depression

Snoskred Mania

7 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

magicisland4

When all the trouble happened at work in June 2014, I was having a lot of trouble sleeping. My doctor prescribed me a new antidepressant that would help me sleep at night. Did it ever. I’d be out for a solid 12 hours and still have trouble waking up.

I’d got to a better place mentally thanks to the drug and my psychologist, but this drug was starting to hinder instead of help, so my new lady doctor and I sat down and talked it through.

We planned out exactly how we would do the drug change-over – I would take half doses for 4 nights, then stop that drug. We’d wait a solid two weeks in between, then start on the new drug which I have already taken before. She did not write me a script for the new drug as I was not quite ready to go through the process yet.

When I was ready, my doctor was taking a few days off, so I had to see another doctor. No problem, I thought. All I need is a script for the new thing, this should not take long. Hahahhahahaha yeah that jinx thing happened again. This doctor was not familiar with the drug I was on, and spent 20 minutes reading about it and telling me wrong and irrelevant information, even though I told her I just wanted the script because I had already talked it through with the other doctor and I knew how to stop taking it.

Then she charged me almost $100 for an extra long session. Is it my fault she knew nothing? I think not. I will not be going back to see her any time soon. Not once did that idiot doctor mention any withdrawal symptoms to be aware of.

So, I discontinued the old drug. Everything seemed perfectly fine the first two days, but then things got very weird indeed.

If you imagine my mind as a large railway station, for over a year there had only been one train on the tracks at a time. Now it was like 300 trains, some slow trains, some express trains, some crashing into each other, some derailing off the tracks.. some there one minute and totally vanishing the next minute. Thoughts were coming at me faster than I could process them or write them down.

It felt like there was “An Explosion Of Snoskred”.

I wrote 20 LONG blog posts in the space of a few hours, and had ideas for 100 more spilling out as a surprise to myself. My OCD which had been mostly dormant sprang to life. I suddenly felt like I had to clean all the things RIGHT NOW but every time my hands got slightly dirty I had to stop and wash them which severely impeded my progress. I began checking the doors at least three times a day to make sure they were all locked.

I could not sleep more than 7.5 hours. When I woke up, it was like being slapped in the face with a bucket of cold water instead of swimming up very slowly through water. Bang, awake. While on the drug my dreams had been detailed, very real, and I could remember them the next day.

Now when I woke up, they vanished like thin wisps of fairy floss in a strong breeze, I could not catch them but I stretched very hard trying to grasp them and the more I stretched the more I knew I never would manage to remember what had happened. I knew they had happened and they felt super important, like I needed to remember them.

I got a lot of shiznit done, fast.. it was fantastic, I’m not going to lie. This went on for four days.. Then I began to wonder.. was this possibly a side effect of stopping that drug? I googled.. and it turns out one of the possible withdrawal symptoms is Mania. I’m not a doctor *but* I am pretty sure that is what I had. Had is the right word because it just a distant memory now.

The good part is, much of the great stuff remains. 7.5 hours is the max sleep I can have. Waking up is like flicking a switch. I’m exercising 6 days a week for 33 minutes – 3km exactly. I’m inspired to write and do more.

Don’t let us for one minute kid ourselves. I might not be sitting here typing this today if not for those drugs. I needed them to get through a bad situation. As I said in this post – Needing to take antidepressants is not a sign of weakness! It is a fact of chemistry.

depression

Depression Notes

12 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

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I get quite angry at people who say “You don’t need drugs, you just need to cheer up” to someone with depression.. :) This is why some people refuse to take any anti-depressants at all, instead choosing to pretend nothing is wrong and falling deeper and deeper into that dark depression hole.

Would they say to a diabetic “You don’t need insulin. Just tell your pancreas to harden up and behave properly.”

Would they say to someone who received an organ transplant “You don’t need to take those anti-rejection drugs. Just tell your body that you accept the organ and everything will be just fine.”

Would they say to someone with high blood pressure “Just do some yoga, remove yourself from stressful situations, eat less salt. You don’t need to take drugs for this.”

Do they refuse to take paracetamol when they have a headache, too? Are they living a totally drug free life? When I ask these know-it-alls these questions, the answer to *all* of these questions above is NO.

