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.

That's it

That's it. That is, was my last half of Mirtazapine that I took Monday night. Over 3 and half years of meds from Citalapram, Escitalapram before finally settling on the Mirtz. I could tell the meds were practically out of my system as just taking that half left me feeling very lethargic the following morning. I wanted to be clear of them by the time I left for the US and so far so good. I have had the odd moments of anxiety in the morning but generally the side effects haven't been too harsh at all as I've come off them these past few months. 
Now, however, I'm worrying like my old self as I try and think ahead and think what I need to do with regards to my summer holiday job that I'm leaving for this week. Anxiety has always been a problem with me and more so whenever some sort of change enters my life. Like I've mentioned before I never seem to be able to enjoy experiences I always see them as obstacles to be overcome, especially with this anxiety that fuels everything. I don't know how to smooth it, even with all this experience of dealing with it behind me. I just tend to worry worry worry and then do it. I need to find another way, especially when it comes to calming myself down. That I have yet to really find. I'm hoping more experience will help and do what it sometimes does and desensitize me to future worries and anxieties. 
Time will tell. Again. 
But for now, I have a trip to get ready for.

"Brace yourself, cos this goes deep
I'll show you the secrets, the sky and the birds
Actions speak louder than words
Stand by me my apprentice
Be brave, clench fists...."

This is....

It's getting nearer. 
The summer holiday job move to the US. All things going well, as in funds being available, I should be off next week. The nerves have been there, mostly every-time I awaken. 
For me this is normal and something I've lived with throughout my life so far when something big in my life is coming up. It may also explain the depression as I believe high anxiety types are prone to it. And really this brings me back to something I mentioned before. I've always seemed to see events coming my way as obstacles to be overcome rather than experiences to be enjoyed. Always. It's rare if I can still my nerves to the point of not being too bothered by it all. Very rare. I just can't seem to switch off from it. I'm always wired into it and it gets wearing. I don't know how else to approach things and mostly the only way I've learned to cope is to just do it like that books says, Feel the fear and do it anyway. Having the feelings though, sheesh, it sure makes it difficult because those feelings make most things seem like a threat a direct fight or flight situation which can lead to me er... flighting. These last few years have seen a lot of that but considering what I was going through I'm not going to get too excited by any of that. 
Battles will be won and lost but the war goes on. That was something I used to repeat to myself when I was first stating out in stand up and trying to get the will up to travel places. 
I still use it now but it makes me think, will the war ever end? I don't think it will. Not unless I can radically change, not only my thinking but my inner being too and after a life of this how can I? 
It just feels like putting plasters on numerous gaping wounds.
On the plus side I have one half of my meds left to take and then that's it.
For now.

Picture time

Blow Me One Last Kiss

So I'm almost off them completely. I take half a tablet after 2 days off and soon this will be a half taken every four days off until I stop. And when I do that will have been over 3 and a half years of meds and deep black behind me. A black that has seen a divorce, a loss of job, house, the odd friend and various other things that I thought would always be there. And that's not even mentioning the various other things that have been lost or given up on or not even attempted by me in that time. I knew, at the start, that it would be a bad time but I really didn't think I would be here, at my parents trying to patch back together my life. And that's what it does feel like at the moment, trying to patch back together my life. 
The cracks will always be there like one of my mugs that was glued back together after a drop. My scars, internal and external will be something I will have to carry forwards from now on, which doesn't sound like much but if you read through my older posts it really is.
I have learned a few things from this second great depression, things about myself and about others too. For me I've learned that when depression and anxiety collide that is when thoughts of taking my life start to take hold. I've also learned that after this illness comes a thick hardened skin to some things, a fearlessness that will show itself when it comes to either making decisions on certain things or in certain situations. This is best exemplified RIGHT HERE
I've also learned that some people, no matter what they say and what they profess to you with regards to love and always being there, regardless of all of that sometimes they can not deal with someone who has a mental illness and they don't want to either. As to the why, I'm not sure. I have my suspicions regarding my ex-wife but they are only that and I doubt they'll ever be validated. I also know that when in the middle of an episode and feeling very suicidal  it is not so much like being painted into a corner -if I was I'd just run-back across with as few steps and as lightly as possible, after all I could always paint back over it after all- rather it is like being on a floor that is gradually falling away until you are left in a corner with your back against the wall on a small bit of whatever is left of the floor. 
What's left? Not much and not much to choose from either with only a small place to hide until even that feels like it's going to fall away. It is then that the option to let yourself or even force yourself to be consumed by that darkness becomes a worthwhile option. It was an option that became open to me many times and even gave rise to a foolhardy attempt too.
But here I now am. In a life that I wouldn't have even come close to considering when it was all starting to happen to me back then. It almost feels like starting again and in a sense it is I suppose. I'm nervous about it but it's not the depression nervous that has stopped me doing things from before, it's the usual nerves that I could get through before all of this and will again this time now that I'm starting to pull free.

