Category: Depression

Like most of the worlds population we have been in lockdown and social distancing for almost 2 weeks and it has taken me this long to adjust emotionally. Like most autistic people I don’t like change and find it difficult. It’s quite weird because my day to day life isn’t that different as I’m not one for going out a lot. What has changed is my weekly routine. I’m used to my Mum coming over for dinner 3 times a week and going to Slimming World on Fridays. I’m used to being able to pop to the local supermarket and getting anything I need whenever I want. I didn’t stockpile anything when the panic buying began and became very anxious when I couldn’t get any pasta (why?).

I am not anxious about the current world situation because thanks to my education in molecular and cellular biology I understand everything that is going on. I’m not a fan of our current government but I cannot fault their response (ok maybe the schools should have closed a week earlier) to this pandemic. They have listened to the scientific experts and responded accordingly. Until a vaccine is available the world is going to face several waves of this pandemic and will have to have periods of lockdown to curtail the spread of the virus. At the moment we do not know if the coronavirus mutates enough to enable the reinfection of a previously immune host. If the virus does mutate in this way any vaccine created will be rendered ineffective and the worlds scientists will be forever playing catch up.

The changes in routine have led to a resurgence in my depression which has a knock on effect in the other areas of my life. I managed to stick to my eating plan until day 8 and then had 4 days of terrible eating. I have since given myself a talking to and devised a way to cope. Each day I am giving myself a list of tasks to do and I’m making sure I go out for a short walk. It’s only when I’ve done these two things that I allow myself to relax and do my hobbies. Without this structure I was watching YouTube videos all day and not achieving anything at all.

As I find writing therapeutic I’m going to be blogging a bit more. These posts will be primarily for me just to record my thoughts so I won’t be linking to them from my other social media. I need to create a new routine to maintain normal brain function.

Since Christmas my brain has been working against me. I always struggle with my depression in January and this year has been no exception. Just after Christmas I wrote a list of all the things I’d wanted to achieve in 2020. Due to being so unwell in 2019 I felt like it was a year wasted. We are now in the second week of February and I have yet to even start anything on the list.

I’ve mentioned Behavioural Activation in a previous post as a way to stop my procrastination but as of yet I haven’t even begun to look at it. I know I need to make a start and it is getting to the point where I’m just going to have to force myself to do it.

I think I am slowly coming out of it though as I’m finally going to go swimming this afternoon. I really need to increase my activity as I’m struggling to lose the last bit of weight. I am so close to being a healthy weight -only 3lbs away- and it’s become more important to me as I’ve had my genome sequenced (I’ll write another post on this later) and it shows that I’m at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes. For me, losing weight was always about my health so this has lit a fire under my butt!

I’m also starting to look forward to the rest of the year. David and I will be celebrating our silver wedding anniversary in September and are planning a trip to the US. We’ve always wanted to go to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida and I really want to visit the Atheist Community of Austin in Texas so we will be doing both.

I think it is obvious to anyone reading this post that it was written over a period of a few days. The first two paragraphs were written two days ago when I was feeling very low and the remainder was written today. I find writing this blog extremely cathartic and I think this post has moved my brain into action.

Having been unable to work for over 10 years due to the fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue I have spent a lot of time on the internet and social media. At my worst times it has been the only way I’ve been able to interact with the outside world.

I have an extremely active mind with a strong focus on logic and reason. In the past I have enjoyed discussing topics with people on social media however over the past few months I have become increasingly annoyed with anything that is based on religion, pseudoscience and conspiracy theories. I have always tried to respect other peoples beliefs in such things but I increasingly want to call people out on – what I see as – their stupidity. I’ve literally typed out multiple angry responses and then deleted them; all but one. Unfortunately this was mistakenly taken as an accusation towards someones friend rather than a general comment on the subject in question. Obviously I immediately apologised and explained that it was not meant as it appeared but it has left me with a lot of anxiety.

The only way I feel able to cope with the anger and anxiety is to take a prolonged break from social media; Facebook in particular. I may even decide to deactivate my account at a later date. It will be hard losing contact with friends that I rarely see but I don’t see another option right now.

It has always been a question in philosophy how one can prove to another conscious being of their own consciousness. I know for certain that I am conscious and that I exist. I also accept that my consciousness is merely an emergent property of my brain and that when my brain dies my consciousness will cease to exist. I converse with myself in my native tongue of English and I can remember doing this from about the age of 2.

When I started school I remember questioning why I wasn’t like everybody else, why I couldn’t say anything right or act ‘normal’. As I got older and developed depression this turned into a constant diatribe of internal belittling. I hated myself for being overweight, lying for attention and being what I thought of as a freak. The only way I could comfort myself was by getting good grades and eating junk. The latter was obviously counterproductive.

This inner voice continued well into adulthood. Having a husband that loved me unconditionally and two beautiful daughters didn’t seem to make a difference. Although very grateful, I felt that I was undeserving of it all. This led to some unreasonable behaviour on my part especially when David wanted to do something on his own. It was only when this behaviour was pointed out to me a couple of years ago that I realised how destructive it was.

Once I’d made the decision to change and worked on thinking and acting differently my self hating inner voice stopped. It took a few months but I actually -for the first time in my life- started to like myself. The change was so startling that my youngest daughter asked if I’d started taking a new medication. I no longer feel inferior to other people despite my difficulties. It is these difficulties that make me who I am and I wouldn’t change anything because I’m doing ok.

When I am in one of my lows, I often reflect negatively on how my life has turned out. I find looking at pictures of myself when I was little very sad because I feel that that little girl had the potential to become anything she wanted.

While growing up children are always asked what they want to do when they’re older. For me it was to become a doctor and one of my biggest regrets is not having the confidence to go for it when I was younger. I chose to become a mother at the age of 19 and I certainly don’t regret it but it did mean that I had to put my career on hold. I stayed at home with my girls until both were at school. I then decided it was time for me to start my working life.

I’ve discussed what happened in my previous posts so I won’t go into it again. To cut a long story short my depression and inability to cope with stress led to me developing fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. At times I feel very defeated and ask myself over and over again; why couldn’t I cope? I am very lucky that David has a highly paid job so we don’t have any money worries but I hate the fact that I can’t contribute.

This week when I was feeling low I tried to imagine what my life would be like now if I had become doctor. I certainly would have a successful career but would I have been happy? If I had concentrated on becoming a doctor I probably wouldn’t have met my soulmate and had two beautiful children and I might have regretted it. When I realised this a lot of my feelings of regret disappeared.

Life is far too short to keep second guessing your decisions. There isn’t enough time to do everything so you just have to make the most of every day and do the best you can.