Relapse . . . again

6am. Suddenly it all seems so pointless again.

I wake up and my tummy is slowly writhing, my body cannot settle and my hands shake. In my anxiety my brain works overtime searching for a cause. I am surrounded by bills. They keep coming in and yet I am not earning enough to pay the ones I already have . . . I will lose everything . . . various comments a couple of people have made recently about my working part time come back to me - I am just malingering really aren’t I. They may have been joking but it is true, if they can do it why can’t I ? I’ve always known I am a pretty useless person, so why bother at all?

It would be so easy to give in, to find some excuse to stay in bed and hide. But part of me is still functioning sensibly. It occurs to me that the feelings, the anxiety came first, then I searched around and found a reason for them outside of myself. Holding on to this thought I get up and have a shower. All I have to do is carry on. I do not have to change anything, nothing has to be “better” that can all wait, just carry on. This way things will remain the same, if I hide it will all get worse and the cycle the blackness will begin again.

I get dressed and I write this. It helps . . .

ps if you are in the same position reading this then do what I - keep going, I have have lots of these setbacks recently (you only have to look at the similarity of this post to my last one). It may feel like walking slowly and confidently past a group of hungry lions when inside you just want to run but if you want to recover it is the only way, believe me.

Those pesky kids

I awoke early with a strange feeling. My belly was tight, tensed, surrounding a swirling pool of deep nothingness within.

“That’s strange” I thought “what’s going on here?”

But as I concentrated on the feelings trying to pin them down they moved away and the more I looked the more distant they got. Then they were gone.

So I went back to sleep and as I did so I realised something - what a difference to six months ago. Back then the anxiety and dread, for that’s what the sensations were, would have overwhelmed me absorbing me into the darkness leaving a quivering wreck unable to face the world out there.

But this time without even thinking I had seperated myself off and looked at what was happening from the outside. From this perspective it was clear that the feelings had no foundation. Well no, that is not strictly true they probably arose from my current worries about money. But like the scariest horror stories it is the unknown that is most frightening. As soon as I had exposed my worry to the light of my mind and could see what was really happening they shrunk and like the monster in Scooby Do or the Wizard of Oz were revealed to be a slightly laughable old man.

And that I think is what therapy for depression is all about. Most of what you see and feel during an attack are false, but you cannot see that because you are trapped within and everywhere you look is coloured by the fog of darkness surrounding you. Therapy show you how to understand what is going on, how to step outside and look back and decide what is real and what is not, for what is real can be dealt with. It still will not be easy, problems are problems after all, but the first step is to recognise them for what they are.

Ther are different types of therapy depending on how badly affected you are, your personality, what the cause may be and how deep your pockets are. I am not a professional of course but I can talk about the route I took . . .

Vampire Reflections

Am I the burning in my fingertips as I cradle my early morning cup of tea? Just too hot, sitting on the edge pleasure, while the warmth penetrates my body. Or am I the pale grey light of dawn that creeps into the bedroom, mesmerisingly slowly whilst I sit enveloped in silence, the only one awake?

Sometimes I am no more than a list of things to be done one by one, becoming each one in turn. At work I am the dentist, conforming to a vision I have of what a dentist is and hopefully a pleasant surprise to those with a different view. Once home again I am a father, imaginative and slightly silly but hopefully inspiring and fun to be with. The same with Nicola, the man she fell in love with (and I with her), the man who said things outloud that she only thought silently to herself. Yet at the same time irritatingly unconcerned the the day to day practicalities of life.

At different times and places I am one and all of these things. But when I sit alone, what am I then? If there is anything there beyond a response to what happens around me, I cannot find it. I have looked. If I look at my hand I become my hand, if I step I become my foot pressing against the pavement but beyond thatI have yet to find anything, and the more I look the less there is.

Yet there must be something because I am here . . . but If you held a mirror up in front of me would I see any reflection?

Strange really . . .