Driving WINs

Once again, I start off with apologies for my recent silence!  I’m still trying to get this employment issue sorted, which is taxing my somewhat reduced brainpower of late and leaving me mentally exhausted.  The words really don’t come so easily when I’m drained and I find it counter-productive to try and force it.  The local Citizens Advice Bureau have been fantastic, but at the end of the day, I have to gather the paperwork and figures myself, and make some long-winded phone calls, which is all a bit of a strain.  I’m currently sat here waiting for a call back from a local employment rights advice service, who will call me back on my landline, “within 72 hours” (I called them on Tuesday afternoon).  I would love to be out and about appreciating some of the signs of Spring that have started appearing, but no, I’m tied to my house.  Oh well, it’s given me the opportunity and inclination to do some blogging, at least!

I’d say I’m in a weird middle-phase at the moment.  The good days have started to become more frequent – it’s probably about a 50:50 split.  Even the bad days aren’t so bad, as I’m learning to take a step back and try to put a positive spin on things before I allow myself to be engulfed by despair.  I’ve actually now finished my course of CBT that I was referred to by my GP, and feel it’s really helped me start to change my attitude toward myself.  The next few weeks will be the acid test of whether I can keep it up without that weekly appointment to help push it forward in my mind.  I’ve had a few “little wins”, as I call them, that have helped to encourage me.  Getting down the Citizens Advice Bureau in the first place was definitely one.  I decided that visiting in person would be a lot less daunting for me, as I get very nervous on the phone, plus my chances of getting through were remote with how busy they are.  A reason to get out of the house is always good, anyway.  I arrived, filled in my details on their little form, then steeled myself for the wait.  There were only three people there before me, but they only had one volunteer in that afternoon, so it was going to be about an hour.  I find that kind of hanging around, with no real idea of how long it will be, to be a real danger time for me, as I start to overthink things and drift into the darker parts of my mind.  I managed to hold it together until I was seen, and only got a little emotional when pouring out my problems to the adviser.  When I got back out to my car I had a good old cry with the sheer relief that there was some light at the end of the tunnel!  I drove the scenic route back home as my reward for getting it done.

I find the act of driving quite empowering, still – I passed my test about a year and a half ago, but the memory of how dependent and powerless I felt before I could drive is very strong.  I think my choice of car has a lot to do with it... for those not in the know, I’m the very proud owner of a 1970 Morris Minor 4-door saloon.  My husband and I always say that the real thrill of driving a classic car is that every journey feels like an adventure – it is not simply a vehicle to get you from A to B.  I can’t help but smile when I get behind the wheel.  I feel so damn cool and classy in that car.  It’s the ultimate conversation-starter when I first meet new people, which is a massive help to me as I can find social situations like that quite intimidating.  I had a great driving-related victory a few weekends ago – my husband was providing the wedding car for a friend’s wedding, and I tailed him as a back up car, in case of any major problems with the main one, his mother’s utterly gorgeous Triumph Renown.  It was 35 miles of A roads through Surrey, with the wedding and reception taking place in Horsham, a place I had never been before.  We left a good two and a half hours to make the journey in, with me following him on the way there, both because the Renown is slower, plus he had a vague idea of where we were going and was able to run our sat nav as that car has a cigarette lighter, whereas mine doesn’t at the moment.  I’ve been dreading following that car somewhere, as it pulls away at junctions so slowly, I was terrified of accidentally going up the back of it, so I gave him plenty of space.  Lo and behold we did have some mechanical problems en route, but with assistance over the phone from his father, who is something of a mechanical god, we got going again in time to get to the church in order to take the bride & groom to the reception.  For those who don’t know Horsham, it’s one of those places with a pain in the backside one way system, so thankfully I had navigational assistance for that leg of the journey from our friend Nick, the groom’s brother.  The reception was probably the bit I was most nervous about, as I only knew a couple of people there, but I managed to make some polite conversation, aided by an excellent spread of food – I do love to talk about food!

