How I found my way out of depression.

I have read 2 blog posts this morning by pure chance from a link on twitter saying that 'positive thinking' and 'happiness is a choice' get the back up of the writers of the blog posts. Before reading them I had decided my blog post for the day was to be about how I found my way out of the day place.

I am one of those 'born again' happiness type of people.  I had a spiritual awakening if you like. I say that happiness and a way out of depression is possible. I thought my way into depression so I thought my way out of it too.

What made me depressed? Simple answer, my thoughts made me depressed. Clinical depression is a serious medical illness with no cause but what gets us there? Our negative thoughts get us there. The thoughts may be linked to our situation, health, wealth or a reaction to something such as grief but there is always something that cause the depression. Our thoughts.

I had clinical depression for 29 years with a bit of respite in the between but I was heavily medicated and awaiting psychotherapy and under a psychiatrist.

I hit rock bottom a couple of years ago and took an overdose. I saw it as the only way out. But after I was let out of hospital and with little in the way of support mechanisms I decided a few things were going to change. One of those things was that I wasn't going to enter into another rubbish, one way relationship, ever. Not just with a man but with another human being. I was done with vulnerability vultures and leeches. I made a list of what I wanted in a man and under  no circumstances was I going to compromise with anything on this list.

That was the stepping stone to my new life. I found a man who met the needs I needed meeting. And things in my life just got better and better. My partner is a vey positive thinker and generally happy chappy. I thought to myself 'how on earth does he remain so calm and happy when things go wrong?' He looks at things in a totally different way to me. If something bad happened I would see it as a nuisance, typical it happened to me, costly, annoying and it usually made me angry. He would say 'whats the point in getting angry, it won't change anything'. I used to think 'no it won't but I need to be angry; I should be angry'.  It took me back to what a relationship coach I saw said 'don't give your energy to something you cannot change or you don't want to remain in your life.'

I didn't see it at the time, but oh boy could I do anger!! I was angry at everything. I had been through a tough time with separation and my daughter going to live with my ex and I was feeling at my lowest ebb. I'm not saying I shouldn't have gone through those feelings as it was a kind of grief and grief can bring anger and hatred with it. I couldn't see the woods for the trees.

I was the type of person who would not be happy for someones good fortune because I was jealous. I would covert other peoples life styles and be think 'not fair'. When bad things happened to me I would think 'of course bad things happen to me, I deserve it'. I would get annoyed at injustice to the point of severe anger even though I could do nothing about it. I invited bad things into my life as I thought I deserved nothing better.

So how did I change all this?

Enough is enough

As mentioned I decided on one thing in my life I could control at one time and that was something I had had enough of. I was still down and depressed but not as suicidal. I spent my days doing very little, self medicating with alcohol and not leaving the house or even getting dressed so I wasn't out of the woods by any means. You know when you reach the point where you can't take something any longer? Well, I had reached it.

Before I took the overdose in June 2013 I was anxious, depressed, suicidal and at my lowest ebb. Rock bottom. I managed to work still but still didn't have boundaries on how much I worked. I would do extra shifts and think I'd be ok on it but then it would make me spiral further down when I became exhausted and couldn't sleep. It was a trigger. Over working and lack of sleep definiately contributed to my overdose as I couldn't think straight.

The treatment for the OD was hideous and I decided, I am never going to go through that again. That was another step towards changing things.

No to being treated badly by friends and men.
No to ever being in the position where I had to endure horrendous drugs to counteract the drugs, face the shame of telling my friends what I had done and being counter productive with the relationship with my daughter. The overdose meant I couldn't have her for while until my ex deemed me fit for purpose. The opposite of what I wanted.

I went from perceiving myself as victim then survivor to thriver. Learning from my experiences and growing from them.

Law of attraction
The second step was using the law of attraction. I didn't know it at the time but had heard of LOA. I used it without thinking about it because I no longer wanted to be in the position I was in with friends and particularly relationships with men. I had a pretty unfulfilling and unrewarding time after my ex and I split and attracting the wrong man into my life. Anyone would do and it lead to being used for money, sex and stalked. A couple of relatives of mine said they weren't surprised I'd had a stalker. 'Trust you' is what they said! I believed it to so I thought 'sod this for a game of soldiers, no more'.
We all have our breaking points and I had reached mine. Not for the first time though.

I was absolutely sick to the back teeth of having something to moan about for one thing. So I invited the good in and good things started to happen to me.

I decided I was good enough to have someone in my life that was all the things I wanted in a man. I decided I was worth it after all. I'm not a bad person so why should I settle for bad things or inappropriate things just to get the love I wanted? I was finding love in the wrong places. I wrote a list of what I wanted and I didn't compromise.

When I met my ex I wasn't in a good place myself and wanted or thought I wanted someone to fill the void. The void was in me so I should have started with me but I didn't have the knowledge or understanding to do it at the time. I learnt the hard way. Changing a partner is not an option and the warning signs were there. I kept hoping it would get better but it didn't. We weren't meant to be together as we weren't compatible at all and trying to change someone will never work. I kept hoping he'd see what I was struggling with. I'm not of the mindset that telling another adult what to do is the way forward. So neither of us would change. It was never going to work.

We need to attract into our lives a partner, if that's what we want, who has the attributes we want in a partner, for example compassion, caring, outgoing, quiet, sociable, likes the outdoors etc. Put the attributes you want in a list in a book and stick to them. Do not compromise on any of them or you will end up compromising for the whole duration of the relationship.

I use the law of attraction in all walks of life, not just love and relationships. I use to attract what I want into my life even down to the smallest thing. For example, even though it wasn't a small thing I attracted in an engagement ring. I googled a picture of what I wanted and thought about it and knew that was the ring I wanted. I wanted to get it from the jewellers in the village we lived in as she hand makes it and it would be sentimental from there. Her shop in the village is quite small and the chances of having the exact ring I wanted were small but I knew it would be there. And it was. At eye level was the exact ring I wanted and it fit. It took 2 minutes to buy it. My partner was gob smacked. He found it quite freaky really. But it does work.


Changing my lifestyle

A doctor once said to me that in order to be happier I needed to change my lifestyle and work hours. At the time and up until recently, as is in another blog post, I thought the guy was stupid for even suggesting it. I couldn't work any other hours due to my husbands hours so had to work nights. Although now I see how grateful I was I got to spend the time I did with my daughter I begrudged working nights with a passion and up to this day still do. My job used to demand you worked nights as part of your contract but when they rolled around I would start feeling resentful and full of hate.

I also had the mindset that you had to do what was available to work and nights were the lesser of the evils and earned more money, I was a slave to my payday. But I was surrounded by people and still am that you should work if you can and work harder and earn more where possible but the more I worked the harder life got, the more I spent to make myself feel better. It was not working for me and I was listening to the wrong people. I was listening to the drone of society as it is today. You are nothing unless you earn, work hard, have a fancy car, a big house and loads of nice clothes and climbing the career ladder. I was surrounded by these people! They are everywhere.

Unless that is what fulfils your needs then there is no reason why you should feel bad about not being what society deems to be representative of being a human being. Being human is not about how much cash you have or how good looking you are or what you have. It's about being happy, true to yourself and not harming others. If being career driven does not makes you happy then do not do what you think is expected of you, do what makes you happy. If being a painter makes you happy but has no fixed or definite income, then be a painter but if being a painter means you don't have a fixed abode because you have no fixed income to get a rental place or mortgage then so be it and you have to find a way to deal with that. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it but you have to be comfortable with it. Be prepared to lose friends over it and be prepared to be judged. Only society and others dictate that having a house/mortgage/car are what you need to be a functioning human being. It just isn't true. Do what your heart desires without hurting another living being.

I have left many jobs and stuck to a job which didn't give me any satisfaction but I reached a saturation point where I could not maintain the job any longer but because I was surrounded by people telling me that I should work full-time, I should be earning as much money as possible, I should this, I should that. Who is to tell you what you should do? Yes, we have to earn money to go on holidays, to pay for our children, to pay the bills, to have a roof over our head. But if you for example, wanted to retrain or try something different and leave a well paid job for uncertainty then as long as your children are cared for then it does not matter if you go and live in a caravan for a couple of years.

We live in a society that is super judgemental. About the car we drive, the clothes we wear, our hobbies and interests or the house we live in. I have always craved to live in a caravan or on a boat but never had the guts so I didn't get judged. Unfortunately that led me to living a false life. The life I should be living not the life I wanted to live. If money were not a factor what would you be doing?

We have to give ourselves permission to live the lives we want to live. Go do it! Stop pretending.

Self love

In our lives, some of us have difficulty with self love, whatever happens in our lives and how we grow up may determine how we are able to love ourselves and self sooth or have self compassion.
We often find we can talk to ourselves as we never would any other human being. We chastise, mock, criticise, put down and name call ourselves things we would never dream of saying to anyone else or even to ourselves out loud.

Yet why is it ok for our minds to tell us these things? Why is it ok for society to help us feel inadequate? Not pretty enough, not thin enough, not talented enough? We are an era of self loathing, self deprecating, low self esteem and no self worth.  We aren't enough.

