A brief summary from an absent writer

Hello!

I realised I haven’t written for a long time, despite being encouraged by a few people including this university counsellor I have been seeing for a while now. This entry is a brief sad summary of what had happened since my last entry!

My last entry was in March, which means I must have been crazy busy trying to finish my university course. I did well in my 3^rd year, which was a surprise for me as I always had struggled to complete or find the right shape of mind, which is why I am so close to finishing the BA course I started in 2004! I sadly failed one module, which was my dissertation, which means I get to be a part time student again trying to complete my module in order to graduate! I initially had hoped to finish by this month in order to graduate by February 2013 but I have been blighted by my own depression, which means I have been blindsided yet again. I am so disappointed about this but I am aware that my state of mind comes first before I really can move on and work. The university is fine with me aiming to finish by May in time for September graduation (only because it is a year-long module!).

I want to address my last post about my ‘coming out’ as being someone who suffer from depression and anxiety, I really would love to say I’m doing very wonderfully now but sadly I took a turn for the worse about the end of September and once again returned to my bed.

A crappy summer and a combination of feeling quite let down was a factor in this.

In my previous entries I talked about being part of the organising team for IUK camp, this fell through due to unsuccessful funding which was a great source of disappointment to me. Then I found out that I would not be able to graduate as I failed one module (thank you very much to the history dept. in uni who I swear doesn’t like me). I also was being emotionally bullied at a work placement I was doing and just left suddenly one day and on that same day I found out that someone I knew previously from my time in Nepal had killed herself.

I was living alone at this point and was extremely was looking forward to new flatmates who was due to move in but alas let me know a few days before they moved in that they had moved somewhere else instead. This affected me badly and I blamed myself for a long time. Was I too keen? Too pushy? Or too weird?

So when September rolled around again, I really was finding it hard to get out of bed to go to university as with very little financial support which meant I had to be more careful with my much needed trips what would help me to get out of my head for a bit.

I suddenly became very afraid to go out after a bad experience when visiting London and suffered a lot from anxiety attacks when I wanted to go out at nights which I avoided doing for a long time. I slowly am getting there at going out at evenings again. I am not very good at being around people in the Deaf community as I can get quite worked up and tend to avoid people (sorry to a few people I did really want to see at the reunion)

These were big contributing factors, to the slow slide that was happening to me.

This might sound like a pitiful tale of woe but there were good things that did happen to me!

I had an awesome time visiting Wales! I have a lovely bunch of friends who I see from time to time for weekends away, Wales was one of them and it was from this weekend I had the confidence to join NVQ level 3 BSL as I would really like to qualify as a teacher for adults one day and teaching BSL is one way of achieving that dream. I would like to do level 6 as I know I can jump from level 3 easily to do that but it is so expensive and I only can afford the local adult education centre for now.

            I also had the chance to visit Dublin, as this was the very first time of going without any of my family being with me. I also went to the Irish film festival, which I enjoyed extremely and won a fair few things!

            I noticed that after a weekend with these lovely friends I get the confidence for a wee while to do things as I got out of my own head.

            I also have a new flatmate who is a quite interesting person, and I get on with her quite well so now I have stopped feeling shitty about the previous people due to move and am very glad they didn’t now!

I am dealing with depression the best way I can and know how. One thing about going back to uni meant I could take up counselling again and be able to talk freely about things I felt I couldn’t tell people about.  I wasn’t able to have an interpreter due to staffing issues in the university so my counsellor and I sat at a computer with a blank word doc and when I started to type I found that I could say so much more than I was able to with an interpreter so we agreed to forget having a third person in the room.

I also visited the doctor again and cried buckets and buckets, they was aware that I had been struggling for a while before deciding that it was time to change my current anti- depressants to a different one. The doctor wasn’t happy that I was putting on a lot of weight and told me that I needed to exercise but that was too hard for me as I have issues going out, and going to a gym is hard for anyone let alone a person with depression!

I’m not allowed to have high doses of anti-depressants as I have suicidal tendencies, which is another story for some other time!

I have an appointment with the doctor today to discuss my progress on the new tablets and also the results of a blood test too.

I promise my next entry will be a bit more positive :D

INTERESTING FACT: I have 5 tattoos not 4 as I have one that I haven’t shown anyone yet! The only person who has seen it was the tattooist himself!

P.S Feel free to ask me questions or leave comments. You can DM me at my twitter. 