With depression, sometimes the chemicals in your brain are out of whack, and no amount of pushing, hoping, thinking positive, praying to deities, cheering up, or pulling ones socks up and hardening up is going to fix that.

It is important for people with depression to know that it is ok to take the drugs their doctor prescribes. If their doctor feels those drugs are required, then THEY ARE REQUIRED. All busybodies and armchair doctors, step off, and drink a nice big cup of shut up. It is not your place to say anything.

Needing to take antidepressants is not a sign of weakness!

It is a fact of chemistry.

We are really lucky in Australia that people can see their doctor and ask to be put on a mental health plan, which allows them up to 10 sessions with a psychologist bulk billed on medicare.

I left most of this as a comment on this post recently – How to help the depressed person – but I felt it was important to post it here on my blog as well.

I’ve been seeing more and more bloggers speaking up about depression lately which is a wonderful thing because it is so important that people who are suffering from depression know that they are not alone in feeling that way. One that stood out in my mind is this one from Leslie Beslie – I’m functioning so I must not be depressed.

I have a friend who has a son with a kidney transplant. She’s talked to me about how terrified she is that at some point during his teenage years, her son will want to “rebel” and stop taking the drugs that are keeping him alive. She grew up as a diabetic, and she did go through a phase where she felt like that about her insulin injections.

She’s done everything she can to teach her son those drugs are not an optional extra, that the anti-rejection drugs are essential to his very survival here on this earth.

The sooner people can think the same of antidepressants – that they are not an optional extra for many depressed people. That taking those drugs when prescribed by a doctor is essential for their survival here on the planet – the better for everyone.

That’s my opinion, anyway. :)

Angry Snoskred, Annoyed Snoskred, depression, life lessons

Vitamin Regime

4 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

vita4

I’ve mentioned before that when I stop taking my vitamins daily, that is a signal to me that I am on the road to depression. I take 5 things daily – 1x multivitamin – 1x hair, skin and nails – 2x Echinacea – 1x Mucus Relief Guaifenesin..

The Echinacea comes from Vitamin World – I bought a large quantity of Echinacea from there when I was on Oahu in 2013. The multivitamin in the middle is from Aldi. They are reasonably priced and I find them to contain everything I need in a multivitamin. The Hair, Skin and Nails is from Costco. 250 tablets last me 250 days and cost me less than $20 from memory, which is awesome value.

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I don’t think any human being is capable of creating a diet that gives them every single nutrient they need on a daily basis, which is why I supplement with vitamins. I wrote before about having a warm feeling in my leg which was caused by a lack of vitamin B.

In Australia vitamins can be costly so I often seek out more cost effective options. Once a year, if I am not going to the states that year, I’ll do a big order from Vitamin World.

I’ve posted about that before – Vitamin Delivery. Their vitamins are excellent and though shipping is not cheap it still works out cheaper than buying the vitamins here, unless I get them from Costco.

guaifenesin

Sephyroth sent me a couple of bottles of the Guaifenesin which is not readily available in Australia, certainly not in a tablet format. It can sometimes be found in cough syrups. I’m just about out of them, sadly. I do believe they assist me, especially when taken in combination with allergy tablets during hay fever season.

Why do I take the Guaifenesin? I have a problem with fluid in my middle ears, which can cause dizziness and reduce my hearing to a level not acceptable to me. If I run out of Guaifenesin I can take Bisolvon which is used for chest mucus here in Australia but it also dries up my ears.

So I make up these 7 day packs every couple of weeks, and each day I just open the flap and take the vitamins for that day. I can’t fit the blue ones in with the others, so they reside in their own container and I take one of those out each day.

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Vitamins are considered food by customs so if and when you bring them back into Australia you need to declare them. :)

What vitamins do you take, if any? :)

About Snoskred, depression, food, health, Vitamins

Signs That Lead Towards Depression Town.

1 Comment Posted on by Snoskred

candles

Everyone experiences depression in their own way..

As someone who has been back in that hole a couple of times now, I know when I stop doing some simple everyday things, I’m on my way back there. And just in case, I’ll share those here – your mileage may of course vary.

1. I stop listening to music

When the thoughts in my head tell me music playing while doing my chores is too annoying or irritating, there’s a sign.