So how do we turn those feelings around? We need to look letting go of how we view we are supposed to be and be true to ourselves. Not spending everyday pleasing others and please ourselves. Be kind to ourselves. Do things that ignite our passions and enhance our wellbeing. It's ok to spend the day baking a cake and if the cake is a disaster, that too is ok. It's ok to spend the day reading a book or writing or painting or drawing. It doesn't have to be a work of art. And who determines what a work of art is anyway? One persons pleasure is another persons distaste. But you need to not feel guilty about it.

Creativity releases tension and anguish but only if if it's not laced with guilt. Or do nothing? Sit and be mindful of the surroundings and the noises, how your body feels and you could also practice gratitude whilst doing it. Some of most creative ideas flow into us when our minds are clear of obtrusive thoughts.

Self love also requires us to stop speaking to ourselves like we are a piece of crap. I'm over weight and hated having my photo taken and still do to some extent. I still covert the photos that I was thinner in however, I am happier now than I have ever been and back then I was in a really bad place. I used food and drink to numb and self medicate but now I don't so hopefully the weight will come off eventually but I'm not going to diet or deny myself anything as it makes me grumpy. Something I will not tolerate in myself anymore is being grumpy.

I have learned to love myself by being grateful for things about myself and practicing gratitude brings with it more self love. I no longer talk to myself like crap and praise myself instead. I look at other people differently too. If you criticising someone else for their looks or behaviours then you have  a problem within yourself that needs addressing. Being comfortable in your own skin means you no longer criticise others.

Self love doesn't mean we are narcissistic either. We can appreciate ourselves and give thanks to ourselves without it meaning we are full of ourselves. We can tell ourselves we are enough. It is not about getting approval from others or bragging how fantastic we are. It's about the quiet words we say to ourselves at any time during the day. Saying 'I am good enough' without the 'yeah but' creeping in. It is about being good enough now not when you make a million or have a brand new car or lose 20 lbs. It is right here right now. Practice it now. What are you grateful for about yourself? Find 5 things now and cultivate them. We cannot grow good crops with neglect and adverse conditions so make the conditions right, right now. Not tomorrow but this very moment.

For example
I  love my sense of humour, I can make people laugh.
I like my legs, they have a good shape.
I have nice teeth.
It doesn't have to be big things, it can be the smallest thing we like about ourselves and in time we can learn to love even the bits we don't like as they are part of us.

I am also no longer envious of others as practising gratitude enhances self love and self appreciation. Realise what you have, practice gratitude for it and stop talking to yourself so violently. Being as thin or rich as you can be will not make you change the way you feel about yourself. It has to start within.



Surrounding yourself with like minded people.

We can chose our friends but not our relatives. But what if those or one particular relative are toxic? I had a relationship like that in my family and it was painful. We didn't see eye to eye. I didn't agree with their way of living and vice versa. In fact in order to please, I began to live beyond my means and turn myself into something I wasn't just to make myself into something I thought they would be proud of or fit in with their ideals. It made me miserable. I wasn't being true to myself and I made myself feel ashamed and bad about myself whenever we were together. I was lucky enough that this person took themselves out of my life but at the time it still hurt because I wasn't looking at it the right way. I felt betrayed. Now I see it as a blessing that I no longer have to feel that my weekends with my daughter are spent doing what they want to do and listening to them talk to me or my daughter in a negative way.

I am also in the process of streamlining friendships. Breaking ties with people who suck the life out of me or do not reciprocate or I can't fathom out. If I have mixed feelings now about someone, I keep them at arms length or put them out of my life altogether. There are hundreds of people out there I can connect with on a deeper level.

Being friends with someone for a long time isn't a basis for a good relationship. People do change and often values and points of view change in time. I have changed a lot in the last few months and now would not hesitate to stand up for myself, whereas before I would have said nothing, backed down and gone home, tail between my legs and bemoaned them in my own time. That's not to say I would be hurtful or confrontational but maybe phrase things so that they knew I wasn't happy with the way they were acting or what they say to me or my loved ones.

Since I have found peace in my life I am attracting more people into it that are likeminded. Before when I was depressed I hardly had anyone around me and shut myself away all the time. The only people I would talk to would be other depressed individuals through the net. It only served to perpetuate my thinking that the world was a dire place and there was no hope. Now I am in touch with people who lift my spirits higher and resonate my feelings about life. It is self fulfilling. The more negative thoughts I thought and the more I surrounded myself with negative people made me a more negative person. I needed that like a hole in the head.

I also avoid the vultures that could prey on me as I am still quite guidable and naive sometimes and like to help people but these types of people are the ones who will use and abuse for their own means. I can pick them out a little better now and I have also learned to say no very well!

This also goes for social media. Try and learn to control what you look at or read and if something you do read annoys you, try not to enter into the argument or let it frustrate you. A prime example is a loud mouth columnist in the UK was having their say on depression. Twitter was full of it. I would have at one time also entered into the argument trying to make this person feel bad about their comments but having learned from my relationship coach that giving energy to shall we say, a foe is pointless and useless. It will not make them change or feel bad about their actions. They will only benefit from people taking the bait and retaliating and elevating their ratings. If it winds you up stay away and regroup and put things into perspective.

My partner is a very positive thinker, he has taught me that the things I once thought were bad aren't necessarily so. He taught me to see the positive in situations I cannot do anything about. I had such a negative outlook on a lot of things and I realised I didn't have to have the have those ideas anymore. He also taught me that attaching negative energy to money is wasted energy. We have taught each other lots of things since we have been together but we have the same principles and outlook on life. We are very like minded.

Positive thinking.

Harbouring and nurturing negative thoughts is really easy. It takes practice to stop those thoughts and replace them with positive ones. I hear it all the time. 'I'm locked out the house and it cost me £30 to get the door open, now I'm late for work, what a disaster'. The day is ruined because you forgot your keys and had to call a lock smith and it cost money etc. If that happened to me now I would stop for a second and think a little about the situation and say something along the lines of 'I left my keys as I was distracted, not to worry these things happen, at least I was able to make a call to get someone out and I had the money in my account to give them. Thank goodness for that. I finally made it to work so no harm done and I'm alive.' I would also hand over the payment to the locksmith with sincere wholehearted gratitude. Attaching gratitude to paying for things is way more positive than begrudging paying for something. If we attach negativity to that payment we are telling the universe we enjoy being ungrateful for paying for things so the universe won't send us abundance.

Thinking positive takes energy and time to practice. Maybe having the energy is difficult but cultivating one positive thought is far less draining than cultivating 20 negative ones. The negative thoughts have a tendency to tell lies also so listening to them is only going to make you feel worse.

Changing my thinking happened over a period of time. It wasn't a one day fix. I slowly started to think more positively about situations and things that were beyond my control. If something seemingly bad has happened there is not a lot one can do about it as it's done and dusted but how we react to it can be the key. I'm not saying it's going to be easy and may need some work. If it's a big thing then I would have to dig very deep and practice and practice to remain positive and I'm sure the negative gremlins will sneak in a time or 2 to make me feel worse. But what's done is done and maybe it happened to make us take a different path in life or teach us things like patience, resilience, understanding and tolerance?

My ex decided he was going to ask for all the proceeds of our house sale to go to him or he was going to take half my pension, which is worth a fair bit. I was then faced with giving all the profits I had put into the house to him or face waiting until I retired and give him half my pension. I was furious, upset and full of hate about it. There was nothing I could do. I managed to get him to agree to letting me have a quarter so I could pay off debts and leave my pension alone. It wasn't my fault he had made no provision and he was in a better position than me in the eyes of the law however I could choose to let the hatred make me ill again or I could learn to let it go. Writing it still brings back some horrid feelings of injustice but then my positive voice reasons and says 'it is done, don't give him your energy, it's only money'.


I had to let go of the hurt I was causing myself. And one of those ways is to practice gratitude.

Practising gratitude.


This one thing has helped me break the constant loop of negative thinking. I started practicing gratitude on a daily basis after reading Hero by Rhonda Byrne. After a few days practice it started to get easier. You have to write 10 things daily that you are grateful for. They can be anything. Once you open that door to gratitude finding things to be grateful for just gets easier and easier and you can  find gratitude in absolutely everything.

For example,
I am grateful for my house, it keeps me safe and warm.
I am grateful for the clothes I have, they cover me up and keep me warm.
I am grateful for running water, it hydrates me, I can wash in it and take a bath whenever I like.
Wake up in the morning and practice gratitude for what you do have not focus on what you don't.
I'm grateful I've woken up with less pain.
I'm grateful I've woken up lying next to the man I love.

Practising gratitude for a relationship and towards a person also enhances the relationship we have with that person. So if you are experiencing trouble in that relationship, instead of complaining about them, practice gratitude towards them. It can work well with jobs and chores also but takes practice and perseverance.

Make sure the negative gremlins don't make their way in and say bad stuff to negate the good. Even if they do, don't enter into an argument with them. They are not worth the waste of energy and they do not tell the truth.

