Every day is starting to become exactly the same...again

Xmas is fast approaching. On the one hand it will be nice to chill out, more than usual, and on the other bad memories abound from previous. Not least five years ago and the taking hold of the second great depression. If it is a stable as last year I will be happy and if it isn't well, I always have a Victorian themed video game to get lost in. At the moment though, time of season or not, my days are falling into the above. Up, to work, back from work, nap, do bits of stuff maybe exercise, back to bed, up, work and so on and so on. If I can avoid stuff I will. Depending on the stuff. If I can avoid going out I will. My solitude is becoming an overwhelming presence both wanted and not wanted. Once I have finished work and I come home, depending on whether I have slept the night before, slipping back into bed is easy enough as I know I won't have much else on. That I don't mind as sometimes it helps keep my mind calm. Until I awaken and worry that I have wasted time. I really don't think I can give myself time off. It is either doing too much, doing the wrong thing or, as in this case, not doing enough. Enough of what though? And even if I was doing something would that be the right thing, the right thing to still my mind? Probably not. Having anxiety and depression is a horrible push me/pull you scenario and it is tiring. I have a drive but that drive is aimless and is more of a drain and hindrance than anything close to fueling or inspiring me.
Hopefully the New Year will be different.
We shall see.

When she could see it she stayed when she couldn't she left

The below was my first attempt at writing and then submitting it to The Mighty. No luck do far so here it is in full. Reveals a little of what led me here.

I’d had a knee operation, a replacement for my anterior cruciate ligament that had been shorn just over a year earlier due to sporting activities. It was painful and took time to rehabilitate with pain killers, physio-therapy and time. My then fiancée helped me through it all, every aspect she helped me with. The medication, the anti-thrombosis drugs that had to be injected, helping me move to places that my crutches could not take me, made my meals and assisted in washing me when showering just wasn’t possible. She also drove me to hospital when there was the threat of a clot in my leg and comforted me when I was in literal tears due to the pain. When I struggled to look after myself she looked after me. 

When I needed her the most she was there.

Almost exactly a year later when a mental condition threatened to take over me completely my then wife stopped being there.

I have had depression since a teenager and it has flared up during various points in my life. When my second great depression came and I eventually recognised it as such (or rather stopped ignoring what was happening to me), I told my wife. I opened up to her and it was she that took me to the doctors. It was she that listened to me and told me that she wasn’t going anywhere and she’d always be there. She told me this after I had related to her a particularly nasty episode that saw me overwhelmed by thoughts of suicide a few days before. I’ll never forget her holding my hand in that café that evening. Both of us were sipping overly sweet coconut hot chocolates as she looked me in the eye, held my gaze and made sure I understood that she wasn’t going anywhere I really felt that I could open up to her if I ever needed to. She would be there for me. Unfortunately, as the days and weeks carried on it was not to follow like the rehabilitation of my knee. The medication I was on, after the visit to the doctors, wasn’t quite working as well as I’d hoped and the suicidal thoughts weren’t going away. So I opened up to her, thinking it would help us both. 

I was also bouncing between no sleep and oversleeping and I was self-harming. Not a lot but enough for her to notice. As time went on and the family we had planned on starting wasn’t even close to coming to fruition she gradually began to mention me spending time away to try and recover. This went from going back to my parents to separating to finally her mentioning divorce. She wasn’t going to be there for very much longer. In fact she wasn’t going to be there at all. Everything I had feared when this illness was taking hold had come true. Those fears that deep down I knew were just that, fears, were now all too real. 

Now I don’t pretend that I was fun to live with and I know our intimacy had dropped. 

Being in the depths of a severe depression doesn’t make you feel very sexy, shall we say. 

But if we return to my earlier physical problem and my knee and how she treated me and now apply that scenario to this it all seems faintly ridiculous. I wish I could make her understand that now if I met her again. How her reaction to one mental condition made no sense when compared to her compassionate reaction to my physical one. I try not to think too much about it now and even when I do it all feels like a dream and one I am only now just waking up from.

