Drifting

I've tried to post a few times about how I'm feeling and where my brain is. Every post I've decided to carefully navigate away from the publish button and store my issues safely away in my drafts folder.

I'm not sure why.

I guess, of late, it feels like I'm just drifting and the minor frustrations that are hitting me feel like major disasters one minute and nothing the next.

I've been drifting from angry, to frustrated, to sad, depressed, happy, content, and positive all in the first half hour of my day. Although they usually go in the reverse order.

As the day progresses I yo-yo through all the emotions going from task to task at work. The dominant emotions in the last two weeks have been negative. During work hours anyway. I struggle through depression, frustration and anxiety from 7 until 3.30 and then, thankfully, come home to food, clean house, and a bright smile that puts the day behind me in a content blanket snuggling hibernation.

But still, in the back of my head is this constant niggling depression that terrifies me.

I don't know how to get past it. How to move forward. It feels like a constant soft blanket over the happy centers of my brain.

And, if I'm being honest with myself I feel like a failure for being in this depression.

I should be happy. I haven't been with Americo like this for over a year. I have him here. We're sharing our days, a bed, a shower, the house stuff, he's home when I finish work and the last thing I remember before bed is him brushing my hair out of my face.

If there is any time in this difficult year that I should be feeling happy and content this is it, and not being able to fully feel this happiness past the fog in my head makes me feel like I'm not really giving this wonderful time together all that it deserves.

Of course, that leads me to feel tense and anxious, simply because I'm not feeling happy enough.

The human brain is fucking weird.

As I work through this I wonder if it's simply that I haven't got the right balance with my pills yet. Or whether I should be going to therapy to help me deal with my family issues. Or if I need to take up yoga, or meditation, or Pilates to help me balance my brain.

I don't know.

This is a tough journey from good day to bad day and so many just meh days with no direction as to how to get where I want to be.

Still taking it day by day, and I guess that's just all that I can do.

Am I alright?

It seems that some of you know me too well and have asked if I'm ok.

More disturbingly at least one person that doesn't really know me very well at all, but follows me on twitter, has asked if I'm ok. This was a disturbing "Houston we have a problem" moment for my belief that I was hiding my lack of ok-ness moderately well.

No, it seems, I am not ok.

Why am I not ok? Honestly, I don't know. I feel a sense of being incomplete, but I don't know why. I don't know what's missing. I don't know how to put it back. This is perhaps the thing that disturbs me the most. If I could pinpoint what was wrong I might have some hope of getting myself back to being me.

Let's try and break down my mental health:

1: My ideology is becoming a problem. 

No really, a huge problem. I'm a feminist. I'm pro-smart government, I really truly believe that government can do good. I'm for healthy bodies, regardless of size, and don't believe in conforming to a dangerous body image dictated to us by media conglomerates.

Imagine how joyful living with that ideology is day-to-day. Truly believing the world can be better at treating equally, while watching the Republican war on women. Truly believing the government can do better, then watching Julia Gillard firmly state that she believes marriage should be between a man and a woman, and gay civil unions are enough because they give the same rights. Like being separate is being equal. Thinking that it's possible for the media to change when it comes to portraying a healthy body image, as demonstrated by Vogue's commitment to stop using models under 16 and stop using bodies that are incredibly unrealistic, is overshadowed by the incessant and disgusting media focus on how much weight Jessica Simpson gained while she was pregnant.

It is so constant, and depressing, and dangerous, and how did we end up in this awful mess? How do we continue to tolerate this hatefulness and hopelessness? Why do we allow the media to dictate to us what is attractive and what isn't, which they're doing for the sole purpose of convincing us to spend billions on their beauty products, weight loss products, and clothes.

How are there people that support discrimination and hated in 2012 and vote for idiots like Romney who want to legislate based on the 10 commandments, despite the fact his country is supposed to be for religious freedom.

It's wearing me down a lot.

I'm starting to do things to feel less helpless. I joined the YWCA, I'm going to some of their events. I've signed up for the gender institute newsletter from the ANU. I'm hoping that doing things will reduce my dejection caused by the world being completely totally fucknuts crazy.

