After a long absence...

16/9/13

Or at least what feels to me like a long absence, I'm back!

August was, by and large, pretty nasty. I haven't quite decided how I'm going to run down everything that went on so here's a chronological list of most of what went on. 

1) My therapy sessions with my psychologist started up in earnest. 

2) I wasn't feeling too hot on the 30mg mirtazapine so my doctor put me up to 45mg. I then missed my second appointment with Marie, my psychologist. 

3) I went away to Bloodstock for five days - the first weekend of August. It was amazing and I met some really great people but it was also really tiring. 

4) My flatmate decided he was moving out, when I got home from work one evening, and I then found out that my other half had already found us a new flatmate without asking me. I must point out here that I didn't mind so much that I wasn't consulted - I really like the new guy and it wasn't like I had anyone to ask anyway. 

5) My gran (mam's mam) took ill due to ongoing heart problems. She's had a narrowing valve for a lot of years now but none of us were ever expecting anything to come of it. 

6) I went away to a family wedding in Gretna Green for a weekend. It was lovely, I had a great time even though I was largely on my own - Matt was supposed to have the time off but couldn't due to work commitments. 

7) Upon returning from the wedding, I had a really bad day exacerbated by an 'argument'. I turned to self-harm and contemplated taking my life. It got so bad that I had to go to A&E to keep myself safe/alive. I was then given two weeks off work and more diazepam to recover. 

8) My gran had valve replacement surgery and then proceeded to progress amazingly. She was allowed home less than a week after her surgery and has continued to improve steadily. 

9) My grandma (step dad's mam) was rushed into hospital with internal bleeding and organ failure. While in hospital she contracted peritonitis and pneumonia. She later died on the bank holiday Monday after being in South Shields General for seven days. I visited her only once before she died - I was the last grandchild to go. 

10) Matt got his interview for college. It was scheduled for the 28th, my birthday, and he passed well after a fortnight of really hard work.

11) I started therapy again. In the session Marie told me of a special group therapy course that they'll be running this winter. 10 2.5 hour sessions with approximately ten people all with moderate to severe long-standing depression. She think's that I suit the criteria and I thought that it sounded like a good opportunity.

12) I missed therapy again. I slept in - again - meaning I managed to sleep for a solid 14 hours. I rang in and rearranged but now I'm just waiting on my appointment letter arriving. 

13) I turned 21! I ended up having to celebrate the occasion 3 times - twice with family and once with friends (twice with friends if you count my actual birthday, on which Matt and I went out for pizza and did nothing else. 

14) All the while, I was trying to make it to the RVI three times a week for light treatment for my psoriasis. My skin condition is exacerbated by stress so you can imagine how well it was going... And I started working again. 

15) Oh and my pay was about £300 short after being on the sick. I should get it this month though.

THEN September started and, with that, the 3rd year of my FdA in Photography. Talk about stress! 

Today, when I got to the hospital, I asked how many sessions I had left. Just so I could tell work how long it'd be until I went back to my normal shifts - my Wednesday and Monday shifts had to be pushed back two hours so I could fit everything in. My psoriasis had largely cleared up a week or two ago but, knowing that I still had about a month left, I didn't point this out. Also no one asked me. However today, after the nurse said that I had two weeks left, she actually asked how it was clearing up. I told her that apart from a tiny scar on my shin and a tiny, slightly dry patch on my hip, everything treated by the light was gone. At which point she was like "Oh well you're done then!" 

I looked at her from my little light box, standing there in my smalls and a hospital gown, before she added: "Since you're here, have your treatment today and then we'll discharge you."

*I must also point out that, as I write this, there's a toddler sitting on the bus next to me screaming because his mother won't give him any sweets. It's very distracting. I'm also soaked because, before I went into the hospital, it was pretty sunny, once I got out like 10 minutes later, it was pissing down and I'm wearing cloth shoes.*

It's nice, finally being discharged. I don't have to slog it to the city centre three times a week only to come home half an hour after getting there - it seemed like such a dreadful waste of time. And I won't have to work until 10pm on Wednesdays.
Well that's it for today I think, more later - or tomorrow - but I have to go to work now...

Insomniac Ramblings

I can smell chocolate.
I don't know why and I don't know where it's coming from. But I know that I can smell it... I think it might be from when Matt was eating one of his Easter eggs earlier - there was a chocolate-looking mark on the bed where he'd been sitting.
There's also a chance that it might be coming from my Herbalife shake tub... They're chocolate flavoured and remarkably realistic! I'm enjoying having them - they're quick and easy to make, they taste good and they're generally pretty convenient. With the added weightloss bonus of course...