The urge to do nothing at all

In the last 15-20 years I have always had this urge. I think it tends to be dependent on how stressful the months or years preceding this urge has been prior to having it. It meant that when I was ill, physical illness such as a cold or flu, I embraced it, the chance to hide away in bed, sleep and stay hidden with the excuse of being ill and contagious. 
'Sorry, can't go out I'm ill.' 
Easy. 
When it came to the mental illness, well I think I've covered that one before.
But the more I've thought about it the more it has become clearer to me and that is those urges were borne out of need for self care before a big depressive episode threatened to overwhelm. Which, of course, is exactly what it did. It has been on my mind because it is threatening now and I think, or rather I am hoping, that this is more down to the time of season, the colder wetter days, the darker evenings. That urge to hibernate away is always strong around now. But is it that or is it the other? That grey mass that hovers over the horizon and bodes towards a blanking out the blue sky. I'm just not sure and that is what worries me.

It rained and it rained but still he felt nothing

The rain is certainly coming down right now. Late at night it is kind of relaxing to me, especially if I don't have to wake up early the following morning. It is chilly and much darker in the late afternoon too. All the ingredients for the usual feelings of hiding away to hibernate. Over the summer as I mixed it in with my running I was starting to awaken a lot earlier to go to work and have carried it on since then. I like the earlier mornings as there are very few people around and it is  calmer. The only trouble is once I get back home and I have eaten breakfast I struggle to do things. I might exercise but that is about it. And then I get down on myself of not doing enough. Time used to be I would write or draw but the space for that and well, the ideas for those endeavors are low to none. I have writings to work on, again but after so much work on them before and them not getting anywhere it is hard to find the point to it all. The most I can do at the moment to fill that anxious void is to sort out my clothing. That's it. 
At the very least I have started reading more but inside it isn't enough. I feel like I am wasting this time away. But I don't what to do or what to really do about it. Couple all of this with my inner instinct hide away and when he weekend come now and I have nothing on I feel very happy indeed. I can't help but feel this will make things harder in the future when things do come up, future activities. And the less said about the upcoming festive season the better.
Will I ever give myself time off mentally? Or will I end up back to where I began with all of this, a grey numbness that almost broke me?

It was foggy but I could still see

Now that the nights are drawing in and the air is getting colder that all too familiar sense of panic and hibernation is starting to rise to the surface. some days it feels like I'm in a Pink Floyd video; a grey background with the occasional bright objects taking up the view. This sense of self comes every year, near enough without fail and you would think I would be used to it by now but well, I'm not. I have remedies for them and so far, the way my work schedule is, they are keeping it at bay. So far. 
The usual music, reading, movie, video games, hiding in bed, avoiding people if I don't need to go out and see them, so far these have helped and keep me stable. It is challenging though. None more so than the other week when the thought of my taking my life popped into my head. That is usually a sign of it coming back in  a big way when that happens. thankfully though it was a quick thought,  a flash of an idea rather than something that stuck around like it did before. But it was a warning. 
The question that does nag at me though is what will I do if it does come back?
Can I go through it all again?
That is a question I try to keep at bay as I don't think I will like the answer.

I hid in bed, gladly. Hidden away from it.

My half marathon has been completed and what fun it was too. I had a bit of a cold but managed to not only go but complete it too. My anxiety was higher prior due to there being lots of people projected to go and I had a new place to stay in over-night as the transport down on the day wasn't good. I ran for Mind on the day which was nice and something I felt I needed to do considering why I took up running in the first place and everything else. It was a nice book end to all those early morning runs and long milers over the summer and something I would like to do again. But for now back to the usual running routine and getting ready for the darker evening and colder days. I like Autumn . It really chimes with me. The chilly air, the falling colourful leaves, the hot chocolates and the opportunity to stay in. More than usual and having good excuses to stay in too. Especially when it comes to the odd conversation regarding what you did over the weekend.
'No, I didn't do anything over the weekend. The weather isn't the best so I thought I'd stay in.'
Music listening, reading, video game playing, TV and movies, it's all there for me. The only fear for me is trying to work out if that is just the normal me prepping for Autumn/Winter or it is, 'it'? The fear of 'it' coming back to settle in is a scary one and one I have covered before but regardless the fear of it is very real and almost as bad as having it. Well, maybe not but still knowing what might come can be unsettling.
I suppose I will find out as the days roll into weeks and months and I relax into the chilly dark.
At least I have PF as my soundtrack.