Keep at it everyday and try and practice it in any situation. Even if it feels futile, it isn't, it will be working towards a greater future for you.

Wholeheartedness.


Living wholeheartedly is defined by Brene Brown as the following:-

1. Cultivating Authenticity:Letting Go of What People Think.
   
2. Cultivating Self‐Compassion:Letting Go of Perfectionism.
   
3. Cultivating a Resilient Spirit:Letting Go of Numbing and Powerlessness.
   
4. Cultivating Gratitude and Joy:Letting Go of Scarcity and Fear of the Dark.
   
5. Cultivating Intuition and Trusting Faith:Letting Go of the Need for
   Certainty.
   
6. Cultivating Creativity:Letting Go of Comparison.
   
7. Cultivating Play and Rest: Letting Go of Exhaustion as a Status Symbol and
   Productivity as Self‐Worth.
   
8. Cultivating Calm and Stillness:Letting Go of Anxiety as a Lifestyle.
   
9. Cultivating Meaningful Work:Letting Go of Self‐Doubt and 'supposed to' attitude.
   
   10. Cultivating Laughter, Song, and Dance: Letting Go of Being Cool and 'Always in Control'

If you want to know more about the guideposts then visit Udemy and sign onto Brene's video course or get her books from the net. There is a heck of a lot to explain but basically it is being true to yourself and allowing yourself to enjoy work, rest and play without the guilt or shame.

It's a lot of work to go through but I adore listening to her and can replay the videos over and over. She does audio CD's on her books also.

The NHS, psychiatry and medication.

Controversial part of my recovering involved relinguishing any ties with psychiatry, psychiatric meds and conventional treatment. My journey with psychiatry started when I was 17. I had already self harmed once and was feeling that way again so headed to the GP who refered me to a psychiatrist. Long story short he sexually assaulted me, I didn't tell anyone or go back to see him. I next sought help until aged 19 when I was put on prozac, that lasted a few months. I've been on and off anti -depressants for years and finally went on them permanently after I gave birth to my daughter.

I was very ill when I was pregnant and almost hospitalised due to depression. I couldn't take meds as I was being sick all the time so as soon as she was born, I went on them and stayed on them for 10 years trying several different ones until I settled for a low dose of venlafaxine. Years later quetiapine was added after a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder and unstable moods.

One good thing about the quetiapine was that it helped me sleep. I had horrendous insomnia for years so it was a great relief. I visited psychiatrists from time to time over the years and had CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) a few times but still got ill or rather had 'relapses' and the dose of my meds went up a great deal but I was still prone to periods of depression and reacted badly to situations. I was renowned for going over the top and losing my temper easily. I mistook this for being passionate and part of my 'illness'. It wasn't, it was just that I had trouble processing things and with the way I reacted to happenings.

I was also suffering with my stomach and the pills were making it far worse and I reached a point where I thought that I did not want to be a slave to these pills anymore. They weren't doing their job as I still got depressed. I had reached the 'enough was enough' stage. I had to wean them off gradually and it took 14 months to totally get off the venlafaxine. I'm currently trying out alternatives to help me sleep and so far managed 5 days off quetiapine and still managed to sleep!

I have also stopped going to my GP with niggles and I am slowly fixing myself through other means. My blood pressure is down as I'm no longer on the antidepressants that make it high. My stomach is much better and I'm on virtually nothing for acid and pain relief because now I have fixed the mental health problems I am better physically and vice versa.

Coming off anti-depressants is supposed to be supervised by medical people but I knew my body and what I had to do. This is my personal journey and everyone is different. I didn't feel supported by medical professionals but maybe if you are receiving therapy by an alternative means, they can help you if you decide that coming off medication is what you want.

Complementary therapy.

I strongly believe in complementary therapies such as massage, reflexology, acupuncture, coaching, hypnotherapy and osteopathy. I am a complementary therapy tart. I love it and again I am surrounded by like minded people. I always felt out of place in GP's surgery and never listened to. Not so with complementary therapy centres. I feel at home, listened to and cared for. I also now believe I am worth the money I spend on these treatments. I may be getting NHS for free (ish) but it just didn't work for me.

The relationship coach helped me start on this journey. He helped me see things out of the black and white thinking I was used to and from a different angle. He helped me see that being angry was only going to hurt me and it would solve nothing. He also put me onto Brene Brown and Byron Katie who is the creator of The Work. She helps us look at our problems from a different perspective. It isn't a way we are used to but once you get used to it, it is very helpful to deal with the problems we face and our attitudes towards ourselves and others.

Hypnotherapy helped me let go of pain I was carrying regarding my mum who died over 20 years ago. I didn't think it was actually doing anything but after the sessions I felt a weight lift out of me and the feeling of emptiness was no longer there.

Human Givens.

I didn't use this to get out of my depression but it has come back to me on my journey so thought it pertinent to include it as I'm still on my journey. I still face challenges and hiccups so need all the support I can get. But basically, if our needs are met, humans don't get depressed. I need to read further and look at it again to add further comment but it is something worth looking into if psychiatry isn't your chosen method of help. The thinking of Human Givens is very much the polar opposite of psychiatry. They look at treating the cause and the symptoms not putting a plaster on a gaping wound.

If along your life path, like myself, where you found that the way you react to things and deal with things leads to depression then we need to learn a new way to deal with things and get our needs met not take drugs to lessen the severity of feeling and numb or have something like CBT as a quick fix solution. The key is finding out ways to help us cope differently and deal with past problem effectively.


The above is how I got myself of the depressive slump I was in. It's not a one size fits all but take from it what you want and leave behind what you don't. Look for a way out and do whatever you can to get out of it because it is possible. I felt failed by the NHS, psychiatry and drugs until I realised they weren't the solution. I needed a different approach and the right tools to think my way out.

My journey with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and borderline personality disorder. Part 8.

I realised I had created all the bad in my life by not caring enough about myself or valuing myself. For a long long time I didn't love myself. That was my biggest mistake.

Self love can be difficult. We aren't raised to think about loving ourselves. It's self indulgent and somewhat narcissistic. I hated myself for years, since I started to have emotional problems at age 14 because I wasn't viewed as being 'normal' and mocked by people for self harming. I hated the way I reacted to people's opinions of me and was a people pleaser. And I just expected to be treated the same way I treated people in return. That's not how it works.

I wanted my ex to file for divorce so we could both move on and be rid of each other. Plus I wanted him to pay for it as I had paid for the wedding. We sold the house and he wouldn't settle for the divorce until we agreed on how the money was divided. Baring his solicitor is cutthroat, they went for the jugular. He wanted all the money form the sale of the house. He had my daughter living with him so he could take me to court and have a good case, plus I have a good pension so he was entitled a cut from that anyway to the tune of 10K. It was so stressful as I had debt I needed to settle so couldn't hand to all over. He threatened to go for half my pension which was worth a heck of a lot if I didn't agree.

We argued over and over it and my solicitor always needed chasing up so the stress was awful. I managed to get him to agree to giving me a quarter of the money if he left my pension alone. I had real trouble dealing with this. I was very bitter. I had had a house when I met my ex and had it for 10 years. I bought it with the money my dad had given me after my mum died and the house had turned it into good money so we used some of it to buy the next home we lived in. We put down a huge chunk towards it. Had I known then that he would do this I would have gotten a prenup.

I had always been crap with money and always getting into debt and getting myself out of it but my ex had never gotten into much debt. He was using his credit card to pay for the DIY stuff needed for the house renovation so we eventually sold my house and paid off what we owed.

When he had gotten made redundant he'd had a payout of 20k. I hardly saw any of that. Within three years of being with his new gf he had blown 32k. The money from the sale of the house was going to go on debt he had accrued living his new life. It annoyed me as I would be left with very little. He had already taken so much off me, this was just another stab in the back. Maybe he was punishing me for cheating on him and treating him so badly? He would never admit it.

After a while of being cut up with anger and bitterness for so long I decided enough was enough. I had attracted my ex into my life when I was lonely and desperate. I had attracted MM into my life when I was unhappy and miserable. I had attracted bad guys into my life when I was not in a good place. It had all been down to me and my lack of self esteem and self love.

So many bad things had happened over the past few years that I was sick of constantly feeling the victim. I guess I had a revelation. My life with my OH was going really good. We were looking forward to a lot of good times ahead. A future I had wished for many years ago. I had started coming off the medication over 14 months ago and had finally got off the venlafaxine totally. It took so long as I get 'brain zaps' coming off them. Brain zaps are difficult to describe but I'm sure you know what I'm talking about if you've had them. Coming off medication too quickly can cause these to be awful. So I took my time and reduced really slowly. I also noticed not taking as much venlafaxine made my quetiapine more effective so reduced the dose of that too.

Although I was having a few down days, by now I was feeling a lot better but I was also feeling numb. I didn't look forward to the day. I just wanted to sleep and be out of it but I wasn't sad. Just really tired and if I was awake I would think too much but I had trouble feeling emotion except anger and hatred. I was suffering anhenoia, which is the inability to feel pleasure. I decided my pills weren't helping that.

