Taking control of Depression and Anxiety, the year to flip the bird to my fears.

Unless you have been there it’s hard to understand why you can’t just shake depression off.   We all have down days,  it’s part of life right?

I struggled to understand what it feels like to wake up and for that brief blissful moment feel the sun on your face and smell the promise of a new day,  a blank page and then seeing the black cloud hovering in the corner of your bedroom,  urging it to go away.   Just give you one day off.

The feeling of despare and desperation as it slowly approaches,  the sick feeling in your stomach as it gets closer completely consuming you in its horrible grasp.

It’s not just a bad day,  it’s not just a bad week.   It’s an illness that people can’t see.   That you don’t want people too see.

This blog is not to upset people,  it’s to give people hope because finally I feel like I am coming out of the other side.

It doesn’t physically hurt to get out of bed in the morning anymore.   I feel like most days I can cope.   I can manage.

People will read this and think they remember the days in the not so distant past when I was at my worst but I can guarantee that none of you saw me at my worst,  I made sure nobody saw me at my worst.   On my worst days I couldn’t breathe never mind have company!

I’m one of those people that likes to think that the problem is always with someone else.

I guess I kind of hold myself on some weird unfounded pedestal and have a majorly hard time comprehending the idea that someone else actually may be right.

I’m quick to blame others, thinking to myself they haven’t made feel welcome, that they hate me, that I don’t care anyway.  I like to kid myself into believing that it’s anyone’s fault but my own.

I’ve never made a secret of the fact that I have a small circle, I find it so hard to make new friends and trust people that I think I’ve kind of just shut myself off.

All to often I have been invited to things, events, playgroups, gatherings of various descriptions and either been present in body but not so much in mind or not gone at all and made up completely bull shit excuses.

All in all, I’m just a bit of a dick.

The problem with blowing people off is that they forget to invite you eventually, you loose touch, you see nice pictures on social media and have a little cry to yourself because you wish you had just ignored your brain and that heavy feeling in the pit of your stomach, grown a set of balls and gone to the things you were invited too.

Depression and anxiety is a bitch you see, just because it holds you hostage and stops your life moving on it still lets everyone else carry on without you.

This year despite not really believing in new years resolutions I decided that I would try to extend my circle a bit, maybe try to reach out to people that I feel I have a bit in common with or try to persuade the people I’ve previously blown off to give me a chance at redemption.  So far I think it’s going ok!

I have arranged breakfast dates, been to a child’s birthday party and actually participated in conversation and thoroughly enjoyed myself, I have managed to carefully hide my resting bitch face which I feel has always caused me problems, (I do however worry that I now look a little bit weird as I feel like I have to permanently paint on a Cheshire cat like smile) and I have just made a general effort to be a better human being. Better to others and better to myself.

Making friends is not as easy for some of us as others and although I am not trying to make excuses for myself (maybe a little bit), feeling like a fish out of water is not any easy place to be when your supposed to be enjoying yourself!

your silence or apparent look of disgust can be misconceived as a snobbery or dislike of the people your spending time with when actually your brain is being a bitch and reminding you how beautiful these people are, how fat you must look next to all these amazing bodies or how you didn’t have enough time to get ready because your toddler was having epic meltdowns and your six year old was too busy throwing things at you and telling you how much of a completely shit mum you were because he cant control his emotions well and really he just wanted you to stay in and cuddle him instead of going out.

By the time I leave my house, whether it be 9AM or 9PM,l can guarantee I have dealt with a shit storm of epic proportions.  Or at least that’s what it feels like.  I will have resolved two wars, cleaned up shit and breakfast off the carpet, laid down several new laws and I’m lucky if I manage to brush my teeth never mind my hair!

My life is led one coffee to the next and to be honest until recently I saw establishing new friendships as a serious drain on my already stretched energy tank.  And something that causes my anxiety to sky rocket, and who needs that shit seriously?

I’ve formed friendships when I have had too, friendships at work with some amazing lovelies who all at one point or another have been there with a brew and an ear for me to chew off with my third world problems,  friendships that I really do value.  The problem was when I did have the option to hideaway and not deal with the trauma of new people, or even old people I didn’t feel comfortable with yet.

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to have friends, the type you can just call and announce you are on your way before you kill the little brats who have just poured juice on the TV, nearly killed themselves taking it in turns doing somersaults on my bed and who haven’t listened to a word I have said unless it was the word “biscuit” when I have been bribing them to stop being such little shits!  The type that will come to my house and do the same!

Now I realise that friends and a support network is what keeps you going, refills your fuel tank, encourages you, makes you feel like your not just failing at life all the time!

I think the turning point in the way I think was starting this blog, I have had so many positive responses from people who I have always assumed had all of their shit together, people who before now I would have been embarrassed to see and felt awkward around, not knowing what to say and feeling like I couldn’t just be myself, the little monster inside my head telling me I was a complete fuck up.

I’m not even sure its the realisation that we are all losing our shit that comforts me, but the fact that through writing this blog I’ve discovered a part of me that has been locked away for quite some time.  A part of me that I thought I had lost.  I feel like being me is good enough again and that is what matters, that is how I want my children to feel.

Now I have to work out how to grow a set of balls and throw myself out there again.  Embrace life and friendship and the potential to fail with both hands.

Wish me luck!