My Morris Minor, "Faye"

Me with my mother-in-law's Triumph Renown at the wedding

What actually turned out to be the most nervy bit for me was the journey home again.  My husband was driving the bride and groom onto their hotel just out of town.  I left the reception slightly before him, as I’d had to park a little way away in a multi-storey car park.  I then had to find my way out of the multi-storey, back to the road we’d come into town on, then follow that in the opposite direction until I saw signs for the hotel.  Being a Saturday night, of course, the minute I came out of the multi-storey in my car, a group of pissheads run up to me and start banging on the car, so I panicked a little and hot-footed it out of there, and ended up taking the wrong exit at a roundabout in my haste to get away.  Fortunately, even in the dark my error was soon pretty obvious, so I backtracked and eventually found my way onto the right road.  I met up with my husband at the hotel, where he was good enough to signal me in with a torch from the roadside.  The plan from there was for me to lead us back home, as my car’s headlights are a bit brighter than the Renown’s.  Me, without sat nav assistance, in the dark, leading us through some unlit twisty A roads, trying not to leave my husband behind – phew, it still makes my stomach tense thinking about it!  Despite me thinking “I don’t recognise anything, we’re hopelessly lost, oh crap!” in 15-minute cycles, we did, somehow, make it home in one piece.  I was so tense for the whole drive that I ached more than I ever have before as I pulled up into our driveway.  It was hard work, but I am so pleased with myself for managing to cope with that!

As I’m currently not drinking alcohol due to my medication, I’ve found that being designated driver on nights out makes it a little easier not to be tempted.  I’ve never been a heavy drinker or anything, but I appreciate a good ale or a bit of a quality dark rum or whiskey, so I’ve found not drinking to be very difficult, especially when everyone else around me is.  Fortunately, the self-sacrifice of being designated driver usually earns a fair amount of kudos amongst my friends.  In particular, I like being able to give my husband a bit of a reward after the years of ferrying me around he’s done, all the extra hard work he’s been putting in over the last few months to keep us going financially, and all of his efforts to help me to feel better, by letting him have a night off to let his hair down and not have to worry so much about me for a few hours.  It was my brother-in-law’s birthday last week and we all went out together on the Friday, so I took that opportunity to do my wifely duty and play chauffeur for the evening.  I’ve found pubs are a difficult place to be for me at the moment, but thankfully there were enough of us in the group that we took over the room with the pool table, and it felt a bit more like a house party to me.

There were a couple more things I wanted to fit in this week, but I think I’ve rambled on enough already!  I do just want to say that if anyone has any suggestions for topics they’d like me to try and cover in this blog, please do let me know.  I sometimes worry that I’m repeating the same points too much, but they tend to be the areas I have most difficulty with myself – the stuff that comes more easily doesn’t tend to be at the forefront of my thoughts.  My main reason for writing this is to help other people with similar problems, so input on how I can better achieve my aim is always welcome.

My Birthday - celebrating making it through another year!

First of all, my apologies for the lack of posting last week.  I’m dealing with a bit of a sticky employment situation that I’m afraid I’m not quite ready to talk about yet – I promise I will fill you in once things are a bit more sorted, as I think it’s an important area to discuss.  Anyway, the long and short of it is that I am currently out of work, which has put me on something of a downer.  I have not felt well enough to work for a while, but knowing I don’t have a job to go to once I’ve recovered a bit is a hard thought to deal with.  As it is, my husband is already practically killing himself working overtime to try and keep our heads above water, so I have an overwhelming feeling of guilt that I am not contributing financially.  I also derive an awful lot of my self-esteem from my work.  I take pride in doing the best I possibly can and get a great deal of satisfaction from knowing I’ve helped someone in whatever small way by doing my job well.