Being on such a high dose I think contributed to my bad gut situation. I was severally constipated on the high dose along with the quetiapine and was fed up with it. I felt the time had been right to reduce the doses. I wouldn't recommend that to anyone, it was just something I did. I was a fed up with the NHS and lack of input from them also. After my OD and seeing a very nice psychiatrist once I had no further contact for months. He was instrumental in helping me alter my shifts at work then having time off work but then I didn't hear from him for months. It wasn't his fault as he'd had to take sick leave and there was no one to cover him. There are few and far between doctors and nurses, who in my opinion, make a difference. He was one of them.

Before I took the OD I had asked to be referred back to my psychiatrist  but she had left so I turned up for an appointment which had been a cancellation. I was grateful for it until I got there and was surrounded by elderly patients in the waiting room and felt something was wrong. I got called into the office and met with a brusk german doctor who asked me what the problem was so I explained. I asked if my request for psychotherapy had been sent in by my last psychiatrist and he couldn't answer it. He flicked and flicked through my notes and saw I was taking a bigger dose of venlafaxine and quetiapine. I got pretty emotional telling my story and he showed no empathy whatsoever. He had an assistant in the room with him and neither of them offered me a tissue when I had tears and snot running down my face and couldn't find one in my bag. He simply just shrugged his shoulders and said there was nothing more they could do. I left in tears and felt once again let down by the NHS for their lack of support.

I googled the consultant when I got home and found him to be an Alzheimer's specialist. I complained to the PALS (patient liaison service) that he wasn't an appropriate consultant for me to see and they managed to get me transferred to the new more understanding one. However in 2 years I have only spoken to him once and seen hm once. I saw his registrar last year sometime and said I what I doing with my pills and she didn't seem bothered. The language barrier was a bit tricky anyway so and I kept having to repeat myself. She said I would see her again in a few months and since then I must have had 8 or so letters with appointments and cancellations with no further appointment being sent through and to be honest I'm not chasing it as I might just get another wasting time appointment that someone else could do with more than me. I have washed my hands of psychiatry for the time being. Never say never.

The  christmas my OH and I were first together he bought me a newer version of the SAD (seasonal affective disorder) light I had. Mine was made of wood and about 11 years old and this one is light weight and portable (ish). I had been neglecting using one for a couple of years because I had nowhere to put it at my house and thought, bloody mindedly, that it didn't work. But now I am religious with it. I also stopped using it as I wouldn't get up until late morning/lunch time and they can cause insomnia and I didn't want any of that. Now I had the sleeping thing under and bit more control, it wasn't a problem.

I know I sound hypochondriac again but I also believed, through the stress that I had adrenal fatigue. It's not recognised by the medical profession so again I wasn't going o mention it to my GP or indeed anyone else. Adrenal fatigue causes all sorts of problems and can take forever to get back to normal. The symptoms are much the same and can be confused with chronic fatigue and depression.

Are you:

• Tired for no reason?
• Having trouble getting up in the morning?
• Depending on coffee or colas to keep you going?
• Feeling run down and stressed?
• Dragging through each day?
• Craving salty or sweet snacks?
• Struggling to keep up with life's daily demands?
• Unable to bounce back from stress or illness?
• Not having fun anymore?
• Experiencing decreased sex drive?
• Simply too tired to enjoy life?

But the things that stood out were that I had fried nerves and become really really inpatient and every thing got on my nerves and when I was due my period well it wasn't only horrendous for myself but everyone around me. I'd experienced similar to this in the past but not the frayed nerves as such. I had always known to be inpatient but this was another level.

I have embarked on diets before for illness such as depression, gut problems and chronic fatigue so once again I embarked on one for this. I started what is known as the paleo or caveman diet, which involves basically eating a lot of meat and fats and no carbs. I lasted about a week as it's expensive, I can't bare fat on meat and the mere smell of it cooking started to make me retch. Plus I was wrestling with my conscience over eating meat as well.

I have been known to over eat in the past and starting a new relationship meant eating out a fair bit and more wine and a side effect of adrenal fatigue is weight gain due to cortisol levels being really high. I was eating without thinking at work biscuits, cakes, anything just to try and get a little energy. So subsequently piled a lot of weight on in a short space of time. Now I look at what I eat and generally eat as healthy as I can but smaller portions, I'm not saint though and alcohol is still a draw for me although I am cutting it right down for obvious reasons.

My other coping mechanisms come in the form of self help and mainly gratitude. I revisited a book called The Secret, which I had read a few years ago but never practiced. In another book int he series called The Magic, it talks about writing down everyday, things that you are grateful for. You have to list 10 things, every day. Now gratitude is something alien to me. I've always thought that we should 'do unto others....' and 'you get what you give' kind of thinking but this teaches you to do it in a new way. It teaches you to give wholeheartedly and with love and expect nothing in return. Sounds easy but takes some practice.

Being grateful for the smallest things really help me stay focused on the here and now. A bit like mindfulness but I don't focus on my body and what's going on it, more of a not worrying about the past or the future as much as I did. I was great at beating myself up about the past and worrying needlessly about the future. I would worry about so many things. My daughters future, which sounds normal but obsessively worry about it and things like that shops weren't busy enough. I was pretty anxious before my last overdose and the only thing that would help it was sleep.

Now I can cope with it on a daily basis by focusing on what I do have than what I don't. For example.

1. I am grateful today that I woke up without a headache.
2. I am grateful today I slept all night.
3.I am grateful today that I have enough energy to shower and wash my hair.

You get the picture, that kind of thing. Not beating myself up about the fact that I didn't have the energy to not do other things than wash my hair and shower. If we focus on what we can't do, what we don't have then we attract more of that into our lives. Whether you believe that theory or not, it really helped me. I was fed up with attracting things into my life I didn't want.

I also started practicing more the Law of Attraction. Again, it might seem a bit new age for you but honestly it works. Basically you think about what you want, write a list about it and be specific about it, focus on it but not obsess over it; it's important not the be so desperate for what you want, it won't happen if you are desperate. The link above sums it up perfectly. Again it takes practice but it's worth it. Changing a mindset you have had for years does not happen overnight and takes patience and practice.

Try it with a simple thing at first and see for yourself. If it doesn't work keep trying. It may not happen instantly. I've done it with cars, jewellery, books, movies, all sorts of things. I have had an image in my head of what I want and known that it will really happen and I've believed that in my heart and it has happened. A couple of cautions, be careful what you wish for and stay away from scams. If you are gullible, naive and vulnerable you can easily be taken advantage of, as I have been. The key is to looking for the clues but knowing when it is right, if it doesn't feel right then stay away from it.

It helps that the stress in my life is a lot less than it was. The emails (by now i had blocked the ex and his gf on all communication sites other than my ex on email) had dried up, I was divorced, finally, more financially secure, looking forward to the future. I still have 'melt downs' but they aren't as often and I bounce back from them a lot quicker. I practice gratitude ever day and look for the positive, not negatives in every situation.

I also take supplements for fatigue and PMT, which include magnesium, evening primrose oil, vitamin c and co-enzyme q10. I did try using white tea instead of black tea and switching milk to non dairy but again I found I couldn't keep it up. I also learned to love myself, warts and all. If I can't love myself then no one will love me the way I want.

I have also been introduced along the way to Brene Brown and have always been a fan of Elizabeth Gilbert who have been a greta inspiration to me. I have learned to get people out of my life that suck the life and soul out of me and see things that come my way as opportunities rather than life threatening events or catastrophes.

My journey with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and borderline personality disorder. Part 4.

May contain triggers for you. Stay safe.

There is a tree in the middle of a field where I used to walk my dog. That tree was my comfort blanket. I imagined myself hanging from it. Not the putting of the rope around the branch or the physical act of looping it around my neck or how horrid it would feel to die. Just the peace I felt seeing the figure limp and lifeless, hanging there. At peace at last.

Morbid? yes, weird? maybe? Why was it a comfort? Because it meant that if the figure was me I would be free from all these terrible feelings and free of the conflict my brain was constantly throwing at me. The guilt was like a lead weight suffocating me. Why did I feel this way?

Personally I think I had done more than my body could take and the fatigue precipitated the depression. I was exhausted but I was also depressed. I've seen the same pattern over and over again. I get exhausted and then really depressed. I can be tired and start getting depressed but then I get exhausted and become much more depressed. It's not the normal kind of tiredness, it's not relieved by sleep and I could sleep for hours and hours and still feel dreadful.

I was on antidepressants and was still under the mother and baby psychiatrist but still felt my mood wasn't improving with the drugs so my psych changed it. I stayed on citalopram for a while then was discharged from the mother and baby psychiatrist when my daughter was a year old, which was the normal thing. I had appointments every 3 months to keep a close eye on me but every time I went, I saw a new face and had to repeat everything again. After the 3rd visit I lost all faith in the psychiatric system again as the doctor I was with kept nodding off on me. I answered his questions with 'yes/no' answers juts to get to over with and get out of there. It felt like a farce. It felt like no one was listening anymore.

