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Tuesday 12 June 2018

This is an old post from 2018. Long time , no post.


Today I read a post on a blog I read and felt prompted to write this as  a reply:

Thankyou for your post. I've suffered from the black dog fr as long as I can remember too. Those that don't understand an sound heartless, but I've learnt that it;s usually fear and/or ignorance that makes them react the way they do. Sometimes there is no rhyme nor reason for the depression apart from a chemical imbalance, sometimes it's reactive as you say.
"This too , shall pass" is a really good mantra to have in my case. It gives me something to hold on to at my low points. I used to feel guilty about being on meds, but once read a book by someone I really admired but had no clue that she suffered from depression. She got so low that she once walked out of work and signed herself straight into a pychiatric hopital because she didn't think she would make it through th next day if she didn't!  After 2 months she was discharged. She learnt that she might never be free of the depression but learnt how to manage it better. She also realised that she may be on medication for the rest of her life, learnt't not to feel guilty about it and to look after herself better.
After 2 suicide attempts and the guilt I carried for being on permanent meds, I decided to take a leaf out of her book and can happily say that it was the best thing I've done, After all, if I was on life saving meds for another reason, I wouldn't feel guilty about taking those!
Could you see if your health authority offers Counselling or CBT. Every so often I refer myself to them in Birmingham and have found it helps quite a bit.
Please don't feel guilty for being depressed, its as much a part of you as your diabetes is. Take what ever help you can, look after yourself, celebrate the good days & remember "This too shall pass.
Hugs and best wishes from Birmingham.
                                            =========================================

My depression was first diagnosed when I was in my twenties. I was an Army wife, along way from home & desperate to start a family, when I broke down in the Doctors office. I was handed a bottle of pills and told to go home and rest and go back in 2 weeks. This I did but by this time things were a lot worse and I was admitted to hospital.
I was in a comfortable room,on the 5th floor. I had a nurse with me 24/7 for the 10 days I was in there because the Doctors thought I was a danger to myself. (I had already made 1 suicide attempt when I was 19). The nursing staff were brilliant, the doctors less so.To them , I was a nuisance, an inconvenience, (this was in the days when army wives and families were still considered "excess baggage. You had to give your husbands army number to get an appointment! Thankfully things have now changed - a lot!) I was discharged with another bottle of pills and told to "report back to the med centre every fortnight" which I did but it was a joke. No counselling , just another bottle of pills and see you next time.
Fast forward 2 years to January 1988/ The regiment was away on exercise and I was alone with a 10 week old baby. The C.O's wife came to visit, as she did, every wife, when the men were away. I answered the door in a milk soaked nightie and not liking what she saw, made me get washed and dressed, carted me off to the hospital where Kyle was born. I cried all the way there  and all the time I was in the Doctors room. She had pulled strings to get me in to see this doctor, who was lovely but who I was convinced was going to take my baby away from me.
He was not convinced that this was just "Baby Blues". After assessing me and reading my medical history, he told me that I was suffering from serious depression and the traumatic birth of my son had made it worse (3 day labour & emergency C-section). He arranged counselling for me, arranged for my husband to come back early from exercise and put me on mild medication, enabling me to still feed the baby. Turns out his wife had been through the same experience with Army Doctors and even though he was an Army doctor, he was tying to change the system from within.

Depression did not sit well with my first husband, who kept telling me to "pull myself together" , that there was nothing wrong with me & I'd only had a baby after all! That marriage didn't last much longer needless to say. The final straw was when he flushed my Meds down the loo because he thought I was too dependant on them.

For a long while I was on meds, battling to come off them because I felt so guilty about needing them. I did have months , even years off them,but denying myself the benefit of them because of guilt and wanting to be normal. Eventually I became so unwell and depressed that I was off work for 6 months at a time, several times.  My Doctor arranged Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, Counselling sessions and a brilliant Community Psychiatric Nurse who visited me weekly for nearly a year. He also arranged some appointments with a Psychiatrist who took the time to explain what my depression was and was not. which helped me understand myself and my symptoms better. I suffer from Clinical Deppression occasionally becoming Manic/ Bipolar Depression. It can also be Re-active Depression brought on by events or unsolved issues.
I learned how to look after myself better, physically & mentally. Saying No was, and still is at times, very difficult but if I don't look after me, I can't be any help to others.

