Pressure

*crawls, only slightly, out from her negativity cave, opens laptop and tries to remember WP login details

I’v not been very active on here for the past week. When I started blogging, just over a month ago, I was all over it. Constantly thinking of blog ideas, writing notes, trawling through millions of blogs. I thoroughly enjoy reading other people’s blogs, even better, I was enjoying chatting via comments. Finally, I had something to think about other than my mental state. I immersed myself in my new found hobby, I’m fine. I’m totally kicking depression right up it’s arse.

Very good. I’m talking utter pish (Scottish for piss/crap/shit/lies).

The original reason I started a blog was to make sense of my mental state. To share, maybe warn, others that life after a kid can be tough. There is nothing to prepare you for it but it’s OK to struggle – I don’t even think it is ‘struggling’. It can’t be struggling if everyone feels that way? Surely it’s just bloody hard and that’s the way it is. Labeling it as struggling just makes people feel like shit about themselves, like they don’t have their life together while the rest of the parenting population do and you are just shit.

I haven’t wrote at any length about my mentalness. But since I’v been feeling depressed lately I guessed now might be a good time to smack the key board and get it out. I’m nae (Scottish for no) in the mood to drum up witty banter, write a funny post about life. I can’t be arsed. My perspective is shot, I’d rather moan and grumble, plead how tired and bleuh I feel. I’m gonna wallow in self pity. I am trying to drag myself out it,  I love writing funny posts but I just can’t seem to get there right now.

Everything came to a head last week, I really did mean what I wrote in Daily Prompt: Knackered. Depression, for me, is a complicated mix of emotions – partly why I find it hard to write about, worried it will be lost in translation. Frustration and agitation are the biggest players. Pressure builds in me quickly, it can be something as silly as having an untidy house with no time to really give it a good clean. More pressure is added via everyday life, what to cook for dinner, do we have any food to pack for Jessica’s lunch, trying to make time to see David, trying to make time for myself, doing chores, not doing chores, trying to see friends, what clothes will Jess wear tomorrow, do I have clothes?! I could list things that stress me until I pass out. Looking at them, they are all simple, all avoidable but to me they are all triggers, all stressful, all too much.

Last week when I broke down in tears, practically hugging the washing machine, I just kept thinking ‘I can’t cope’ ‘I can’t do this’. Depression makes it extremely hard for me to deal with pressure, which creates frustration. I want to be able to handle life like everyone else – even though I know other people feel exactly, if not worse, the same as I do. But when I am in that depressive frame of mind, I could not give a hoot about how other’s feel. My barriers come up and my attacking army is on red alert. I’m brutal. I let rip into David, moaning I need help around the house, that he need’s to step up to the mark, I attack and attack, growing more defensive with each word he dares to utter back. I don’t have scope for his trouble’s I’m the depression one here! I demand attention! Bow down, tell me I have it tough!

He doesn’t put up with my shit. Not for one second. I need that. I’m feeding my ‘Demon’ and he knows it. He claps back that I need to take a look around, realise how lucky I am, stop playing the victim and sort out my perspective! For once, he is right. It’s far too easy to sink deeper and deeper into a wallowing depressive hole. He’s my rope, he does his best to pull me out. He is forever patient and understanding. I know how lucky I am. At times I don’t see it, times like last week when I contemplate leaving, times when my face is swollen from crying, times when I seriously question what the hell am I doing here!

That’s not me, that’s my depression talking/winning/controlling me. I’m new to this mental health malarkey. It was unauthorized added extra (as was the ripped vagina) I gained having a child. Still, almost 2 years down the line, I struggle from time to time with my mental state. I am extremely lucky to have a strong, supportive, kind and understanding partner. Therapy and medication have helped, but it is ultimately David that I confide in, I look to him for guidance. I need him to put me back in my place, well, it’s not me, it’s my depression that needs putting back into place.

Having such a strong support network around me is great, however it also provides added pressure. The pressure I place on myself to hurry up and ‘get better’, pressure that I should be ‘over’ this, pressure to conceal how I feel – I’m not one to lie or to give in or be patient. It takes it’s toll, then I break and cry like a sobbing nutter in the kitchen trying to summon the strength to make dinner.

I don’t know what I’m looking for or why I am sharing. Guess I can’t write the funny without sharing the other side of the coin. A problem shared is a problem halved eh? Reading other people’s mental health experiences has helped me greatly, so if someone reads this and thinks ‘gosh, I feel the same!’ and then feels a little more ‘normal’ then that can only be a good thing. Lost count of how many times I have read a blog or post or comments since having Jess and thinking I could have wrote that word for word. It takes the alienation away that depression is only to keen to dish out. I’m not alone. I’m not struggling. I will find my way. I will not let myself be consumed with this new part of me.

The more people that share the hard, tough, crying, shouting, frantic, wild, annoying, doubting, lonely, isolating, twisted, just absolutely crazy truth of life the better. I don’t think this post makes much sense, it’s not what I have in my mind, not what I want to say. It’s jumping all over the place, I’m sorry. I can’t write about depression in a linear fashion or explain it correctly. I only hope, if you are dealing with something similar, that it helps you to know that you are not alone, far from it. By the looks of things most people are bloody mental, one way or the other!

*puts laptop down after 2 days of writing, deleting, writing then deleting then going ‘fuck it’ and posting. Crawls back to cave which is slightly less depressive and significantly more sarcastic (if that’s possible), rolls eyes at self and thinks about next blog post