I keep forgetting that I can be whoever or whatever I want to be. I can wear whatever I want to wear. I don't have to settle on just one thing. If I want to wear skinny jeans, an oversized jumper and boots one day I can, and if the next day I want to wear baggy jeans and tank tops with my TOMS I can, and if the next day I want to wear a floral dress I can. Because there are no rules regarding what I can and cant wear. Nothing to tell me that I HAVE to be just one way. I like so many different kinds of clothes, why cant I wear them all whenever I feel like it? The only thing stopping me is me, really.

So I'm back. I've deleted a bunch of posts. Specific ones. Gunna try and get this place back to a less angsty zone.

I'm medicated, I've got an appointment coming up at some point to start my councilling, just waiting for it, getting my joint problems looked into, my heart weirdness too. It's all getting done. Currently on heavy duty sleeping pills to sort out my sleeping pattern.

Got a job, and now the oppertunity for another one. Still working on my story. Want to start my own business. Lots going on.

Learning to drive still... It's a slow process for me. Still planning on doing my direct access. Saving a flat deposit. Planning on taking a holiday next year.

Lots of things to do... But as always it comes down to money. The bain of my existance.

GP Recap.

So, had my GP appointment. My sister came with me to get her arm looked at cos she hurt it. Anyway, my appointment was on time, I went in to see the doctor, she listened while I explained about the depression, the paranoia, how I second guess everything, the suicidal thoughts, the want to self harm, the rages, my trouble sleeping. She asked questions. Then she told me that although depression was part of the problem it wasn't the sole issue, and she thought I have some kind of psychosis.

She asked me if I felt OK with waiting for a counsellor, or if I thought I was at immediate risk of doing something stupid (Not quite those words but you get what I mean), she also said I should tell either mum, Chloe or Adam about my thoughts of self harm and suicide so they can watch me. I'm not telling mum because whenever I mention feeling depressed she acts like I have no idea and I'm exaggerating, and the last time I told her I felt suicidal (Years ago, back at college) she went off on one and kept laying on the guilt. She told me at one point, when I was in bed crying, that I might as well do it and get it over and done with so she didn't have to keep worrying she was going to wake up and find me dead. So no. Not telling her. Adams barely here and Chloe... I don't think she'd give a crap.

So I have a prescription for anti-psychotics that I have to get filled tomorrow. I would have them now but the first prescription was no longer being manufactured and I had to go back to the GP (and wait half an hour) to get an alternative. I'm on Heloperidol for now, seeing how it goes, and I have to check in, in two weeks to see if their working. She said I'd feel light headed and out of sorts for a few days but that's normal.

In a few weeks I should get my counsellor appointment. So it's looking up.

I hope these pills work and the counselling helps and I can be happier and calmer and less rage-y and more stable and stuff. Just better. Now so wildly swinging from one mood to another with paranoia thrown in for good measure.

Fear.

Fear has been a useful tool in our efforts as a people to grow and evolve. As children we have an inbuilt fear of strangers, something that has worked throughout the ages and still does. It stops us straying to far from our mothers side and into the hands of predators. Unhelpful if the predator is someone trusted but that's something else entirely.

As we grow, learn our surrounding, learn to protect ourself and make educated judgements that fear fades but doesn't disappear completely. Very few people honestly have an "Every stranger is a friend you haven't met yet!" attitude. A small measure of fear in our lives is healthy, it stops us from acting in a way that puts ourselves and our loved ones in danger, stops us taking unnecessary risks. Some of it is learned, things our parents instilled in us, some of it seems to be something passes through the genes, inexplicable. Passes maybe from generations and generation of learning, much like some animals know, when put in a new area and without interaction with natives, what foods or animals are threats to them even though they've never before encountered them.

When fear is left as a ruling factor in your life and is left to breed and control, no matter what lever you are capable of functioning at, all of you decisions are made through fear. This is a problem when fear effects the way you interact with people, the risks you wont take that most people don't even see as a risk. When fear leads it can lead you to miss out on some of lifes most precious moments.

Some people have claimed that it is fear that pushes them to achieve the things that they do. Fear of failing pushes them to win, fear if being forgotten pushes them to do the unforgettable. But not everyone is able to harness their fear and control it and use it to grow in a healthy way. Most people are controlled by their fear, they don't control it and that fear can bury them.

Fear for me makes it almost impossible to make eyecontact. It makes meeting new people a practically painful experience. It has stopped me from opening up, making the first move, taking leaps that now I know could have been great for me. Would have been if I hadn't let my fear blind me and stop me doing it.

