Random Mood Drops

It doesn’t matter how many years go by of being mentally ill, there are some things that surprise me, no matter how many times they happen. One of those is the random drops in mood that occur for literally no reason. As I write this, I’m on the verge of tears and have that, oh so familiar, heavy, rock-like sensation dragging down in my chest as if my heart is made of stone. I can physically feel it. This has always been the most persistent and long-lasting symptom of my depression. Depression for me was never just sadness, or numbness, it was the weight in my chest that got heavier and lighter but that never went away. I’ve had it since I was 15, 12 and a half long years and there’s not been a day that I can remember when that weight in my chest has gone. My depression is now mild, it remains very stable and manageable thanks to a lot of work on my part to keep it at bay and not let it rise up or take hold of any more of my life than it already has its grip on. But every now and again, for no reason at all, the weight in my chest exponentially grows and it physically hurts. It makes me want to curl up into a ball, go to bed and sleep for days or burst into tears. I instantly want to self-harm again despite not having done so in years. It makes me feel sad and guilty and angry and overwhelmed about everything and nothing.

Despite dealing with this so many times and for such varying periods, it’s still a shock every time. I never get used to it. I still can’t ever find a reason why it happens. It just does. It just is. It takes my breath away with how fierce and strong it is. It’s like someone sitting on your chest, you can’t breathe, you can’t think or concentrate. Everything suddenly feels pointless and dark. Breaking out of this is hard, each and every time. There’s no reason so there’s no specific fix or problem to solve. It just is.

Today, I’ve had a good day. I spent time at my Nana’s helping her clear out her house and tidy up. We had a lovely time and some really nice conversation. I was tired when I got home and slept for a bit. I felt much brighter and perkier after that but quickly my mood just dropped. Nothing happened, nothing that I can identify caused it. My mood just dropped off a cliff and here I am, feeling sad, feeling weighed down and already struggling to remember feeling better or brighter even though I know I did just a few short hours ago.

Although it shocks me every time, I have at least learnt to stop being scared by it because I know the feeling will pass. I never quite know when or how and occasionally it lasts for a couple of days but usually sleep, distraction and care from my loved ones helps pull me back out of the pit and gets me back on the even keel that I’m used to. Hopefully the feeling will pass quickly this time and the mighty weight that’s currently in my chest will go back to being pebble-sized. I’m not sure if these random mood drops will ever stop, they seem to be very similar to the random attacks of anxiety about nothing that I also get. It’s so disconcerting not knowing why or how something has occurred or when it’ll go or when it’ll next come back. It’s horrible feeling so vulnerable and not having control. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Update – Caring for Relatives, Life Changes and More (1st May 2019) – Video Post

This video was recorded on the 1st of May, 2019. It provides an update on where I’ve been, how I’ve been and what I’ve been doing that’s kept me busy and away from recording or writing. I talk about being a carer for my Grandad and what life is like now I’m not one anymore and how lost I’m currently feeling.

Five Years On – Five Years Of…..

I never know where to even start these posts. You all know by now that I’m one for anniversaries but as more of them pass, I’m increasingly put off and seem to mentally avoid them. I haven’t even known what to title it because how on earth do you sum up five years of being ill? How do you title something detailing what it’s been like to be unwell for such a long period of time?

Whenever I write a blog post, I try to have a plan. I’m quite a spontaneous writer, I break all of the writing and blogging rules about having a word limit and a posting schedule. As you’ll have seen, I post as and when something comes to me and sometimes that’s multiple times a week and other times I go for months without having anything to share at all. But, I do usually have a reason to post and something specific I want to say and that’s why these anniversary posts are so difficult to write because usually the only reason to write them is the date and because I feel I ‘should’ have something to say rather than actually having anything to say.

For the most part, I try to ignore the time of year, ignore the dates and don’t let them mean anything. But five years feels like a hell of a milestone and feels like I really should be saying something even though I don’t actually know what that is. My life is currently in upheaval with a huge amount of change going on and even more on the way. My grandparents who are a huge part of my life and who I’ve spent increasing amounts of time with over the last few years are moving away, it’s not that far but for me it’s a world away. I’m currently at their house at least 4 days a week, for about 30 hours as I’m a carer for my Grandad and in the next few weeks they’ll be an hour’s drive away and I currently can’t get there. I may discuss all of that at a later point but those are the basics and it’s the reason why I’ve been so quiet on social media and my blogs and YouTube Channel because all of my mental capacity is taken up being there or processing everything that’s going on and changing. It’s a hell of a lot to take in.