Anyway, back to what I was originally going to post today...
I've realised that although I started this blog with the intention of going through how I was coping with depression and anxiety and how it all made me feel, I'm not sure I've done much of that.

For me, depression makes me feel worthless and as if I'm not good enough. In turn, that stops me from trying because I believe that I'm crap anyway, so why bother?

Some days, I find it especially hard to get out of bed because I just haven't got the strength to face the day. Everything seems bleak and dark and pointless. I don't want to do anything. Anything I do do is faced done with a rather miserable attitude of 'why am I bothering, I don't want to be here' regardless of how well it's hidden.

I hate the fact that I have to fake smiles. It's exhausting. It's stupid. I don't see why I should do this for others half the time.

Of course, that, to me, comes across as extreme selfishness - something I was raised to hate and avoid at all costs.
This, ergo, makes me feel horribly guilty - like a truly despicable human being. I disgust myself and hate myself. There are times when these feelings get so bad all I want to do is die. I don't want to kill myself, I just want to die.
Of course, there are the other times when I do want to take my own life. Whether it be through overdose or through cutting myself somewhere vital. Sometimes I cut myself to feel in control when everything else is too crazy. When it feels like the world has stopped turning but I haven't and all I can hear is my own mental screaming and my own voice and the other voice telling me how worthless and horrible I am. When all I can see are flaws in everything. When I feel so much that I feel nothing. The last of my most recent scars are nearly healed and the itching is driving me mad.

It's pretty tough. Sometimes, like now, I can see that I don't give myself enough credit for dealing with this and getting the help that I have. Sometimes, I don't feel like it's been enough. I know that I'm going to go to the doctors tomorrow and tell him that I don't feel any better. I'm going to tell him that I in fact feel emotionally dead most of the time. That time itself seems to take three times as long. That I'm spacing out, confused, disorientated. I'm not sure what the outcome of that will be but I'll let you know either way.

On a somewhat lighter note, Matt had his closest friend visiting today so I cooked us all whole wheat spaghetti bolognese. It was amazing. We had it with warm, freshly made bread and garlic Lurpack. There's still some bolognese left - I'm planning on having some tomorrow with rice. Or maybe just with salad. Or with pasta salad. I haven't quite decided. Obviously...

Normal People Things

Aside from all the medication, I've recently been doing more normal things like going out for drinks with Emily and going to a Spring Break themed house party hosted by two of the guys I know.

On Friday, with Emily, after squeeing over her baby turtles for a few hours, I went to Tokyo (a cocktail bar in Newcastle, not the capital of Japan) and in the space of three hours we managed to spend £120 of her fiancé's money. She matched me drink for drink (most of which were £7 or £7.50) and then, the next day, was violently ill. I was hungover but, all in all, fine. In the course of the night, one girl and her friend told me I looked 'a bit too booby' and 'awful' which I (and my 36DDs) found very amusing. She insinuated that I was a slut - while dressed like one herself. Personally, I had no make-up on, was wearing a red, thigh-length jumper with a shallow v-neck, galaxy print leggings (not BlackMilk unfortunately) and red converse type shoes. She had a black and white geometric print dress that barely covered her arse and (small) chest and had a shovel full of make-up on. Clearly it was my naked skin that offended her. When I mentioned this to the barman, he offered to spit in her drink.
Later on, another girl asked one of the girls serving on the bar if Tokyo was in China. This resulted in me having a long and arduous conversation enlightening her to the placement of Tokyo in Japan and that, no, Japan is not in China either.
When I got home, Matt was amused at how incredibly mashed I was and later complained that it was 'an absolute mission' to get me to drink an Alka-Seltzer before bed. He was convinced I was going to throw up but I didn't even though I felt like it later when I was at work...
If you ever go to Tokyo, get the Eggs Benedictine and the Tokyo Zombie - they're both absolutely incredible.

On Saturday, after the theatre (Cinderella on Ice with the Russian Ice Stars), I headed over to Andy and Andrew's for their Spring Break party. They even had an inflatable palm tree in the front room! It was an amazing night. I took it pretty easy, after drinking all night the night before and being busy all day Saturday, I really couldn't be bothered. Still with limbo competitions and dance offs, everybody had lots of drunken fun. I'm definitely looking forward to the summer one during which there'll be a BBQ and they'll actually be using the inflatable palm tree for it's true purpose - a giant ice bucket and drinks holder!!!

As for today, I spent the first half writing and the rest doing house work. Now that Matt's heading to Tae Kwon Do, I'm going to do some flexibility training and yoga before making something nice and healthy for tea.

To rant or not to rant, that is the question...

Well this was supposed to go up a couple of days ago but I was in such a state, mentally and physically, that I was unable to bring myself to write the post.

