Complexities

Depression is a fickle thing. Many people suffer from it, and many other mental health problems, a lot of those people also go undiagnosed, either though not admitting it and seeking help, or by thinking they can overcome it themselves. They find ways to cope, or overcome the feelings of depression and fight their fight in the best way they know. This, in part, is the problem. Turn to alcohol, or illegal substances, or posting memes on social media and no one really cares. But when you use social media to write about it, to out-right tell people you are feeling depressed or suicidal then they complain. The comments like "just get over it" or "it's all in your head" or "you're attention seeking" do not help one bit and those comments may just be the tipping edge that sends someone tumbling down the rabbit hole towards a path that will lead them to self-harm, suicide or such. 

Leaving subtle clues about your mental state, and people are there to help, they say they will be there for you, and want to help you, but when you actually get to the point that you need that help, everyone disappears. It's a never-ending fight against mental health, trying to keep yourself in check, fighting back from that tipping-point, while some people, who try to offer "help" are actually the ones pushing you over the edge. Of course that edge will be different to everyone, and words that may help one person could be detrimental to someone else. The key is to try and find what will help the person involved. Not to think your coping mechanisms will work on someone else. If posting pictures of dogs helps you cope with your problems, it does not mean that it will cheer up everyone, although who wouldn't be happy to see a cute puppy!

For years depression has been painted in the media with a certain image and that stereotype has made everyone think depression is the same no matter who has it. this is the furthest from the truth as you can get. Depression has so many different faces, its that smile on a girls face as she laughs with her friends, its that jump in his step as he walks down the street, its the happy songs blasting out the hi-fi at a party. But its also not washing or combing your hair for weeks, being unable to move, those curt one word replies to messages. Until people understand that, they cannot help you. They need to know what works best for you, not what works for their depression.

Thoughts racing

Firstly, an update on PIP....

Letter received, thank you DWP, for only giving a month to collect evidence, and return the appeal form. A month? If they can issue time limits, why then, can we not issue them time limits to sort out the appeal? Everything is in their favour... They make all the rules, and then manipulate them to suit their needs. On the plus side, I have managed to get help from Citizen's Advice to fill out the appeal paperwork and send it off in time, Not that I had time to get any evidence. When they only give a month to appeal, but it takes a minimum of 6 weeks, if I'm lucky, to get an appointment with my GP. 

Of course, they don't think my mental health is a problem, nor does anyone else. Mental health problems are almost never taken seriously, at least, until it's too late. Especially seeing as my mental health problems are dealt with by my GP. Lack of a professional mental health team somehow means that I'm not bad enough to warrant the DWP to take it seriously? Despite the dozen or more anti  depression / anxiety medications I've tried, or the ones I am currently taking. Despite me only having left my house twice in the last 5 weeks. Despite feeling suicidal most days. Despite laying in bed being unable to move with no motivation to even look after my other health problems, to feed myself, to wash or even get dressed. 

I have, on the positive side of things, referred myself to a mental health team, on request of my GP. If they are any help, only time will tell, but it is about time I got on top of it and faced my demons. I can no longer pretend that all these problems do not exist. Admitting I have a problem and asking for help is one of the hardest things I have done. Now to face another hard task, that I hate and never do, and actually open up to someone, to talk about it all. It's one thing to type anonymously like on here, but to actually speak to another human, face to face, and to open up? I'm not sure if I can actually do it. 

As for the title of the post...

Spending the past month mostly housebound, mind being a dull blank, no motivation to move, let alone think of anything, the last 3-4 days it's all gone into overdrive. This is not to say I'm not still depressed, or that I wish to go out, or have the energy to move. But my mind has been running so fast. Too fast in fact, to keep any one thought in my head for more than a minute. In fact, writing this, and staying on topic is making me drowsy, trying to stick to the topic of conversation when every ten seconds a new thought comes into your head is a nightmare. 

For instance, I was in bed and was thinking how tasty a bacon sandwich would be, by the time I got up and walked to the kitchen, I forgot about the sandwich and was thinking about how I need to tidy my desk. By the time I got to my desk in the living room, I was thinking about how I needed to organise my medication in the bedroom.... and on, and on, and on..... 

Of course, I never had that bacon sandwich, nor did I tidy my desk, or organise my medication. My usual ways of dealing with my depression, or my OCD, or my nerves etc have not worked. Reading, gaming, cleaning, washing dishes.... None of it has managed to calm me over the last few days. Even now I'm thinking of a million and one things that I need or want to do, which will never get done. 

Luckily I am slowing down a bit, and in a day or two I should hopefully be at a level that lets me do the things I think of. But only time will tell.

Transfer to PIP

For the last few years people have been moving from DLA (Disability Living Allowance) to the new system of PIP (Personal Independence Payment). And for those last few years countless people have had their applications declined. This is troubling for people with mental health problems, and even more so if you don't have any specialised help for those illnesses. 

