasm.  As the day goes by and I do little things there and little things here, I start planning my next day.  Next day comes, I can’t get out of bed.  All I want to do is sleep.  At the moment, I feel the most happy whilst I am asleep.  I’m still going downwards.  I feel it in my head.  I feel it in my heart.  My body doesn’t want to do anything.  Stomach acid is taking away the pleasure I have in comfort eating.  My left knee is taking away the ability to walk normally and do the essentials at home. I’m in pain, and it is more emotional than physical.

My family, although worried, they are not concerned about me.  I haven’t spoken about suicide, so they think I am not “thinking” it.  Truth to be told, is that it is a perpetual companion of my days and nights.  I don’t want to hurt them, but sometimes I feel like a little animal that has been in pain for a long time: euthanasia is best.  Best for the animal that will not suffer anymore and for the family that will not have to see the pain its loved one is going through.

I have slept today all day.  I have only been up to eat and then I go back to bed.  Read a few of the blogs I usually visit, see that people in general are having a hard time with this illness, and the thought is still there:  what is the point?

One of my friends turned back on me yesterday.  He has done his best to understand this illness, but doesn’t understand it enough.  He feels that I am letting myself down.  I am not.  Every day I read my goals and realise that although I want them, they are not driving me.  I cannot see a future beyond the next few weeks.  I don’t want anything.  I just want to die.  That is what I want.

I have a follow up appointment with my GP on Monday.  Mum is coming with me.  Wait and see.....

RELAPSE!

Well, I think it is official:  I am suffering a relapse of my depression!

Although I have not been “absolutely well”, I have been coping alright.  Going out doing what I need to do in order to earn a bit of money, etc., but last Thursday I started feeling everything going downwards.  I was going on with my day and all of the sudden I started feeling more and more anxious and with a deep feeling that I just wanted to scream and cry and although I was trying to focus on something else, I had to stop what I was doing and come home.  I cannot tell you how sad, frustrated, disappointed, angry, hopeless and worthless I have felt.  So much so, that Friday I could not stop crying all day long.  I could not say why I was crying but I was, so I desperately called my GP and made an appointment.  He confirmed it for me.  I am having a relapse.

I started reading about people who have relapses and apparently there is this 30, 60 90 rule: once you have had depression in the past, there is 30% chance that you can relapse; once you have had a relapse, there is a 60% chance that you may have another one, and if you do, there is a 90% chance that you will have it again.  In some of the case studies I read, the relapses are somehow worse than the first episode, whist a small proportion said it was not as bad.

I am not sure how many relapses I have had, but I know each time I feel more hopeless.  If this study I read is true, it means that I will never ever get rid of this illness, and in fact, it might get worse and worse.  I asked my GP to be honest with me and tell me if he has seen many people recover from this illness.  His answer was “although some people do recover, most of them don’t”.  I am reluctant to go back to the “Community Mental Health Team”, since last time I felt no support whatsoever from them, in fact, it was a waste of my time.  I called them the 1^st of September 2011 to say that I had plans in place to commit suicide and they told me a nurse would come to see me and that I would have telephone support every day.  That never happened.  When I needed them the most, they failed me, and if it hadn’t been for a conference I attended, I would be dead today.

My family is there for me, and my friends worry a lot about my mental health, and I just wonder what kind of life I am living.  I mean, it is not like I have children to live for, or anything else that keeps me in this world.  Mum keeps saying that what affects me is the loneliness, but how in hell someone is going to put up with my mood swings as they are?  I am just pleased that no one is living with me to have to go through this.

The GP has prescribed me Mirtazapine 15mg plus the Cipralex 20mg that I am already taking.  I feel numb, but very dizzy and with lots of lack of energy, but I suppose that is better than crying all day every day!  I am having weird dreams, but then I was warned by my doctor that it would be the case.

In all, I am just wondering whether this is a life worth living.  I want to go out there and do what I need to do, but my body is giving up on me.  My head is just a tangle of ideas without any concrete end and my mind is just losing its will to keep going.  I just sometimes wish I could go into a coma for a prolonged period of time, and let my body and mind solve its problems, then when I wake up, it is all sorted!  Wouldn’t that be wonderful!