Depression Days

For some reason I only come on here and update when I’m feeling down.  This is one of those days.  I had an appointment with my shrink this morning and although I didn’t really want to go, I am always glad that I went.  It’s always good just to get things out and talk about things.

He has upped the dose of my medication which is great because I really feel I need it put up.  Life is so difficult sometimes and can be so hard to deal with.  Even the smallest things can just really get you down when you have a hundred of those small things all building up.

I should be thankful that I have a good life, I live in a good country, I have a nice house, I have three great kids and a husband.  I have a great family and the most gorgeous dog.  So why is life still depressing?

Who knows!

In my journey with the shrink I have talked a lot about my past and my Father – or Sperm Donor as I prefer to call him because that’s all he’s ever been.  I don’t know where else to go with that though, I feel like I’ve spoken about it as much as I can and don’t know how else to deal with it to help me be a happier person today.

I guess time will tell if all this therapy helps or not – it’s still early days and I know I’ve had some improvement in some areas, so fingers crossed, with time, I can get through this and find that true happiness that I so badly want!

At the moment…….. C’est la vie – Such is Life!

When I was 7 I had my tonsils removed and a couple of days later I started haemoraging (no idea how to spell that).  The doctor was called and by the time he arrived at our house I had lost so much blood I had collapsed unconscious.  I was rushed to hospital and given a blood transfusion and without that transfusion I probably wouldn’t be alive today.

I have always wanted to donate blood to give back to someone else that amazing gift that someone gave me.  But there’s a problem…….  I suffer from haemophobia – I faint when I see blood and have done since I was a kid.

In 1996 I had a partial hydaditifor molar pregnancy and a D&C operation that wasn’t done correctly.  As a result I ended up losing a lot of blood and clotting quite a bit and was again taken to hospital.  I had to have another operation and they found I had an infection in my uterus and was lucky they caught it on time.  I was put on IV antibiotics and given a blood plasma transfusion.

A few years ago I had a hysterectomy and following the surgery I had a large bleed.  I could barely walk to the toilet and back without collapsing and that wasn’t very far in a hospital room.  My haemoglobin levels were half what they should be and I was given a blood transfusion.

I have certainly received my share of blood from some amazing people and donating blood is something that I really passionately want to do.  I just want to give back that gift of life that these people selflessly gave to me.

Last night I had an appointment to give blood.  I has taken me over 20 years to build up the courage to actually go and give blood and I was feeling really good about doing it.  I got to the blood donation place, I had to fill out a thousand questions and then had to have an interview with a nurse.  The nurse decided that they would not take my blood because of my blood phobia – they didn’t want to risk me fainting.

I was so unbelievably upset.  I feel so pathetic that I can’t even give blood!

I knew there was a good possibility that I might faint and I was willing to take that risk just so I can give someone a great gift.  Does it really matter so much if I faint when the blood taken could save someone’s life.  Me fainting is a small price to pay to be able to save a life!

As I’m working through many issues in my life and my blood phobia is one of those issues.  There is so much more to me giving blood than just giving blood.  This was a big step for me and one that I’d hoped would be a step toward me working through some of my issues.  It was just so much more than just giving blood.

I feel like such a failure right now.  It seems that everything I do or try to do I fail at. 

That’s exactly how I feel right now, like I’m stuck in this deep dark hole and I just can’t seem to pull myself out of it.

When I first started this website a few years ago I did so because it was a topic that I knew about.  I suffered Depression and so I wanted to share what I knew.

However, I never really liked this website, it just seemed to give the usual details about depression that everyone with depression already knows anywhere.  The same sort of information you can find on a thousand other websites online.

I almost let this domain expire and just let the website go altogether but I decided not to.

I have made a change to the site – not a very obvious one, but one that I felt I needed to make.  You see, I promoted some depression products as a way of monetizing the website, even though I hadn’t used them myself and had no idea how good they were.  So I’ve removed them, especially now that I believe all self help stuff is just CRAP!

The only one I’ve used and found does help a little is the Mindsoothe, although now I’m on prescribed medication I don’t use Mindsoothe anymore.

SELF HELP CRAP!

Now if you are here to find the answers and find something that will snap you out of your depression, then you may want to leave.  Because I am not promising to find any answers – hell, I’m still looking for them myself.  But I will tell you what I have learned along he way.

I have done all the self help stuff.  I have read heaps of self help books, I have done Yoga, I’ve done Pilates and I’ve attended courses on depression and anxiety.

Did they help????

Nope – not at all.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tom Cruise and Brooke Shields are currently engaging in a word war against each other because of a type of depression, called postpartum depression. Cruise’s and Brooke’s debacle started when Tom Cruise openly disapproved of Brooke Shield’s personal choice of opting to take prescribed medicines to cure her postpartum depression, when he guested at the Today Show. According to Cruise, who is a popular devotee of Scientology (who believes that we can be cured through natural means and that taking medicine is doing our body harm), Brooke Shields should have instead, opted to cure her postpartum depression by doing healthy exercises. Adding that a lot of people have been misinformed about depression and how to actually cure this common illness.

But what is postpartum depression really? We’ve heard about it often enough, yet are we really sure that we know enough about it for us to actually understand this illness in order for us to help ourselves as well as others? Read the rest of this entry »

Manic depression or Bipolar depression is actually considered as one of the worst type of depression that people usually suffer from.

Characterized by sudden and extreme changes in their mood, Manic depression is said to be called as such because manic = mania refers to the ‘ups’ while depression refers to the ‘downs’.
A lot of people actually experience erratic changes in their moods, some times, these so-called mood swings may not just be caused by PMS (pre-menstrual syndrome) or stress. Doctors actually have diagnosed mood swings as a common symptom of depression. Read the rest of this entry »

Depression or prolonged sadness is actually quite common in the United States, around 9.5 percent of the American population actually suffers from this illness, however, not all of them get to be treated, thus, depression and its ill-effects continue to be a burden to some individuals. This illness may seem quite simple to treat but in reality, it takes more than a little cheering up to actually cure depression. Constant visits to a cognitive behavior therapist is a must as well as taking all the prescribed medicines that the doctor will ask the patient to take – none of these exactly come cheap, but the amount of suffering that a person is going through because of depression is enough reason already for others to start taking notice and face depression head on through the various depression treatments that are available today.

 Depression oftentimes can easily get in the way of an individual’s daily activities and his or hers’ normal functions, one’s zest for life can quickly and easily dissipate due to depression. And in place of an individual’s sunny disposition is more or less a person who hates his or herself, having no self-confidence, trying to isolate one’s self from the world and basically just not caring about living any more. Read the rest of this entry »

Depression affects most people at one or more times in their lives.  This fact leads some to question if depression is really an illness.  Yes is the answer to that question, especially if we are talking about clinical depression.  Over 12 percent of residents of the United States will more than likely suffer from clinical depression.  While some may only become depressed one time in their entire lifetime, others will have many episodes of depression.  Half of the people who suffer depression once in their lifetime will suffer at least a second time.  The second time leads to a threat of a third episode of depression.

This very real illness involves the emotional, physical and mental faculties of the depressed person.  This is not just a passing feeling of sadness that you can will away whenever you wish.  There are signs and symptoms and there is proper treatment.  When not immediately and properly handled, the condition may become worse.  Just as any disease, depression will vary from person to person. Read the rest of this entry »