2: What the fuck April?

April, April, April. You really were a cunt, weren't you?

Jeremy's death hit me surprisingly hard, considering I didn't know the kid that well. I spent a lot of time after the funeral thinking about what it would have been like if it were Owen. It was a horrible thing that I couldn't get out of my head. The thought of my amazing baby brother not being part of my life was rough. I still struggle to get the idea out of my head that something could happen to him. He does crazy shit, climbs mountains, does obstacle courses designed by the SAS, runs in those stupid shoes that look like feet, things could happen to him. It scares the fuck out of me.

And then there's my mother. Crazy, stupid, wench. She went and fell while walking out the back of beyond. She was mourning Jeremy, probably like me, scared about the idea of it happening to Owen, and she tripped on something and went down. She put her arm out to break her fall, and shattered her arm. Badly. It broke from wrist to nearly elbow, pushing her wrist joint an inch down her arm. Seriously. And then the crazy bitch walked out, because what other choice did she have? No phone signal, no GPS, not even the dumbass dog, so she walked out. And I get a call at 10pm that she's in hospital. I've never been so scared. To see my mother, for the next 3 days, tiny, weak, dehydrated, starving, in pain, waiting for surgery. Dealing with my sister, my family, being the grown-up, talking to the nurses, the doctor, helping her manage her pain meds, then having her live with me for two weeks not even able to open jars? It was confronting.

One day my mother is going to die. Not for awhile, because she's tough, but it's going to happen. And it's a reality I really am not prepared to confront.

3: Wagon, what wagon?

I fell off it hard. I promised myself I'd be healthier this year. Not to try and lose weight or change my body, or anything, but because I won the best of the genetics from both my parents and have had a variety of health issues in my life including:

• High cholesterol
• High blood sugar
• High blood pressure
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Arthritis
• Tension Headaches

And, as an added bonus, my dad's family seems to have some level of addictive personality and I have family that have gone through codeine and valium addiction, which I don't want to go through, so the last two of those things are a real problem for me to manage. Oh, and, yeah, I'm allergic to anti-inflammatories, which is a bigger problem. Managing pain while being incredibly cautious about taking opiates is a blast for reals. I live with a fairly constant level of pain which blows. 

Part of managing the pain, and the rest of it, is exercise. If your joints and muscles are working properly you get less arthritic pain. And exercise releases endorphins, so that helps with the depression and anxiety. It's time out of mind for me, where I focus on a physical burn, instead of a mental pain. It's amazing at helping me cope. So not going since February is kind of a thing for me. I've got excuses, I took on a second job which has been reletively good for my mental health, but bad for my physical health. I've had tonsillitis twice, followed by a bad chest and sinus infection. I've been tired, and depressed, plus my mum was here, and then I was out of town. Good excuses all, but it's a cumulative effect. Don't exercise, feel more tired, feel more depressed, feel too tired to exercise, feel too depressed to go to the gym, and so on. 

In order to be a more complete me I need to commit to moving. Focussing my energy into building a better body to sustain me for longer. I need to manage my emotional wellbeing in more ways than the little christmas coloured happy pills. Not going has contributed, massively I think, to the current state of my emotional wellbeing. Or, you know, major lack of well being. 

The sugar ain't helping either. I know sugar gives me highs and lows. In a massive way. I get low, I have sugar, I get high, 2 hours later we play the same game over again. Depression leaves me with no self-control to speak of, so I don't say no to myself when it comes to sugar. Stupid stupid stupid. That goes for a ridiculous volume of carbs, as well, of course. 

4: May. Birthday blues. 

I love my birthday. I hate my birthday. Yea, I do dearly love being the centre of attention. I'm an attention whore, I admit it. But also, I hate it. Hate it. Hate it. I don't know why, I always have. I dread it and suffer the most painful depression in the most of May. It starts early and nothing helps. Yeah, I know, fucked. AND stupid. 

