Sunday 23 May 2010

The daily struggle

Before I had depression, I'd never really thought how it can affect daily life. I've had a number of reminders about this today.

Firstly, I went cycling. My dad has done the London to Brighton cycle ride for the last 6 years, and this year the two of us are doing the Capital to Coast, a 60 mile ride. We go out for a training session every weekend, have done for nearly two months. I don't think he realises how much harder it is for me (to be fair, not that I've ever really tried to explain it to him). One of the main side-effects of anti-depressants is being really tired all the time. It's not nearly as bad as it was when I first started the meds in January, but I do still find things harder than I used to. Also, when it gets hard, I find it so difficult to find the mental strength to carry on. We went up a couple of hills today; hills send me to a dark place. I can just hear in my head over and over "I can't do it, I'm not strong enough, I need to get off now, I'm not making any progress at all..." an endless stream of negativity. It ends as soon as I get to the top of the hill, but it's not pleasant. Don't know what I can do about it though. Guess I'll just have to keep training until the hills aren't a problem anymore...

Then I went shopping with my boyfriend in the afternoon, and that reminded me of another recurring problem. It's my dad's birthday soon, and I have NO IDEA what to get him. Which is actually incredibly unusual, I can usually find things for him really easily. I spent so long in a bookshop trying to find something he'd like, and everything just seemed wrong. The point is, I've lost my ability to empathise (or at least it's been severely reduced). Which frustrates me a lot. I used to love buying presents, I used to always be able to find the perfect thing. Now I just can't get inside anyone's head anymore, I have very little concept of how even close friends and family think and feel. I bought him something in the end, but it doesn't seem right, nothing seemed right. My best friend warned me one of the side-effects of all this is an extreme selfishness, I guess this is related to that. I don't know how long it's meant to last, I hope not very long.

The funny thing is, I actually had a really good day. It was sunny, I had ice cream, it was good. Just tiny little niggles in the back of my head. And now I'm thinking about my doctor's appointment tomorrow, no idea how that's going to go.

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