My doctors, well their receptionists, managed to so royally screw up my prescription I had to go without my propranolol tablets for two and a half days. By the end of the first day, I was hearing things, by the lunch on the second day, I was seeing things. When I finally got the tablets at 9.20 on the third day, I was having full on visual and auditory hallucinations, could barely function and, consequentially nearly threw myself into the road to get rid of it all. My deterioration was so rapid and so incredible that it totally knocked me off my feet and, four days later, I'm still feeling the effects of it.

Aside from being missing the propranolol, I was missing the diazepam for a day and a half and the citalopram for a day too. It wasn't fun - looking back on it, it has a kind of morbid amusement but beyond that, I genuinely think I couldn't have made it through another night.

Medication Mishap

Verbal exchange of the day:

At the doctors -

Receptionist: Well since your prescription isn't here, I can probably get it sorted for you tomorrow.

Me: No, that's not really going to work for me - I ran out of Citalopram yesterday...

Receptionist: So you won't be ok?

Me: No, I really do need it...

(For contextual purposes, I had previously been told that my script would just be there to pick up when I needed it and I really wouldn't be able to manage a day or two with no anti-depressants AND no anti-anxiety. That really just wouldn't be a thing - if I wasn't dead by the morning, I'd be a burbling, incarcerated mess...)

So! Today was a little bit mental. I was just buzzing around doing photography all afternoon for Mind and then trying to get everything printed off in time at college for the family portraits before the next class started as well as sorting out the quality of half of them... As consequence of my crazy day, I was three hours late for college and seven hours late in taking a third of the normal dose of my medication. 

Thankfully, I'm now sitting and blogging, just finishing off a Jager and Coke, with all the guys (Matt, Boz and Dale) while they play Magic.

On a better note, I used my first ever Lush bath bomb last night - it was one of the Christmas ones, Cinders - and it was absolutely amazing! By the end of all the fizzing and the popping candy, I was pretty much just sitting in a bath of yellow which, while it sounds weird, was actually pretty fun. I also got to use Soak 'n' Float and Superbalm for my currently horrendously psoriasis-covered scalp. Unfortunately, I didn't wash it all out thoroughly enough so my hair just looked and felt all horrible and greasy this morning which warranted another shower and, I can safely say, after two uses, Soak 'n' Float, despite its godawful scent, is incredible and has already made a hell of a difference! I'm looking forward to just seeing more and more improvement as I use it more. 

I got my first 'proper' bit of Cath Kidston clothing yesterday! My auntie bought me one of the new patterned dresses as part exchange for books that I had sold her. It's the gorgeous strawberry patterned one, I think I'm going to wear it tomorrow when I go to visit Charlotte. Today, as a part of an outfit to go with the dress, I bought myself a Cath Kidston cardigan in plain red. It's gorgeous. As well as a set of four hair grips and, since we collectively spent £30 or more twice before the 28th of February and got two stamps on the little card thing they have going at the moment, I got a free clasp purse worth £12. I chose the pale blue one with strawberries to match the dress.

As for work, I did over 30 hours last week whereas I'd usually only do 12 per week so I'm rather looking forward to getting paid next month. One of my shifts was 12 hours on its own whereas another one ended up being 11 when it should only have been 9. Once I was called in early, one was a normal shift and the other was pretty much forced overtime... By forced, I mean I said no, firmly, to my team leader to which he acted as if I'd said 'well I guess, but only four hours' and then put me in for 9am till 1pm on Sunday. It's because of this that I justified paying an obscene amount for a plain red woollen cardigan which I could totally make myself...

Anyway, because I was so distracted during the writing of this post, it has like no continuity whatsoever. Sorry about that. I shall maybe, maybe write some more tomorrow for you lovely lot but for now, I'm going to play on The Sims 3!

A Post From The Snowstorm and Happy Burns Night!

Well it's snowing outside - nothing new if you've been in the UK at all for the last fortnight - and it's forecast for about 10cm over the weekend. 10cm! That's like the middle of my shins! It's already ankle height - coming in over the tops of my shoes when I walk - it'll actually just swallow me whole if it gets  that much deeper.

That aside, most things have been going pretty well. My tattoo has healed beautifully, my degree's going well and my medication has stabilised for now. I think I'm successfully not addicted to Diazepam and my last therapy session is on the first Monday in February. It would have been last Monday but due to the inclement weather conditions, Sarah and I just spoke over the phone. We agreed that, because my anxiety was still quite an issue and I didn't really want any telephone sessions, she would provide me with a reading list of helpful books in order to try and keep everything under control. My review date for where I'm at mentally will now be May 4th (Star Wars Day!!!) rather than the 21st of April but not to worry - it's a three month wait whichever way you slice it! I've got a review at the doctors for my tablets in a week or two, I'll have to mention that I'm still getting very anxious from time to time so I'm not sure what'll be going on there. I'm fairly certain he want's to take me off the Diazepam altogether since it's so addictive but I'm just a touch worried that I'll get too anxious and things without it... Maybe he'll exchange it for something else rather than just leaving me hanging.