In some ways, I’ve been really glad of the distraction because although I’ve noticed the date approaching of me being ill for five years, I’ve not really had a chance to focus on that or be sad or really feel anything about it. I’m quite grateful for that. Five years is such a long time, it’s over a sixth of my life and I still don’t know how or when I’ll get better. Being a carer and being needed has definitely helped me to push myself harder than I thought it possible to push and I’ve certainly been noticing the changes that that has caused in my confidence levels and belief in my ability. However, it’s a very specific set of circumstances that those changes have occurred within and I feel very worried and doubtful that I can translate those to any other situations. I’m not being negative, I’m going to do everything in my power to continue to go out and not go backwards when my grandparents move and I no longer ‘need’ to go out but even though I’m managing that, I still can’t just make myself go for a walk or set foot inside a shop. There is such a mental block in my brain and somehow ‘needing’ to do something overrides that a bit but as soon as the task is a choice, I can’t do it. Even artificially ‘needing’ to do something isn’t enough to make me go. There are so many things that I want to do but wanting it isn’t enough to get me out of my front door. The situation with being a carer for my Grandad seems to have special status in my brain and overrides all sorts of things that little else manages to do. Mostly I’m just grateful that it has, that I’ve been able to build up my confidence and start meeting new people (the other carers on the team) and for it not to be so obvious outwardly that I’m suffering so badly with anxiety.

I do worry a lot at the moment about how I’m going to cope once my grandparents leave though, everything in my own life has been on hold since before January because I just can’t concentrate on anything else and some time soon, they just won’t be here anymore and I’ll go from every waking hour, and many asleep hours too, spent thinking about them to this void where they’ll be gone and my brain will probably still be so full that I won’t be able to do anything to redirect or distract myself. I’m trying really hard to be kind to myself, to be forgiving and accepting and just let myself feel whatever comes up but oh my God, it’s exhausting! My emotions are all over the shop and I can’t keep up. I’ve always been quite emotionally stable, often not in a great way but still, I’ve always felt quite stable and so I never know what to do when these periods of turmoil come up and not only is everything in my life changing, I’m also all over the place with my feelings about it all too. I’m worried about the time immediately after they leave. I have so many things and activities and projects to work on but they all seem to require concentration and even the most basic levels of that are out of my reach at the moment. I keep wanting to record videos explaining what this is like to live through because I know I’m not alone in experiencing this but I never get as far as even setting up a tripod and always remember at ridiculous moments when it’s not appropriate to be filming. I also have no idea what would come out of my mouth which is the status quo for me but when my concentration is off, it’s even more of a surprise and I feel like a liability so I tend to just avoid all of that. At least when writing a blog, I can edit it and take chunks out if I really need to, though that is something I try to avoid as I don’t like filtering things.

As you can probably tell, my brain, my thoughts and feelings are all over the place and my life circumstances are too, there is so much change coming up and I don’t know what’s happening from day to day, let alone from month to month. I have a lot of hopes about things I want to do and things I hope to achieve and I’m hoping that maybe once I have more time to myself and once my brain has finally cleared a little that I might be able to concentrate and focus and achieve some of those things. I’m hoping I might also be able to make some more significant and sustained improvements that aren’t so situation-specific. That’s a lot of hoping right there but that’s something I’ve learnt throughout being ill, I can’t plan, I can’t expect or demand but I can hope and I put all of my energy into that and then trying to make those hopes come true without placing expectations or time limits on it. It means that I’m always working and travelling in the right direction and not failing just because I’ve not achieved something yet.

Five years on, I’m not where I hoped or expected to be, but I’m still here, I’m still fighting and that’s enough for me.

Finding the Words

I don’t even remember the last time I wrote a blog post. I keep meaning to. I keep trying to think of things to say, important messages to impart. Something. Anything! And I never even get as far as opening a Word document. Nothing comes in to my head and my mind stays blank.

So what’s changed? Here I am writing and you’re there reading. Well, I decided to take a different route and think about why I had nothing to say. After all, it’s so unlike me to not have something to say and not be full of ideas, I’m usually exploding with multiple projects and picking one is what I find hard. The reason I’m struggling so much is because my brain capacity is taken up elsewhere and I’m pretty rubbish at multi-tasking. As many of you know, I’m a carer for my Grandad and have been for a number of years but the time I put into this has drastically increased since Christmas. When I began, it started at 2 or 3 hours a fortnight and over time it gradually increased to being there up to 2 days a week for a few hours each time. By Christmas, I was there about 4 days a week and by January I was there 5 days a week including all day on one weekend day. As of this month, I’m due there 28 hours a week. There are so many changes, so many things to think about and work through and take in. I’m coping surprisingly well, I’m actually really proud of how much I’m taking it in my stride but it’s definitely come at the cost of me focusing on anything else. I can’t concentrate at all. My brain just feels like mush. I spend hours every day just staring into space and thinking about all of the things that I could and should be doing and yet never quite getting as far as starting any of them. Most of the time I don’t even know where to begin. It’s making it really hard to get on with stuff, to do anything particularly normal or anything that involves any sort of brain power.

