Life, the Universe and the Melancholic

At the end of last month I had my first appointment with a psychiatrist. It has been about four months or so of waiting to see this specialised mind doctor. Maybe longer, my brain is a bit of a fog with remembering the timeline of when my GP gave me the referral and I made the appointment. I know I sat on the referral for maybe a month. Well not actually sat on it, but hesitated to follow it up. I know I needed to follow it up, but I suppose I was hesitant to having a professional pathologising my situation, essentially dissecting my entire existence and distilling it down to a disorder, or permanent malfunction or maladaptation. In a way I was scared to start the process of untangling the messy ball of thread that my mind has become. My psychologist has helped, but a psychiatrist is a different kind of deal, they can actually diagnose you with legitimate, card carrying disorders and throw medication at you. I have had experience with a psychiatrist before. Not for myself, my daugh...

I probably spend more time than I should on social media. Well definitely on Facebook. I often use Facebook as a bit of a place to vent. It's just accessible and easy to do so and has become a habit. I guess I hope that someone will see my vent or post and relate to my experience or maybe comment with their own experience. Or at the very least say "that's a bit crap, I hope your day gets better". People respond a whole lot more to the positive stuff though, it's likely the reason some people self censor and only share the upbeat stuff. Well that's not me. I have never been great at censoring my posts for the comfort of others or to appear as though I am doing well and life is fabulous. Yet despite my years of Facebook posting and  venting, I find myself in a predicament of late with my much used social media app. Since my mental health went and dumped itself in to the toilet, I have noticed a drop off of people commenting and interacting with my posts, the bor...

Desperately lonely is a place I find myself in a lot lately. Stable and functional. Yet disconnected, discontent, and dissatisfied with my life. Depressed, sad and lonely. If I told my psychologist I felt desperately lonely, her response would probably be something like, "Well that's very strong, dramatic and emotive language..." and then proceed to navigate me to more positive waters. Yet when I hear her response, I interpret it as 'let's tone it down a bit and look at the situation with some pragmatism'. I have never been particularly adept at approaching my emotions with pragmatism, is anyone really though? Even though I have managed to appear stoic and contained in the face of adversity and some very sad circumstances life has thrown my way. It didn't mean I felt the emotions of those circumstances to a lesser degree. In fact I think trying to contain everything, meant all those emotions and feelings concentrated and each time something significantly c...

It has been 7 weeks since my last bad day. In fact it was two bad days in a row. I was fairly non functional, burst into tears emotional, in general not coping with life. It was two days of crying, trying to be kind to myself and for the most part, assigned to my bed. Those two bad days were nothing compared to my really bad days back in March, April and May. Those two bad days would have been awesome back then. Back then I would have had to medicate  myself and spend the next however many days getting over a medication hangover. It is interesting how as time has rolled on, the bar has been set higher relative to my baseline of doing well or stability rather. So each increment of function that has returned and sustained itself with some stability , I have almost subconsciously bumped that bar up. I spoke to my psychologist about it at my last appointment. It is a double edged sword in a way. Bumping the bar up is not necessarily a bad thing, it can be helpful to improve in lots...

I miss fun and laughter and joy in my life. Not that I don't have moments, it's just different now and has probably been different for awhile, the change happened subtly. In a way I didn't realise how much that black cloud had impacted my life until it sent a massive storm of torrential rain and destroyed my sanity. Lately I find myself thinking about all the joyful moments filled with laughter when I was a child and I can't help but make comparisons to what my children experience. They are governed by technology nowadays and opportunities for those moments of jokes and stories, the human connectedness, are limited. Though somewhat dysfunctional routines in our household does not assist with cultivating those opportunities. Unfortunately it is what it is and it is something that I can't tackle right now, much of my energy is spent trying to continue to be stable and keeping the day to day cogs turning. Of course life wasn't always roses when I was a little thou...

Sometimes I feel like I am pretending that I am well for the comfort of others. As much as the mental health narrative is "It's okay to not be okay", much of the time I feel like the more apt narrative is "It's okay to not be okay. Just don't do it here. Or there. Or anywhere. And especially don't do it all over social media." You either hear the triumphant success stories, those that battle the black dog and come out the other side with somewhat "normal" functioning, managing their condition well and are now advocating for the cause. We love those stories, the hero triumphs over adversity and slays the beast as it were. The tragic flipside is the demise of those with mental health battles. Those that have a mental or psychotic episode and do something irredeemable or tragically they take their life. We're doing it wrong. As a society. We're not talking about that middle ground enough. Those that are still in the trenches, some are...

Things I Know About Me: 1. I Facebook too much. 2. Like Bridget Jones I will always be a little bit fat, but swap little with quite a bit. 3. I will always be a little bit mad. Like crazy mad, not angry mad. 4. I will always be a little bit sad. 5. I will always feel like I am not quite enough. For myself or anyone. 6. I try my best. Sometimes my best sucks. 7. I am thankful for what I have and where I am. Most of the time. 8. I know love is infinitely expanding. There is always enough. I love quietly. I wish I could love all those I love, loudly and boldly. 9. I have learnt that acceptance does not necessarily equal approval. 10. I am a low maintenance human, with high maintenance emotions. 11. I will always look at the stars and moon in bewildered wonderment and question why we're all here. 12. I made lots of humans. They didn't exist last century. That blows my mind every day. 13. I appreciate it when people are straightforward with me, though sometimes it hurts...