Don't ever dream

This is a feeling I haven't had for a while. At least, not since last year and that was for something else. Though I suppose the feelings that come as a result are pretty similar. 
That feeling is one of being gutted. I feel totally gutted. I haven't had a feeling that close to this since that teacher I saw last year totally blanked me after getting to know each other and go out. Or as the kids call it these days, ghosting. That left me feeling bad and this recent news has done similar and then some.
It was a job and though it started off with no much hope in mind by the middle of it I was pretty much there, relocated and doing the job. But now? Well, news came in that informed me that I didn't reach the required standard, whatever that means. 
I had some much hope tied up in that. So much so that I dared to dream.
Ahh crap.

The sun is setting

So far the summer has passed along nicely. Cricket, running, voluntary work and some sort of routine throughout the day, yeh.
I have a half marathon to train and prepare for in Oct and a new job assessment coming up soon.
Yet I still have little wobbles. 
I still yearn for the past a little and my nerves still threaten. 
But here I am. I'm still here and that has to count for something. I have to be mindful now and I do try and treat myself nicely and well and choose what I can and can't do. And if that means saying, no then so be it.
The recovery has been long and slow but it is still ongoing.
But I am still here.

A Greyish Purple

An odd day, feel very bleh. Tired too. 
This grey scale weather is sapping me I think. Either that or it is accentuating what was already there. Feeling a bit 90s too, hence this tune below.
Kinda matches everything today really.

Keep that line steady!

So far so good, trundling along experiencing new things, trying to go to new things, meet people, new and old, living life and working at life as best I can, returning to whatever normal is. Though having had this mental illness for a few years normal for me is not feeling like I have to end it all.
So it has been going ok. Some work, some sport- new and old- getting back into fitness. It all made me feel like, yes, I have surpassed that illness at last. 
Silly.
I have had it since a teen, hitting me at various intervals both small and very big. So to think that was, as seems to be me, wildly optimistic, nah foolish. Still, you can't help it after such a dark period. But when you have a bad day it brings it all rushing back. I have had the odd bad day, a wobbly one as I have mentioned before and now I am trying hard to sort it with self-care. Going back to my usual promise routine. That being, if I have something to do of a day and it is a bad one tell myself if I get through it and do it by the end of it I can either purchase something I have been after, read in bed, or have some biscuits with a brew. Something like that. Nothing major, admittedly, but something to me. And so far, it has been working. It isn't a cure all but it smooths things over and gets me well, living I suppose. 
I still have major anxious moments and if really bad I will cancel but then I always did say 'yes' a bit too often to things and people so perhaps that isn't a bad thing. I do try to give notice unless I'm bad and then heck, we all get ill sometimes don't we?

Living in this skin has been troublesome

Just for once it'd be nice if I didn't tie everything that I try, whether sport or an audition, into and in with my entire self worth and entire being. But it seems that I can't quite help myself. And as such I left my casting today feeling bloody awful, ready to fling myself into that deep dark mental cell to self flagellate. 
I don't think it went well at all, the casting and I felt gash for it and could quite easily imagine the director and the rest ripping the piss out of me and my 'performance'. It seemed so simple too yet in that minute or two in those two chances I was given I might as well not have bothered. The pre-dump of adrenaline before hand that hit out of the blue didn't help. Usually I'm pretty calm about these things but today, just before going boom! Hello near panic! Seeing a pal from previous drama plays help take my mind off it at least. After that staring out of the window and munching on the complimentary biscuits prior to my spot that feeling started to creep in and by the time I had done it and was out the building it was in with The Boss in my ears and off to browse to take my mind off the crap feeling that was my anxiety, depression and to try and stop my rapidly diminishing self worth. Anything that requires me to take some pressure seems to now cost me. Walking back to the train station I considered, not for the first time but for the first time in a while, jumping into the river. 
Hello suicidal tendency. It's been a while.
If not for the girls in their summer clothes around Bristol I might have struggled even more. Still, it was a tasking battle and one I didn't used to get but it seems it is one I may have to get used to. Again.
A day day last Monday, Friday and now today. They are trickling in. 
As long as it is only a trickle I suppose.

I can't go back. I can't go through this again.

Diminishing Firefly in my belly

So far it has only been the odd day of grey, maybe once a week, maybe once or twice a fortnight. But sometimes I get those days of deepest night blue. Today is just such one of those days. 
Initially I had plans to go out for the day after work and enjoy a day out but as it got closer it became apparent that the excuses in my mind were starting to sound like the better option. No matter how hard I tried to bat them away they soon settled in.