As I said, I’m not really ready to talk about that right now.  It’s making it rather difficult to write this, as that has been my most preoccupying thought this week.  A week that contained my 25^th birthday, no less!  Despite that cloud hanging over me, I did manage to enjoy celebrating making it through another year.  I’ve taken the plunge and had a drastic haircut, which is something I like to do to sort of “reinvent myself” every now and then.  Having a fresh new look puts a bit of a spring in my step and helps me to feel like a new person, although I’m not exactly a “girly-girl” or anything.

My husband also took me down to the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu on Saturday (at my request, I hasten to point out – I love my classic cars just as much as he does!  Plus they have an exhibition of Bond cars throughout this year, and I do so love my Bond films).  The day started rather chaotically, as I had neglected to print our e-tickets off until then, only to find my printer was out of ink.  Cue a hurried trip out for printer cartridges, which led to us leaving later than originally intended.  The stress was then further compounded by a massive queue at the McDonalds drive through when we went to get breakfast, and taking a wrong turning that led to us ending up hopelessly lost in Southampton.  We were just about at the point of giving up and going home when I managed to get my phone to show us where we were so we could work out how to at least get to the right side of Southampton, and then we were able to pick up signs for Beaulieu.  I came damn close to a full blown panic attack in the car, but I managed to keep it under enough control that I just got a bit teary.  We finally made it in one piece, and had a lovely day wandering around and having a bit of a dribble at some of the exhibits.  We then had a couple of friends over for the evening, which, to be honest, was the bit I was most nervous about.  In my circle of friends, birthday celebrations normally turn into mass drinking, with shots and cocktails and all sorts of crazy concoctions.  I’d made it clear from the off I wanted it to be quite low-key, and everyone is aware now that I’m currently not drinking at all due to being on the fluoxetine, but it still felt a little weird.  It turned out to be a nice, chilled evening and I felt very little pressure to liven things up a bit, which was a relief.  It was nice to just spend some time with friends in comfortable surroundings (and, as usual, got some funky, inspired pressies!  I don’t know how they do it).

On Sunday, I went to my grandparents’ house for our traditional birthday tea and cakes.  I think it’s probably my favourite bit of birthdays in my family.  We all get on really well, have a laugh and reminisce, along with some good-natured ribbing.  My husband was far too knackered from the week’s work to join us, which was a little awkward at first as I know my family really enjoy his company too, but thankfully they are very understanding of how hard he’s been working recently.  After all, they understand better than anyone just how tricky looking after me can be – I think they’re more concerned about his wellbeing than anything else, as it can be a real drain propping me up all the time.  I think, actually, that I enjoyed myself more than I would have done had I dragged him along, as I didn’t have to worry about him, and I knew that he was getting some valuable time to himself, which he gets very little of these days.  I felt recharged by some quality family time, and he got some well-deserved rest.

Tuesday was my actual birthday, and I spent the morning shopping in Guildford with my mum.  Being able to spend more one-to-one time with my mum is possibly the best thing about not working at the moment.  She has always been brilliant at listening to me and giving me just enough of a push when I need it.  She has been quite stretched of late between looking after my dad and my grandparents, so I do sometimes feel like it’s asking a lot of her to look after me as well, so I have a tendency to try not to burden her with too much of what’s going on in my life.  However, she knows when something is bothering me and gives me just enough gentle encouragement to share it.  We had a nice, relaxed day wandering round the shops – we didn’t actually do much shopping, but we had a good old natter and did our usual thing of laughing at some of the more ridiculous items of clothing in the shops.  We did have to cut things off a little promptly as I had to be back for my CBT session at three, but it worked out just about OK.  A few people have queried why I scheduled my CBT to take place on my birthday, but, to be honest, I’ve started seeing it as my weekly treat – a bit of time to take stock and talk about myself without worrying about being judged.  I find it a lot easier if I view my treatment this way, rather than as a chore.  After all, if the idea is to help me feel better, so what better definition is there?