I just pretended everything was ok but it wasn't. I went to my GP and asked to swapped to a drug I had briefly tried before. He refused and said I needed to change my life style. I told him I was trying and had done what I could but still felt suicidal. He asked me with what I thought at the time was a very a patronising tone, why I hadn't killed myself yet. I was getting very upset and angry and aware I was shouting, I have a loud voice anyway so it doesn't take much for me to sound louder. I screamed at him though gritted teeth 'because I have a child'. He was still not going to change my tablets so I stormed out the surgery and headed home. I bloody mindedly cancelled my psychiatric appointments knowing to get one again may result in me having to go on the waiting list again and decided I would do it all alone and come off my pills altogether.

It wasn't long before I was struggling again so decided to contact the MIND advocacy people to have a representative come with me to talk to the GP. I felt that being on my own they could say anything and be unhelpful and I was very vulnerable. Having someone with me had always proved beneficial in the past. My husband wouldn't come with me and I didn't have anyone I could ask to go with me. These people are trained for these situations so knew it was the right thing to do. I was determined to go back to the GP and face up to him and get him to help me. By the time I got an appointment again, that GP had left so got a locus instead. He could not have been a nicer person. He was understanding, helpful and caring. He rang my psychiatrist there and then and spoke to him. By that time legislation had changed and GP's could no longer prescribe certain drugs, only psychiatrists could.

I went back to see my psychiatrist and this time actual saw the consultant. He was ok with me after he told me I should never take my medication into my own hands and my treatment needed close supervision! Anyway after discussion he agreed with me to go back on the meds I had been on a while back, Venlafaxine. I was on a really small dose as I found the side effects to be horrid.

I found it very hard to function, although I did my best for my daughter. She was never neglected, but I only had the energy for her and my gran and that was about it. I was also having dreadful trouble with my stomach. The doctors said it was IBS and gave me a shed load of pills to help with it. It kept me up at night in agony and I felt like I had been poisoned a lot of the time. I was really sensitive to a lot of foods and was experimenting with cutting things out, avoiding dairy, stuff like that. I didn't drink a lot at the time either.

I couldn't face the possibility of going back to work and as the weeks rolled by I still had trouble coming to terms with going back. I just had about enough energy to do the basics. I was having acupuncture again and eating better and slowly the depression and suicidal thoughts subsided but I still couldn't stand the thought of going back to work. It was the momentum I didn't think I could stand and I wasn't good at pacing myself. Luckily, my husband was earning good money so I asked him if I could give up or until I was fully better. I know I berated him for not helping me out but I was and am grateful he allowed me to give up work.

I say 'allowed' because I couldn't just give up  work without his say so. We could manage financially but it would mean he would be responsible for all the bills etc. If the shoe had been on the other foot, I would have struggled with the concept.

With nothing else to cloud my recovery I embarked on looking after my daughter and my granny and granddad and living a very simple life. A easier life. I began to get my energy back and feel more positive. I took 8 months off work altogether and began thinking about getting another job. Very part time hours only. I ended up asking my ex manager if I could get a job back in the place I worked when my daughter had been born. I got one night a week. The manager was ok with us doing fixed nights but not fixed days. I thought one night a week would be fine. I had to do it at the weekend so we wouldn't have to pay for childcare so my husband could spend some quality time with our daughter also.

He was doing the house up at the time so spent most weekends doing DIY therefore he never got to spend quality time with her. It was a good opportunity for them both. The only thing was he would spend her the time with her going to DIY stores! Gradually I got back into the swing of things and started working 2 nights a week but it was hard work. I'd try to sleep the day of my night shift for an hour or 2 before I got my daughter from school then go to work and hardly sleep the next day as I found it hard to do that. I'd probably get 2-3 hours max in the day then pick her up from school. Some days I was so desperate to get back to sleep that as soon as my husband walked in the door I would go to bed. Then the next day I'd do the same again as I had another night shift to do.

My husband continued to not have much interest in being a father to our daughter and I was solely responsible for her. 24/7. I found this very difficult being so tired after a night shift and dragging myself to get her from school after 3 hours sleep at most. I was in a constant fog of tiredness and lack of sleep followed by insomnia. It wasn't pleasant.

I carried on this way for a couple of years. I'd always known when I had gotten married that life would be the same day in and day out with not much to look forward to in the way of holidays and I could predict the future totally. A few breaks away camping, myself and my daughter and trips to see friends broke up the monotony. Nothing changed. I craved excitement. Mostly I was doing ok and could manage with a few short lived blips in between but with a nagging sense of boredom.

Our daughter was nearly 4 by then and I'd started to entertain myself to relieve the boredom by fantasising that a guy would come and sweep me off my feet and rescue me from the mundanity. Writing this now I can see it's ridiculous. I was very unhappy with my husband and should have just found somewhere to live and leave him. Messing about on Facebook I came across a guy I used to know from school and messaged him.

Messages passed back and forth for a while, mainly about life and what we had been up to. Then he started asking if we could meet. And although the thought was exciting I was nervous. I didn't even consider my husbands feelings as I thought I had nagged and begged long enough for some help, even just go in work a little later so I could get straight to bed and get an extra hours sleep but it never happened. I switched off my capacity to care about what he thought. I know now it was wrong.

We were getting closer to meeting all the time and when we'd finally arranged on a date I had cold feet. I remember coming back from the school run one morning and ringing him saying I couldn't do it as he had so much to lose from seeing me. I didn't think I had anything to lose. I was my daughters total carer so my daughter would always stay with me. Fathers don't generally get custody of their children and become part time. How naive I was.

He persuaded me to see him and I agreed. I lied about where I was going but my husband knew I was up to something. After the first night we spent together I knew then I would leave my marriage. I thought we would be together as we were meant to be. I was on cloud nine. I felt more alive than I had done for a long time.

But this was the start, as I'm sure you can imagine, of incredible heart ache and pain for us all.

My journey with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and borderline personality disorder.Part 3.

Contains candid content that may trigger. Be careful.

I'd never lived with a partner before. Only my dad and my brother and mum of course.

I'd sort of got idea that although a woman worked she was expected to do all the house work etc as well. I had grown up in a traditional sort of family with my Gran staying at home and doing all the 'caring' whilst my Granddad provided and hunter gathered. It was a great childhood. But in order for us to live in the house we had in the village we did my mum had to get a job. My dad worked nights and my mum worked early mornings. She got fed up of doing all the chores so asked my dad to do the pots when he came in from work. It was horrendous. He'd get in at 7 is and the noise from him losing his temper was awful. My mum suffered from extreme tiredness and thinking about it the house was always very clean and tidy. Clothes were always washed and put away yet she never got any thanks for it. And I was starting to see where she had been coming form.

My energy levels had never been fantastic but when my HTB (husband to be) and I moved in together the amount of work I was doing started taking their toll. I kept thinking hopefully he'd start to lift a finger and help me with the house work or see that things needed doing. But alas it was not to be. My brother had the same attitude when he had briefly lived with me and now it seemed so did my HTB.

It didn't matter if I worked nights or days or many shifts on the trot. It was still me who did the majority of the chores. We both worked full time but he would be out the house longer. The only time he did the housework was when I was at work and he was off, as he had nothing better to do.
Alarm bells were ringing as this was not what I'd hoped for from a partner. I hoped he could see I was struggling and pull his finger out a bit more after all he didn't suffer from energy problems at all.

I carried on thinking he'd change and see how I needed his help and got on with wedding plans. I again did everything, drove everything. My HTB was younger than I was and maybe a bit naive but still I'd been independent since I was a teenager and he had gone to live in a shared house with friends as a teenager but I guess he acted like a lot of male students and didn't think cleaning etc was his job or even care about it. Who knows. I worked shifts so although I was out the house the same time as working regular hours I was in at times when most people would still be at work. So therefore I guess it was seen as my duty if I was there I would do it. And I couldn't ignore it.

Time passed and depressive episodes came and went, so did hypomanic episodes where I would work all hours just to keep out the house. I remember wishing I was like one of these people who were work-alcoholics and dedicated their lives to work. But I couldn't sustain it. I soon became ill again with fatigue then depression. I'd take a couple of weeks off work then bounce back. I changed my job as I thought I wanted more recognition, money, whatever it was I thought I wanted. But I couldn't sustain the job and hated it so went back to my old job. I was trying to fill a hole in my being I had had for years. Getting married didn't help it as my husband didn't help me or support me emotionally. My job never fulfilled me.

My life was a constant round of working loads then getting ill and spending loads to make myself feel better, so then I'd be in debt so then I'd have to work harder to pay it off but then I couldn't sustain the work patterns because of my mood and/or fatigue. I'm sure I was very difficult to live with.

My now husband decided he didn't want a child after all even though we had discussed it before the wedding and agreed we'd have kids. I don't think he wanted the responsibility or to share me with anyone or anything. He had already displayed his none comital and indifference with animals despite having grown up with them. He rarely showed emotion about anything and I just thought things just didn't float his boat as I was very excited or passionate about a lot of things. I didn't even consider my mental health problems when considering pregnancy or being a mother. I was just searching for something to fill the void. I thought being a mother would somehow complete me.