My fear of heights mean I'll never go bungee jumping. It also means that I'm not very likely to stand at the edge of a very high mountain lest I fall off. It means you wont ever find me standing on the top of a building threatening to jump off, no matter how bad it all gets.

I'm trying not to let my fear guide me. I want to control it, learn it, grow from it, understand it.

I worry for the people that cant, or wont, get past their fear. Because their lives are darkened by it.

Update.

So I had my New Patient Registration today... Was meant to be yesterday but they had to change it due to sickness. So now I'm registered and shizzola AND I have an appointment for Thursday afternoon to talk to a GP about my depression and shit. She's a locum(?) GP so she may or may not be able to help, if not the receptionist said that they'd get me another appointment with a site specific GP instead. *Crosses fingers* I need some help now, most definitely, so I hope this appointment will be a good start for me. If I can get my head in the right place then everything will start being OK. I hope. I seem to be hoping a lot. *Shrug* That's all I have left really.

Depression.

Depression is a dangerous and sneaky illness. It attacks you, drags you under and when you don't think it can get worse it does. The you claw your way back out of the hole and think you're OK and you carry on, maybe a bit sadder than most, it grabs you again and pulls you further down than before.

Depression isn't just sadness, it'd a deep, uncontrollable spiral of hate, fear, self loathing and a painful sense of despair. It's blankness, emptiness, pain, fear, all of the negative emotions balled up and in one person ready to suffocate. It's shifting, spinning, changing and awful to its core. It seeps into everything, taints everything, turns the beautiful ugly, actions of grace into viciousness, love into hate, openness into closed. It twists and warps things.

In the UK mental illness accounts for a third of all illnesses, one person in six at any given moment will suffer from some kind of anxiety or depression and one in four will experience at least one mental illness in their life. Mental health conditions cost approximately £77 billion a year in the UK alone. Suicide is the leading cause of death in young people and adults under 45. In 2007 in the UK there were over 4000 suicides, over half of which were people under 45. These totals don't just account for depression, they also count in bipolar, manic depression, ADD&ADHD, Sever OCD, PTSD, anorexia, personality disorders, schizophrenia, dementia, strokes and eating disorders. The suicide rate is a terrifying fact to know... That through depression, desperation, untreated issues that overpower and take over peoples die. That so many people suffer so deeply that they cannot go on. They cannot face a tomorrow that weighs them so far down.

Too many people don't go for treatment for their mental illness, for their depression, through fear, embarrassment or a stubborn and ill-founded belief that they will be OK. That they could cope because they had until now. Not realising the power of their illness and the things it can do. The worst is when people know that they need help and still wont seek it because they are scared of how people will view them.

From the NHS website:

“Depression isn’t a sign of weakness, it's a chronic (long-term) condition that may require long-term management or treatment. Some people only have depression once, but many people have repeated episodes.

Getting help as soon as you think you may be depressed may prevent your depression getting worse. The exact causes of depression aren’t fully known. It seems more likely to occur if there's depression in the family, but having a depressed relative doesn't mean you'll necessarily become depressed yourself. Furthermore, there are a number of lifestyle factors or influences in the world around you that may increase the risk of you developing depression.”

The only people who can truly understand depression and the damage it can do are the people that suffer, or have suffered from it. Much like a migraine. Someone who has never had a migraine cannot understand it isn't “just a headache” (something I have heard many times while in the midst of a skull splitting, gut wrenching, pain fest.), it's so much worse than that. You can't really explain it. So someone who has never suffered from depression, even those who witness someone close to them suffering, cannot understand the depths of it. It isn't just sadness. It isn't just being miserable. It isn't just someone moping and refusing to be happy and OK and just get over it. It's someone who cannot get over it. Not without help. Because they don't have the equipment to cope.

Depression is the monster lurking under your bed. Grief can spark it. Trauma. Years of abuse. Chemical imbalance in the brain. Years of negativity. Sometimes they just don't know what causes it. Whatever the reason, it is there in many, but not all. Affecting how you feel, think, see and cope. How you act and react. How you see yourself and others and how your life unfolds.

My struggle with depression has lasted 10-12 years. I have seeked help only to be treated like it was nothing serious, so I stopped asking. Every few years when things got too tough I considered trying again before remembering the feeling of not being believed. I have attempted to cope, compensate and live. I merely survived and was lucky to manage even that. Now I'm going to take the step, ask for help and somehow start my journey of recovery. I hope others will too.

If you're reading this, you know who you are. Please do it.