I'm so grateful for our NHS.  They are overworked, understaffed and underpaid but they are the only reason I'm still here and I would urge anyone who needs help to find out what their local Mental Health Trust can offer. It may take time to access the service but it is so worth it.

I'm now married again & OH is so supportive because he's been there, done that. We help each other on the bad days and the good. The good days outnumber the bad. I tell myself frequently "This too shall pass", sometimes not as quick as I would like, but it does go. I also tell myself daily that the 2 pills I take are so worth it because it's true. They keep me on an even keel and enable to live my life, not just cope with it but really live it.

I really hope my story helps some-one to get help if they need to.

God Bless

Wednesday 4 June 2014

Relaxing Day



This was Max having fun in the garden whilst the sun was out.
After such a lovely day yesterday, the weather has gone all scottish on us today, all grey, drizzly & driech.
Put washing on and then helped MIL move fridge and clean behind it & change the light bulb in it.
Whenever we come up here, I usually bring some sewing with me or do any mending or sewing that the in-laws need doing for days such as this.
It's been a relaxing sort of day really and I've been content to stay close to home, doing what needs to be done at a relaxing pace, instead of charging about the countryside like a maddy, which is what we usually do when we are up here. An ordinary day really, just in different surroundings. 

Tuesday 3 June 2014

On my Holidays & a couple of finished projects

Hello again,
We are on our holidays in sunny Kilmarnock for a wee while. It is  both OH's parents birthdays this week and we always try to get up here for that.
Ayrshire is looking glorious today. it has been sunny and warm and beautiful blue skies. Yesterday was grey & driech. the Isle of  Aran & Ailsa Craig were nowhere to be seen. Today, driving back from Ayr, they were both revealed in all their glory.

A quiet week so far, as after travelling any distance in the car, I can hardly move for about 24 hours afterwards, so Sunday, I was doped up on pain killers and asleep most of the time.
Yesterday I went food shopping with M-i -L & met up with a friend from Darvel for a coffee. We spent a good couple of hours putting the world to rights.

Today we went to Morrison's for breakfast, then we went to Dobbies in Ayr, to look at the Cotton Traders outlet as it is one of the few places that have clothes large enough to fit my OH. He brought nothing, but I got a new dress.

The photo's below are of a knitted jacket that I have just finished and a card for my FIL for Fathers day. Hope that you like them both.


Friday 2 May 2014

GNome


This a 40th Birthday card for a friends partner. She say's that the nearer his birthday get, the more he resembles the Gnome!

I really enjoy making cards and hope to put some of the Fathers day cards on later.

Hope you like this one.

Thursday 12 December 2013

3 Weeks Today.......

.... I had a wee Nervous Breakdown & have an intermediate diagnosis of Bi-polar disorder. I have seen a Doctor, been prescribed meds and therapy. Now we start putting Humpty- Dumpty back together again as she is well and truly scrambled at this present time.
I have manic days when it would take a straight jacket and lead weights to keep me in one place and others when I seem to be wading through setting concrete in lead wellies and it's as much as I can do to go to the loo.
David is coping well with me at the moment, some days I am alive, other days, I just exist but I am still here.

Thank God !!! 

Monday 2 September 2013

Been super busy of late & had no laptop for a while, so although I can read posts at work, I can't comment or post there.
OH is having trouble at work and has a disciplinary hearing soon but the BDH have not yet provided him with the evidence of what he is supposed to have done wrong & we have no idea when it will be. To say that he is stressed is an understatement. At time it's like walking on eggshells around here.
Mum seems more accepting of her situation. She will always miss my Dad terribly, but is slowly rebuilding her life and getting out & about a bit more . She's going on holiday this month with a friend. I hope she has a good time.
I've started making cards for Christmas and the last few birthdays for this year and I'm also selling them at work once a month from the end of september until Christmas.
We're also taking part in the Septimus Fruaglus Challenge on http://frugaldom.myfreeforum.org/about1347.html. This is is a great challenge to take part in and the forum and  blog are full of help and information to help you live simply and frugally for what ever reason.

Sunday 18 August 2013

Hello again,
I've been meaning to blog more often but have had a really bad sinus infection, which has left me a bit low but I'm getting better slowly, although it's taken 2 lot's of anti-bi-otics, anti-histamines, and a steroid spray so far.
I would like to sort my camera out so that I can put some pictures on here, but I have to find it first.
With that in mind I have started a thorough sort out of the back bedroom as that's the last place it was seen.
Watch this space.