A Reminder

Monday served as a grim reminder of just how unpredictable depression can be. Just how hard it can hit back after an easy - or at least relatively smooth - time.
It came out of no where, really. I'm well aware that a 'good' day for me usually involves a period of feeling down or restless or unsettled - I don't often get whole days of feeling good at all. I guess I do know how it happened. I like routine, although I use that phrase loosely. My routine consists of being at home, in Newcastle, and sleeping in my own bed - not travelling too much, going to work, sometimes meeting someone in town for coffee etc.

Both weekends of the last fortnight, I've spent in wildly different places. One was at Bloodstock - a festival in Derbyshire and the other was a family wedding in Gretna Green. Between the two I was only at work once. All the packing, unpacking, washing and repeating had me worn out by Sunday just gone - when I got home from the wedding. I had intended to go out with some friends - just meeting them at the pub like I almost always do on a Sunday night - but in the end I didn't feel up to it. I was low and tired and figured I'd be no fun to be around. Fortunately, I'd picked myself up a bit by the time my other half came home.
Monday, however, was something else entirely. I was distracted, withdrawn. I kept sitting down and losing myself in my train of thought. I didn't know where this had come from and I certainly didn't understand why it was happening. It wasn't until that evening that it occurred to me that I'd barely had a minute to myself in the last two weeks. I'd hardly had a chance to touch base. I hadn't seen or spoken to many people, the house was a mess because I hadn't been there to tidy it and I'd just been eating junk and snacking or having big starchy-carb meals.
I don't know how it happened. One minute I was fine - or thought I was, or thereabouts - the next I was crying uncontrollably. There was shouting. Lots of shouting. But mostly crying from me. I remember the door slamming. I remember screaming, near silently - unable to get the sound past my throat. Hoping that my flatmate wasn't in. Hoping my flatmate was in. I needed someone. To come and hold me, to comfort me, to shush me while I cried. I couldn't stop myself.
I had a hospital appointment that afternoon. I still hadn't stopped crying by the time I got there. One of the nurses rang the mental health crisis line for me because she was so concerned. Surprisingly they didn't actually do anything - I guess they didn't think I was much of a suicide risk because I'd managed to get myself to the hospital already. Despite the fact that I'd told them I intended to take my life and was concerned I would if left alone. Then again, maybe the sheer fact that I was lucid enough in that moment told them that I wouldn't do it. Or something.

I was in the hospital five and a half hours before I spoke to someone who really took the time to listen to me. Of course, by this time I'd calmed down a lot. I just didn't want to be there. I didn't want to go home either. I just wanted everything to stop. To hit pause. Throw my hands up and get off the ride. I'd had enough. More than enough.
Home wasn't better. The next day wasn't really better either. The doctor recommended a week off work with more time if needed. We fought again once I got home. I'd tried to talk. He still didn't want to have to deal with anything. I cried again. The only thing that was different is I didn't take it out on myself. Tuesday night was a little better though.
Wednesday was a little brighter. I met up with some of the girls I used to be in college with. I had tea with my parents and when I came home we weren't up long before we went to bed.

Today? Today's been better. I feel more secure in the knowledge that we're actually alright and it was just that everything was getting too intense. I've got an interview at Lush in a couple of hours and I'm bricking it. Well, I'm actually pretty excited - I'm just nervous too. I keep thinking that I know nothing about the brand or the products or anything like that but I know it's not really true. I'm looking forward to it.
It's just for a xmas temp job but hopefully I'll get kept on at the end and I'll be able to leave Sainsbury's in the new year.
That seems so far away right now but I know it'll come round in no time.

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.