You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'depression' category.
Haven’t posted here in a while… have been keeping myself busy and I have started reducing my medication. There are still lots of issues to deal with, though, and I have an appointment with a new therapist next week.
The last one didn’t quite work out for me, and this one has been recommended by my psychiatrist, so fingers crossed.
A person I follow on Tumblr wrote about her experiences on anti-depressants and it got me thinking about actually sharing this with people I know. Talking about it would probably be better than fretting on my own!
Plus it’s beyondblue Anxiety and Depression Awareness Month so really, what better time than now?
I walked into therapy the other day with a horrible black cloud over my head. I’d had yet another shitty day at my should-be-great-but-is-really-shitty job, I’d missed the turn on a one-way street getting there, my shoulders were all tight and very sore, blah blah blah. I was just feeling really foul. I wanted this to be my last appointment because I knew I’d get there and she’d say “so, what’s on your agenda today?” and I knew I’d have nothing to say and I knew I’d have wasted an hour of my life, and $170.
The session started out slowly, and I was expecting it to head where I had expected it to head, but gah, you know what? It got better.
She talked me through my gloomy thoughts and I ended up leaving feeling lighter and bouncier and happier about the thing that, 50 minutes earlier, made me want to smash a pot-plant at the wall of her rooms (I didn’t, it’s ok).
I hate that I am dependant on my therapist to talk through the shitness of the things in my life that shit me and cause me to be shitty. Urgh. How horrible is that?
Aw!! I was rather hesitant about writing to Bossy, because she usually gives “no-holds-bared” responses that is “the sort of advice friends and relatives are too polite to give”. I was a bit worried I’d end up on “Fruitcake Friday” so in a way, I was, in a way, glad when her response to my email didn’t show up on those days.
Even her profile photo make her look kinda scary!
But then, when she did respond, she was really nice to me!!!
So were (most) of the commenters. I had the urge to reply back to every single one, because they took the time to write to me, but there are over 100!! So I might write straight to Bossy with an update and thank everyone in that.
It’s amazing how nice I felt reading about not being the only one who’s gone through periods like this. Intellectually, I know I’m not that special, duh, but sometimes when you’re in the depths of a Doona Day, the intellectual part is so battered by the traumatized emo part that it retreats to higher ground, and it feels like it’s just you on the plain.
(Where did that wanky analogy come from? Shite, I need to get out more.)
I’ve emailed the link to the post to my psychologist so that I can talk about Bossy’s suggestions in more detail at my session tomorrow.
M read the post too, and we chatted about it over the weekend. I wrote to her a while ago, the day after M and I were both in tears, and the situation has definitely calmed down since then, so that was probably a good thing — we were able to talk about it in a really rational way.
I’m really glad that I wrote to her, and started writing things in this blog. It’s great to get things off my chest and as well as get feedback from an objective viewpoint. Thank you Bossy, and Bossy Bloggers, I really appreciate your time.
It’s been a while since I posted. Work has been busy, life has been busy, and I just generally have been trying to avoid thinking and talking about being depressed (my BFF calls it “cessing”, as in just sitting there in the cess pool of one’s mental crap not achieving anything), which is what I started this blog for.
Therapy’s been happening on and off, although for financial reasons it hasn’t been as regular as it should be. I’ve scribbled some points in my bedside notebook about a few therapy experiences and I’ll get around to posting them eventually.
However, I had an impetus to post today… because Bossy answered my question this morning.
I wrote to news.com.au’s “agony aunt” (essentially) months ago, and she finally got around to answering my quandary about feeling guilty for making my boyfriend deal with all the shit that’s involved with my depression. It’s long winded, so I won’t re-hash it; anyone who cares can read it themselves.
Bossy’s answer was, however, really amazing. She’s usually a bit snarky but she offered some great advice about “Changing my Narrative”. I’m going to print her post and all the comments from her readers to digest at home tonight, but just wanted to mention that to check in here and do some dusting.
Network Ten newsreader Charmaine Dragun committed suicide late last year. It was just such a massive shock to everyone (seriously, everyone) because she was so bright and her career as a journalist was totally skyrocketing. I remember hearing her doing the newsbreaks on the fm radio station I listened to in highschool. Then she was doing the entertainment news from Ten in Perth, then ‘real’ news stories, then, when the news was run out of Sydney, flew over there to be the anchor.
I think her passing touched many people here, because deep down Perth really is a small town, but it was more so for me not only because I had known of her for so long, but because I knew exactly what she was going through.
This week’s Australian Story on the ABC was about her life and sudden death. So much of it rang true to me and there were tears; I’m very glad I watched it on my own.
LEWIS BEDFORD, GRANDFATHER: Charmaine’s perfectionism was one thing that worried her very much and yet she had nothing to worry about because what she produced and what she represented was so well done, but it was never good enough for Charmaine.
KIM FRASER, FRIEND: Charmaine was too shy to play the piano for us, even though we wanted her to. I guess it was part of her anxiety about not being good enough.
(Home movie footage of Charmaine as a child, playing piano)
ESTELLE DRAGUN, MOTHER: I would go up to her afterwards and say, “Charmaine that was beautiful, you really did play that well.” “No mum. I did this,” or, “I didn’t play that note correctly, I didn’t put the expression.” So all the time Charmaine was analysing what she did.LEWIS BEDFORD, GRANDFATHER: We were all happy, you know, we use to congratulate her and think she’d done so well. But you could always tell by her little mannerisms that, I’m not happy about what I did, and yet I could never understand why.
The relationship stuff was even more tear-jerking.
ESTELLE DRAGUN, MOTHER: Charmaine made a decision to leave Simon and come home. Her attitude was always, Simon was going to have the best and that she wanted him to be happy and if she couldn’t give him that happiness then she didn’t want to be part of it.
MICHAEL DRAGUN, FATHER: She found out she was getting this job to read the news in New South Wales and that’s when she got back with Simon again.
…
ESTELLE DRAGUN, MOTHER: When Charmaine was overseas with Simon they spent some time in London and spent some time with Simon’s brother. And one night Charmaine, I think, was just out of the room or she might have gone to the bedroom, and she overheard Simon talking to his brother. And apparently Simon was expressing his frustration with Charmaine’s mood swings, and he didn’t know how long he would be able to live with it.
SIMON STRUTHERS, PARTNER: I don’t know if she’d relayed different things to her mum because she spoke to her mum about her mood a lot more than she’d indicate to me. But we came back from that holiday and it was an absolute high. We just had the time of our life on that trip.
SARAH BAMFORD, FRIEND: Her biggest fear I think was having Simon grow tired of her illness and grow tired of her constant daily battle with feeling good and feeling well and feeling capable of being able to do, you know, the most mundane of things and not feel so incredibly unwell.
There have been times, very recently, when those exact thoughts were pushing me deeper and deeper into my depression. I feel really, really lucky that those episodes passed, that I had a chance to look back on those moments and try to learn something from it … and try not to have any more.
It’s awfully sad that she didn’t have that chance.
Bless you, Charmaine. May you be well and happy now, wherever you are.
talkback