2. I stop lighting candles and burning incense

They might sound like nothing but these things are important to me mentally and I recognise that now.

3. I stop accepting invites

When it is safer to stay at home in my safe place than to go out into the world and see people I know and love, that is a bad sign.

4. I stop eating well

Something in my mind says my body is not worthy of decent food or the time and energy it takes to create decent food. I certainly do not feel like experimenting or trying any new recipes.

5. I stop doing chores

Clutter begins to pile up, and that in itself causes me to feel depressed.

6. I stop taking my vitamins

I can’t be bothered putting them in the little pill containers ready for taking daily, and I can’t be bothered taking them out of their larger containers daily. As a consequence my nails become brittle (hair and nails is the most important vitamin for me) and my immune system becomes less awesome at dealing with things (I take 2x echinacea daily).

7. I stop caring about – and following – my daily routine

Having a daily routine is very important to me – almost too much so. When I’m not depressed, if I don’t get to follow my regular routine for too many days together I begin to lose the plot a little. When I start to not care about following the routine, I know I’m in trouble.

8. I sleep more than usual

– Usual for me is 8-9 hours, anything more than that on a regular basis (and I don’t mean one off situations like I have a cold or I slept badly the night before) and I know I’m on that road back to depression

When I spot any of these signs on a regular basis, especially more than one of them at a time, I know it is time to seek medical assistance and/or head back to my counsellor. I also know that I need to *make* myself do these things for a little while, because if I can just keep doing them I can avoid that hole. :)

That is my situation and as always everyone may find theirs to be different. :)

Please to note – those in Australia – if you know anyone who is suffering from depression, anxiety, or other forms of mental illness, one of the best first steps to take is to see your local GP and ask about creating a mental health plan. You currently can receive up to 10 free sessions with a psychologist every 12 months under this plan.

Also, you can check out Beyond Blue to get support and find more resources. You can also call Lifeline on 131114.

You can also talk with your doctor about whether anti-depressants would be worthwhile for you.

Some people are opposed to taking medication for depression. When those people tell me this, I ask them if they are also opposed to insulin for diabetics, or opposed to blood thinners for people with blood clots, or opposed to this list does go on for some time. I make sure to ask if they are opposed to everything from giving children nurofen or panadol right through to organ transplants. And believe you me, if someone is silly enough to make that statement in my presence, they are going to get asked the *entire* list of things. :) I’m wacky like that.

Depression is more than just a low mood – it’s a serious illness that has an impact on both physical and mental health, and medication can be important in treating it in order to correct the chemistry of the brain which may be out of whack. Yep, that is my technical term for that, however you can google if you want to know more about that. Here is a good article to start with but it is quite technical.

depression, life lessons

About Letting it go

10 Comments Posted on by Sephyroth

Many of you have seen or commented on a recent post here – Letting Go.., about one of Snoskred’s friends who has been battling with depression for a long time. Well, I am that friend. In fact, I have been battling it for longer than eight months. It’s only been in this time that we have been working on getting myself sorted out.

Up until now, it’s been a lot of going through the motions, ultimately leading me back to where I started. I’d even learned the “right” things to say to appease her and make it look like things were going well. Of course, that led to her having false hope in me, and ultimately to the point where I needed to be shocked into action. I needed a major wake-up call.

That call finally came on Tuesday, when a very bleak picture of my world was presented – one where I’d be on my own, with nobody caring about me and about turning my life around. It would be hell on earth for me. From there, I had two options – 1) wake up and start to act on making myself better, or 2) ignore it and go forth on my own, with no support. After we finished our discussion, I went for a walk and then posted about my commitment to change.

Included in that post was something that I hadn’t done before – make myself accountable for my actions. I also posted a comment on Craig Harper’s blog about my commitment to change. If you’re not reading his blog, you really should – it’s a great source of information about how to go about improving yourself.

After that, I then read the Letting Go post over here. I knew right away that it was about me, and essentially reinforced that I had to make the choice – shape up or ship out. It sounds harsh to think of it that way, but that is what it is. I’ve used up my chances, and now it’s time to prove myself. It’s making the small steps that lead to big things. It’s committing myself to doing the things that we had discussed all the way back in November – such as seeking out professional help. It’s about breaking the cycle of yes, ok, I’ll do that, wait a couple of months without doing anything, back into the hole.

