Routine drain

A new year and one filled with some expectation. 
Last year, although a bad year with regards to certain world events, was good for me. I volunteered for a couple of events, played a new sport, ran my first half marathon and secured a new part time job as well as some coaching too. So with this in mind 2017 has given me the opportunity to achieve more. At the moment though I am trying not to slip into that old familiar black, which, perhaps because of the time of year is threatening again. 
Now I go to work early in the morning in the hope of coming back to do things, be a bit productive. What usually happens is that I feel a bit pooped, have a nap and then wake up a bit out of it and minus a good chunk of motivation. It is usually because I don't know what to actually do with my time and when I do I feel too drained to actually do it. I suppose on the plus side I can get out to exercise unless I feel really bad. So that is something. A plus amongts the minuses.
This year feels like it could be a decider. I'm getting older and if I don't want this illness to either define me or, ultimately, be the end of me I need to get certain things moving and progressing. 
Even if it is just a small step on that road.

Just gotta stay positive.....

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.