Blogging Through Depression

In the past months since I last updated this blog, more than a few things have happened. This would be normal for most people; it's normal for me too. A lot of the things that have happened to me are, however, not normal.

In the past months, I moved in with my boyfriend, stopped taking anti-depressant medication, managed several months without therapy, started group therapy, watched my family fall apart when my dad left, watched those of us who remained knit ourselves back together as a new unit, told my grandparents about my illness, went to the gym every week for two months, then stopped going to the gym because my back was hurting, started playing MMORPGs again, went back into London to see friends from uni for the first time in years, went on impromptu trips to things like the Proms, and generally had a whole world of up down and sideways feelings.

A lot of stuff happened, and when lots of stuff happens I get overwhelmed. I both need to and cannot talk and vent about it. Recently though I've started writing again (thank you Nanowrimo) and it's gotten me back into that bug. Poetry has even happened, which is usually reserved for brief bouts of artistic interest that grip me for a week or so every few years. Although it's very hard to talk about things I can see that I've gotten to a point where I need to talk about things.

But it's not just that, there is something more to it that I've never felt quite the same way before. I need people to read it. I want to tell people what it's like to live with this disability and these illnesses and I want to show people that it's possible to recover enough to live a happy life - even though I'm nowhere near that at the moment. I want people to read things I say and feel heartened by them, feel like they're not alone. More than anything, group therapy has taught me that there is a huge amount of strength in unity and solidarity and recognising that whatever you have felt there is at least one other person in the world who understands - and in fact, it's a hell of a lot more than just one person.

I have no idea how one goes about getting people to read and frankly, I'm terrified of the idea of it - but I need this, it will be good for me, so here you go. Bear with me on this, it'll be a bumpy ride and doubtless quite slow, but we'll get there.