As Snos said in her comment that she made today – this post was the catalyst. I’ve gone to see a doctor and have received an unofficial diagnosis of dysthymia – a mild form of depression – one that, without treatment, can last for a very long time. I received some samples of an antidepressant and start taking one a day from tomorrow. I was also told to get a consultation with a counselor to start with counseling appointments.

It’s definitely a start, but it’s a long road and I know that there will be ups and downs. I need to keep myself honest and that starts with myself. I mentioned yesterday the Post-It® notes that have begun to surround my monitor. One of them says “I will hold myself accountable for following my plans”. Part of that is posting a photo from when I go out to walk; it’s also keeping you all updated on my progress via my weekly updates. I’d really appreciate it if you all would help me out with the accountability – it doesn’t have to be constant, but the odd reminder will not hurt. :)

Lastly, this wouldn’t have happened if Snos didn’t care about me – she could have said “Fine, you’re on your own” and let me spiral. However, it is like she said in one of her comments – we are there for each other – it’s not always emotional support – most of the time it’s just to shoot the breeze and share what’s going on with our lives, or to solve a problem that one of us is having with a program or site. Thanks for letting me post this over here :)

I am posting this here, and also at Sephy’s Platzish, my blog.

Sephy

depression, moving forward, Sephyroth

Letting go..

17 Comments Posted on by Snoskred
Hump Day Hmm

I have a very good friend who likes to wallow in – well, various things. The dark hole of depression, feeling sorry for yourself, mediocrity.. the comfort zone of sabotaging yourself and setting yourself up for failure, receiving all kinds of good advice, nodding and smiling and never taking any of it.

Now I’m a very supportive friend, but there comes a time when between two good friends you have to be honest with each other, and that time came eight months ago. I spoke to this person honestly – and politely – here’s what you need to do to get yourself out of this hole. I know how to get out of these holes, having been in them myself many times.

So, I then shut up and let them get to work – at the end of the conversation I said I wouldn’t bring it up but if they wanted to chat about it they could always raise the topic. Of course, they never did. A couple of months later this person was feeling sorry for themselves again and told me so, and a pattern began to appear. I’d say all the right things – here’s how to get out of this hole. They would nod and smile and promise faithfully that they would try it. A month or two later, it would happen again. The last couple of times, I haven’t been quite so polite about it. In fact I told them they needed to get off their rear end and get to work and I pointed out this pattern which I saw clearly.

Then just a couple of hours ago this person arrived on my Skype and from the moment they said hello I knew the deal – they were down and feeling sorry for themselves, and they were waiting for me to do my usual there there, here’s how to fix it, pump you up with positives, you can do it, ra ra.

There comes a time in any relationship where you have to draw a line. You have to let go. I’ve been propping you up for far too long now. I know you can do it. I can’t do it for you. Nobody can do it for you. I can make positive changes in my own life, and I do it regularly. But I CANNOT WAVE A MAGIC WAND AND FIX YOU – though you know I would if I could. It takes hard work, and you have to do the majority of it yourself.

The major reason for setting a goal is for what it makes of you to accomplish it. What it makes of you will always be the far greater value than what you get. – Jim Rohn

I’m a huge goal setter. I’ve spoken before about my depression and the combat strategies I used, some of them were goals that I set for myself. I set goals all the time – even silly stuff like playing a game on my computer – I’ll want to get to a certain score or achievement before I quit the game.

This past couple of weeks, I have set myself a really unusual goal – to drink more water. I mentioned an article I had read in one of my weekly wrap ups and said I was implementing this change – 9 Great Reasons to Drink Water, and How to Form the Water Habit – but what I did not mention is.. I dislike water. I always have. I would prefer to drink soft drinks, coffee or fruit juice. I used to drink one can of real Coke each day with my main meal but there came a time when I really didn’t feel like it, so I would drink fruit juice instead. Before I read that article, I had begun to substitute water every third day, instead of Coke or fruit juice, mainly because the meal I was having didn’t go with either of those drinks.

