I keep having little breakthroughs at my CBT sessions. Unfortunately, almost as soon as I've gotten home after a session I forget what it was. The breakthrough and the thinking patterns it brings don't tend to leave me, just the actual thing itself. I find this really rather annoying because I always want to write them down...
I guess I want to record them so that when I'm feeling really awful, I can remember how I should be thinking and how I can change my thinking and my behaviour to something better and more effective/productive.
I'm getting a little better at it now but I know I could still improve.
I think, tomorrow, I'm going to spend most of the day tidying the flat and things - it's getting a little out of hand... After tidying I'm going to pop into work and buy an iPad 2 - I'm astoundingly excited about this, it seems like a beautiful use of my christmas money. I think I'm going to come home, sync it all up with my mac and my iPhone, take the music off my phone, update my iPod and properly organise my life a bit. I'm feeling surprisingly productive at the moment!
Wednesday 26 December 2012
A piece of history.
About this time, nine years ago, I found out that my best friend had killed herself.
We were eleven, as close as you can be, but I had absolutely no clue what was going on in her head that Christmas day. She was found in her bedroom by a member of her family - she'd hung herself. There were plenty rumours about how and what with and what position she'd been in but to me all that was by the by. The brightest, happiest, kindest person I knew was gone.
In school I remember it was mentioned a time or two. We were offered the chance to go to counselling but none of us took it - we knew we'd be ridiculed if we did. I was continually bullied by people who had, before this event, been both friends of myself and Georgi - they told me it was my fault and that I wasn't a good enough friend or that she was never friends with me and so on and so forth. This on top of already being bullied pretty much since I started school (for being overweight, more intelligent than all of my classmates and needing glasses) made everything pretty hard.
I don't know exactly when my depression started. As for the anxiety, I've always worried a lot and sometimes it would get out of hand. My mam confessed the other day that she's been shit scared for me since Georgi died. Understandably I guess - how can you possibly know what your 11 year old daughter is thinking/feeling after that experience? Unfortunately, when I told my mam I thought I had depression, at 12 years old, she brushed it off. When I mentioned it again, she got angry. She has/had a lot of her own problems which would often have an effect on her memory, emotions or mental state so I've always figured that when I got that kind of reaction from her I should probably just drop it - I knew there was a 95% chance she would forget it ever happened anyway.
At 12, nearly 13, I started self-harming. Superficial stuff, nothing too nasty, light cuts on my arms, wrists, thighs and chest with either a pencil sharpener blade or a stanley knife. I think I was 15 when my mam found out. She completely flipped and made me swear I'd never do it again or else she'd tell my dad. I wasn't sure what this would entail exactly since he'd never really been a big part of my life after the divorce when I was 3 but I didn't want him to find out so I agreed, grudgingly. I stuck pretty well to the 'no self-harm' rule until earlier this year, the summer, just before my 20th birthday. By this point I was going to therapy but not on medication.
As much as I have, in the past, wanted to take my own life, I always think of how horribly Georgi's death affected me. I don't want to do that to anyone. I don't want to cause my boyfriend, my friends, my family, pain in killing myself. I want my life to make a difference. I want to live for both me and for Georgi - taking life to the fullest and being the best I can possibly be.
Sometimes, I think it's that kind of pressure that I put on myself that can be the cause of my depression and anxiety but, if it keeps me alive, that's good enough.
We were eleven, as close as you can be, but I had absolutely no clue what was going on in her head that Christmas day. She was found in her bedroom by a member of her family - she'd hung herself. There were plenty rumours about how and what with and what position she'd been in but to me all that was by the by. The brightest, happiest, kindest person I knew was gone.
In school I remember it was mentioned a time or two. We were offered the chance to go to counselling but none of us took it - we knew we'd be ridiculed if we did. I was continually bullied by people who had, before this event, been both friends of myself and Georgi - they told me it was my fault and that I wasn't a good enough friend or that she was never friends with me and so on and so forth. This on top of already being bullied pretty much since I started school (for being overweight, more intelligent than all of my classmates and needing glasses) made everything pretty hard.
