Halloween Friday the weather is going to be in the 60's today and High 50's tonight. Kids will be out trick or treating. And I am off for the weekend and I am glad of that. Hope everything is all right with all of you. I am really tired for some reason. Why, I enjoy the walk to work better than the one going home is beyond me. But, maybe I am fresher in the morning than in the afternoon. I intend to catch up with everyone this evening or this weekend. Hope you all have a good weekending Halloween. Watch all that candy

Just came across this because I was looking for the weekend teaser. Not sure I should be here because I don't have anything positive to offer and all my negative crap is already on my own blog.
I think I've reached the point where unhappiness, loneliness and frustration are just a way of life and I don't see that there is any way of fixing that. Medication doesn't work, counselling doesn't work, I've tried it all, this is just how I am. Sometimes I can feel happy and good about life, but it is very hard to hold onto those thoughts.
I've been thinking about making a major change in my life, but even if it were feasible, I'm not sure it would really change anything, I would still be the same person with the same problems - and probably a few more too.
I don't know how to change who I am inside and that is really where the problem lies.
So, like I said, I probably shouldn't be here because I have nothing to offer anyone, too wrapped up in my own self-pity I guess. I dump everything onto my blog because I don't have anyone to share it with in the real world, or rather, because I don't think it's fair to inflict it on the people I could share it with.
the irony is that I have something really exciting to look forward to next week, and I know I will have a wonderful time, but I also know it won't last and I will be back in this place again.
Thanks for listening, and take care.

I have this "friend", She's pretty fucked up at the moment.
She has a husband, an 8yr old daughter, 2 year old twins and a 5 month old baby.
She loves them all dearly, Her husband is absolutely amazing, he couldn't be a better husband and father.
He is her rock without him she would be dead already..

She has a nice home and nice things, She has a life that many would crave for.
She is grateful for everything she has and she knows that she should be happy.
But that's the problem she isn't happy, She hasn't been happy for a long long time.

She doesn't know why she is unhappy, It's just the way it seems it's always been.
She isn't cut out for motherhood, She wonders why she was stupid enough to have so
many children.
Yes she loves them with a love stronger than words can express but she hates them too,
She hates the crying and the constant demands.
They want more than she feels she can give.
Her baby is such a gorgeous bundle of cuteness but he drives her crazy.
His cries tear through her heart and make her feel like a failure.
He has been really fretful lately, Maybe he is teething...
My friend just isn't coping she has dark thoughts,
Thought's that scare her, Thought's to awful to write.

22nd July 1989 was the last time she attempted suicide. It was both a cry for help and a serious attempt. Somehow one got the better of the other. Luckily.

She'd recently gotten engaged to a long distance truck driver. They had a lot of fun and were cute with each other ... candle in the window when he was due home, or she was due to arrive etc. They socialised at the local airport bar. They both had friends who drank there already. It was the most sociable she had been since a teenager. Long-awaited fun. Much-deserved fun.

A woman befriended her, they got along quite well. She was her shoulder to lean on when the couple argued or there were things to chat over with a buddy.

It wasn't long before she discovered this friend was no friend really. The fiancé was no sure thing either. It devastated her. On the brink of trusting the 'institute of marriage' again. All hopes dashed and belief in other humans completely fucked, she decided to take her own life. Alone in a relatively new home, far from close friends and unable to believe that life had dealt her such a cruel blow. Again.

Fortunately she has a busy-body sister. Unable to get through on the phone and knowing she was at home, she persevered till at last the phone was answered.

The slurred speech, the mumbled and senseless words. She phoned an ambulance. Fortunately, there was no kidney or liver damage. She lived to fight other battles.

It didn't affect me at the time. Emotions stunted for various reasons, it swept over my head. Yes I was sympathetic but too young to cope.

It didn't hit me till years later, the pain she must have gone through, and thinking about the other friendships that she pushed away - I now understand, partly. Would be nice to go back and be there for her but that's impossible. I will try to learn from it.

Many threads indeed.

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!

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...

I'm not sure if I suffer from depression or not. A doctor once told me I had high anxiety levels and borderline depression ten years ago when I first started feeling like this. I have been up and down since then. It's particularly bad over the last few weeks. I came home from a night out with work friends and hacked a strip out of my leg with a key. My boyfriend caught me at it and doesn't know where to put himself. I haven't done anything like that since before I met him. I feel very much out of control of my own life. I scream at my partner for the littlest things and I'm having difficulty in social situations where I'm not in my familiar local, and feel like I don't fit in anywhere. That's part of the reason I dropped out of University for the second time, I didn't really have any friends in class because I was somewhere between the 19yr olds and the 40yr olds and always felt left out especially when there were group projects and I seemed to end up on the sub bench. I barely go out anymore except to go to work. I have no desire to be intimate with my partner, which is causing major friction and I can't seem to be able to tell anyone about this. I have been pretty down before and was ignored by my family who left me to my own devices and offered great advice like 'pull yourself together'. It's really not that simple. Is it?