So with a goal like this, it helps to break it down. The guy who wrote the article (Leo Babauta) actually did that for me – thanks! ;) – by saying – “Best is to form a routine: drink a glass when you wake up, a glass with each meal, a glass in between meals, and be sure to drink before, during and after exercise.” This is my new religion. I have these plastic cups which hold 250ml (just over 8oz) and a chart where I gleefully tick off each cup I drink. I’m up to 8 a day. A huge change from one every 3 days.

Can you believe that after just two weeks, I would rather reach for water than anything else?

So what I know is, anything I want to achieve, I can set a goal, break that down into smaller chunks, and then set out to achieve it. If I can do it, anyone can. Me who is not very good at self discipline and who isn’t the most organised person in the world.

Sometimes it seems easier to stay in your comfort zone, to keep sabotaging yourself to stay there. The fear of the unknown, the fear of what comes next. It is no different to jumping out of a plane for the first time – except you’re basically jumping out of the plane for the first time over and over, heading towards a bigger unknown than you have ever faced before. Yes, it is scary. It can be terrifying. Who will I be without my depression? At the moment that is what defines you. That’s all you know. You’re gripping on to the doors of that plane so tight your knuckles are white.

You have to let go and jump out of that plane.. or else you will stay in that hole of depression forever, and I can’t be your friend if that’s where you want to be. You see, I dug my way out of that hole with my fingernails. When my nails were all gone, I didn’t stop digging. I used my fingertips. I was so desperate to get out of there my fingers were bloody nubs by the time I managed to climb out of there – but I made it. I’m baffled that you *want* to stay there. I can’t imagine why you would want to. It’s a horrible place to be.

If you’re willing to get out, I’ll help you. I’ll do everything I can. Except keep going round in circles like this, it is pointless and useless. I’m not going to keep enabling you to feel better every now and then – I want to enable you to feel better all the time.

Have you ever heard the Meatloaf song “I’ll do anything for love but I won’t do that”? So many people speculate about what the thing he won’t do is. The thing I won’t do is allow myself to be dragged back to that hole and pushed / pulled into it – not by *anyone* – because I know how hard it was to get out of there, how much it cost me, how much effort it took every day. I said in a previous post about depression –

Normal people who have never been depressed will not understand the effort required to do just simple every day tasks when you’re down. Just to get up out of bed and have a shower seems like something impossible. The effort involved, to me it always seemed like someone had tied weights to my arms and legs, and it was difficult to move them. Probably most people who have been down will understand that.

I’m not going back there. It’s not until you get out of there that you realize how bad it was. Please, my friend, *please* let go of thinking your dark damp hole of depression is where you should stay. It’s either that, or let go of me, because you’re dragging me to a place I WILL NOT go.

depression, Hump Day Hmmm, moving forward, moving on

Combat strategies

6 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

So first let’s remember that I’m not a doctor or a shrink or anything like that. But this is what I have learnt during my fight with the dark side. Because I’m in Australia, I know about stuff that is available here. If you are in another country and you can point people to the right places to get help, please leave info in the comments.

Here are my steps that I have always taken.

I See My Doctor.

Diabetics need insulin – and some depressed people need anti-depressants. You need to see a doctor who will decide if medication is what you require, that’s the very first step. You can fight this without the drugs, but it will be a lot harder. And nobody would tell a diabetic – oh don’t worry, you don’t really need insulin, just push yourself a bit harder, you’ll survive.

The chemicals in your brain are out of whack, and no amount of pushing, hoping, or begging is going to fix that. It is ok to take the drugs your doctor prescribes.

We Create A Mental Health Plan

While you are seeing your doctor, mention that you would like to create a mental health plan. Doing this gives you the ability to have 10 free sessions with a psychologist. I have done this a few times and it has made all the difference for me.

I Seek Help

I usually see the psychologist I have been referred to via the mental health plan. But you do have other options.

There’s a lot of help available out there, but you might not know where to look. That’s ok.

If you’re in Australia, Lifeline does know where to look. It’s ok to call them and ask for help. In fact it is ok to call them and talk, that is what they are there for.

Check out beyondblue. They even have forums where you can connect with other people and see that you are not alone.

