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Case Study 788
I was diagnosed with depression a year ago. I know, and occasionally believe, that today I am a great deal better than I was back then, but I still have 'off' days and when the black cloud comes down it always feels as if I am sliding back down into that pit.
When I went to the doctor last year I had only ever touched upon the notion that I might be depressed, finding it a frightening notion, wanting to avoid it. I had been ill, on and off, for months with colds and flu of one non-descript nature or another, as well as constant paranoia that one of the small (benign) lumps on my body was a terminal cancer. Once I was in the GPs office, I simply broke down, which for a 6'6" engineer is not something usual.
She immediately signed me off work and I was soon prescribed anti-depressants. I was out of work for over two months and only returned at the beginning of this year.
One of the biggest worries that I have now is that I am 'doing it wrong'. I follow many, but not all of the guidelines given on this, and other sites and I cannot quiet the notion that if I could just make myself do everything, it'd all be better - I wonder if I should be cured by now...
Then the logical part of me kicks in and tells me that such worries are paranoia.
I work hard to present a 'normal' face to the world and, especially, work place. They try to help, but it is clear that none of my management or HR really understand the problems that I face. The 'normal' face I present to work is built upon a foundation of friends and support who I contact via a web-page. Now my access to that is threatened and I am terrified that my carefully built 'normality' is about to crash...plus, of course, the certainty that it is my fault, that if I had just tried harder, it would all be ok and that I'm simply not a 'good' enough person to put myself right.
I KNOW that these are merely paranoid thoughts, but sometimes I cannot BELIEVE.
So, I march on. I cherish the good days and I try to just ride the bad ones. Perhaps I will have to swallow my pride and let work know just how fragile I can be. Again, I think it is difficult for them to look at me and believe that sometimes I have to lock myself in a toilet cubicle and cry so that I don't do so in a meeting.
I could ramble on a lot longer, but I don't want to bore you all. I do sometimes feel like I have to face the Real World all alone and that it doesn't understand what I have to go through just to manage and...well, I guess I just want someone to tell me that I'm not doing it all wrong.
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