An examination with a "medical professional" is used with the form you fill out to assess you, they will then write to you, and tell you that despite all the information you included in the form, with doctors and consultant details, along with permission to contact those people to assess you, that the whole thing means nothing and is all based on a one hour visit in the examination. Despite you having spent the previous three days building up the courage to leave the house, arranging travel, taking tons of medication and then sitting in a room with some stranger for an hour, twitching, staring at the wall, trying to avoid eye contact so as not to have a panic attack, to only find out this "professional" wrote in their report that you seemed normal, made good eye contact and had no trouble verbally communicating with them is enough to cause a mental breakdown. 

Of course, all the waiting doesn't help with depression either. Receiving a letter saying your DLA (almost 40% of your monthly income) is being stopped and you must apply for PIP isn't the best news, but then ringing them, waiting for them to send you a questionnaire to fill out, which takes 2-3 days, then waiting for a letter about your examination which will be in a few months, is bad enough. To them juggle arranging transport when that appointment is changed twice in the two days leading up to that appointment also doesn't help. Then there's the one month wait for the decision letter, that arrives over a week after it's dated, telling you that they have declined your application, but you can appeal, all you need to do is write to them within a month of the date on the letter asking them to reconsider the decision and state why. Why? Because a one hour visit with a "medical professional" is not an adequate assessment of someone with this many problems, especially when those problems vary in intensity or include mental health problems. 

So a month to write to them, and this isn't even the start of an appeal, this is just telling them you want to appeal, so they can send out a detailed report of how they assessed you, so that you can appeal against that. And to only give a month, given that it took over a week for the letter to get to you, and given the time of year, with holidays etc and the UK postal service, it could take a week to send a letter, so that gives you two weeks, give or take, to find the time to write a letter. That's not so bad, but now it's even more waiting, with the looming dread of going though the appeal service, with tribunals, having to go out, meeting people, getting any medical reports to support your appeal, queue another breakdown. 

Given that DLA will be stopping soon, and with no clear time frame on how long the appeal will take, things are going to get worse, do the government expect a single person to be able to live on just £500 a month from ESA (Employment Support Allowance) with a ton of bills to pay?

New Year, (Not) New You!

So many people post about how they will change for New Year, the whole "New Year, New Me" epidemic that sweeps the world, filling social media on the week between Christmas and New Year's day. Give it a month and everyone will be back to normal, totally forgetting that they made those resolutions in the guilt filled aftermath of Christmas and the alcohol induced New Year celebrations. I will accept that there is a small minority of people out there that will keep at it for a bit longer than a month, and accept that an even smaller percentage of those people will honour their resolutions in full, but who are we kidding here, besides ourselves? 

If you really wanted to change an aspect of your life, be it cutting down on alcohol, quitting smoking, or fatty foods, chocolate, going on a diet, or any other goal you had in mind, if it was that important to you, you would have done it already instead of waiting for the new year. Let's all be honest with ourselves, despite how much we would like to keep those resolutions, despite how much that change may be beneficial, it's not going to happen. You will stay the same as you were last year, and everything will continue as it always has. 

You hear the same thing every year, about how bad the year has been, how it's the worst year yet, and how next year is "gonna be the one", about how much better the new year will be. But you know what? We hear this every year, the same lines, repeated year after year, time and time again. So does anything really change? Is every year just progressively getting worse than the last? Who knows.

When you don't know why

Anxiety is usually triggered by something, be it being outside, around people, an impending deadline or  whatever else sets you off. You can usually off-set this by avoiding those circumstances, or mentally preparing yourself for them, but what do you do when anxiety hits you and you don't know why? When there's no reason to feel anxious but it still crushes you down, leaving you curled up on the floor crying like a baby. 

You reach out, touching things, looking around, focusing on things around you, telling yourself that it's all OK, just like all those Facebook posts tell you to. But you know what? None of that actually works. They are usually shared by people who don't suffer from anxiety, the same people that tell you everything will be fine, it's all in your head. They usually share it because they mean well, they want to feel like they are trying to help. You know what would help? If you left it well enough alone and gave us the space we needed. 

The number of times you've crashed down in the centre of town, and everyone crowded around you, like some sort of circus act, a spectacle to be looked at, pointing and laughing, some trying to help like they actually know what's wrong. At least in these cases you know what set you off, you know the cause. But when you're laid in bed, in your comfort zone, no triggers around or near you, and then it hits. What then? 

Thoughts run, flood your head, as you try to work out why. Laid in bed, trying to sleep, so no one is around you, the Netflix show or music in the background hasn't triggered any old memories, and you have no worrying deadlines, bills or plans to see anyone soon, so what the hell is going on? You've been suffering anxiety for a while now, and with your level of intelligence, and knowledge of all your problems, you still cant work it out. Surely you can find a logical reason for it, but it's one of the only things you can't scientifically explain. 