I don't know exactly when my depression started. As for the anxiety, I've always worried a lot and sometimes it would get out of hand. My mam confessed the other day that she's been shit scared for me since Georgi died. Understandably I guess - how can you possibly know what your 11 year old daughter is thinking/feeling after that experience? Unfortunately, when I told my mam I thought I had depression, at 12 years old, she brushed it off. When I mentioned it again, she got angry. She has/had a lot of her own problems which would often have an effect on her memory, emotions or mental state so I've always figured that when I got that kind of reaction from her I should probably just drop it - I knew there was a 95% chance she would forget it ever happened anyway.
At 12, nearly 13, I started self-harming. Superficial stuff, nothing too nasty, light cuts on my arms, wrists, thighs and chest with either a pencil sharpener blade or a stanley knife. I think I was 15 when my mam found out. She completely flipped and made me swear I'd never do it again or else she'd tell my dad. I wasn't sure what this would entail exactly since he'd never really been a big part of my life after the divorce when I was 3 but I didn't want him to find out so I agreed, grudgingly. I stuck pretty well to the 'no self-harm' rule until earlier this year, the summer, just before my 20th birthday. By this point I was going to therapy but not on medication.
As much as I have, in the past, wanted to take my own life, I always think of how horribly Georgi's death affected me. I don't want to do that to anyone. I don't want to cause my boyfriend, my friends, my family, pain in killing myself. I want my life to make a difference. I want to live for both me and for Georgi - taking life to the fullest and being the best I can possibly be.
Sometimes, I think it's that kind of pressure that I put on myself that can be the cause of my depression and anxiety but, if it keeps me alive, that's good enough.
Friday 21 December 2012
Medicated
So since the blog's maiden voyage - well, post, rather - I've done a few things. I've been to the doctor's. The wonderful, jumpy Dr McMeds then upped my Citalopram to 30mg from 20mg and put me on 2mg of Diazepam - a sleeping medication administered if Propanolol 'doesn't quite hit the mark'.
I've also decided that this 'privacy' lark is pointless - if I was THAT bothered, I'd obviously have created a totally new and relatively untraceable email address rather than using the one connected to everything I have (pretty much) on the internet. And not just that but I know this blog is linked in some way to my Google+ account so privacy is pretty much a moot point. That said, hi folks, I'm Sarah. I'll be putting up an about me somewhere and possibly editing this page in other ways to add more of the 'me' element.
The last major thing I've done, I think, is tell my mum about all this. Not the blog, but all of the depression and anxiety and therapy and medication. I always thought I'd never do that because she'd worry too much or freak out or be angry but she was surprisingly calm about it all. She said she was relieved and proud that I was doing the right thing and getting help when I recognised that I needed it. When I told her I hadn't wanted to tell her in case she was worried, she said she'd been worried about me since Georgi died (more on this later). There was also some truth-telling on her part as well but I'm not too sure how appropriate it is to mention all of that really. As much as I'm not bothered about my privacy, the personal dealings of my friends and family are another matter entirely.
All that said, I have to go and get ready for work now. I'll do a 'Medicated cont.' either tonight when I get in or tomorrow.
I've also decided that this 'privacy' lark is pointless - if I was THAT bothered, I'd obviously have created a totally new and relatively untraceable email address rather than using the one connected to everything I have (pretty much) on the internet. And not just that but I know this blog is linked in some way to my Google+ account so privacy is pretty much a moot point. That said, hi folks, I'm Sarah. I'll be putting up an about me somewhere and possibly editing this page in other ways to add more of the 'me' element.
The last major thing I've done, I think, is tell my mum about all this. Not the blog, but all of the depression and anxiety and therapy and medication. I always thought I'd never do that because she'd worry too much or freak out or be angry but she was surprisingly calm about it all. She said she was relieved and proud that I was doing the right thing and getting help when I recognised that I needed it. When I told her I hadn't wanted to tell her in case she was worried, she said she'd been worried about me since Georgi died (more on this later). There was also some truth-telling on her part as well but I'm not too sure how appropriate it is to mention all of that really. As much as I'm not bothered about my privacy, the personal dealings of my friends and family are another matter entirely.
