In the beginning...

I have suffered from depression for a very long time. It is something I have spent most of my life denying, feeling ashamed of how I feel, feeling embarrassed to admit I have this invisible disease eating me away from the inside out.
I have convincingly and affectively managed to push down and hide all these feelings and emotions for so long I am no longer able to identify them.

My journey kind of started after the birth of my first son. A toxic friend tried to help me, probably in the only way she knew how but it was abusive, nasty and unnecessary. The friendship ended, I saw a doctor, still in denial of my depression refused the medication, but had a half-hearted attempt at counselling and gave up when the therapist got ill.

I pretended everything was OK, and for the most parts it probably was. I had a gorgeous baby boy, a nice house and a loving husband.
Only...I could not comfort my son, feed him successfully, help him sleep or stop him crying. I was a big fat failure as a mum. Sleep deprivation, tears and frustration are the only memory of the first year of my son's life. I have no memory of anything happy during that time.

Then I fell pregnant with Amelia and I was happy. The pregnancy was painful but I was happy, and the happiness lasted for a long time. I was able to make decisions about how I fed her with no associated guilt.
As she got older and reached milestones, I started to feel guilt and hurt that I had no memory of these when Cameron was getting older.
I had a breakdown. I can't remember why, I just know everything was all dark and twisty and very very wrong. I took the meds to numb the pain, and I saw a very good therapist who identified that along with PND I had OCD.
My OCD originated from my former career, where I had developed an insane fear that I was going to kill someone. Check, check, re-check and check again until the checking got all consuming. Thank god I left before it got out of hand.
It appeared post-natally as a fear of killing people walking along the side of the road as I was driving, a fear of other people crashing into me and killing me. A fear of other people driving me, sick with worry every time I had to get into a car.

Now OCD. It is a toxic friend, it is an evil, twisted, warped monster. It tells you that you have to do things in a certain way, and it is in your best interests to do so. It does it in a way that makes you think you feel safe and it makes you feel like it's your best friend in the world (as long as you do what it says)
To fight it I had to hate it. I had to get angry and shout at it. Swear, curse and tell it to eff off. Boy was it funny to be in the car when I was fighting that!!
It also used to tell me that if my house wasn't clean then social services would come and take my children from me. It still does sometimes but when I am strong I can tell it where to go. I still have OCD cleaning tendencies and I think it is something I will be stuck with for the rest of my life.
For you that know me out there in the real world and know what my house generally looks like you will literally LOL (that just for you sussy!) at the thought of me having cleaning OCD. It doesn't mean my house is spotless, show homey and germ free all the time, in fact it is the complete opposite. It is chaos and hell, but that's what comes with being married to Jamie and having his kids!!! What it is is the routine and the compulsive frenzy that happens when I clean. It is the constant rearrangement of rooms (my craft room has existed for 3 weeks and has been in 3 different formats to date) it is the sorting out and making piles and then taking those piles and making more, until you crash and burn and end up with a messy house in chaos with piles of stuff everywhere. But it is the system, the order, the inability to stop.

I was well for quite a while, but because I am so completely effective at putting on the mask, pushing things down and hiding emotions away things got out of hand. I medicated with alcohol and it helped. It was my best friend it gave me the courage to get through the end of the day. One glass ended as 3 bottles. My head became full and I was no longer able to squash things down and push them away. The alcohol didn't work anymore, my complete and utter denial that there was anything wrong and inability to talk to anyone close to me ended me up in a horrible situation.

I became empty. I gave up. I had nothing to give anymore. There was no me, I had no feeling. I couldn't function as a human being anymore. I tried (and thankfully) failed to not exist or feel any more.
I ended up at Belmont hospital for 6 weeks recovering from the worst thing that had ever happened to me, although I had a few bad experiences, the staff and fellow patients at Belmont helped me overcome my battle, helped me through my lows and gave me friendship I never knew was possible. I thought I had hit rock bottom at home, but it got worse in hospital before it got better. There are many people I met for such a short time that helped me get through the worst thing in my life ever. To these people I will be eternally greatful.

I am also lucky enough to have kept some of those friendships and I will hold them close to me as they are very precious (that includes you Laura and Kimmy)
I took home a passion for art, and a passion for felting. It is insane how crazy I get over a ball of felting wool!! I draw mandalas and they are my form of meditation I get lost in the beauty of circles, colour and  pattern. I love prisma colour pencils and I obsess over them. They are my precious things, along with metallic gel pens and newly chalk pastels.

I have said enough for now, but I write this blog after being inspired by the work of Laura and Kim. My aim with this is to share my experiences with the world, to try and break the taboo that is depression, to give this invisible disease that affects so many of us a face. To break it down bit by bit until it is a powerless little thing.
Some days the stuff I will write will be heavy and hard for some people to handle, but I need you all to understand that this blog is my mindfulness. It is my therapy. It is putting names to the unknown emotions and dealing with identifying them and sitting with them.
Somedays it will be silly, and somedays it will be dull, but it will always be a frank and honest reflection of my battle with depression.