So what do you do? You suffer, you ride it out like a roller-coaster ride of emotions. Fear and anger, adrenaline pumping, heart beat racing, breathing heavy, feeling scared. All this happens so fast, it's over within a minute, but feels like hours. Then you have the aftermath to deal with. Trying to calm your breathing, the lack of physical energy, feeling drained, trying to calm all those racing thoughts in your head. Those sixty seconds in the ring fighting anxiety has left you crippled and that feeling can last for days. It's just something that you have to deal with, and you pray it doesn't happen again soon.

Relationships

You spend so long, so many years of being alone, with the physical pain, mixing with the depression and the anxiety keeping you basically locked inside, your house a prison. Only venturing out when absolutely necessary, and when you do, you need your headphones on, distracting you from the real world, keeping to yourself. This brings its own problems, in socialising, making friends, and especially in meeting someone new or a prospective partner. Even when you fight that panic attack back and work up the courage to say hello, deep down you feel like your not all there, pushing yourself away. To save them from the torment you will put them through with all your problems, but also to save yourself from loosing yet another person close to you. 

So what happens when you do finally let someone in? Start getting feelings for someone? Not going out means this person is already a close friend, someone who already accepts all your problems, understands them, at least to some point, and is still there for you. You go through so many years of isolation, of being single, that you develop feelings for people easily, its something you crave, a connection that you need, someone to hold you in bed while you lay there in pain, unable to sleep because the times are bad and all you want to do is die. You so badly want that feeling of being wanted, to ease the pain, that you fall in love so easily. Then the depression and anxiety start rearing its ugly head, questioning if they feel the same, unsure if you can commit and be there for them, not wanting to burden them with you. 

You want to take the plunge, let your heart spill, and tell them everything, how you feel, what you want, yet you still don't do it, your head still stops you. Part nerves, part anxiety. Its something that you need to overcome, otherwise you will loose your chance like so many times before. Knowing that you will regret the decision if you don't do anything, yet still... nothing... 

Keep telling yourself that one day you will work up the courage to speak up, to say something, all too late. So many relationships ended because of your illnesses, and you know what you need to do to fix it all, you know the mistakes you made, but you still keep making them. Will you ever learn? As with most things in life, only time will tell.

Things I've learned

People ask “How are you?” to be nice, not because they want to know. 95% of the time they really don’t care and are just following rules of social etiquette to fit in. The last thing they want is to listen to you for an hour or two explaining everything that is wrong with you. “I’m okay, how are you?” is usually the only response that people expect and want, any more than that and you get labelled an emotional wreck and people start avoiding you.

Not that being avoided is a bad thing, but being disabled with mental health issues, going out and socialising becomes a problem, and the less you socialise, the more your friends drift away until your left with one or two people who still make the effort to see you. Those 5% of people who actually do care about how you feel and will gladly sit there for a couple of hours and listen to you complain about everything that is wrong. 

Fewer friends and close ones means fewer people who you need to buy for come Christmas and birthdays, which saves a lot of money. And money is a big problem when you are unable to work, living on benefits, while trying to put a roof over your head, keeping up with all the bills, groceries and the odd treat for yourself. Coming from an upper middle class upbringing, having money there for whatever you need at the time, not worrying about unexpected outgoings to being moved to a ground floor one-bedroom flat on a council estate, budgeting everything right now to the last penny is a big change. So much so that it separates you even further from socialising and doing the things you enjoy. 

So what do you do when you’re really depressed or suicidal? You have a couple of people you could talk to, but because you’ve grown accustomed to people not really wanting to know, it makes sharing so much harder. With so few friends left do you really want to risk burdening them with your problems and potentially pushing even them away? You could seek professional help, from a doctor or advice centre, but again, you’ve grown accustomed to not sharing, and the longer you live like that, the harder it becomes to share even small details. 

You learn how to hide it all, from everyone except yourself, sometimes you’re even able to convince yourself that everything is ok, even when it’s not. Layers upon layers hiding everything that is wrong with you. That is, until you break down and everything builds up until it’s too much and all escapes at once. You forget that you’re trying to hide it all from your friends and family, they know something is wrong, yet you are still unable to speak about it. You break down, you’re a mess, you realise that you haven’t really been living; life is just a continuation of the pain and suffering that you experience every day. No will to live, but no courage to die.

It would be so easy, with the amount of different medication from numerous medical conditions, to just end all this suffering. Why not? Why haven’t you done it yet? Put simply, laziness. Too lazy to get everything ready, it’s never the right time or day, there’s always something that makes you hold back. Deep down you know things will get better, even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time. Things can’t just carry on like this forever... can they? 

You’re not scared of death; it would be a sweet embrace, an end to all the pain, that final escape from all the suffering. But hope still persists, that one day things will become right in the world, that even if the physical pain doesn’t ease, the mental ones would. The pills don’t work, you can’t talk about it, all that’s left is hope, and even that is slowly dying out. 

One day this may not be a problem, but until then, you struggle with it, fight it each and every day, until that one day becomes today.