There will be highlights on the TV
The tickets haven't arrived yet (They came eventually)
You'll save some money
It will be packed and full of people

Thin final remark was the one that really did it for me.
You see, years ago my anxiety with regards to crowds of people was always something of a going concern but I managed to get around it or just ignore it because it involved doing and going to something I really wanted to see. As in going to a concert or festival to see a band or bands. That was as a single person. After the divorce I think I had gotten used to being with someone when out and about so now going to a place full of people is a struggle. I have done it before but it takes a lot from me and within me to do it. Today wasn't one of those days where I managed to summon anything like close to that, however. 
Today has been a day of trying to settle enough to listen to music, sleep or just be without feeling like flying into a rage over stupid pointless insignificant things. The last time I felt like that was during a coming off of one meds to go onto another. 
So here I am again. 
Tired within, empty like an ice lolly that has had it's essence supped out leaving only colourless ice on a stick.
Days like these make me feel just plain bloody awful. Where anxiety meets depression things get.... troublesome. I struggle to do anything or even think anything other than my own wretched existence and when that happens suicide isn't that far from my thoughts.

This too shall pass this too shall pass this too shall pass

Bit by bit, drive by drive.

It hasn't been too bad a month. I have managed to secure myself a lill' part time job, get back to some sort of sleeping routine and take up a new sport that I was threatening to back in 2008 when a Bruce Springsteen gig seemed to put paid to it all. Well, that and various other weekend activities at that time.
The new sport, cricket, has seen me travel through an area of the county that I haven't been in or through since my time with her. It has been 'interesting' to drive through those areas again and, this weekend gone, even more 'interesting' to pass through the town we used to live in together. I hadn't been there since 2012 and so to drive through it this past Saturday really opened up feelings of nostalgia in me, feelings I knew would come but still made me feel quite melancholic and backward looking still. The drive back even more so as I thought back to our times in that town, times together driving that road we had taken many times previous. It made me a little sad and, as I say, quite nostalgic but it didn't have the heavy effect I though it would. I expected a numbing feeling to overwhelm but it did not. 
Feelings about her were more in the reverse, looking back rather than full of regrets and wishes to be with her. 
Those feelings don't appear any more which I can only take as good thing and a sign of a progress that is continuing.

Moment to moment

The week prior to the 5th anniversary was a troublesome one with me doing the usual when it came to doing anything that required me to leave my room. Cancel everything and hide away. The post I made on Facebook was one that included the Green Day video I had posted on here before so in a way that was a step up because the usual was a certain song that me and her both liked and everytime I played it reminded me of her and our times together. My friend didn't get that as he focused more on the fact that I had posted about the wedding/divorce and told me I needed to get over it and drew a line through it already, which of course made me feel soooo great. It still hurts and some just don't understand that. It isn't as bad as it was and only pops up now and again, the anniversary being one of those pop ups but yeh, it still stings. I can't just cut out near seven years of times, love and memories because I want to or because others think that I should. I just can't. So all I'm left with it trying to move on gradually, step by step and moment to moment. The funniest thing, to me, of all this is a hankering to live back in that small town and house with fire that we sued to inhabit before the marriage, before the  move and before all of this. I wanted to get back to where I am now, with her but blimey, what I wouldn't give to live in that time zone and place again. However brief that it might be. I am over it, just about, but now and again I do drift. I am, however, tethered to stop drifting away completely.

Not tang-fastic, just sour

The wobble is proving more than just a wobble. More like an unbalanced decent into free fall if this keeps on going. Yesterday I felt bad and today, well, I just gave up. Mornings are fraught with the possibilities of anxiety and me acting on those anxieties.
It doesn't help that my sleep is a bit erratic so sometimes I end up oversleeping. Mostly it's because once I stay in bed beyond 5-10 minutes of turning the alarm off I get comfy, give up and nod off and then totally give up when I see the time. I had two things to do today but by mid-day I had given them up, one of them trying to go back to my old creative ways with regards to why I wasn't going to be there today. I have yet to see the reply. It wouldn't surprise me if they told me to go away and never bother them again. Actually, it would and it would upset me but I think that that sort of response is the type I fear, the type I actually expect. Or rather that black part of me expects.
It's what I expect no matter what I do or where I go. Whether it is football, going back to fitness or military I expect them to tell me to get lost as I'm a waste of space that isn't any use or any good at whatever it is that I am trying to do with them. 'Just fuck off will you?!'
My mind is always waiting for that to be bellowed. I think this explains my reticence to do things or participate in them. My inner narrative subconsciously thinks, 
'Why put yourself through it all? You know what will happen. You will fail, make a prat of yourself and though they may not say it they will think it.'
Is this the depression still or what's left over from it? I don't know anymore. 
The only thing I do know is that it is extremely tiring and wearing.
And if all of that wasn't enough, the 26th March is fast approaching. What would have been the 5th anniversary of my first marriage is coming at me when I'm feeling low. 
Great timing as ever.

