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. 

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.

The problem with self help books and stuff, is that you are still on your own.  You will give it a go and try to do what is suggested in the book, but it will only work for a little while and before you know it you slip back into your old habits.

It is true that to help yourself get better that you have to take the initiative and you need to really want to change, but you can’t do it on your own.  I’m sorry for those who don’t agree – actually I’m not sorry at all, I must stop apologizing and feeling guilty about things – but this is my experience and this is the way I see it.

I have tried all the self help stuff and I’ve taken medication and still do.  Not even that is enough!

What’s the Answer?

Is there any answer to depression?  Fuck I hope so!

Oh, I should also mention that if you don’t want to read bad language you might want to leave too.  This is the way I’m feeling at the moment and I’m slowly learning to do what I want and feel and not do things to please everyone else – a big contributing factor to my own depression.

Get Help – See a Psychiatrist

About 3 months ago I started seeing a psychiatrist.  I reached a point where I couldn’t cope anymore and I was at rock bottom.  I was extremely depressed, anxious and suffering panic attacks.  I knew I needed help, I just couldn’t do it alone anymore.

Asking for help is the best thing I have ever done.  My psychiatrist is great.  Even though I still feel really awkward and uncomfortable going there, I can talk to him in a way that I can’t talk to anyone else.

I’m not saying that all psychiatrists are as good as him either, I know there are many out there who will keep you coming back forever so they can continue to earn an income.  My psychiatrist isn’t like that, he really tries to help you fix yourself so you can change who you are by dealing with all your issues from the past.  He helps you to deal with things that you never really dealt with in a good way, he helps you deal with them better so you can move past them and be happy.

He gave me a book to read called Uncommon Dialogue by Debra J Drake – brilliant book.  If you can get hold of a copy then I recommend you read it.  By reading that book you will get an understanding of how a good psychiatrist works and how he can help.  This book is Debra’s own personal journey with her psychiatrist – who happens to be the psychiatrist that I am seeing.

All the self help crap that I’ve done in the past has got me nowhere.  I have never really felt like I’m progressing at all until I started seeing Dr.P.

Still in the Deep Dark Hole

Through this journey with Dr.P there have been ups and downs.  A couple of weeks ago I was on a high, I was happy and laughing and thought I was finally getting somewhere.  Dr.P had changed my medication as he didn’t think the one I was taking was helping me enough.  I had been on the new medication for a couple of weeks and I thought this is great I’m actually feeling happy on it.  Dr.P believes that it’s best to get a medication that you respond to well so you can at least be happier while working through all the other issues.  Different people respond differently to medications so if one doesn’t work, then you might want to see your doctor and ask to be changed to a different one.

Anyway, my happiness soon disappeared and I started feeling down again, so I’m guessing it wasn’t the change of medication that made me happy.  I don’t know what it was.  The last couple of weeks I’ve been feeling down, stuck, just really flat and frustrated.

I’m feeling like I just can’t pull myself out of this hole and get on with things.  My house is a mess – and that’s an understatement, because I just don’t have the energy or motivation to clean it.  As I’m writing this my kitchen benches are full of dishes from last night’s dinner and my bathrooms are filthy.

Although I’m still depressed, anxious and panic to some degree, I do still recommend seeing a shrink.  I know that there will be many ups and downs and although I’m down at the moment, I have to keep the hope that this is just a ‘down’ phase of my journey and soon I will be on the up again.

I can’t get out of this deep dark hole on my own.  Just like if you fall down a deep crevice in a cliff, if you are on your own you will struggle to get yourself out of that hole.  If you have someone to help you they can help to pull you out.  It’s the same with depression, it’s a real struggle and almost impossible to get out of that deep, dark hole on your own.  Find someone to help you, find someone to help pull you out of that deep dark hole.

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.

Depressive disorders come in three types, dysthymic disorder, depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.

When all the signs and symptoms of depression begin to interfere with you ability to act normally, the episode is called major depression.  Major depression can happen only once or may reoccur.

Dysthymia is less severe than major depression.  Dysthymia shows the same signs and symptoms that major depression does, but the patient is still able to carry out most activities.  When a person has a dysthymic disorder, he may suffer one or more episodes of major depression at sometime.

A third disorder that is also depression that includes dramatic mood changes is called Bipolar disorder.  A person with bipolar disorder may be severely depressed one minute and very high the next.  When on a manic cycle, the person may be overenthusiastic and hyper, but when the depression portion of the cycle hits will hit a low.  A person in the manic cycle may stay up all night and clean the house from top to bottom and still be ready to find friends to meet for breakfast, lunch and have a dinner party.  In the depression portion, the house may be untouched for days while friends’ calls are unreturned.  In the manic cycle, patients often feel they are cured and stop taking medication.

As all illnesses, depression has symptoms.  The following is a list of those symptoms

• Emptiness
• hopelessness
• guilt and worthlessness at all times
• lack of interest in things that once brought joy, including sex
• continual tiredness
• difficulty making decisions
• new sleep problems
• appetite loss or change of weight
• thoughts of or attempts at suicide
• irritable
• pain which has no basis physiologically

At the end of the dark tunnel we call depression; there is good news and hope.  Available treatments include antidepressant medicine and psychotherapy or a combination of both.  At other times, light therapy or electroconvulsive therapy is appropriate.

If you feel that you are suffering from depression, begin by talking with your doctor.  He is trained to help to diagnose depression.  He is not going to think that you are weak or weird.  He is interested in getting the help that you need in order to be healthy once again.

Click here to learn more about overcoming depression

At least half of the people that are diagnosed with anxiety also suffer from depression. These two overlap so often that more and more psychologists and scientists see these two as aspects of the same illness.

Let face it there are many people who feel sad at one point or another in their lives. A loss of a job, death in the family or various other disappointments will cause a lot of the symptoms of depression. At the same time, most people experience the above at some point of their life when stressful situations are brought to life. These are normal feelings to a certain point.

When these feelings of tremendous sadness or hopelessness are accompanies with fatigue and changes in appetite and sleep patterns are when these are not normal. In addition, if these feelings continue for more than a few weeks you can be diagnosed with clinical depression. In the same aspect when the feelings of anxiety become out of control to the stress factor the person is feeling. In addition, if the person has many panic attacks over a certain number of weeks they could be suffering from anxiety disorder. These two types are so tangled that one type must be diagnosed and treated before a person is able to deal with another.

Because of the overlap of depression and anxiety there will also be quite of bit of overlap in the treatment. The anxiety disorder side is most often treated with different types of antidepressant medications. However, some forms of psychotherapy especially therapy that deals with cognitive and behavioral therapy has been very positive in treating both conditions.

At times though it is necessary to treat the depression first. In one type of therapy, exposure therapy, the patient will be exposed to stresses that are gradually increased to help them to be able to cope with the anxiety. Depression has been known to drain a person of energy which leaves which leaves them to unable to cooperate so usually the depression needs to be dealt with before the anxiety therapy to work.

Psychologists are in agreement that a combination of anxiety and depression causes more debilitation than just having anxiety or depression.  Patients who have both disorders take longer time wise to resolve issues relating to depression.  This makes treatment in these patients harder.  Research also shows that the suicide rate is much higher in patients suffering from both depression and anxiety.

Although this may sound bad, there are several options to treat each of these conditions.  Anti-depressants can treat both anxiety and depression.  When behavioral therapy is used along with these medications, a high rate of success is found in treating anxiety that is accompanied by depression.

Click here to learn more about overcoming anxiety