There are various ways that I have described my recovery from depression. It is like a journey. Or an exponential curve on a graph. Or I talk in percentages. I use all these descriptions because I want to try and explain that there are gradients or stages or steps that I am going through. It is not a recovery which goes from one day being depressed to the next being cured and better. It is all on a sliding scale. Or at least for me it is.
The stage that I have currently reached is good. It is also exciting. The majority of the time I feel fine and I am getting on with life. I am back to work full time. I can spend evenings by myself and chill out by myself again. I am going out. I am living. All of which is fantastic and I really enjoy! And occasionally, maybe once a week or so, I can feel myself dipping a bit and going towards a depressive or anxious way of thinking. But generally I notice it, I pay attention to it, and I do something about it. And the dips are now matters of hours rather than days.
What I have noticed is that the dips tend to happen when I'm tired. And I think the reason for this is that the dips happen when I lose concentration.
You see while I am living a full life again, I am also still having to keep an eye on myself 24/7. I have lots of lovely friends and a supportive family who do what they can for me, but at the end of the day the buck stops with me. I'm single and I live by myself. I am my support at home. I am my own full time carer. I may be doing a lot on the outside and appear fine and normal to everyone else, but I am also constantly keeping an eye on myself. If I feel my thoughts starting to become negative I am the one who challenges them and sorts them out. In terms of processing what's happened in my past I am the one going back over those highly charged emotional experiences. No one can do that for me. And I am doing it almost all of the time.
Now this doesn't mean I am not grateful for the lovely wonderful people who are supporting me. There are times when it does all get a bit too much for me. If I get incredibly tired then I need support, as at those points I find it hard to look after myself. If something happens which would make anyone angry and upset then that can be a bit too much for me at the moment, and so again I need to reach out to people. And so many people have been so generous with their time and affection. I am continually overwhelmed by the people who want to be there for me.
But the really exhausting part at the moment is not the flash points, but the day-in-day-out minute by minute constant supervision of myself. And at the moment it is something that I need to do to look after myself. I am sure over time it will become less. But at the moment it is like a ticker tape constantly going in my mind all of the time. And as I've written about before, emotional things like this are more exhausting than I had ever let myself realise!
The other challenge of being at this stage is that because I look perfectly well to everyone else most of the time they appear to forget that there is anything wrong. I don't blame them for this. There are no outward manifestations of the depression. The tears are less, and I look less like a sleep-deprived zombie! But it does mean that I feel that I have to remind people that I am still exhausted because I am actually still recovering. I'm still not quite there yet. I still need time. The challenge of recognising that something is still wrong rears its ugly head once more!
And it's a difficult balance - I want people to treat me as me, not as a depressed person. I like the feeling of being back being myself. Doing work is fantastic and I enjoy it. Being out and chatting to my friends and the focus not being my depression is great! But at the same time I have to sometimes remember to rein myself in a bit. Or to remind other people. I have to keep that close eye on myself. At least for the moment.
Even if other people can't see what is going on any more, I need to occasionally look in the mirror and remind myself. It may be out of sight to most other people, but I need to keep it in mind.
There's still a little way to go. I'm not done yet! But I have every hope that at some point, hopefully not too far away, I will be.
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