What a difference a week makes...

Following my last post, I have seen psychiatrist. Without boring you to tears, he has changed my medication from a tri-cyclic to a tetra-cyclic (or NaSSA). The dose was a little wobbly at first, but we can adjust that over the next few weeks. I’ve had some frankly crazy dreams of craziness, but, generally speaking, things seem to be starting to get a little lighter.

One of the most difficult aspects of depression for me isn’t the constant crying, or even the horrible and negative thoughts, though neither of them are a joy; the hardest part for me is the complete inability to just ruddy do anything. The feeling I described in my last post, the pushing myself on and aching so badly, those feelings of complete and utter exhaustion are just awful. Things that should be easy, or at least manageable, take twice as long because I have to constantly stop to draw a breath or focus on what I should be doing. Cleaning the kitchen can feel soul-destroyingly impossible. I take half measures and do things badly or just good enough so that I crawl back to a sofa or bed to just rest.

It’s really crippling, because the next time it takes twice as long again, and the next time, and the next, and eventually it’s just too hard to even start. All of my reserves, every last one, are focused entirely on the immediate and the absolutely necessary.

When I was ill four years ago, I remember a chirpy Health Visitor asking ‘but you are managing to feed and bath your children, aren’t you?’ I replied yes, not wanting to admit the fault, but I couldn’t remember when they’d last been bathed. It had stopped being ‘a necessity.’ Food would be whatever I could hand to Claudia to keep her quiet during the day, and Tom would be sorted at nursery. Then my husband would come home from work and cook a meal that would be nutritious enough to balance it.

When the wellness started, these things got easier. I was even able to do them while doing a full week of work. It was gradual that time around, but eventually I stopped feeling quite so heavy. I could move my limbs without an effort, and things started to get done.

This time it seems to have been somewhat quicker. It’s only two days on the new medications, and I’m sensible enough to recognise that this might well be a false dawn, or worse, the start of a manic response to the medication, but thus far, early signs are good!

This morning it took a couple of hours to get out of bed, but when I did, I got dressed, brushed my teeth (two more things I’ve taken to seeing as non-necessity of late), and suggested to my daughter that we might do a bit of gardening.

I haven’t the first idea where that thought came from. I have noticed a couple of interesting looking things growing in the depths of the garden, surrounded by dandelions and ground eldar, and have occasionally wondered about digging the weeds from around them, all the while knowing that it would never happen. It was so far from ‘necessity’ that it wasn’t really worth thinking about. The weeds were welcome to the garden.

But this morning, this happened…

All the while Claudia was chattering at me, and we discussed worms and maybe having a pond, and how bamboo grew, and whether she’d like to have her own animal wildlife reserve when she’s older (she would, fact fans). At no point did I think; ‘please stop talking to me child! I just can’t cope with the extra thoughts in my head!’

We had a nice morning. By the way, if anyone can identify those plants, I’d be grateful to know what they are. I think my dad planted them last year, and they’ve re-seeded when we failed to harvest them last year.

I’ve also dug out a new flowerbed at the top of the garden. I’ve always wanted to have herbs in that area, and the rosemary I planted three years ago is going great guns, so I dug up the mammoth thistle that was guarding the entrance to the lawn, even down to the massive white tuber that was supporting it, and got rid of the damned thing once and for all.

This is what it looked like before (the soil to the right is where the demon thistle was)…

I moved some Lavender down into the place…

It doesn't look that impressive, I admit, but I think it's better than it was. It's certainly a start, and in my world, a start's quite an achievement. 

I had designs on digging out some of the bamboo that’s invaded from next door, but I stopped, partly because I’d been working for two hours without really noticing, and partly because I haven’t the first idea what to do with the bamboo. Here it is…

If anyone can advice me on getting rid of an overgrowth of bamboo from the middle of the lawn, I'd be happy to hear it. I don’t necessarily want to get rid of all of it, but it needs to be taken back a foot or two.

So, all in all, I’d suggest things are looking much brighter. It’s early days, but my goodness, the sudden possibilities are quite exciting! I don’t just mean with the garden (though I’m contemplating digging a pond), but with other things. I could clean the bathroom later. I need to reorganise the kitchen. I’d quite like to converse with my husband, and spend some time listening to him of an evening, rather than closing off and just battling anxiety until bedtime. Maybe, we might even have an evening out sometime! It’s been about three years since we last went for a walk to a pub, and at least two years since I’ve even wanted to try.

Obviously I've now retreated to be, because the two-hour digging session has wiped me out a bit, but hey, look! I've written a whole blog post!

Here’s hoping that this is the start of a nice little turn around. That would be both epic and awesome.

I know I’m not alone in suffering either, so I hope that anyone else who’s thinking ‘what’s the point?’ might find a way through it too. Early signs suggest that it might be worth it.

Pip xxx