Work's not been too bad - that problem colleague has now mostly downgraded to telling all the staff members not to talk to me because "they'll get in trouble" since I apparently grassed him up. It's annoying but it's schoolboy stuff and I can't be bothered to get involved. This week has held loads of overtime for me - nearly twenty hours! - so that's double my contract and a bit. Because of this, I'm looking forward to my rather healthy pay slip at the end of February! To be fair, I'm going to need it - my bank account has looked rather grim since Christmas Eve. Hey ho I suppose, hopefully I'll still be able to get that grant from Student Finance for my degree. I should have applied for it in September but never mind...

When I'm not working or at college, I'm either sleeping, writing or doing housework these days. I've got a couple of photography projects to work on including some voluntary stuff for a friend and the charity, Mind. I'm at a festival on the 15th of February in Carlisle for Get Your Rock Out. It's called Rockmantic and is for all the rock 'lovers' out there. I think it a pretty cute idea to be honest and I'm really, really looking forward to going down. Hopefully if I do well enough there they'll send me to Hammerfest or Bloodstock or one of the other big festivals this year. I was asked to do Damnation for them last year but I couldn't get the time of work. I'll be buying my train tickets for Rockmantic in the morning - I'm super excited! With all of that in mind, hopefully at some point in the near future, Charlotte and I will be going down to the Warner Brothers Studio in Watford to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter for which I am even more excited!!! She's been before but really wants to go again and I've not been and am desperate to go - I had the chance last year but couldn't make it at the time, nor did I have any money for their gift shop and I would have been very sad indeed if I couldn't buy anything while I was there...

There was more that I was going to post tonight but I got distracted by a few different things at once e.g. apple crumble tart and twitter. And Pottermore. And Burns Night. And Wattpad... So nighty night. I may write more tomorrow during the break in my shifts at work. 11.30-4.30 and then 6-10 - the joys!

The End Is Nigh... Look Busy!

So next week heralds the end of my CBT sessions. I'm almost looking forward to it - my Monday mornings can be my lazy day lie-in again for the first time in forever! It's not only that though, I'm excited to be able to really have a chance to do this on my own at last - to test myself and see if I'm ready to stand up without Sarah as my weekly safety net.
Standard procedure for the end of a session of intensive CBT is 'give it three months and reevaluate'. So on March 21st - fitting, I believe at least, since it's the first day of Spring - I've got to see where I'm at and how far I've come mentally and physically as to whether I needed any top-up sessions or new courses of therapy etc. In a few weeks I'm back at the doctors to see how my medication is going. I'm finally used to not having so much Diazepam now so everything has calmed down nicely where that's concerned. Eventually I'll be able to come off everything, I think, but I'm not sure when - if tablets and them occasionally making me ill or really hyper is the price I have to pay to deal with the depression and anxiety, then I'll go through with it gladly.
As far as my psoriasis goes, it's getting steadily worse but I don't particularly want to go back to the hospital about it. I'm thinking just sun-beds and lots of intensive moisturiser - I'm not using my steroid creams at all any more, they're just too damaging for my skin. They make it thin and fragile and greasy and eventually, I get resistant to them so they stop working and I end up needing stronger ones. Frankly, they're foul. They look awful. They smell awful. They feel awful. Some of them stain clothes and bedding. It's just not fun. It could certainly be worse but if I can get by without I'm damn well going to!

On a substantially happier note, I got some new Benefit make-up recently which I've been desperate to try out properly. I got Brows A-Go-Go yesterday to go with todays eye brow waxing (first ever wax, it's really not that bad!) so I think I'm going to use that properly tomorrow when I go out to visit Stitch whom I haven't seen in quite a bit over a year. I'm taking cupcakes, six vanilla and six chocolate, as a 'sorry it's been so long but now I've got a working oven' present for him, Kymmie and Harrison. I'm looking forward to it. It's always a really relaxing environment and we've been good friends for ages ergo I'm fully intending to spend the vast majority of the day there.
I also got two assignments from college today, one is solely a photographic project - painting with light in order to advertise a product - and the other is an essay that has to be accompanied by an image in the style of the photographer that you chose to do the essay about. I'm looking forward to both of them - mostly the painting with light one, to be honest - and I've got a pretty long time to do them both too.

For the remainder of the time before I sleep I think I'm going to read. Nighty night!