'Be brave, clench fists...'

Drinking water to stay thin...

It's been a few weeks of change for me. I had an exam to complete to signal the end of the foundation degree and that went to form, as in it went badly. Not so much my effort, though I've yet to find out the result of that just yet, more that when we went there our names were not down on the seating planner. Brilliant. So after much moving around trying to find the venue, no-one there really knowing what was going on our tutor came down and put on the exam in his study room instead. Most were not keen and elected not to do it. Myself and one other did. I thought it best to get it out of the way and I really didn't fancy revising another load of subjects later down the line. It meant missing a ride back home but I didn't mind so much. It gave me a chance to relax on the train going home and listen to the Manics, always a favourite when I'm in Wales. My thoughts were quite melancholic, thoughts of past mistakes and my ex-wife were at the front of my mind for some reason, as I have mentioned in a previous blog. So now that's it, education wise. 
On towards the US. Regarding that I had some not so great news as I have been relocated to New Jersey which isn't ideal as my heart was set on the Boston area. I couldn't help but feel a little deflated at that news. Still, at least it's somewhere else and a chance to put the past truly behind me. I think I need distance, physically distance to put certain things behind me, as cliched as that sounds.
My other change has been some weight loss. I have adapted that 5/2 diet and tailored it a bit to suit me any my exercise regime and so far it has worked as I can now put on certain jeans and shirts without them looking a bit like a pale Hulk about to erupt.
I almost forgot the other change. I'm coming off my meds. It's been over 3 years and I think it's the right time. I'd like to be off them before the US and I think the gradual come down from them will be a lot kinder to me than the nightmare of 2013 and the week long come off that left me, well left me back in A&E. I haven't noticed anything too strong with regards to side effects so far aside from over-tiredness, the odd pain in my head and the odd little bout of anxiety. Hopefully this will not be a constant state, else it will make the trip over a not too nice experience. 
Well, no more than usual anyway.

Out of the Picture

It's odd that dreams can potentially shape a whole day upon waking. During the the fallout from the divorce they'd pretty much set the tone for the day, mood wise. Lately I thought I had gotten over that particular problem as the dreams I'd had about my ex-wife had less of a hold on me, as shown by the last blog entry. Until this morning that is. My sleep has been all over the place again and last night sleep was slow in coming. It was that slow that I could feel the full effects of my medication, the nausea, the drowsiness without the sleep and the un-rest in my legs. By the time I was due to get up my head was in a fuzz so what followed was more drowsy sleep and a dream of me and her, back in that small house in that small town almost as if nothing had happened or changed. When I woke up it felt as if I'd changed places, the reality was really the dream and the dream was really reality. For a split second or so that was the case until it faded away like a morning mist meeting the sun. The combination of the meds and that dream left me feeling utterly bereft. I haven't felt that bad over a dream for quite a while and the urge to hide away in bed was and is strong but so far I am just about resisting. Rightly or wrongly I was considering coming off my meds, mostly due to their aide effects which, as mentioned, can leave me feeling out of sorts. After this morning though it does give me pause for thought. Am I ready? I suppose whatever I decide these moments of missing will remain. At the moment it all feels like one step forward two steps back...

This was a song that played in my head as I awoke. It was one of her favs and one that reminds me of her.