Stuck again

I am back to feeling very much stuck again, and not knowing how to move forward. Well I do know a lot of things that can / need / should be done, but it is just not happening. I do not have it in me at the moment to do all that needs to be done. Not even the little steps. No umph.

Frustration and procrastination

I am again stuck in a downward spiral of worrying about the future and how to get to where we need to be. To where I want to be. Although at the moment I do not know where that is. So I am currently spending my time being frustrated and procrastinating thus not getting very far with anything.

Any suggestions?

What do you guys to when you feel this way? Do you feel this way? Is it only me? I would give anything to go back to my life before depression and anxiety became part of it.
We can’t all feel on top all the time. Feeling like this is part of this $%$$^&%(*^$&%$$£$”!£ illness. Today I am struggling to be the positive, supportive one. There, I said it. Do I feel better for it? Hrm.

Quality time with the other half

On a happier note, I had a great day yesterday. I met Helen at The Allergy and Free from Show in Glasgow, happing attended a blogger meeting beforehand. What made me happy was spending a day together with Helen, doing things that matter to us both. It also inlcuded a trip to a Swedish flatpack store which is always a win/win situation.

Today is a new day, with good things to come. I know I will get out of this dark place. Again.

Have a fantastic week you all!

-Rosita

Being a strong person

I have always considered myself to be a strong person, and fairly confident. Always being a bit of a loner, doing things my way without being too concerned about other people’s opinions.

Fast forward to when I had my breakdown, I felt anything but strong or confident. I felt mainly that I was a failure and good for nothing. Looking at it now, how on earth did it get to that point?

The job

I will always hold work accountable for this to a large extent. Obviously you can argue that I should have left and sought alternative employment before it got to that point, however I got so stuck in my thoughts that the only way was to continue working where I was. Needless to say, I had gotten to such a bad place that there simply was no alternative, and I simply did not have the energy to do anything about it. I kept thinking that it will get better, I will get there, give it time and the job will change and I will be happy at work again. Right, well it does not work that way, does it?

Banging your head against a brick wall

When you do a job where you work against your beliefs then this grinds you down. Being a police officer can be a very good job, and I did thoroughly enjoy it the first few years. It is when you cannot do the job for which you signed up for but continue to bang your head against the brick wall that this starts to wear you down. In my case it meant I went from a happy and strong person to someone good for nothing who just cried all the time. We are all different and I know a lot of very good police officers who are really good at their job and really enjoy it. For all of those, I know as many who are on a slippery slope to depression, anxiety and mental health issues, if not there already. So although there were other things that brought this on in my case, the police service as a whole has an awful lot to answer for.

A strong person

Ever since I started my journey with mental health issues, I have struggled with a lot of things. One of the big things was thinking: ”I am a strong person, how on earth did this happen to me?”. Probably also coupled with: “I can’t believe this is happening to me”. I also did not know what was happening, other than crying all the time.

Help

Going to the GP helped in some ways, with time off and getting medication. I was put on the waiting list for the community mental health team. Hearing that the waiting time was two to three months, Helen took matters into her own hands and found a private psychologist for me to contact to arrange talking therapy sessions. Within a couple of weeks, I set off for my first appointment. Needless to say, this made me even more anxious. I told the psychologist what had brought me to the session, and she told me about depressive illness. She also said this is something that happens to strong people. When I heard that, I cried again and more. I felt such a relief. I am a strong person!

The limbic system

The counsellor told me about something called the limbic system (for a fuller explanation of what this is, please read more here).
She explained the limbic system is the control centre of most processes in the body, including temperature, sleep, hormones and keeping your mood at a steady level. Imagine the limbic system as a fuse box: when it gets overloaded, the fuse blows. Stress is the most common cause of overload . Lazy people do not get depressive illness, simply because they do not do enough work. Strong people just keep on going until something breaks. When she told me all of this, it all made sense. This was crucial in my recovery.

Self loving

To all you lovely people out there whose confidence has taken a knock and you feel down in the dumps, please know that there is a way out of it. You need to start loving yourself and be as nice you yourself as you are to those around you. Start by saying no, exercise, be outside in the sun, and eat well. Also take time to do the things you love, especially if you no longer do them.

