I start this blog with a knot in my stomach - you know, the kind you get when things are on your mind, when you know all's not right but you're not quite sure or in the position to change them. When you're watching people you care about going through difficult times but there's nothing you can do but be there or when you're life is not taking the track you'd hoped it would.
We've all been there - that knotted, heavy hearted feeling, a bit like indigestion that even Rennie's will not shift.......
Life gives us times like this - we've all ridden a few storms - it's coming out the other end that's important. And it's knowing that you will that keeps you going.
But there are also times when we really can't see the wood for the trees - when the knot becomes a vice around our insides that you wonder if it will ever ease?
I've seen the darkness of depression and lived with it for a while - a year after being diagnosed I fell apart. A difficult and painful bone marrow biopsy, worrying about the girls, a difficult day in the office - it all suddenly became just too much - the shoulders too heavy to cope with the load anymore.
It's funny, I don't think I'd ever really thought about what depression would look like but for me it came in a wave of tears, hundreds, thousands of tears and the need to dive under the duvet and just stay there and cry, not knowing whether it was night or day and no longer caring either.
It was an incredible overwhelmingly numb feeling and knowing that everything going on around me was just too much - more than I could cope with - so I stopped coping. It also came as fear, fear of seeing people, fear of being in the outside world and a feeling that I had been bashed and bruised one too many times.
Of course, you can't stay like that forever, so I ventured out from the duvet and off to see the doctor who diagnosed depression and prescribed anti-depressents. That in itself was a momentous moment - something you never think you'll see, especially when you are someone who you believe is a bit of a sponge and can cope with life's trials and someone who is a glass half full kind of person rather than empty. I think of myself as an eternal optimist, but the optimism had been knocked out of me..........
I had an overwhelming question hanging over me..........so, you coped with your mother's death at an early age, you survived a particularly nasty divorce, you survived leukaemia and achieved remission - but the question I was struggling with was: 'Is this it?' Is this really what I went through all that for? Is this crap really worth all that?
My consultant was surprised, he said most people break when diagnosed but you left it a year..... you're in remission, you should be happy. I know where he was coming from but when diagnosed I had things to do, purpose, a reason to keep going so that I could get into remission - it was the getting there and finding that actually, life was still the same struggle, still the same stresses and people still treated you like crap at times that did it for me.
I'm also a stubborn, indpendent bugger so although I accepted the need for anti-depressents I was determined they would be a short-term solution. I have to say that, for me, they did work - three months on and I was driving to work and caught myself singing to the radio and I realised that yes, life was still crap at times, but I was stronger and I could cope, so I weaned myself off the anti-depressents and got on with life.
Have I been depressed since? Well, yes, but not in the same overwhelming, totally consuming, can't cope anymore way. Was I depressed when I started this blog over a year ago? Well, probably more so than I would care to admit, probably nearer the darkness than I had been since before. Has blogging helped? Yes, that and changing my life so that I am happier with it. Though this kind of from the heart blog is a weirdly personal way of laying yourself bare.......
So why the knot know? Well, whilst I'm taking my life in a different direction, it's taking time and there's still a way to go yet and that means I'm having to utilise this thing called patience......not something I'm always very good at! I'm also looking for honesty, and am not sure I'm always getting that.....
I guess I'm also feeling other people's crap - leukaemia is far from being the only trial that people face in this life and right now I have friends/family going through difficult times, which you wish you could fix, but you can't.
One thing I've tried to do in this life is learn, and I've learnt that it's important to accept people for who they are and also to be kind to each other. Life seriously deals a lot of shit we have absolutely no control over, but we can control how we are to other people, and we should.
We should also learn to be honest with ourselves and then with others, even if we know that honesty will hurt - don't be cruel in that honesty, think always about the other person's feelings, but don't let the fear of hurting someone stop you from being honest - because honestly, deep down inside, they know........
I know it's a cliche but it's a good one - do one good thing each day people, don't make judgements about others when you don't know the whole story and please, please, please, let's just be kind to each other shall we?
We've all been there - that knotted, heavy hearted feeling, a bit like indigestion that even Rennie's will not shift.......
Life gives us times like this - we've all ridden a few storms - it's coming out the other end that's important. And it's knowing that you will that keeps you going.
But there are also times when we really can't see the wood for the trees - when the knot becomes a vice around our insides that you wonder if it will ever ease?
I've seen the darkness of depression and lived with it for a while - a year after being diagnosed I fell apart. A difficult and painful bone marrow biopsy, worrying about the girls, a difficult day in the office - it all suddenly became just too much - the shoulders too heavy to cope with the load anymore.
It's funny, I don't think I'd ever really thought about what depression would look like but for me it came in a wave of tears, hundreds, thousands of tears and the need to dive under the duvet and just stay there and cry, not knowing whether it was night or day and no longer caring either.
It was an incredible overwhelmingly numb feeling and knowing that everything going on around me was just too much - more than I could cope with - so I stopped coping. It also came as fear, fear of seeing people, fear of being in the outside world and a feeling that I had been bashed and bruised one too many times.
Of course, you can't stay like that forever, so I ventured out from the duvet and off to see the doctor who diagnosed depression and prescribed anti-depressents. That in itself was a momentous moment - something you never think you'll see, especially when you are someone who you believe is a bit of a sponge and can cope with life's trials and someone who is a glass half full kind of person rather than empty. I think of myself as an eternal optimist, but the optimism had been knocked out of me..........
I had an overwhelming question hanging over me..........so, you coped with your mother's death at an early age, you survived a particularly nasty divorce, you survived leukaemia and achieved remission - but the question I was struggling with was: 'Is this it?' Is this really what I went through all that for? Is this crap really worth all that?
My consultant was surprised, he said most people break when diagnosed but you left it a year..... you're in remission, you should be happy. I know where he was coming from but when diagnosed I had things to do, purpose, a reason to keep going so that I could get into remission - it was the getting there and finding that actually, life was still the same struggle, still the same stresses and people still treated you like crap at times that did it for me.
I'm also a stubborn, indpendent bugger so although I accepted the need for anti-depressents I was determined they would be a short-term solution. I have to say that, for me, they did work - three months on and I was driving to work and caught myself singing to the radio and I realised that yes, life was still crap at times, but I was stronger and I could cope, so I weaned myself off the anti-depressents and got on with life.
Have I been depressed since? Well, yes, but not in the same overwhelming, totally consuming, can't cope anymore way. Was I depressed when I started this blog over a year ago? Well, probably more so than I would care to admit, probably nearer the darkness than I had been since before. Has blogging helped? Yes, that and changing my life so that I am happier with it. Though this kind of from the heart blog is a weirdly personal way of laying yourself bare.......
So why the knot know? Well, whilst I'm taking my life in a different direction, it's taking time and there's still a way to go yet and that means I'm having to utilise this thing called patience......not something I'm always very good at! I'm also looking for honesty, and am not sure I'm always getting that.....
I guess I'm also feeling other people's crap - leukaemia is far from being the only trial that people face in this life and right now I have friends/family going through difficult times, which you wish you could fix, but you can't.
One thing I've tried to do in this life is learn, and I've learnt that it's important to accept people for who they are and also to be kind to each other. Life seriously deals a lot of shit we have absolutely no control over, but we can control how we are to other people, and we should.
We should also learn to be honest with ourselves and then with others, even if we know that honesty will hurt - don't be cruel in that honesty, think always about the other person's feelings, but don't let the fear of hurting someone stop you from being honest - because honestly, deep down inside, they know........
I know it's a cliche but it's a good one - do one good thing each day people, don't make judgements about others when you don't know the whole story and please, please, please, let's just be kind to each other shall we?
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