Birthday celebrations continued last night with a meal out with my in-laws.  My father-in-law and I actually share the same birthday, so we always do some sort of joint celebration.  Fortunately, my appetite seems to have started to come back this week, so I could do the all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet justice!  Actually, that’s reminded me of something I meant to mention, that I am now no longer taking the omeprazole (antacid) that I had previously been on.  I discussed it with my GP as I was getting a lot of stomach pain, and she agreed that it could be related.  Now that the fluoxetine seems to have kicked in, she was happy for me to try coming off of it, and I’ve barely had any pain since.  I think this might be why my appetite is returning as well.  I’ll be keeping an eye on it as one of the more helpful side effects of my reduced eating has been that I’ve shifted a fair bit of the extra weight I’ve been carrying around, and it has been a real help being able to look in the mirror and not see a wobbly mass of blubber staring back at me.

This week I will need to be a bit careful, as I often experience a bit of a “post-birthday slump”.  I’m hoping to resolve the situation with my previous employment over the next couple of days, which would give me a welcome boost, and would mean I’ll be able to talk about it!  Please keep watching this space.

Waking Up with a Smile

Today, I'm not wrapped up in a duvet for the first time in a while - fingers crossed that's the end of the stupidly cold weather for now!  It's been a little easier to get up the last few days as a result, despite the fact I'm still not sleeping very well, but it's helping me to try and return my sleeping pattern to something approaching normal.  It's all too easy to start to despair when you are constantly tired, but still can't relax enough to nod off.  I've spent more hours than I care to count lying there in bed, trying not to disturb my husband while I toss and turn.  I always used to try and make the missed hours up by lying in the next morning, but I've now realised that only further compounds the problem.  Besides, I never really seem to sleep properly in the morning anyway, I just end up lying there with the same self-destructive cycle of thoughts, tormenting myself for being too useless to even get out of bed.  So, I'm now trying to establish a new routine while I concentrate on getting better, and to make sure I don't slip into bad old habits.

My morning routine a few months ago was waking up at about half past seven, then straight into the bathroom to have a quick wash, etc.  Once my stomach started playing up, this would be interrupted by dry retching until I'd vomit.  There have been mornings where I've brushed my teeth about five times because I'd immediately be sick after brushing.  I'd then try and perk myself up a bit with a cup of coffee.  I have turned into a bit of a caffeine junkie over the last few years, particularly when I was doing the London commute (once or twice leading to a panic attack on the tube - trying to lug my laptop trolley up from the Waterloo & City line out of Bank station was a struggle at the best of times), but a few people had warned me when I went on to the Fluoxetine that caffeine does not go well with it, so I completely cut out the coffee and energy drinks for the last couple of months.  I did find that a real struggle, so this week I've compromised and now have a cup of decaff in the morning - I think it's the taste as much as anything else that perks me up, and boy, did I miss the taste!  Denying myself that small pleasure every day seemed counter-productive.  I now see it as my reward for getting up at a reasonable time.

I find a full shower helps to kick-start me in the morning, perking up my circulation.  A bit of music helps as well - a tuneless wail along to some cheesy 80's pop tends to do the trick.  Actually, one of my favourite happy songs inspired the name of this blog - "Doing The Unstuck" by The Cure (yes, The Cure - they're not all moody goth-rock!).  I can't help but smile at this perky tune when I hear it, and with lyrics such as "Kick out the gloom, kick out the blues, tear out the pages with all the bad news", it's seriously infectious.

I've been trying to reward myself for little achievements this week.  I went and did the food shopping by myself on Friday, and had a nice hot chocolate and a brownie in town afterwards (thanks to @arryaardvark for that suggestion!).  After doing my blog last week, I painted my nails for the first time in ages.  Looking at them now, I might be doing the same when I've finished this one, they have all chipped rather badly!