We agreed that if we used some money I had gotten back from a policy that we would use it to travel and then try for a baby later that year. Which is what we did. I know bringing a child into that relationship wasn't a good idea but the thought of starting all over again at 30 didn't seem like a good option. Baring in mind the trouble I'd had with even finding a relationship, I thought, to have the relationship I had and especially being married was what I needed to keep at. Having a baby was the next step.

I was very sick during my pregnancy and have recently been reminded how horrendous I was to be around when I was pregnant. I felt dreadful. I had terrible IBS and sickness and lots of aches and pains. It was like having PMS and a hangover for months. I got some relief when I was about 15 weeks pregnant. It turned out I wasn't going to my full maternity pay either as my daughter was due 3 days before the cut off point to receive maternity pay. It meant I was only going to get 6 weeks maternity pay. Some people might have just been able to get on with this but I was feeling physically ill and now upset over the prospect of not being able to be off with my baby.

So I worked overtime to save money towards being off. I drove myself into the ground. I felt so ill that I had no energy to even lift my arms to wash my hair. I had to beg my husband to do it for me. I had no energy at all. I felt sick all the time, had terrible indigestion and everything hurt. I began to be very depressed. I worked long days back to back and carried on doing all the other stuff as much as I could. I didn't sleep well which added to the fatigue and was very tearful. I eventually went to the doctors as I felt very low. Suicidal even. I hadn't been suicidal before as such but now I had the urge to make it all stop but didn't have a plan on how to end it and I felt so guilty feeling that way whilst I was pregnant as well.

The GP referred me to a psychiatrist. I was so ill I went along as I was at the end of my tether. I remember thinking I hoped it wasn't a man due to my last encounter with a male one. She asked why I hadn't been to a psychiatrist for years so I told her what Dr Clayton had done. She made a note of it and although I wasn't in a good place I asked about reporting him. She said I could if I wanted to but it was up to me. She didn't report it herself but luckily that has changed in the system and she would have had a duty to report it. I was in no fit state to report it and could only focus on the here and now. Take each day at a time.

She put me back on prozac but I couldn't take it due to acid and started vomiting blood. We agreed I would go on it the moment I gave birth. I was off sick at work at this point and could not wait to give birth and get my body back. Looking back I probably had chronic fatigue then but it wasn't recognised. I didn't discuss any of my problems with my family as they would not have understood. Only close friends and colleagues knew. I was bitter and angry about not getting my maternity, about my husband not taking care of me, about a friend not being there for me when I had been there for her in the past. I was naive and ungrateful.

I decided to help myself also and opted to get acupuncture. I had tried it before but never had a course of treatment as such. I was willing to try anything and after researching it I opted to go back and see if it could help me. I began a course of treatment and began a great friendship with a wonderful person who went on to save me from myself on many occasions. It truly lifted me out of the sink hole I was in and got me to much better place I needed to be in.

In the mean time I took things into my own hands and booked to see an acupuncturist. I'd briefly dabbled in acupuncture before but this time I was holding out hope it would help me get out of this out I was in. 

I had a lot of treatments pre and post birth and honestly it saved my life. Whether it was the actual practitioner or the acupunture or a combination but it worked. Where 'conventional' medicine failed to treat me, the acupuncture therapy saved me. Literally from the edge. I went on to have it over the years over and over and still do to this day.

I was always a really negative person and now I realise the error of my ways but also I should not have entered into a relationship let alone had a child with someone who wasn't what I wanted. I settled for someone who adored me but I did not adore them. I should have ended it before it had gotten too serious. Undoing a marriage and a life together is very hard.

Our daughter was finally born and immediately I felt better. Euphoric almost. I was really happy to not have all the physical symptoms and so grateful for this baby. I felt invincible. I loved everything and everyone. I focused on routine and looking after my baby, walked the dog and had a very simple life with very little pressure. One of the loveliest times of my life.

My daughter started having problems with feeding and began vomiting a lot and constantly screaming. I was breast feeding and she couldn't keep my milk down and after 3 months I had to resort to formula but still she screamed and screamed. She wouldn't sleep and arguments started between my husband and I about who should get up with her. I'd be pacing around the house with her at all hours. Watching hours of rubbish tv. Thank goodness they had 24 hour tv then. I couldn't sleep either and our sleeping patterns would clash so generally I was very grumpy and tired a lot of the time. It was hard work. I wasn't depressed just going through being a new mum.

I managed to go back to work 3 days a week, which was about all I could cope with but I'd had to give up the comfort of contract as I couldn't work late due to my husbands working hours. It meant I wasn't going to get paid holiday and being on the bank meant if someone else put their name down for the shift I was supposed to be working I would be bumped. There was no security so I looked for another job. I got one in the community and embarked on working 3 long days a week. It was a 9-5 job but to beat traffic I left early and came home last thing after picking up my daughter from nursery. They were long days. I'd also gone on a diet to lose the weight I'd gained in pregnancy.
I was determined to be as efficient and as effective as I could as the job wasn't permanent. I started studying again too. It was a recipe for disaster.

I started to be even more exhausted and had to run my Granny around on my days off as my granddad had gone into hospital after a fall. My daughter was walking so time spent on the ward with my granddad was spent running around after her and trying to keep her occupied. The nurses asked if I could leave her with anyone whilst we visited. I couldn't, there was just me, my granny and my husband as her carers. My husband was at work and I was with my granny. I didn't want to put her in child care full time so I just had to deal with it.

By the time the weekends rolled around I was ready for a rest but then on Saturdays I was faced with cleaning the house. The pots had mounted up, there was no lie in and there was all the chores to do. And no one to help me and I was exhausted. My husband would be either having a lie in or doing his own thing. I can't really remember. I just remember feeling annoyed that he wasn't helping me. I remember nagging a lot too. It does't work. I read once that in order to get a partner you lived with to do tasks that needing doing, you needed to leave a list for them and ask them to do it. I'm not a great believer in this but it might work for you. I believe that as an adult you should be able to see what needs doing and do it to help your loved out. I'm no psychologist so don't know how mens brains work but I know they are capable of doing these things without nagging or asking or lists. I know this is normal life for a lot of people but I didn't have the energy to cope with it.

I had to look after my grannies 120 foot garden too and although she had a small front garden she had a privet hedge. That hedge was the bane of my life. I'd spend hours cleaning out her house as well as she was a bit of a hoarder and trying to grow my own veg in her garden like my granddad used to. I had phases where I was this go getting dressed up heeled professional then going to basics and wearing wellies everyday and pyjamas most of the day and going back to nature where all I could cope with was walking the dog or going for long bike rides with my dog and daughter (I had a trailer).

I guess I struggled with my identity a lot. I was friends with go getters who all ended up in high powered jobs and used to ask why I hadn't done the same. My brother wanted to know why I didn't work full time and when our daughter started school my husband thought the same. I simply couldn't do it all.

I remember begging my husband to help me with my grannies garden one weekend but he refused and went off to do his own thing. He wasn't very sociable and admitted to being intimidated by my friends that were older than him. He wouldn't visit my brother and his wife with me or my friends and we hardly ever went on holiday together. The irony was when my Granny died and we were seperated that my husband wanted to attend her funeral. My brother told me to give him a break and let him go. I didn't see the point of paying respects to a person he didn't give a shit about when she was alive.

I'd put a lot of work into my job and when we got the go ahead that the work I had done would mean the the project would continue. That's when I collapsed. I couldn't envisage keeping up the pace I had been and working harder than I already had. I was stressed to the max and tired beyond words and just wanted to be at home with my daughter.

I went off sick from my job and forced myself to finish a diploma. But then I gave in and took to my bed, around having my daughter. I relished the days when my husband had a day off work so I could go back to bed. But I started to feel vey suicidal. I thought about suicide all the time. I envisaged what I do and how I would do it. And the feelings lasted for weeks.

My journey with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and borderline personality disorder. Part 2.

Be careful reading this it could possibly trigger some unwanted feelings.

Following my mothers death and a change of job, my BF (best friend) decided she was going travelling and their was no way she was going without me so I set about renting my house out and packing up to go. It seemed a complete turn around from spending months creating a home and buying things for it to packing it all up to go away.

I intended to go to Australia and never come back. I managed mostly quite well whilst over there. There was a lot of partying and long days working whilst we lived in Sydney. It wasn't without angst but mostly I felt in control and happy. That was until the guy I was seeing went away for christmas without me and I found I was pregnant. I started crying and could not stop.

To add to the the complications I'd had a one night stand whilst my boyfriend was away and turned out it was the one night stands baby. Despite using the morning after pill, which I was told didn't work in Australia. After I found this out I  decided I had no choice but to have a termination. Something I had been against anyone doing for years. It was my worst fear and it was happening to me and I was having to go through it. It was either that or face bringing up a child alone and I knew I wasn't capable of that.

Whatever your thoughts on abortion, please bare in mind that every circumstance is unique and individual. It was a difficult decision for me but I didn't have a choice. I had a one night stand because I got really drunk and got attention of a guy that was at the party and it seemed to ease the pain a little, temporarily. That's how I dealt with things. I would not recommend doing any other actions as a fix at all.