All that said, I have to go and get ready for work now. I'll do a 'Medicated cont.' either tonight when I get in or tomorrow.
Tuesday 18 December 2012
Hello World!
Now that I've started this blog, and configured it all to how I want it (for now at least), I don't know what to write.
I'm simply not entirely sure where to start. I want to introduce myself but I also want to keep my level of privacy. I want to get straight to the point but that seems a little blunt. I don't want to be all namby-pamby but at the same time I don't want to start this blog by being overly brutal. That's just not me.
I guess we'll have to go with at least a slightly more direct approach for now at least. Doubtless it won't last, it makes me slightly uncomfortable since it's very "Look at me! Behold my issues!" and people who are like that piss me off something rotten - mental problems are not something to be celebrated.
I was recently - I'll get a more specific timeline later - diagnosed with depression and anxiety. At this point I was already undergoing my second course of treatment for 'low mood, anxiety and low self-esteem'. My depression, at the time of my diagnosis, was so severe I was immediately advised to start taking Citalopram. A week later, the Citalopram - two per day - had made my anxiety so bad that I also had to start taking up to three Propanolol every day, as needed.
I'm going to go into exactly how my therapy sessions and my medication have effected me in due course but for now I think I'm going to go back to writing a little more about what I want to do with this blog.
I've been blogging for over a year now on Wordpress but it's most recent interface change was the last straw - I used to hate the way blogger looked in a similar way to how I'm uncomfortable with the way Wordpress has changed. I also had a number of people following that blog who don't currently know about my mental health situation and I would like to keep it that way until I am completely ready.
I'm not really sure what to do about the rather sizeable number of posts I have over on WP. I kind of want to have everything archived in one place but at the same time I'm not sure if I want to go about importing them all - e.g. is it really relevant? - and that would probably take forever thus I can't really be bothered right now...
I want to have this blog primarily as a 'this is how I'm coping with my conditions' record but I also want to have it as my main blog for my daily life. I want to be able to post here everyday at least once about everything and anything from my medication to my work, my family and my pole dancing!
I hope it works out alright - blogging really does help with the whole depression and anxiety thing. It's nice to get everything off my chest.
I'm simply not entirely sure where to start. I want to introduce myself but I also want to keep my level of privacy. I want to get straight to the point but that seems a little blunt. I don't want to be all namby-pamby but at the same time I don't want to start this blog by being overly brutal. That's just not me.
I guess we'll have to go with at least a slightly more direct approach for now at least. Doubtless it won't last, it makes me slightly uncomfortable since it's very "Look at me! Behold my issues!" and people who are like that piss me off something rotten - mental problems are not something to be celebrated.
I was recently - I'll get a more specific timeline later - diagnosed with depression and anxiety. At this point I was already undergoing my second course of treatment for 'low mood, anxiety and low self-esteem'. My depression, at the time of my diagnosis, was so severe I was immediately advised to start taking Citalopram. A week later, the Citalopram - two per day - had made my anxiety so bad that I also had to start taking up to three Propanolol every day, as needed.
I'm going to go into exactly how my therapy sessions and my medication have effected me in due course but for now I think I'm going to go back to writing a little more about what I want to do with this blog.
I've been blogging for over a year now on Wordpress but it's most recent interface change was the last straw - I used to hate the way blogger looked in a similar way to how I'm uncomfortable with the way Wordpress has changed. I also had a number of people following that blog who don't currently know about my mental health situation and I would like to keep it that way until I am completely ready.
I'm not really sure what to do about the rather sizeable number of posts I have over on WP. I kind of want to have everything archived in one place but at the same time I'm not sure if I want to go about importing them all - e.g. is it really relevant? - and that would probably take forever thus I can't really be bothered right now...
I want to have this blog primarily as a 'this is how I'm coping with my conditions' record but I also want to have it as my main blog for my daily life. I want to be able to post here everyday at least once about everything and anything from my medication to my work, my family and my pole dancing!
I hope it works out alright - blogging really does help with the whole depression and anxiety thing. It's nice to get everything off my chest.
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