Feeling The Strain

It's been a busy week for me. Okay, so it's not been busy like it was when I was working full-time and studying for a degree in the few spare hours that I had, but busy for how my life is now.

The problem with depression is that it saps what little energy you have. I know that I don't eat properly which probably doesn't help much, and while I am at last getting a reasonable amount of sleep each night due to the addition a month ago of 400mg of Seroquel to the 45mg of Mirtazapine that I was already taking, I still find that doing many things really takes it out of me.

I didn't do much on Monday other than what was necessary. I had a misfortune with the sock that I was knitting and had to pull it off the needles and unravel it, ready to start again. I decided to draft out the chart for the next of the sock designs, and 'Spades' quickly took shape on paper to be followed a short time later by work with needles and wool.

Tuesday was psychotherapy day and this week was one of the most intense sessions that I have ever experienced not only with my present therapist but the others who had preceded him. I know that I have sometimes talked about feeling like a limp lettuce after psychotherapy when the session has taken me to difficult places in my mind, but Tuesday's session was different; I didn't feel like a limp lettuce, I just felt mentally and physically drained from the effort that I had put into the session as well as somewhat exhilarated by what had been achieved. When I got home I found it difficult to settle to anything and consequently lots of things got started and then stopped again as my mind couldn't cope with what I was trying to achieve.

Yesterday, Wednesday, I went to the knitting group. Although the group officially meets from 6-9pm, it is usual for some of us to be there before that time. I arrived at about 4pm and sat chatting with the girls in the shop and with a couple of other members of the group who were also there early. I still find it difficult being in a room with a lot of other people, but I have learnt through experience that if I am there early and the room fills up around me that I can cope with it quite well, but if I am required to enter a room that is full of people already then I know that I am going to find the situation much more difficult and I am likely to just stay on the edge of the group rather than joining in. I managed to get a fair bit of knitting done at the group, finishing the leg part and creating the heel flap and starting the turning of the heel.

Today, I had an appointment with my consultant psychiatrist this morning and this afternoon a visit to the CMHT. Dr M was his usual kind self, although today he had two medical students in with him and he was concerned that I may not be happy for them to stay during the consultation. A few years ago I would never have accepted anyone else in the room, but I know that it is very difficult for medical students to get a real feel for the various specialties if all the patients refuse to allow them to stay. These days I am more likely to agree to them remaining with the proviso that if I start to become uncomfortable with the situation that they can be asked to leave. We talked about how I was coping day to day, how my mood has been, and whether I was able to write regularly on the blog. I also told him about going to the knitting group and working on some sock designs for the design competition. We talked about my medication and it has been decided to leave it as it is for the time being to see how I get on over a longer period with the present drug regime, so it's 200mg of Sertraline in the morning and the Mirtazapine and Seroquel at night.

From the hospital it was a bus ride to the CMHT and a meeting with the two workers who are going to be helping me over the next few months cope with the things that I just haven't been able to face for a long time.

This evening I have been taking it easy. I've played a few games on my DSi and done a bit of knitting and I'll probably do a little more before taking my medication and heading for bed. I'm tired, and I don't have to get up early tomorrow to get anywhere so I can have a lie in if that's how things turn out. I guess that I have to expect that I won't be able to do all the things that I did 20 years ago, but I'm just not happy with admitting that I am getting old as well as being depressed.

A Crowded Mind

For the first time in ages I have posts for this blog queueing in my mind. My memory being what it is at the moment I will have to jot down some notes for each of them so that I don't forget what I want to say.

Today has been psychotherapy day. I had what my therapist described as a good session. He worked me hard and I responded to it in a way that he has not seen from me before. As we chatted at the end of the session he told me how pleased he was with how hard I had worked today and that he felt that the therapy is making a difference to me. He's right; I am seeing some benefits from it as I am not blaming myself for everything any more. But I have a long way to go yet and it is unlikely that we will be able to deal with all my problems before the work with this therapist ends in July.

I am feeling a bit mentally battered and bruised from the session but at the same time there is a certain calmness about me that has not been there for some time. The racing thoughts are still there but they seem to be easier to switch off for short periods of time rather than being there every waking moment.

It's going to be a busy week mentally-speaking because I have my next appointment with my consultant psychiatrist, Dr M, on Thursday, then straight after this I have to go to the CMHT to meet my new care coordinator and key worker. This will be something new for me as I have never been in this position before. I am hoping that they will be able to help me with some of the things that I need to deal with but which I find it impossible to face on my own.

Apologies Again

I must apologise again for not posting. Life for me is still very difficult and not being made any easier by almost certainly having to look for a new home. This is something that perhaps may turn out to be a blessing in disguise, but it doesn't make it any easier when at the moment it is as much as I can do to drag myself out of bed each day.