This has all been quite important as I had a couple of small setbacks this week.  My iffy kidney is playing up, so I've had a very painful urinary infection for the past few days (it's something that used to happen all the time when I was a kid, one of my kidneys has what is known as a "partial duplex", which means it doesn't filter things as well as it should).  I'm on antibiotics for it now, so fingers crossed that'll clear it up.  My dad's also back in hospital with a chest infection that he's been fighting for weeks.  He's been very weak since his last round of chemotherapy last year, and he was in hospital for a bit last year for another chest infection.  It wasn't so much of a shock this time, as I'd seen him a couple of days beforehand and he was not in a good way then.  I feel a bit guilty as I haven't visited him yet this time, but my mum knows I find hospital visits quite difficult and she said not to worry, as I don't think she wants me to stress out too much over it.  I plan to try and 'man up' and visit him at the weekend if he's still in.

So, next week's target is to try and continue to get up in the morning, be grateful for the little wins and try to build upon them.  My husband's band has a gig on Friday night, which I'm really looking forward to.  As always, I'm a bit nervous about the number of people who could be there, so I'll try and report back next week on how it goes!

Reviewing Feedback & Trying Not to Freeze!

Well, what a great response to my launch into the blogging community!  To be honest, I was a nervous wreck for the first few minutes after I posted it, until the responses started pouring in.  I’d spent quite a long time contemplating doing this anonymously (hence my picture on here is a drawing, rather than a photo).  I had many reasons for this, first and foremost being my apprehension about the reaction I would get from my nearest and dearest.  Being completely open and honest with someone who has known you for years seemed much more daunting than laying myself bare for some faceless reader on the other side of the world, especially as I had previously remained largely silent about my problems, perfecting the false smile and polite, mindless small talk to avoid even acknowledging, much less addressing, the sinister shadow lurking around me.  To put it bluntly, it felt like I’d been brazenly lying to them for the past decade.  I thought about a half-baked compromise, whereby I would blog as myself, but not publicise its presence to anyone I knew.  I swiftly came to the conclusion that this would have been largely counter-productive, as any negative recriminations would be further compounded if one of them stumbled across it by accident, especially if I was as frank as I had intended to be by doing it anonymously in the first place.

I was also concerned that I would not reach as many people as I would have liked by not utilising social media.  I use both Facebook and Twitter, but tend to keep Facebook more for “people I actually know”, as I tend to put it.  Putting the link up on there was the most daunting part, as I knew that old school friends, my parents and my in-laws would see it.  Let’s face it, these were the people I needed to open up to the most about it, and I was going to find doing it in writing a hell of a lot easier than I would do talking face-to-face with someone about it.  If I’m writing, no-one can tell if I’m crying at the same time, and I can continue to communicate coherently without my words being punctuated with sobs and snatched breaths.  I can get my point across without worrying about the other person’s immediate reaction too much.  Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not so much that talking about it upsets me.  The tears are more... relief, really.  But once I start to cry, I start to worry that I’m garbling my words and not making sense, which then leads to what I’ve started to call “the crumple” – I get myself into such a state that I physically can’t talk, and I’ve yet to find any way to bounce back from that short of a good sleep.  Anyway, I feel I’m drifting from the point here.  I needn’t have worried.  Every single response I’ve had has been positive and supportive.  I’m thrilled that a few of my friends have even volunteered some of their own experiences.  I’ve only spoken to a couple of people who’ve seen this face to face since then, and I didn’t crumple.  In fact, I actually had a whacking great big grin across my face!  I’ve also had a great response on Twitter, largely thanks to Time to Change retweeting my link, which has helped me reach a wider audience.  I almost doubled my number of followers within the next day.