Wobble

I suppose I cannot continue on with my life and not expect the odd wobble. The relief you have from getting through that long dense period of black can be quite spellbinding though and any threat of its return makes you fretful. I have had some wobbles before after such periods but it always un-nerves me some because there is always that fear of returning back to it fully. I had one a couple of weeks ago. 
It wasn't awful but it was enough to unsteady me. I felt it after a particularly hard run the day before and wondered if the run had anything to do with it but I suppose I cant really be sure. Whatever it was or wasn't the next day was a slump. The usual feelings coupled with that heavy weight feeling were ever present and left me in bed, keen to cancel any and all activities. It's always as soon as I wake up. The fear. That panic, that anxious oppressive feeling which determines what I do or rather what I won't do in the coming hours. It wasn't nearly as bad as times before but it was bad enough to make me want to lie low, hide away from everything. Thankfully it only lasted a day or so but it did scare me. This is what I feared prior to my return home from abroad. A return to how I was. 
At the moment only the odd little wobble has seen me return to anything like that, for the most part I have been clear of all that but it's hard not to be concerned and worry about it. Keeping out and away from it, that's my goal because a return to it is just too much to bear.

Moving on but remembering the time

A couple of months back from another country and half a year since I last took meds. 
How do I feel after all of this? Ok actually. When I wake up now I still have that mild panic but it's not as oppressive as it used to be when in the middle of the black and being on meds. Waking up could be an exercise in itself sometimes as I probably mentioned on previous blogs entries and although it still has it's moments they do pass and I can get up. Eventually.
My motivation has lessened as work and various other things have failed to come through but I still try and get up. I try and busy myself with exercise and various courses online and I still want to learn another language even though it is really slow progress. It feels like I am at last moving on. Admittedly I still do have thoughts and yearnings about her. Mostly I think they are about the time and what we had, the shared existence and life but damn, they are intoxicating. If I think about them of too long well, it lowers the mood obviously but sometimes I can't help but briefly visit them either by accident, a song or photo blowing up the memory for me or that missing feeling that sometimes crops up bringing her and that time to the front of my mind. Compared to last year though, when I had my pre-V Day wobble it is much better, both in terms of her and the black within me. I still have anxiety about things, certainly new things but I have moved on and progressed and have some resilience now. It took time and it has left me with scars but my scars mean that I am still here and that is something. Certainly when I look back over to that blog entry from late 2012 it is. Progress may be slow but it is progress. I am moving forwards.
And as to her...

Forgetting you but not the time

The Return

Time off of meds, time and distance from the black after 3 and a half years and living and working in another country. In that time away I had 1 maybe 2 low points that were more to do with the former wife, another dream about her, and time spent in a house with 5 other blokes. I got to enjoy a different culture, way of living, way of driving(?!) and how coaching is viewed by some over there.
I also learned, mostly through the living with 5 others, that I have changed since my black. In as much as my tolerance for people giving me crap, or as some call it 'banter', has dropped considerably. I don't mind receiving as long as they can take the return. That they could not became apparent quite quickly and so the situation became quite stressful and miserable at times living with a virtual bully.
I won't be returning to the organisation that I worked for which is probably just as well as I wouldn't have lasted long with that person in the house. However it does mean that I won't be able to return to my teams or the players and parents I had started to form relationships with and whose company and learning I was starting to enjoy help move along.
My experience, for the most part, was wonderful for a variety of reasons. Not least because it felt as though I was finally clear of the second great depression which had stuck around for a long time. The fear of it returning is something I will have to try and live with but for now I am doing ok.