a warped view

I am feeling down. Have been for a while. That's why I haven't been posting. It's not an all encompassing downness, I have moments and days where I feel fine, but the thought of blogging (along with numerous other to-dos) have left me feeling tight chested and anxious. I've also been avoiding people, avoiding social situations and I've been crap at communicating with the people I love. I've stopped tweeting, stopped texting, stopped calling. I'm hiding. It's impossible however, to hide from yourself. Today, right now, I am feeling particularly down. I was fine this morning, I had a lovely day with the HSP and saw a movie I've been desperate to see (Oz). Yet this afternoon the cloud descended around my shoulders and I suddenly felt the darkness wrap it's fingers around my heart and squeeze. I suddenly and instantly wanted to bury my face in my pillow and cry. Not just cry, sob, that physical crying that involves your shoulders, your chest, your ...

More than just a bout of the blues, depression isn't a weakness, nor is it something that you can simply "snap out" of. Depression is a chronic illness that usually requires long-term treatment, like diabetes or high blood pressure.  Depression ranges in seriousness from mild, temporary episodes of sadness to severe, persistent depression. Doctors use the term "clinical depression" to describe the more severe form of depression also known as "major depression" or "major depressive disorder." According to the World Health Organization (WHO), depression is one of the most disabling disorders in the world. It affects nearly 121 million people worldwide. Roughly 25% of women and 10% of men will experience depression at some point in their lifetime. Depression that goes untreated can lead to social, professional, financial and personal difficulties including academic, career and financial difficulties.  At its worst, depres...

Quite often, when trying to explain my depression to people I use the phrase "my depression voice" or the "irrational voice" to describe the constant critic that lives in my head. Occasionally I wonder if people are going to take that to mean that I hear voices Beautiful Mind style or that I might start conducting a fight club with myself or talking to a giant rabbit. I can promise you that none of those thing are true, or are going to come true... well I might start talking to Frank but it's unlikely. However the truth is that I do deal with a constant voice in my head. The depression voice is always there, sometimes whispering quietly, sometimes screaming at me until I break. The depression voice is that arsehole that is constantly telling me that I'm not capable, that I'm worthless, that people don't like me. It's the voice that stops me from leaving my house, its the voice that looks in the mirror and tells me how ugly and unlovable I am...

So apparently I am one of a very small percentage of ADHD adults who experiences a worsening of depression symptoms when taking Dexamphetamines.  To start with I didn't notice, but as I continued to take my daily doses my depression symptoms have gotten worse and worse. The situation reached critical mass on Sunday night. My thoughts and behaviour got beyond my control and I had a complete meltdown. The rest of the week has been nothing short of difficult. There has been tears at the drop of the hat, an inability to regulate my emotions (more than usual), and a highly emotional state in general. The smallest things have sent me spiralling out of control. The hsp says its the worst he has ever seen me. It has left me feeling afraid and ashamed. My logical brain knows that there is no reason to feel this way but my logical brain is not exactly the loudest at the moment.  Luckily I had an appointment with my ADHD doctor today and I informed him what was going on. ...

So I have spoken about my suspicions that I have ADHD both here and on twitter. I went and had my first appointment with the special ADHD doctor two weeks ago and because I was unable to find my school reports I had to go back for a second appointment with a letter from one of my parents talking about how they noticed ADHD symptoms in me when I was younger. Apparently the Health Department are quite strict about who they let doctors prescribe ADHD medication to (surprise surprise) and it is their requirement for there to be some evidence of childhood symptoms. My first port of call was my mum, surely she would be able to write a letter containing a list of things I had done as a child? This proved to be slightly more difficult as she expressed to me her belief that I didn't have problems concentrating at school. When I pointed out to her that every single one of my school reports contained something along the lines of "Tiffany talks too much", her reply was simply th...

So last month I wrote the post " There's nothing wrong with you " about being told by well meaning people that I couldn't possibly have depression. That is one side of the depression coin, the people who don't believe you have it because you manage to smile sometimes. The other, much darker side of the coin, is the people who try to use your depression against you as a weapon. I have one of those people in my life. They may be in the peripherals of my life, but sadly they have enough impact for their archaic, biggoted and uneducated views to affect me. In fact this person even tried to use this very blog against me. Using my own words, my own outpouring of truth and emotions, my own confessions of difficulty as a way to hurt me. They tried to turn my truth, my confessions, my words into a sword and to cut me down with it. Taking advantage of my own moments of weakness, my own doubts, my own irrational fear of not being good enough, they attempted to kick me wh...