Tuesday's psychotherapy session was difficult. I have a half written post about it and about the meeting later that day with the guy who got the job that I applied for at the beginning of the year. I will finish it and publish it tomorrow. Yesterday I was feeling so awful that I couldn't face going out to the knitting group, which was a bit of a pain because I wanted to look to see if the shop had some more of the fabulous yarn that I bought a couple of weeks ago. Today I had an appointment with my psychiatrist, the nice Dr M, and as a result I now have to go to see my GP tomorrow to get a prescription for another additional antidepressant. Dr M is really concerned about how depressed I am and that I am not sleeping, which is probably making the depression even worse.

I'm hoping that Saturday turns out to be a nice day because I am meeting Lily and Faye in Trafalgar Square and we are going to have lunch together and possibly go looking at knitting supplies. I won't need to buy anything because I went to the knitting shop after I had been to see Dr M today and manage to secure the yarn that I wanted to add to that which I had bought a couple of weeks ago and I can now knit the shawl that I had hoped to be able to make with it. It's going to be a project for the future because I really don't think that I am in the right frame of mind to start working on it at the moment. If I can't even manage to read a book because my concentration is so bad, then there is no chance that I can knit a complicated lace shawl which requires me to follow several charts at the same time. When I do eventually get the shawl started I will post some pictures of my work of art as it progresses. It is not going to be a quick project, but I am sure that it will be worth the effort in the end.

I Must Have Been Out Of My Mind

I really don't know what possessed me to make an appointment to see my psychiatrist at 9am.

I did manage to get myself to bed early last night and I fell asleep pretty quickly but the I kept waking up every couple of hours. I had remembered to set the alarm so as to allow me plenty of time to shower and get dressed. But the alarm didn't go off so I overslept and had to leave the house in a rush. I walked up the road to the bus stop as quickly as I could but before I got to the top of the road a bus went by so I knew that it might be a close run thing getting to my appointment on time.

There are three different buses that use the stop at the top of my road, but only one of them would take me to the hospital. I had to wait for about 15 minutes for the bus to arrive and having boarded it when it did arrive it was a case of waiting to see what the traffic was like. It was amazing; the bus just seemed to whiz along the road, often not needing to stop at bus stops as no-one wanted to get on or get off.

It just goes to show that even though school children in London get free travel on buses, there must be an awful lot who are still being taken to school by car, because with it being the school holidays there was much less traffic about.

Anyway, I made it to the hospital in time for my appointment and Dr M called me in bang on 9am. We chatted for about half an hour covering the usual subjects of mood, sleep, emotions, etc. We made a joint decision to leave my medication as it is for the time being as it seems to be having some effect. Certainly I am now managing to sleep reasonably well at night (and sometimes during the day too) and I am not constantly in the depths of despair. So, with all the bases covered, Dr M suggested that we meet up again in 4-6 weeks.

I had to wait while P the outpatients administrator dealt with a query and then made my next appointment. P decided to have a look at what Dr M had free in 5 weeks time and we found a suitable appointment. It's going to be at 10am, a far more realistic time for me to get to the hospital easily, although I was offered 9am again.

I've learnt my lesson. I won't be opting for an early appointment again if I have to travel to it. I can't cope with having to rush about that early in the morning.

Seeing Dr M

Although I started writing this blog to record how I was feeling and to document the methods that I use to try to help me when I sink into depression, I have also tried to make sure that it doesn't descend into a series of daily posts saying that I feel awful. I am still feeling as low as I did when I came out of hospital and I seem to be unable to do anything to lift myself out of this terrible blackness.

I went to see my consultant psychiatrist, Dr M, this morning. This was the appointment to make up for the one that was cancelled when I was in hospital. I arrived about 10 minutes before the time of my appointment and amazingly was called in immediately.

We had a long talk about how my mood has been since I last saw Dr M. I admitted that I am finding things very difficult at the moment. I am literally living each day as it comes. I make no plans in case I am unable to do the things that I have planned. I am very depressed all the time. I am not sleeping properly, nor are my eating habits anything like they should be. And while we were talking about all this, I burst into tears. We also talked about my recent time in the hospital and what had caused me to seek help.

Dr M has decided that I need significant help from the CMHT and is going to set that in motion. He has also decided that the dose of both the antidepressants that I take should be raised to maximum levels in an effort to both try to improve my mood and help me to get a proper night's sleep on a regular basis. I have to see him again in three weeks so that we can see whether there has been any improvement and if there hasn't, Dr M has said that a change of medication may be necessary to see if a different combination of drugs will bring about an improvement.

Having read of the problems that so many people with mental health problems have with their psychiatrists, I feel that I am very lucky in having Dr M as my consultant. He is very kind and he listens. Something that I know many people say that their psychiatrists don't do. There is no doubt that having confidence in the people who are responsible for your mental wellbeing can make a significant impact on how things go.