I must admit here that I’m finding this post a lot harder than the first one.  The first one was a mad rush of stream of consciousness typing, but I’m reading back and reviewing this one more thoroughly.  I’ve been working on it for days, to be honest.  Because of the overwhelming response I received, I’m aware that people are actually going to be reading this.  Writing is something deeply personal to me, and something I’m very proud of.  I’m not quite sure whether I’m more flattered by the praise about the subject matter I’m dealing with here, or the quality of the writing.  Both have made me determined to persevere with this, but not as much as knowing that a few people took a little comfort in my words.  When I first sat down to write this, that was my main goal, and opening up about myself was more of a coincidental bonus.  I’ve also not slept all that well in the last week, so I don’t quite feel like my brain is firing on all cylinders.  The first couple of days I was buzzing so much from the blog feedback that I could barely sit still, and kept running over ideas for the next post in my head.  Those have mostly made it into this post, but I’ve got a couple of ideas for future ones as well – I just wanted to make sure I thanked everyone for their support before getting into anything too heavy!  Anyway, I’ve barely got more than a couple of hours every night this week.

Other than lack of sleep, my main concern this week has been how sodding cold it is!  When I'm struggling to get up in the morning already, the added factor of the cold makes it that bit harder to motivate myself out of my lovely warm bed.  Temperature always seems to have had quite a bearing on my mood.  It's largely self-perpetuating as well - odd as it may sound, I tend not to really register that I'm cold until I lose feeling in my hands or feet, by which time it's a nightmare trying to get warm again.  As I get colder, I'm less inclined to do anything to warm myself up.  I think the part of me that constantly bitches at me, telling me I'm a useless, worthless and generally horrible person, thinks I deserve to suffer in the cold.  I've become more aware of this, so I've been making an effort to ensure I don't get too cold in the first place.  I'm currently sat here with a furry/fleecy blanket round me, taking regular breaks from typing to warm my hands up again, fuelled by copious quantities of tea.  I'm lucky enough to have a proper fireplace in my house, but I'm not too good at lighting it myself, so that doesn't tend to get done until my husband gets home from work in the evening.

Generally speaking, I think I've been doing a lot better this week, and I attribute much of that to the blog.  I've had something positive to focus on, and it's made the hard days seem that little bit easier, as I think "well, at least I have something to write about".  I had a lovely roast dinner with my family on Sunday, which always perks me right up.  I think an excellent meal with plenty of conversation, with people you truly love and care about, is hard to top in terms of feel good factor.  I took my car for MOT on Tuesday, which was quite a big thing for me in terms of independence.  It was nice just to get out of the house and feel I was doing something productive, really.  She didn't pass, unfortunately, but I'm off to the in-laws this evening to have a look at the couple of bits that need fixing.  I also had my second session of CBT, where we started looking at activities I've been avoiding, and I have an exercise to do this week where I try to tackle some of the less intimidating tasks, and log how I feel about them in terms of a sense of achievement, closeness to others and enjoyment.  I'll be interested to see what I find out through this one, and look forward to reporting back in next week's installment.

A tentative toe dipped in the water...

Phew, right, where to start?

I've been motivated by Mind's recent advertising campaign, "Time to Change", to start sharing my own experiences of mental health issues.  This is something I've never really been comfortable talking about, except with a select circle of family and friends, and I've been thinking about why this is, as recently I've found reading and hearing about others' problems has been a great help to me - the old cliche springs to mind, knowing that "you are not alone".  I think it's partially because I didn't always find this to be the case.  When I first started experiencing problems with depression, in my mid-teens, I was deeply suspicious of anyone trying to tell me they knew "what I was going through".  How could anyone possibly know EXACTLY what I was feeling at that time?  Quite frankly, I found it incredibly patronising.  I am an individual, and I (perhaps arrogantly) believed that my brain was special and no-one else could really identify with the thoughts I was having.  I blamed my problems on "excess intelligence" and resented that my inquisitive nature had exposed me to the ugly injustices of the world, which I was just too damned sensitive a person to deal with.  I think, initially, I felt exasperated that I was being held back by having to go to school and finish my exams, when I felt I was past any help formal education could give me, and that I could be doing so much more with my life.  This then turned into hopelessness driven by the thought that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't anything all that special, and striving to be was pointless, so I may as well give up trying altogether.  I envied my classmates of more average academic ability, and my real mantra of the time was "ignorance is bliss".  I honestly believed that if I were more in line with what was deemed to be "normal", I'd be happier.