Twice in the last couple of weeks I've had well meaning people tell me that I shouldn't be taking anti depressants as there is nothing wrong with me. I mean everyone feels a bit sad sometimes right? That doesn't mean they have one of those mental illness things. Neither of these people meant to be offensive, I'm pretty sure that they both quite like me, they just don't understand and belong to a way of thinking that is full of stereotypes and misinformation. Neither of them has any experience dealing with mental illness, neither of them know what it's like to have a constant black cloud hanging over you. Sadly, they are not the only two people who think like this. Despite the struggles for greater awareness, understanding and acceptance, mental illness still has a very special stigma all of it's own. "Normal" people seem to believe that only specific personality types suffer from depression, that depressed people are lazy, that they want to b...

"Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight?" "The same thing we do every night Pinky -  try to take over the world!" Two things are clear to me , I love that cartoon and Brain never suffered from depression. You see it's much easier to try to take over the world if you don't have to use every ounce of motivation and determination in your body to get out of bed each morning. If Brain had suffered from depression it is likely he may have given up his plan after the first failure. For even the smallest hurdle can, to a depressive, seem like an insurmountable barrier. Now don't get me wrong, there are lots of depressed people who have achieved all sorts of amazing things. World domination while depressed is not completely impossible its just a hell of a lot harder. Before people start accusing me of being a whiner and making excuses I would first ask those people a) do you currently have or have you ever depression? and b) can you shut your stupid...

I have been having "one of those days" since Saturday. I have been taking my tablets so it's not that causing a low. We had a birthday party on Saturday for one of my favourite little girls in the whole world, the daughter of friends that I love like she was my niece. I almost didn't go to the party. I was sad, I felt like crying, I felt like getting into bed and pulling the covers over my head until the sad went away. Luckily the HSP was wonderful and convinced me to go, because I would have been disappointed in myself if I had missed it. I made it through the party, I know that sounds terrible, like it was some huge chore (which it wasn't). Well it wouldn't have been for a "normal" person. It wasn't anything about the party that required a huge effort, it was me, my state of mind. The effort needed to put on the happy mask, the mask that hides the darkness inside. I don't hide my depression but I don't want it to be in every one's...

My middle child, master 10 (almost 11) is a beautiful boy. He is sensitive, polite, caring, intelligent, he cares about other people and how they feel, he notices things others wouldn't and he often compliments me that I look beautiful. He likes to read, he's good at maths, he enjoys cooking and he is a fantastic distance runner. He is, of course, not perfect and he and his sister (miss 13) are very good at stirring each other up! He knows just the buttons to push to send her into full princess bitch face mode. He has the regular issues that 10 year old boys have. Sometimes he gets a bit silly, sometimes he doesn't listen, he doesn't really like doing chores and he has issues at school. My master 10 however is different from most other 10 year old boys. My master 10 was expelled from school when he was in grade 2, at the age of 7. It is not something either of us is proud of. It is not a stigma I would choose to have attached to my child but it is the reality we mus...

I am so over it right now. Everything feels hard. Everything feels shit. Everything makes me want to cry. I don't want to be a person any more. I don't want to be an anything any more. My children are smart. They get good grades, score well on NAPLAN, their teachers love them. Why then must they continue to do stupid things? I am so sick of a child running to tell me that so-and-so did such-and-such to me, I am sick of them hurting each other, I am sick of them destroying things, I am sick of them whinging, complaining, walking past rubbish on the floor, leaving shit everywhere, pretending they can't see the dog wee on the floor, having rooms that looking like the aftermath of a break and enter. I am sick of washing dishes, of sweeping floors, of the endless amounts of washing and folding and cleaning and tidying and cooking and planning and thinking. I am sick of feeling guilty for not being able to do those things that I should be doing, of feeling guilty that my husband...

a little over a week ago one of my very best friends, Ben, wrote a blog post about his struggle with depression. For those of you who know me, or have read my blog before, will know that I too have been diagnosed with depression. The responses to his post have ranged from compassionate, empathetic and supportive to accusations of egotism, arrogance and narcissism. So my friendship with Ben and my own circumstances probably skew my opinion on this issue which is why I have delayed writing my own blog post. I have been mulling over what it is that I want to say, what the most important message was that I wanted to share. I have been shocked by the negative responses Ben has received. His depression was not a shock to me, it is something we have spoken about in length over the last few months but I was overwhelmed with pride and admiration when I read his post. It is vastly different from his normal writing, writing that is satirical, comical, acerbic. It is writing that rips off the mas...