Today, I am in the best shape, at least mentally, that I have been in for nearly two years. Physically, well, that’s another story and now that I feel stronger in my head, hopefully I can start to look after myself a bit better.
With depression and anxiety, you never know exactly why things change. Sometimes there are triggers for both, other times dips and highs come and go without explanation. I’m very sure that my ongoing therapy is having a positive effect on my life.
Post therapy, I have a massive dip and I don’t sleep properly for days. I have chronic anxiety dreams , I don’t want to spend too long in a place that’s away from my comfort zone. Then, it begins to pick up.
I’m about halfway there, I reckon. I am not yet the confident person who took on a completely new type of work in 2015, working in the third, charity, sector and I have not recovered all my confidence and belief following my experience of abuse and bullying at the British Red Cross. That experience shook me to the core, to the extent that I had a full-on breakdown, the like of which I had never before experienced. But if it was people who helped take me down, it’s people who are helping to bring me back up again.
My writing, which is everything to me, is slowly coming back. I am the first to acknowledge the technical flaws in my work and I know that a great deal of the last year’s copy was a level much lower than I am capable of. I have carried on trying to write every single day of the week because I feel it’s a good discipline, especially when the creative juices are dry. They’re flowing today and I am starting to get a grip.
My therapist has been superb, as has my family and close friends. And I feel a strong level of support and belief from my current employer. I am starting to believe in myself again.
More therapy today and doubtless I shall be shattered by 2.00 pm. I know that my Black Dog will never leave me completely but right now I am trying to become the best version of me I can become, in the full knowledge that another episode, triggered quite possibly by something really silly, is always around the corner.
I certainly don’t feel “emotionally weak”, as the British Red Cross occupational therapist said I was.
