Slowly Crashing

A few year ago I suffered from depression, it took about six months for me to realise that is what it was, and once diagnosed I realised I had certainly had several untreated episodes of depression since childhood.

The Dr I saw said it would be something I would have for the rest of my life, and in all likelihood I would require medication to control it for the rest of my life.

I suffered from depression and mild anxiety attacks, what some would consider normal everyday situations became impossible mountains in front of me that I couldn't work out how to climb. I can remember a day that I couldn't decide what to cook for dinner, I stood at the freezer pondering the thought for what felt like two minutes, I realised after it was more like two hours and I still never figured it out.

My breaking point came one day at the Roadhouse when a delivery didn't arrive. I snapped, lost it, the whole world went black, it was the beginning of the end.

I spent a lot of time sleeping, sleep was a refuge, I suffered from a constant deep aching tiredness. Or I spent hours on the internet, I escaped into a world where I wasn't judged, bought mountains of clothes on Ebay, and surrounded myself with 'easy' things.very
Somehow, rather robotically I suspect, I managed to fulfil every ones basic needs, and what I didn't do Sam managed to.

I spent nearly three years on medication, the medication worked for me within three or four days, YES that quickly. I can remember driving along one day and thinking it was a beautiful day full of sunshine and hope, I had to pull over because I was laughing and crying too much to drive, it had been a long time since I was filled with happiness and hope for the future like that.

Unfortunately during an extremely bad period in our lives a year or so later I wasn't particularly good at taking my medication and self medicated quite a bit searching for a way to feel better. One tablet for ok days, three for the really bad, mixed in with the lifestyle we had running a hotel at the time it wasn't a good combination.

I have come to realise that not everyone, and certainly not everyone with depression, faces the challenges we did that sad and sorry year and the fact that I walked away from what I did in good health and OFF medication speaks volumes for the inner strength I found and the support of my husband.

For quite a while after that year I felt almost justified in the emotional ups and downs and his and lo's I experienced. And probably quite rightly so.

Its has been 2 years and 3 months since 'the year from hell', and I am starting to feel that the ups and downs should begin to be a piece of the past, something left behind that I don't need to worry about but its just not happening like that.

Increasingly over the last few months I have found that my frustration with the silliest little things builds to an alarming level yet I deal with the 'big' issues quite easily. And that worries me.

I am scared to go back to where I was before.