More importantly, if you cannot cope on your own then you must ask for help. There are many people and places who can help you. Know that you are not alone. Please let me know if I can help.

-Rosita

Time for reflection

The last couple of years have been an emotional roller coaster to say the least. I have had help from various people and professionals around me, all with their specific purpose at the time. As you might have seen in a previous post, I decided I needed to reach out again and ask for help (read this blog here).

CBT

I have now started counselling and CBT, and I am excited about both. This is very personal to me, but I also feel that I want to share some parts of it as I believe that is important. I had a long chat with the CBT therapist about all events leading up to the juice-incident (read about this here) and this caused me again to put in to words how I felt. I believe (in my non-professional opinion) that my anxiety took over a long time ago, leading to a downward spiral of negative thinking which then literally made me depressed. When I initially made contact with the CBT clinic there was an assessment with lots of questions about how I felt. The therapist gave me feedback on this, and the score for anxiety was by far greater than depression. To me that makes a lot of sense, and also confirms how I feel. The aim is that she will provide me with tools for dealing with my anxiety, and this is very exciting.

Counselling

The counselling is a talking therapy, and it is different from the one I had previously. As the counsellor pointed out, and that I had not thought of, it was more looking at tools to help me get through the day. What we are hoping to do now is getting to the bottom of why I feel the way I do. He is a nice guy and I feel comfortable speaking to him. It is difficult too at times. I realise I’ve spent the last few years not really thinking about things, or reflecting. I have simply just existed if that makes sense. One reason for this is that it is the easiest thing to do. But it does not mean that it is healthy. I’m very good at not talking and bottling things up, however that is all changing now.

Stand up for myself

There are a few things I really want to work with for myself. The one thing that stands out right now is that I always feel that I have to go along with what other people say and do, that I find it so difficult to stand up for myself and say “you know, that does not actually suit me right now”, or “I don’t agree with with that”. I feel that doing or saying anything that rocks the boat is just so difficult, so difficult that I just agree with what people say. That in itself is clearly not healthy. I feel it is certainly a huge factor contributing to me feeling the way I do. When you constantly do and say what others do or say, or expect you to do, then it’s easy to understand that I feel that I’ve lost myself along with all confidence and self-esteem. Again, this is something which is difficult to talk about, but then I feel that I should. This feeling is not based on what others expect of me, which is a nice little learning example. I also feel that by writing this down, I become more committed.

So there we are. If I was to give you one piece of advice, it would be to speak up for yourself and do what is good for you. Do not bottle it up.

Keep moving

I am looking forward to continuing my journey towards a happier self. That is what it is, a journey. I feel I was stationary for quite a while and I am now moving again. And speaking of moving, it is time to put my trainers out and head out for an outdoor gym session with the other spud this morning. It is raining but that’s fine too.

I hope you all have a good week. Please feel free to get in contact if anything here has bothered you, or if you feel that it has been good to read about my experiences. This journey is not a book with precise directions on how to get better, we can all learn from each other!

-Rosita

Heads up…. a post on antidepressants

I saw this article “Sertraline: Antidepressant works ‘by reducing anxiety symptoms first” on BBC and I find it very interesting. Sertraline is the antidepressant I take. Apparently it reduces anxiety first then depression weeks later. Have a read of the article here.
All I can say that it works for me, and it did just that.

Antidepressants

I never in a million years thought I would be taking antidepressants but there you have it. I started taking them and I went from crying almost non-stop every day to going days without crying. The relief was immense! As I’m sure some of you know, this constant crying is so tiring and draining. It also certainly does not make you any less depressed. I can only speak for myself but this was my experience. Once my anxiety levels went down, I was in a better place to work on everything else. When you are too anxious you’re in a constant fight or flight mode. Like my counsellor said, with medication my brain was able to calm down and process information which ultimately started helping my recovery.

My advice

I will say this: if a professional (not me, your colleagues or the check out lady in your local supermarket) recommend that you start taking medication then you should seriously consider doing just that. I had mine for a couple of weeks in a drawer in the bathroom before I actually started taking them. Having now been on them for quite some time, I believe I am highly functioning again, and working on getting back to how I was before this all took over. We also changed where we lived and got a new job, which also helped with getting better. But I do not believe that it would have been as successful as it is if it wasn’t for the medication.

-Rosita