I've just realised how hard it is to take a step back and detach myself from a difficult situation. I want to rush in and sort everything out for a loved one but have to sit on the sidelines and watch unable to do or say anything at all.

I have to stop looking for reasons or answers and let the professionals help my daughter with her illness.

I have just posted this on my own blog:

http://keepingmum.blog.co.uk/2008/08/15/a-painful-post-4591650

One of my many parts is the ability to withdraw into myself and suffer in silence. As a young child I was hit by the polio epidemic in 1955; as a result I suffered a period of isolation seeing no-one except the medical staff looking after my needs. Right or wrong, I’m convinced this episode had a lasting effect on my personality.

As well as withdrawing, I sometimes feel the need to stay silent. This is not a case of wanting to be alone, but rather like Greta Garbo I want to be let alone.

In this state I find it hard to communicate with others and realise this is hard for those who care for me because it must appear I am ignoring them. In fact I’m not, I just feel I have nothing to say and would rather be quiet... let alone... not pressured.

Under normal circumstances I find I can conquer the feeling within a relatively short time and return to more natural levels of communication. More recently I’m finding this harder and harder to achieve. The periods of silence are extending. I’m becoming less and less communicative.

People with Schizoid Personality Disorder (SPD) are withdrawn and detached from others and appear to be emotionally cold and distant. Damn that sounds just like me, but I have not been diagnosed as suffering from SPD.

I’m aware that I display symptoms of both Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD) and Avoidant Personality Disorder (APD), but likewise haven’t been diagnosed with either of these.

Perhaps the psych needs to explore me further...

Anyway, I know I’m not alone in this affliction(?) of self-imposed silence and am wondering how others out there cope with their need for minimal communication?

Do any of you guys have very odd dreams?

I don't just mean the everyday strangeness that dreams tend to feature.

I mean really weird dreams...

I certainly do and they are always worse when I'm that little extra stressed.

I'm convinced my dreams have been very much odder since I started taking medication to fight my depression... and as already mentioned, when something stressful is playing on my mind I can guarantee I'm in for some extra-weird night time experiences.

Woke myself up screaming three times last night... probably woke the rest of the household too... I don't remember what I was screaming at though... the general context of the dream was being back at work... anyway, my night ended somewhat prematurely.

We all suffer stress at some time or another... it's a part of modern life these days unfortunately. But added stress in the life of someone suffering from anxiety can be enough to cause some serious damage.

Since I first starting suffering from depression I've found myself becoming extremely anxious when stress levels rise. Thankfully I've found a couple of coping strategies that generally work for me. They're not new or particularly clever strategies, but I thought I'd share them in case they can help others.

Controlled Breathing

You know that feeling when your heart starts hammering and you begin getting all sweaty and your breath comes in short, sharp pants? In case you didn't know, that's anxiety... and you need to control it.

Try not to worry about the pounding in your chest; you're not going to have a heart attack and keel over, trust me. The thing to do is to get hold of your breathing.

For me this is best done by recognising the situation before things get too advanced and by taking a deep breath.

Suck air deep into your lungs and hold your breath while you count slowly to four. Exhale slowly counting to six (slowly) as you blow out.

Inhale counting slowly to six as you do, then hold your breath and count slowly to five before exhaling to another slow count of six.

Inhale counting slowly to seven as you do, then hold your breath and count slowly to six before exhaling to another slow count of seven.

Inhale counting slowly to eight as you do, then hold your breath and count slowly to seven before exhaling to another slow count of eight.

I'm sure you get the picture...

I keep this up to an inhale/exhale of ten and hold of eleven; the numbers are meaningless really, it's the process of slow breathing with a pause between the inhale and exhale that does the trick.

My experience has been that I'm back in control by the count of ten and my heart rate has reduced.

Visiting A Relaxing Place

The second strategy I use works for me when I'm left waiting in a stressful situation. Again, you all know what this is like... you fidget and fret and more you fret, the worse things seem to become.

In this situation I use a calming image and imagine myself at that place. The images I use tend to be by water... the sea, a river or lake, but you need to imagine something that works for you.

(click to enlarge)

This is one of the places that works for me; it's a favourite piece of coast that I have always found quiet and restful.

The thing to do is close your eyes and visualise your image in the middle of your head. If you can create it in a black void, so much the better.

Breathe slowly while you visualise and try to let your limbs go heavy as you do... concentrate on your image... feel the breeze... hear the birds... or the waves... feel the sunshine...

Just let your mind do its stuff and you may be surprised by the results; the mind is an incredible thing.

I'm not suggesting these strategies will work for everyone, but they have certainly helped me.

There are times however when nothing seems to work... I'm having a stressful week and not sleeping... this has raised my stress levels and nothing I seem to do just now is helping.