Depression and me

Right, I'm sat here right now, with the computer on my lap, and the Charity Shield on TV in the background.

I've not posted anything in what seems like an age, mainly because my interest in blogging waned very quickly. However here I am on a Sunday afternoon typing away, and why? I hear you ask - because this sort of thing is supposedly very therapeutic for my condition, which you'll all now know what it is by the title of this post, but I'm guessing most of you weren't aware until now.

So to put it simply, I suffer from depression, its a nasty, soul-sucking affliction that can affect anyone at any time, and at times will remain dormant before flaring up again and dragging the person suffering with it back down, Sadly over the past 2-3 weeks its reared its ugly head with me again to the point last weekend where I totaled approximately 10 hours sleep from Friday night to Monday morning due to sitting wide awake in bed feeling upset to the point of tears but with nothing to point out that triggered it all.

This has naturally affected my work in which I never went in last week as it was a struggle to even get out of bed let alone leave the house, however I built up the courage to go to my GP's where its been described as a moderate-high incident and the prescribed treatment? Up my medication from 20mg to 30mg, now I can understand why she did this, I've been very flat at 20mg and although to the outside world I put on a face of happiness and that nothings wrong, deep down inside I knew I was hurting, as I type I know that I'm feeling no better than I did this time last week, I also know that if I rang my GP's office in the morning they'd give me a note to take another week off without an appointment, and although I'm loathe to do that its looking more and more likely due to the fact that I'm still having regular incidents where I zone out completely or just sit there nearly in tears about nothing.

However I have 2 worries about being off sick this week, firstly I went to collect my glasses from Asda the same day I went to see the GP (kill 2 birds with 1 stone and all that), and with Asda being across the road from work someone saw me walking in and we had a conversation, now I bluffed it by saying I had a virus and was off to give my medication a chance to kick in, but if I'm then not back till a week on Monday people are going to think either I'm taking liberties at work or they're going to realize its something more severe going on and start asking questions which I wouldn't want to answer (As it stands only a couple of colleagues and my managers know whats going on, I just find it easier that way). Secondly Elaine is back in Scotland from Tomorrow Morning till Wednesday Evening, and as silly as it sounds my loneliest and most black moments seem to occur in the evening, with 2 nights on my own I fear they'll be even worse.

Onto the reason for posting this blog, is to get my feelings out about how depression affects me and the way I am during these bleak times. There are 2 explanations of what I think depression does to you, well me at least and you may feel its different, but this is how I feel this affliction takes on me.

Firstly there's a feeling that the real me is stuck in a box inside me trying to get out but my condition won't allow me. I know that there's nothing wrong currently, I know that I shouldn't be getting upset at times, but that doesn't stop me going down the road of feeling upset, its almost like most of the time I'm stuck in that box screaming out that everything's ok, but my illness is causing my overall psyche to be that of someone who's going through a hard time.

Secondly its like my condition is a bully ensuring I don't do the things I want. I always remember in Primary School I was playing football with friends and there was a kid came up who wasn't liked by anyone in our group and he asked to play, the other kids told him he couldn't play as the game had already started and we had enough players already, his response? 'If you don't let me play I'm going to bully Christian all through the game.' The kids stood their ground and I spent the rest of the break time being tripped up, punched in the arm and called names, this meant that I pretty much didn't play in that particular game, sure I was on one of the teams, got the ball a couple of times, but I played nowhere near as good as I could have and I feel at times my depression is that bully - it comes in and knocks me for 6 leaving me almost scared to do things I'd want to do, I mean I got invited to go watch the Charity Shield game in town but just couldn't force myself to go out there and face the world again, and I know I'd be there and trying my best to enjoy the event but it'd be nowhere near as enjoyable as normal times I go out.

Right I think I'd better end this here before I start to get myself upset again, however it does feel good to have gotten some of my thoughts out.