I didn't stop crying as we moved to Melbourne and I attended the clinic and it was all over very quickly. Then we moved to Adelaide and I was working but I was in a very bad place and my poor BF was relieved when I decided to go and stay with the guy I had been seeing in Sydney who was now living in a mining town called Kalgoorlie. I went to see a GP in Adelaide for antidepressants. He was a wonderful guy and told me that going to live with my 'boyfriend' was going to be a big mistake. I knew this in my heart and soul but I felt so relieved when he'd asked me to come and stay with him.

I stopped crying and my BF was relieved to be free of this crying mess and I got on a bus and headed to my boyfriends place where we stayed for 3 months before he decided he was going to head to Europe. Alone. I was devastated. I hung on for dear life. I followed him round like a lost child and the thought of going it alone was terrifying. I know very co-dependent. I didn't know how to deal with these feelings. They tore me up inside.

We did go our separate ways whilst I went and travelled a bit more of the coast of Australia. But I struggled and muddled along. But I managed as I had seeing my boyfriend again to look forward to. We saw each other again in Ayers Rock and spent a great time travelling a bit but he soon left again and I somehow had to pick myself up and carry on.

I eventually went back home and arranged to meet my boyfriend back at my dads house. I joined him, his sister and her best friend on a journey in a camper van round Scotland. I knew it was the wrong thing to do but I did it anyway. It was clear we weren't getting on then but we ended up in Ireland to see a guy we had been friends with and lived with in Sydney. Ireland turned out to be horrific for me.

I couldn't work as it was southern Ireland so went back to London to work for 18 days and got a terrible feeling whilst I was there. I could hardly get hold of my boyfriend and when I got back to Ireland things were very hard. Our mutual friend had picked up some photos and purposely gave them to me to look through and there was a photo of my boyfriend lip locked with our mutual friends cousin. It floored me. I was already very fragile but this was the moment of no return and I had no choice, after many arguments and drunken melt downs, I decided to leave so I headed, in a mess, back to my dads house.

I got a job again and tried to move on and my BF came back from travelling too so we shared a room in a shared house for a couple of months. I was just starting to get myself back to some semblance of normality when my ex turned up and threw the whole can of worms open again. No sooner had he turned up than he decided I wasn't what he wanted and left within a couple of days. I was once again thrown into turmoil.

I couldn't work, I couldn't stop crying. I went back to the doctor and got some anti depressants which gave me horrendous nightmares and made me feel awful so I knocked them on the head and decided to go to New Zealand. I planned it without anyone knowing. Almost like a suicide, I planned to leave without telling anyone and left notes for my dad and best friend but she knew something as wrong so I told her.

My plan was that if I was in New Zealand my ex, who was from there, would come rushing back to me as he would see how dedicated I was to him. He'd sent me a letter whilst I was in Nottingham and kind of declared his love to me. This was after he'd been to stay with me. It was a weird situation. I was convinced we were meant to be together.

Needless to say I was very down and it was very lonely place to be when you are not in a good place. You can travel all over the world and still feel lonely inside. I could not find peace at all. I was having terrible nightmares, felt dreadful and very lonely. I ended up going back to my dads again, in a lot of debt and feeling lost.

I threw myself into work and paid off my debts and felt better. There was pattern forming. Periods of feeling really down and unable to do much and crying a lot to then slowly getting back on track and elevating to going out all the time and working all hours and feeling brilliant. I didn't know it then but  I was having hypomania's. It would be years before I realised this was what was actually happening and broach the subject with mental health care team. I went on like this for years.

I felt, at this time, great. things were going really well and for the first time in my dating history, I had   several guys that were interested in me so there was no shortage of dates and fun. It's always when you are like this and content with yourself that you find someone you really like and want to be with.
I was 26 by this time so was thinking that this would be a good time to settle down.

My relationship with my husband to be flowed pretty well and we moved into my house that I rented out whilst I'd been travelling. We had only been seeing each other a few weeks when we decided to get married. He was smitten and I was bowled over. But upon moving into the house together things weren't quite as rosy as they had been or I thought they were.

My journey with depression, chronic fatigue syndrome and borderline personality disorder. Part one.

This post may be a trigger. And remember it is very individual, so take it out of it what you need and disregard what you don't.

The trouble started when I started senior school. Everything was fine until I moved to senior school. I had no mood issues, as far as I was aware, up until then. I was placed in a class of people I didn’t know except one girl. We had been friends, in a way, at primary and junior school. Sharing an interest in horse riding, she had her own horse and I would impose myself on her to get as close to her horse as I could. The relationship was fickle and not deep rooted but we knew each other, however in senior school she paid me no mind and I was more or less left on my own. 

The friends I were closer to were in a different class with a completely different timetable to mine so I had no one to sit next to in class and no one to hang around with at break or lunch time. They'd made new friends and having a hanger on wasn't an option.

I started to dread school and spent every Sunday evening crying myself to sleep as I didn’t want to go to school on Monday. I had no one to talk to about it but it was noticeable at school and my very kind form teacher asked me what the matter was. I told my form teacher only a tiny bit of the story, one problem was that I was left in the dinner hall on my own. I found it very intimidating eating on my own with a table of unknown or older kids, it got to the stage where I wouldn’t go in to the dinner hall at all and spent my lunch hour trying to find places to hide and trying not to cry.

My form teacher asked the only girl I knew in the class and her new best friend to go into lunch with me, I felt like a burden, although they were with me in the queue they never spoke to me and if I hadn’t finished my lunch they would leave without me. It didn’t solve the problem, only made it worse. 

The crying continued and I stopped eating, virtually all together. My brother was a year above me at school but he chose to ignore the very embarrassing younger cry baby sister and continued his tirade of teasing at home, the usual brother/sister stuff, not just the fact that I was a crying freak at school.

Eventually after months of tears I was moved forms to be with some of the girls I had been closer to in junior school. I was relieved but it started to cause trouble. I felt I fitted in much better in that form as there were kids from the same sort of background as me. I got close to a girl called Amy, who had become close to Lisa, my friend from junior school, and Lisa did not like it at all. She became jealous. What made it worse was that I was attracting male attention especially from a boy Lisa was smitten with. She started to turn against me and loyalties were divided. Luckily, by this time, the tears had stopped but not the last thing I wanted was my insecurity to cause friction with class mates.

Within the year things settled down amongst us, with the odd fall out, and my emotional state was less volatile however another mood descended and by the time I was 14 I had taken a blade from a pencil sharpener and started self harming. The pain was a relief from the awful empty yet disorganised feeling I felt inside. I was still prone to emotional outbursts and very dour feelings. I remember saying to a friend that I would die, one day, by committing suicide. It didn’t help that I became friends with a girl who thought being dark and moody was cool. Enter the Gothic stage.

At 15 I started going out with an older boy and felt I was madly in love. I was clingy and possessive and it didn’t sit well at all as you can imagine Although he didn’t dump me, he backed right off and I felt confused and upset. I thought I was loosing him and I was terrified. It came to a head and I ended up slashing my left wrist one night with a razor blade. One small cut about an inch across. Hardly a suicide attempt but that’s what I thought it was at the time. The nurse who attended to me in Casualty told me to talk to my Mum when I had problems. I agreed just to keep the peace but I knew I wouldn’t, I couldn’t talk to my Mum about anything.

I remember wanting to ask my Mum for a bra when I was around 12 as I was the only one still wearing vests at school. I sat with the catalogue open at the underwear page on my knee one evening for what seemed like hours. She must have known I wanted to ask her something as I kept looking at her. She ignored me. I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. I didn’t start my periods until I was 14, the last one of my friends, it wasn’t until then could I say anything to my Mum. I didn’t know how to approach her and tell her I had started but it was such an awful first period I had to ask for help.

To add embarrassment to the fact I had self harmed, my Dad was called back from work that night and gave me a lecture on paying more attention to school rather than boys. I wasn’t close to my Dad at all and I was mortified.

I had been to my family doctor about my feelings asking for help before my first self harming incident and at seventeen he referred me to a psychiatrist. I didn’t tell anyone I had been referred but by the time the appointment came through I had already hurt myself. I still attended the appointment though as I was still feeling vulnerable and down.

It was at a clinic about 15 miles away from my home and I drove there by myself and no-one knew. I was too embarrassed to tell anyone. Doctor Clayton was apparently a good friend of my GP so I thought I would be safe in his hands. He seemed ok but I was very nervous, he asked me a few questions about myself and my family and why I come to see him. I told him I thought I was depressed and had harmed myself, he told me that sometimes cancer can cause depression therefore he wanted to examine my breasts and asked me to take my top and bra off and lay on the coach. The examination seemed genuine but despite my naivety I knew it was wrong and I felt uncomfortable. After the examination I was very keen to leave as soon as possible and after a very short consultation of which I do not remember a great deal about other than him saying if I felt I needed to come back I would be welcome and to tell my GP.

