Good days and bad days

One of the worst things about being depressed is that you don’t know how you’ll feel when you wake up each morning, whether it will be a ‘good day’ or a ‘bad day’. Yesterday I had a really good day. I had a productive day at work and then an evening out seeing a musical and meeting some great people I’d only previously met on Twitter. I came home, had a few brief, funny Twitter exchanges and went to bed. I found it easier to get to sleep than I had in months and I didn’t wake up during the night which I often do... However when I woke up I felt an immense bleakness and emptiness, as if my insides had just been ripped out. It hurt physically and emotionally. I lay curled up in bed, tears rolling down my face.

Everybody has days when they don’t want to go to work or school or to have to do whatever they have to do. I’ve had them in the past, but I’ve never felt like I did today. I’ve always been able to get up, make the first cup of tea of the day and take it from there.  Today I just didn’t want to face the world and felt like I couldn’t. I felt as if I’d tried to go to work I wouldn’t have been able to cope and would have fallen apart publically. So I didn’t go. It was the first day I have had off sick since I was diagnosed with depression. It felt horrible. I feel hopeless, not least because I know there are people in worse situations than me, I feel like a failure – as though by not coping I’ve let myself and others down. I feel as if my insides are alternately churning and empty. I spend lots of time thinking about why I feel the way I do, what is at the root of the inescapable fact that I feel shit most of the time.

I mentioned on Twitter how I was feeling and received lots of supportive messages – for which I am immensely grateful. Since I wrote my first blog I have received support  both from friends and people I only know via Twitter. I’ve also had some excellent advice and touching stories from people who have been through depression and come out the other side. I’m immensely grateful to have been reminded that I’m not alone and that I have people who care about me enough to remind me that they think I’m smart and funny and kind and worthwhile, even if I don’t necessarily agree with them at the moment. There are times when I  know deep down that I have got things going for me it is just that at the moment I can’t see them, and I need to get back to a place where I can.

The Paul Simon song ‘Slip Slidin’ Away’ has part of a verse that goes : “She said a good day ain't got no rain; She said a bad day's when I lie in bed And think of things that might have been” Much as I wanted to, I decided, eventually that laying in bed all day wouldn’t be the best idea. Instead I decided to follow the advice I’d been passed by Damian who had read my first blog  “you haven't got a physical sickness so don't feel you have to stay at home all the time. You should spend your time doing the things that you enjoy as that will be the key to recovery".

So today, although I didn’t make it to work I have been for a walk, had my hair cut, been for coffee in a café, cooked some nice home-made food, listened to some cheerful music (show tunes), spoken to an old friend on the phone, watched TV and written this blog. It’s nothing major but I’m trying to follow the advice of another friend, Nick who tweeted me and said he’d got out of his depression by working up from his lowest point by trying to do positive things and plotting each one on a graph that slowly curved upward. So having started as a black day, and feeling worse than I have since my breakdown it’s has had its positive moments. I just don’t know how I will feel tomorrow morning.....