Crazy and lovin’ it- a taboo

So! I’ve come out not as a gay person but as someone who suffer from mental health issues.

About one year ago I got diagnosed when a trip to the GP for a chest infection was taken up by me sitting down and crying for no reason. I wrote that I didn’t know what was happening and I just cry often. I would cry about nothing and burst out at the oddest moments. I don’t know if my parents noticed as I was holed up in my bedroom for a long period of time.  I think 3 weeks of not going out of the house was my record.

The GP kindly said to me ‘right, without a doubt you are depressed. We will start you off on a low dose of anti- depressants to see how you go and come back in 2 weeks’ I recall being confused. How could just crying could lead to this? I started to picture scenes of me in a hospital locked away somewhere. I went to the chemist picked up my huge array of tablets; I had 2 infections at that time, viral and bacterial, and now more tablets to add on to my ever growing daily tablets I had to take.

I didn’t jump on the tablets at first, I hid it I my room so it would be out of sight and thought about it, after a few days of thinking about it some more. I eventually admitted to a friend about it.  I got frustrated by the response I got ‘it’s up to you’ at that stage I couldn’t even decide whether to take a shower or what socks to wear.  I think I can recall crying that I didn’t have any black socks.  I slowly took the plunge and took a tablet. It was a huge anti-climax, I was expecting to be jumping off the walls, grinning like an insanely happy nutter but it wasn’t like that. It was take a tablet, swallow it and sit and wait I suppose.

My next trip to the GP, I had to fill out a CORE questionnaire, which is a questionnaire designed to quickly evaluate answers to see how someone is feeling that week. I then was asked a bunch of questions. My GP wrote them all down in advance for me. So I tried to answer the best I could.

‘How often do you cry?’ ‘Do the bad days outweigh the good?’ ‘Have you ever harmed yourself?’

I had to think long and hard, I explained that for a few years now I would have those moments of restless energy and be really fidgety and I couldn’t cope staying in a place for too long, I had to get away and go somewhere that I didn’t feel so closed in. I also had bad days where I would stay in my room and listen to music… ‘out here on my own’ by Irene Carr was one of them. Looking back I wonder how the HELL did my flatmates put up with that blasting out often and daily? I had lot of days where I would feel like I was in a dark pit and these episodes happened a lot. I didn’t know who to talk to or how to talk about it. I’m not going talk about how I response to the self-harming questions. It’s hard enough for me to talk about this.

I was referred to a waiting list for a counsellor which took 3 months and when I eventually met with him, clearly he wasn’t told I was Deaf but he was one of the nicest person I had met.  We discussed the effects of the tablets and how I was feeling about it. I explained I was slowly noticing changes, I could finally think clearly as I haven’t had that kind of clarity for a long times I was able to decide on things properly and I was able to talk a bit more, see people as well. I noticed that little spring in my step when on my way to somewhere. I still had my bad days but I was able to do something about it instead of staying in bed.

A year on, I no longer stay in bed crying but I do have my days and I am still on the tablets. I decided I could cope with returning to university to finish my final year. I have to admit at times I’m doubtful I will finish. I go to counselling once a week with a lovely interpreter.  It is hard for me to express how I feel, at the moment I’m working on finding out the trigger for this depression this bi-polar thingy I have. The sooner I face it the sooner I can slowly have more good days than bad.  I have several friends who are there for me daily, and I’m grateful to know that they are on the other end of a text message or a short train journey if needed.

Why did I decide to talk openly about it after a long time? I was fed up of not being honest. And I was frightened of losing friends. I might do after this but I will be able to cope and think positively.

I am finding myself at the same time. I’m leaning what work for me. Everyone react to depression in different ways. I found a way that worked for me; this doesn’t mean it is the same for everyone else.

Sadly no one ever really get ‘cured’ but there are many ways to live with it. I urge you if you are depressed or know anyone who is. DON’T ignore them, support them and don’t keep it to yourself as it is draining and there are people out there to help.

http://www.signhealth.org.uk/  this is a charity devoted to Deaf people’s mental health well-being

http://www.nursing.manchester.ac.uk/bsliapttranslation/ a research project to see how mental services and be improved for deaf people using BSL

http://www.breathingspacescotland.co.uk/bspace/CCC_FirstPage.jspa service in Scotland Supported by Deaf Connections providing BSL support.

Mental health is a taboo and hopefully one day it won’t be.

Fact: Collecting Lush helped me. I just like collecting nice smelly stuff.