I have been avoiding Blogland recently and posted a short, friends only piece on my personal blog yesterday to explain my absence. This morning I read a new post here in Stepping Stones and for the first time in weeks felt the need to make a comment...

Having commented, I now feel the need to scribe an entry of my own...

The last three or four weeks have been extremely difficult for me. What I had considered would be a happy time has turned into a period of confusion, upset and frustration… a difficult time that I have failed to understand.

The last week in particular has been extremely stressful and I have found myself spending tearfully, sleepless nights. The clock seemed to have been turned back some fifteen months to a time when I was in a very dark place. Self-harm has raised its ugly face again, but thankfully I am in slightly more control now compared to then and I haven't done anything toward ending the black period...

I've mentioned previously the cyclic nature of my depression and the continued mood swings. I'm not sure those swings do follow the phases of the moon, but I think I understand the old concept of moon-madness. Some of my down cycles are far more scary than others and equally, some of my up cycles are far more extreme than others... I'm starting to sound like someone suffering from bipolar disorder aren't I? Only I haven't been diagnosed bipolar, just recurrent depressive because of the cycles of mood swings.

The medical types say there is no such thing as "cyclic depression" and my condition is better described as "recurrent depression." I'm not sure I fully understand this... my depression is controlled with medication, but it doesn't exactly go away, so why are the mood swings referred to as recurrent and not cyclic? To me recurrent suggests the depression goes away and then reappears... but that's not strictly true. Perhaps because the cycles are not exactly regular so are not true cycles? Beats the hell out of me... :??:

Anyway, talking to other depressive types over the last year it seems to me many of us go through these recurrent cycles when the world turns upside down and things seem very dark for no apparent reason.
(Did you see that? I got both terms in! :)))

So what am I saying here? Buggered if I know... I seem to have lost the plot again! :roll:

I wish I'd appreciated when this all started that beating the whole depression thing wouldn't be as easy as popping a few pills and getting in touch with my inner self; life would be so much easier if that were the case.

The good times are okay though and the dark times have generally been not so bad with the aid of medication and some mental self-help (there are always exceptions unfortunately). So yeah, for me depression comes and goes despite the medication; my moods are certainly cyclic. For this reason if no other, I guess you guys should expect times when Usky disappears for a while...