I nodded and headed out the room at speed and did not ever return. I told no-one, not my Mum, not my GP, not my friends. If that was the treatment I got from asking for help then I didn’t want it, I would battle through on my own.

I kept my feelings under wraps from then on until I had another failed relationship around the age of 18. There was a pattern forming; time I made more of a mess but it was still self harm rather than a suicide attempt. A way of calming the churning feelings inside I had no idea how to deal with.

The scars got me no where apart from a little short lived peace, permanent scars, lack of a boyfriend, and ridicule. My mum and dad returned from a few days away, mum found me in bed and I told her what I had done, she seemed almost sympathetic. I can’t remember what she actually said but I can see her sitting on the edge of my bed looking down to me and me not able to look her in the eye as I was so ashamed.

I was in turmoil also as I was about to start training as a nurse. I had flitted from job to job not knowing what to do with myself. I hadn’t worked hard at my exams as I was pretty depressed towards the end of school and the teachers strike was on so teachers weren’t always around. I rode my bike to school, signed in, then bunked off. I remember sitting on an old stool in the kitchen crying to my mum about how crap I felt and didn’t know what to do with myself. Again, I can’t remember what she said but I don’t think it was very helpful. She wasn’t very good at counselling.

I got the sack or rather ‘let go’ from one of the jobs I did in my teens as they didn’t think I was suitable for the job in the probation time. I got one of the bosses to drop me at my Grans’ house so I wouldn’t have to face Mum. As I walked up to the house and round the back I could hear Mum’s voice and knew I’d be in trouble.

I saw a social worker at one point about things but again it didn’t really amount to any form of diagnosis or counselling.

I just thought I was mad and a bad person.

Nursing was the distraction I needed for a while although I was still suffering periods of extreme tiredness, unease and emotional instability. Mostly my moods were calmed by a new found activity of drinking. It was a big thing to do while we were training. I started drinking pints, a big step from my usual Malibu and coke! The alcohol calmed my rages and soothed my loneliness but equally exacerbated the depression up to a point where I was paralysed with emptiness. My best friend and a guy who lived in the nurses home with us tried to make me cry by plying me with cheap white wine and making me watch a sad film. I remember nothing of the film but the alcohol made us larey and we did silly things that night such as dressing up in a long blonde wig I had and taking stupid photos. It was a great night! The next day I was terribly hung over and although I drove us to work I wasn’t legal and had to ask the nurse in charge if I could go home. She wasn’t pleased but I’m sure she could see I was in a state and not fit to be there.

I ended up, a few weeks later, going back to the GP who had referred me to the pervert psychiatrist and asking, once again, for help. I was put on prozac. The same evening my best friend and I went bowling with colleagues we were on a placement with and I was off my head. I was on cloud nine. Someone had finally listened to me and done something constructive about my plight. My best friend remarked on how high I was. I thought it was great as finally the dullness of the depression had lifted.

It didn’t last long though and soon I was struggling to get out of bed again and continuing my studies was hard work.

I didn’t stay on Prozac for long as I thought it wasn’t doing a great deal and I didn’t want the stigma of being on it following me around. There was a bit of press about nurses with mental health problems not being allowed to qualify. It was the time of the Beverly Allitt killings so mental ill health in nurses was being highlighted. I hid my scars as much as I could and not taking the drugs meant I wasn’t ill. I wasn’t anything like Beverly Allitt but I didn’t want labelling as a risk because of my history.

I qualified in December 1993, on the 18^th I dislocated my knee cap. It was to be the starting point of a slide into the worst time of my life. I was having a reasonably good time up until then. I had a boyfriend and I was loving work. I had just landed a job on the ward I was on for my final placement. It was a great ward and I had a great laugh with the people I worked with. I was helping a patient get off a commode when he fell a little and I twisted to help him get on the bed rather than hitting the floor and my leg twisted round and my knee cap popped out. It took a few seconds for my brain to register the pain but when it did I hollered like a banshee.

I was put in plaster in casualty and called my Mum to come and pick me up, it was 18th December. I was still wearing the plaster at my mum’s funeral in February the following year. It led into a slide of out of control behaviour and self destruction.

I was encouraged to see someone by some concerned work colleagues. I contacted Cruise bereavement counselling. The counselling helped me get things in order in my brain and talk about issues I had surrounding Mum’s death but the counsellor told that me one day that I would go the whole day and not think about Mum and I was mortified. Terrified that would be reality. And to this day I still think of her everyday. The pictures of her face got fuzzy after a few months and I had awful dreams about her; she’d be leaving on a train and I hadn’t said goodbye or she was in hospital and I couldn’t get in to see her. I’d wake up feeling exhausted and washed out.

A few months down the line I persuaded my Dad to give me some money to put a deposit on a house from the money he got when Mum died. I thought it would be a new start. I didn’t put my current boyfriend on the mortgage, I suppose I knew it wasn’t going to last.

Despite having the house, I still felt empty, although buying stuff for the house and settling in took my mind off it for a while. I started to crave my freedom from my boyfriend and started to hang out with my immensely trendy best friend again. I’d turned into a frumpy, mumsy type and she was very rock and roll. My boyfriend and I hit the skids and when he became needy as he’d started a job he hated, I couldn’t cope with it. I know, very selfish. But I felt suffocated and wanted to let my hair down. I’d go partying with BF (best friend) and thought of myself as rock and roll as her, but I wasn’t. She was beautiful and I was neurotic. She attracted lots of male attention. I repelled it. It was frustrating. Meanwhile ex-boyfriend would be hanging around coming to mine in the middle of the night after a night out and constantly ringing my door bell, which was hooked up to the mains, so I had no choice but to let him in. Then face a couple of hour’s verbal abuse. Nowadays of course I wouldn’t stand for it and would call the police. But back then it wasn’t thought of as an option.

I started taking drugs mum had been given for pain relief as well as drinking heavily. I once won a bottle of vodka, drank a pint, neat and took a tab or 2 and cannot remember locking myself in the loo or that someone had to climb over the top to let me out. I made a complete fool of myself on the dance floor with a junior doctor I fancied but didn’t fancy me back.

Then when the drugs ran out I became very depressed but a distraction was waiting in the wings in the form of a male. My bf was house sharing with a colleague of hers and she had started seeing her house mates brother. They would come round and sit with us watching TV and drinking tea and having a laugh. I wasn’t aware that the mate fancied me as I was sort of seeing a friend of my brothers at the time, which was an awful experience, but wasn't on the look out. But somehow we got together and started seeing each other after I had ended the relationship I was sort of in. Bearing in mind this was only just over a year after Mum had died and I was going through a hypomanic phase, not that I knew that at the time though. 

He was smooth, tall, and a charmer. I fell for all the bull. My bf and his bf and us two made a good team for a while, enjoying time at my house and doing stuff together then it started to go wrong.

He had been staying at my house on his Uni holidays and one night he took me to work in my car for my night shift and was supposed to pick me up the next day. I waited and waited and he didn’t come.

I rang his Uni house and one of his house mates told me he’d overslept and was on his way. I felt reassured but not convinced. Things just didn’t seem right. One night out in town my BF, her house mate and I went for a curry and I was whinging about where he could be and my BF said ‘for god’s sake will you just shut up about it, he’s been talking to his ex and he left with her the other night when we were out’.

It hit me like a ton of bricks. I thought, as I always did that, this was ‘the love of my life’. How could he do this to me?

The depression kicked in even more and I started to go downhill rapidly. Withdrawing myself from everyone and mooning over my ex and his infidelity. I hung around a lot at my BF’s digs and it got on her nerves although I thought she was being very unkind and insensitive, it must have been a pain for her, having this mooching, sad sack around all the time.

She was going to say goodbye to her boyfriend, my ex’s best mate for the summer and said I could go with her as long as I didn’t moan about them snogging or talk about the ex. That was the turning point for me. I headed home and buried my head. I rang in sick and took an overdose. I wrote some crap about love and devastation in my diary and rang a friend/colleague when I became very drowsy and got scared. They took me to accident and emergency, where luckily my friend/colleagues doctor boyfriend was on duty. They made me drink charcoal and stay in for the night. Ironically I was put in the same bay as my Mum had been in when she had been admitted to hospital. I was freezing and daren’t ask for a blanket as I thought the nurses would not be nice to me after what I had done. It was still very much stigmatised to OD, especially over your boyfriend splitting up with you. I had heard many nurses/colleagues mocking overdoses or suicide attempts brought in especially when it involve the person having been dumped by a boyfriend. Females tend to overdose whereas males tend to try hangings or poisoning by exhaust fumes. 

I remember being depressed before my Mum died and thinking ‘I wish I had something to be depressed about then no-one can judge me’. They say be careful what you wish for as I got my Mum’s death in return.

I could not handle the rejection and my thoughts of his betrayal were whizzing round my head. I couldn’t think straight. I can’t remember being seen by the self harm team, maybe I was but I just wanted to put it behind me and carry on. I just wanted to be normal.

Self harming often resets the way I feel and takes away the turmoil even though I know it’s all wrong. It resets the way I think and feel and I was back on an even keel again, ready to face the next chapter.