Last, but not least, there is time, distance, and the incredible stupidity of time zones. My darling friend Amanda is in Scotland, which perhaps could be the worst time zone for Australia to stay in touch with. My wonderful fiancé is in San Francisco and stays up to ridiculous hours of the night to stay in touch with me. It is difficult to have those you love so much in other countries. It is lonely, and awful, and empty. And it's not their fault, and it's not my fault, it's nobodies fault, but it sure is fucked. 

So the reality of life is, that no, I'm not ok, but fixing it is a whole world of hard. 

There are things that will help, the Christmas pills are great. I went back to the gym today, that'll help if I can stick to it. Managing my good intake a bit better, with a focus on less sugar will mean less highs and lows. Managing my money and not emotionally shopping will give me a peace of mind in the long term. And Americo will be here for two and half months in August, and that will be a huge help. It'll be the first time we'll have a house to ourselves in our combined total of a year living together. And as a first, he'll spend his birthday with me. And I'll get to wake up and kiss him as he turns 36, something we're both incredibly grateful for. 

It's just getting my brain to realise that there are things that help me, and things that hinder me, and I need to force myself to know what's the right thing, and what's the wrong thing, and help myself to get better. 

and that's that. 

For those of you that are concerned, I value you so much. Your concern touches me more than you know. Your love, your friendship, they are my salvation on the bad days. That sounds overdramatic, it really does, but it's true. 

That goes for the total strangers that have expressed concern too. Twitter is such an amazing tool for good, when it's not being an amazing tool for stupid. I've seen people who are down and depressed lifted up on the 140 character well wishes of strangers, which is enough to make my own mind lift of the bad place. The simple "I'm thinking about you" to someone on the edge is such a great thing to do for someone, and there are people that have done that for me, and it is such a blessing. 

So, thank you, my friends, y'all are wonderful bitches, all of you. And I promise you that I'll be fine, once I figure out where my head is at.

That was the really long answer, obviously. The short answer? Not right now, but I will be, because it does get better. And I will get better. 

The enemy within

Depression and anxiety are a terrible disease. Mental illness in whatever form is a terrible thing to experience. You can't see it, you can't pinpoint symptoms to a concrete disease, and diagnosis and treatments are, at best, good guess work by you and your doctor.

Medication for mental illness is dicey. Sometimes it will turn you into an emotionless robot, incapable of feeling, tasting, thinking, living. Sometimes it will make you so physically sick that the mental pain becomes secondary to the physical problems. Sometimes it will result in increased depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide. It's a mixed bag that almost always comes with bad more than good.

I take a drug called dothep for my anxiety. It's a Tricyclic antidepressant, which basically means it blocks the reuptake of serotonin in the brain, resulting in an increase in its levels. Serotonin being one of the things in your brain that results in happy, it helps you cope with stress by helping you relax. Serotonin is the stuff that makes you feel good after a block of chocolate, or post orgasm, so more is better.

I'm on a really low dose. Like really low. It's basically enough to help me sleep at night, because I'm one f those people that doesn't do that much. I stress a lot. I spend all night tossing and turning and everything is a thousand times worse the next day because I didn't sleep.

The dothep works. Its great, I guess, in that I sleep most nights. I don't hear my phone chime that I have email ever, so I'm clearly totally dead to the world, but I wake up every morning exhausted, regardless of the apparent good nights rest.

I also struggle to function a lot of days. I'm angry at work, I'm sad at home, I feel like everywhere I go out of the house I'm wearing the angry face, because I am angry. All the time. And I hate it. This irrational anger is what drove me to cave on taking something for my anxiety in the first place. And then drove me to a slightly increased dose. And here we are, 9 months later, and wondering if it's time again to increase the dose.

Is this just a period of stress? Or do I need more help? Should that help involve therapy? Am I feeling so off kilter that I need more help than I get from my family? I really don't know lately.

The questions in my head make it hard for me to settle to sleep lately. Even with the pills the ability to actually drift off to sleep is harder than it was.

And I write blog posts in my head to try and stop the swirling questions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I have to type them out to find a quiet place in my brain.

Mental illness is still so misunderstood. Confessing you have it is hard. Finding the right medication is hard. Finding the right therapist is hard. And sleeping, apparently is pretty hard too.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad