Reaching Breaking Point

This week I have learnt that there is a huge difference between saying 'I'm depressed' and 'I have depression'. 

I've been struggling with my mental health for about 5 years now, and I just sucked it up like a big girl. That was until the back end of last year I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't push it to a corner in my mind and let it sit there, because it's been feeding off all the good things and getting stronger and stronger and then it just exploded and I fell to pieces. I was having regular panic attacks for the first time since revising for March 2013 and was in tears every single day. Ever since 2010 I've struggled with stress. It eats into me until I get ill, but this was different than any other time. Even when I fell apart, I still tried to deny it all for a further four months or so because that's the sort of person that I am, until one of my best friends and my boyfriend made me go to visit the doctor.

I explained it all to him one Friday afternoon and he told me that I had anxiety, which I knew (as I was told at a WiC when I had my first panic attack), but he prescribed me 40mg of Propranolol three times a day. The idea was to help with the panic attacks I was having by slowing my heart rate with a beta blocker to, in theory, prevent panic attacks. And it worked. Apart from the first week of struggling to get up the hill I live on every day on the way home from university because I'm unfit enough as it is, it all got sorted. Sure, I had the occasional wobble but everyone does from time to time. I then reduced the dose to twice a day, and three times if I'm having a particularly bad day.

I had to go to regular doctors appointments to check my progress and everything seemed to be going fine, until Thursday. I hadn't been in about a month and I needed more Propranolol and have my review anyway, but this time was different. I felt pretty happy in myself, bar pooing myself about sitting exams (I get very stressed out by exams and I do struggle with my anxiety in the lead up to exam time) but my GP saw differently. I was happy because the amount of panic attacks I was having had decreased significantly, but mentally I wasn't any different to when he first spoke to me back in February/March. There was no improvement on my actual mental wellbeing. And that's when he broke the news - I have depression.

For now, I have been prescribed 50mg of Sertraline a day as an antidepressant with the idea that I will go to see someone for counselling or something in the near future. However, my body has not reacted well to it. I've been struggling with nausea, stomach cramps, back ache, headaches, loss of appetite, insomnia, blurred vision, numbness in my limbs and face, drowsiness, and I was a little bit sick too. I've even had worsened anxiety, and thoughts of self-harm (which I do not condone, nor have carried out). Not particularly ideal, and I've been bedridden all weekend.

Normally being bed bound would't be an issue except I have university exams (which actually started last week, before this whole hoo-ha with the antidepressant). A lot of the staff I've spoken to have told me to apply for 'extenuating circumstances' which means I have to submit a whole load of proof about why I can't sit an exam, or 4, including doctors notes and other pieces of evidence. They think I'll get it because it's an ongoing illness that I've been struggling with for some time, but I am worried that I won't and get capped at 40% for all of my exams. Obviously this is causing me a lot more anxiety and if I want an EC, I can't sit the exam in the first place. I don't get two shots - just the one. I'm bricking it about what they're gong to say to me. For now, I'm just revising as if I am taking my exams this week and just see what tomorrow brings.

Anybody can say 'I'm depressed'. For example, I said it all weekend to my boyfriend to get him to do things for me like bring me water and snacks, but telling my housemates and my coursemates that I have depression was so much harder than anything I've had to tell them. I told my mum and she seemed devestated, like a part of me had died, or like she was blaming herself for it. She wanted to know the cause and if I was going to do anything 'stupid' but I assured her that it just happens sometimes, and I'm okay for now.

The funny thing is, I've always been interested in mental health, but I never thought it would affect me the way it has. And this is why I'm blogging - to help others and to help myself. I'm taking this thing day by day and it's horrible, but these are the cards I've been dealt and I'm going to live with it, the same way so many other people have to.

Lots of love x