If you are overseas, I don’t know where to send you but shoot me an email with your location and I’ll see what I can find. :)

What kind of help do you need? Well there’s plenty of options. Sometimes you just need to vent, to talk it out. I found it helpful to talk to someone. There’s free telephone counselling 24/7 with Lifeline, but they can also refer you to go and see someone face to face, either free or low cost. I personally find it is really useful to do that.

So now we’ve covered seeing a doctor, which is going to get you on the way out of that dark hole, we’ve talked about creating a mental health plan, and we’ve covered other possibilities as far as talking to someone. It is so useful to admit you are in the dark hole and talk about what it is like in there, and strategies to get yourself out of there.

But what next?

Now, you have to put in a little effort towards your own recovery. The two things above won’t magically fix it on their own. So what can you do? Lots of things, but here’s the stuff that worked for me.

Get out of the house.

Walk for 20 minutes a day. If you can’t do this daily, then walk for at least an hour a week but get yourself to a beautiful location to do it.

We used to go to the Botanic Gardens, which were right next to the zoo. One day when we were driving past we noticed that members get into the zoo for free. So when I found out membership was so cheap it was less than a can of coke a week, we became members, and we would go to the zoo for our walks, often spending an afternoon or a morning just wandering about.

Volunteer.

One of the biggest problems with depression is that you want to curl up into a little ball and not look outward at all. This means you have plenty of time to focus on the negative thoughts and how you’re feeling. So instead of doing that, sign yourself up, make a commitment to some kind of volunteer activity. Make it something you want to do.

If you want to work with animals, why not look at wires or nana or the RSPCA? If you want to work with people, there’s a million options, check out this site.

I did many different types of volunteering. I painted houses, which was a lot of fun. I went through the Lifeline course and worked on the phones there, which really taught me a lot and it was something I had always wanted to do. I volunteered at the zoo, tour guiding and doing watches on the animals. I’m choosing between three different options right now but I have to find some kind of volunteer work to do here soon.

Make lists.

Lists of things you need to do, lists of things you want to do, lists of things as simple as daily chores. There is nothing more satisfying than crossing things OFF the list when you have done them.

There was a time when I could not get out of bed, so the one thing on my list was to manage that, every day. There were some days I just could not do it, and I had to give myself permission to be ok with that, too. So I worked out that it was a good idea to pick one day a week where I did not have to do it, where I allowed myself to stay in bed if I really wanted to. And I found, once I gave myself permission to do that, it was not really something I wanted to do – I found I wanted to get up and do things.

Paint. Write. Knit. Sew. Create.

Reward yourself for doing the stuff you don’t want to do by doing stuff you do want to do. I painted things. I did ceramics (not cheap but I loved it). I learnt to play the keyboard. I scam-baited. I still do these things now.

Listen to music.

I think this one is really important, and I know myself well enough now to note when I stop listening to music, it’s one warning sign that I’m headed for that black hole. It’s also a good idea to replace the negative thoughts in your head with song lyrics, I found.

Those Were My Combat Strategies

So that’s just a few of the things I did to drag myself out of that hole. They could work for you, if you’re down. Give them a try.. ;)

About Snoskred, depression, life lessons, moving forward

The bad news..

5 Comments Posted on by Snoskred

I’m writing this using Internet Explorer as blogger seems to work fine with it, and the issue they are having at the moment happens only in Firefox. Apparently. Well let’s hope they get it fixed soon because using IE makes me want to mutilate squirrels. And I like squirrels a lot. So I guess it’s lucky I’m in Australia where we don’t have any.

I’m really glad to see Meva is back to blogging, she vanished for a short time. This means I am finally going to post something I’ve been thinking about posting for a while now. I’m hoping that people aren’t just going to run away and stop reading this blog if I admit this. It’s not exactly cheerful reading, and this is not a trip down memory lane that I am looking forward to, but I think it has to be done.

Some years ago, I was very depressed. So much so that I could not get out of bed, most of the time. It all started when my car got broken into. I had worked for a company that sold car sound, and I had installed $7,000 worth of car audio into my car – myself.

It had a great alarm, and the people who broke into it laid under the car for over an hour with a rag stuffed into the siren while the backup battery ran down. I was furious. I wanted to kill the people who did it, but I didn’t know who they were. I was so angry, I can’t even describe it.