Looking back, I was a bit of a self-absorbed, precocious little prick back then!  But, as I've got older, I've found the silly little differences in my experiences are nothing compared to the big, stupid similarities.  And I've slowly started to come round to accepting my intelligence and empathy as gifts rather than curses, as they give me the ability both to look at things from a cold, analytical point of view and from an emotional point of view.  I think my biggest battle is to try and reconcile what I see as these two entirely disparate sides of my personality, and listen to both.  I tend to try and push aside my emotions as I seem them as irrational, having less validity than interpretation of hard facts.  To use a more geeky reference point (which you will probably come to see that I use a lot), I often wish I was Vulcan.  Adherence to pure logic and the purging of emotion appeals to me, as a sort of self-insulating technique to protect myself from psychological harm.

 I want to use this first post as a bit of a general overview, so forgive me for not going into masses of detail just yet.  If I did, I'd end up typing for days on end and not even scratch the surface of why I'm here.  I got over that first bout of depression with the help of my family and a bit of support from anti-depressants, but most of all with the help of a chap I met through friends, who, for reasons I could not understand back then, and still don't fully understand to this day, thought I was attractive and brilliant enough to pursue for months, until I felt stable and secure enough to open myself up to a relationship with him.  That turned out to be just what I needed, and with his gentle encouragement, I felt strong enough to wean myself off of the crutch of medication.  I've had a few more low points since then, but he has always been incredibly patient in helping me through it.  Although he'd had no prior experience of anyone with depression or any other mental health issues, he's always listened to what I'm saying, tried to understand what I am feeling, and learned to watch for slight changes in my general mood and behaviour, to the extent that he often knows I'm feeling down even before I realise it myself.  I've had a few smaller relapses since then, but we've managed them between us.  I've managed to function normally enough to hold down a good job for the last few years (despite having left school with pretty much no qualifications to my name, and with the added difficulty of my history of health problems, I am incredibly grateful to those who saw my potential and were willing to overlook these... well, black marks, against my name).  I've learnt to drive, bought a house, got married, and all sorts of things I never would have believed were possible in those dark early days.  I've generally been pretty happy.

However, a few months ago, I started having problems again.  At first, I didn't think they were in any way connected to my mental health - yes, I'd lost my previous job a few months before that, through no fault of my own (in common with many peoples' experience in the last few years, it was company restructuring/downsizing), but I'd managed to walk straight into another job, thanks to a colleague from my previous job's recommendation, where I felt comfortable.  I started having horrendous stomach cramps, vomiting frequently, and when not vomiting, constantly dry retching.  I'd had similar problems for a couple of months about two years previously, which no cause was ever found for, although I'd undergone plenty of medical examination (an endoscopy being the highlight of this - already having a pretty strong gag reflex, I had to be sedated for it, and I'd count it as one of the more traumatic experiences of my life!).  This cleared up after a few months of antacid and anti-emetic tablets.  I went to my GP and started treatment for acid reflux again, as it seemed to be much the same thing.  However, this didn't really seem to help, and after a few more visits to my GP she noted that I didn't really seem my usual perky self, and referred back to my old records which highlighted I'd previously had treatment for depression.  I'd not really considered it until this point, but I started crying right there in the doctors office.  It all made sense all of a sudden.  Now, this was just before Christmas, so I feel it's a bit too soon to say for certain whether my stomach problems were caused by poor mental health, or whether the stomach problems have led me to become depressed.  I've been on Fluoxetine (more commonly known as prozac) since then, and, to be honest, I've seen little improvement on either the psychological or physical fronts.  I started seeing a CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapist) specialist earlier this week, and am hopeful this will be just the push I need to better understand myself and start towards more healthy thought processes.

Well, I think this is a good start.  I want to try a post to this blog about once a week - I know from past experience that trying to commit to anything more than that is overambitious!