I keep trying to think of things to say, topics to write about and ways in which I can help others by writing. But I just draw a blank the entire time. In fact, my brain only seems to think vaguely clearly when I’m actually at my Grandparents’ house and doing my job there, the rest of the time it’s like it’s on standby or something. I’m hoping that just by writing something, that this might help jump start my mind into thinking about things to write and not finding the whole task so overwhelming. I miss having a voice, I miss speaking about these issues and talking to people who are like me, who understand what it is to go through these conditions and these experiences. But I guess my mind’s way of coping with the difficult things I’m dealing with in my personal life is to shut down from everything else and just focus on the one issue. Nothing else manages to creep in. I have a lot of free time outside the time that I spend with them and yet I still don’t manage to keep on top of emails, remember to message friends back or keep on top of the washing up. I feel like a failure, like a burden because despite the fact that I’m working fewer hours than my partner and that this is by far the most hours I’ve worked during the 5 years I’ve been ill for, I still suck at being a housewife, I still can’t do even basic tasks and he still has to help or do so many things that just shouldn’t be his responsibility. It’s really hard to know where the line is between what I should and shouldn’t be doing and I know I have to be really careful not to push myself too hard because despite not coming out the other side yet of the breakdown I essentially had 5 years ago, I know I could have another one now and possibly get even more ill than I was when this began. I can’t afford to do that. I couldn’t cope with that. So I’m trying really hard to be kind to myself to do what I can and accept what I can’t and to ask for help with the multitude of tasks that evade my abilities. It doesn’t come easily.

On top of all of this, my memory has got way worse. This is a particularly cruel blow and makes everything so much harder. I’ve always had a fantastic memory and I miss it so much whenever it drops and it’s the worst it’s been for months at the moment. I have to write everything down and then have to try and leave the writing in obvious places so I actually remember to read and work through the to-do list. Even basic stuff that would usually be so obvious to me just isn’t and doesn’t get done unless I’m reminded by a list. I think old age is kicking in at 28! I jest. I know that this is one of the brain’s protective mechanisms and that it’s also a sign that although my body feels ok, my anxiety levels aren’t increasing and I don’t feel physically sick the whole time, I’m only really holding on by my hands now. I’m definitely not at fingertips point, I’ve got a fairly good grip of things at the moment but it wouldn’t take a lot for me to become distracted and my grip to loosen and the whole situation to become WAY more precarious. It’s a weird place to be. I would have expected to be feeling horrendous. I’m under a lot of pressure, there’s a lot resting on me and my family are currently reliant on me being able to do the shifts I’ve signed up for because none of the other care team members can do those at the moment. Normally, pressure is my absolute nemesis. So I’ve certainly been wondering if I’m finally getting better. In some ways I think I might be. I’m certainly coping better with this whole situation than I was and finding it easier and more comfortable to travel to my grandparents’ and to be there. I’m sure a huge part of that is that I’m finally now desensitised to it and that after the umpteenth time of going, it’s got easier. It’s also partly because I’m needed. I take a lot of responsibility for things and if I’m given a task then I’m not one to drop that or not do it properly, I always do things to the best of my ability and won’t let people down unless I absolutely have to. I’m needed at the moment and I can’t let them down. But it’s also very apparent to me that I’m still very ill. Even though I go out 4 or 5 times a week to my grandparents’, I still can’t go into a shop. I still can’t just go for a walk randomly and I still can’t take my bins out. It’s ridiculous and makes absolutely no sense to me but that’s something I’ve certainly learnt about these conditions, they don’t conform to a set of rules and there’s no guessing what will or won’t change at any given time or for any given reason. I’m better at being able to go out to my grandparents’ house, to spend time there and remain calm, even when difficult circumstances arise there, but the rest of my life and capacity seems to be on hold and so all of my resources are being used up there leaving me with nothing left for things at home. This is alright for the short term and we’re trying to put things in place to allow this to not become a long-term thing.

I often wonder how I’ll be when the need for me comes to an end and I’m back to having unlimited free time and nothing specific to fill it with. I don’t cope very well without a project. I really hope that the words and ideas will have returned to me by then so I can take time to readjust and express what this has been like and process the difficult parts. I hope I can continue to be a voice for the mentally ill and for myself and that inspiration will strike soon. I really miss writing, I miss expressing myself and I miss making a difference and I hope that I’ll be back to writing and recording videos again soon. I hope I’ll be able to get back to colouring and writing reviews and being more productive but right now, my brain is mush and getting any words out at all is more than I’ve managed in months so this jumbled stream of consciousness will do for now.

If you’ve got any suggestions or requests for ideas of things to write or video about then do get in touch because I’m absolutely open to ideas and seeking inspiration from anywhere I can find it!