They were helped by the fact that my husband (yes I was married) had chosen for us to live in a house with a driveway from hell that I could not drive my car up or down, it had brick walls on both side, and it was at approximately a 45 degree angle.

Some months before he had decided to buy it – without consulting me. He told me we were buying it. I wanted to look at other houses, he refused to consider it. The house belonged to his Dad, and his Dad wanted to get rid of it. I suppose that was when I realised that I’d made a huge mistake, and this marriage thing was not the best of ideas.

So then one night soon after the car break in I went to fill up the ice cube tray, and the tap fell off the wall into my hand. Water was gushing out of the wall, I was absolutely saturated. Husband ran in and was screaming at me to go and turn off the water, I had no idea how to do that, so I said he would have to do it. He goes out, turns it off, returns, and by this time I am laughing – well, you have to, right? :)

I was completely soaking wet, and he was furious – that I was laughing, that the tap fell off the wall, and he starts yelling at me. I said “I’m not the one who decided to buy this house” and out of nowhere he just slapped me. I grabbed my car keys and left, not even stopping to get shoes. I did not go back.

That was my first run in with the black hole of depression, it certainly was not my last. There was a time in the early 2000’s when I spent over a year in there.. Everyone who has been there has a different way of describing it. To me it was like a big black hole I’d fallen into and I had no idea how to get out.

I might sometimes seem like I’m functioning well and everything is fine, but I know I am always close to the edge of that dark hole, and if I don’t work hard to keep myself out of it, I can end up back there. Seeing as it’s so hard to get out, I’ve worked out strategies over time which help me keep out of there. I’m going to share some of those with you guys over the next few weeks because I recognise they may be helpful to other people, too.

Normal people who have never been depressed will not understand the effort required to do just simple every day tasks when you’re down. Just to get up out of bed and have a shower seems like something impossible. The effort involved, to me it always seemed like someone had tied weights to my arms and legs, and it was difficult to move them. Probably most people who have been down will understand that.

So don’t think this post is looking for sympathy or anything like that, I’m not. Right now I feel like I’m flying. Things are going pretty well, except for the fact I have no job and no desire to get one, but it’s ok, we’re coping, I don’t really need to get one until I feel like it.

I just want people to know that I’ve been there, too.

I think most people end up there sometime. It’s ok to admit it, and it’s ok to ask for help – and get help. There’s plenty of it out there, if you look in the right places. :)

About Snoskred, depression, domestic violence

Depression etc.

Leave a comment Posted on by Snoskred

Everyone gets depressed from time to time, I think. I have struggled with it myself. I’ll be honest, it looked to me when I was at the bottom of that hole that I would never be able to climb my way out of it, but I did, mostly by my fingernails.

My really good friend Sephyroth is
struggling with depression at the moment.

I’m a bit upset because some scambaiters have treated this friend of mine badly. You should be ashamed of yourselves for how you treated this very good friend of mine. Someone who has always been there – not just for me, but for *anyone* who needed help and asked for it. Someone who now does not do a lot of the stuff he could do simply because you have shown him time and time and TIME again that you do not appreciate it. That you just treat him like my “lapdog”.

Sephy, I know this is not going to be easy but I am here for you and you will come out the other side of this. I am so proud of you for standing up and admitting when something is wrong, and now moving forward to working on a solution. It might not happen overnight, but it will happen.

Guys, you may not know this, but Sephy is the person I turn to when I need help. It might be something as simple as searching for something on the internet (which I am terrible at but thanks to his help am improving) or something as complicated as helping me organise a spreadsheet to keep track of which lad I am baiting with which address from which country. He is also an incredibly talented baiter, and is currently baiting a couple of lads as my character tyr@ and I am just doing the voices on the phone calls.

When you and I work together Sephy, lads suffer. That’s what it is all about, working together. The fucknuts seem to have forgotten that. They would not know how to work together if they found themselves all tied together in a bag at the bottom of a swimming pool, and they would all drown. You and I wouldn’t mate. ;) We’d work to find a way out, together. Just like we will find a way to dig you out of this depression.

Thank you so much for always being there to help me. You don’t know how much I appreciate it. And I believe you really are an Aussie on the inside – being there for your mates is something this country is based on.

depression, people talking about you, scambaiting