Still shaky

I had another big down last night. Couldn't figure out why. Tried to write a blog post a few times and just couldn't figure out what I wanted to write. I wasn't upset about anything, there was just a residual sadness.

I think I figured out today what it was. I suspect that it is my brain re-adjusting to life without weekly therapy. In which case, I guess I passed, because nothing too dramatic happened, I just felt kinda down for a while. I didn't freak out, I didn't let it get worse, I just waited it out. I think that's an improvement.

Then today I got a haircut! It's quite a dramatic change by my standards, but I really like it. And everyone else tells me they really like it. For some reason my stylist thought it would be fun to dump a load of hair in my left eye, which I don't remember agreeing to, but it does look good and I'm sure I'll get used to only seeing out of one eye!

Might post pictures at some point, lazy now.

But I am kind of sad because one of my work colleagues is leaving. She is awesome and made me feel so so welcome when I started. And she's totally insane but so much fun. I will miss her lots. Keep having to give out application forms to people wanting to fill her position. Not seen anyone who's a scratch on her yet.

But then work was good, because I spent most of the afternoon creating a sign promoting our sale. I covered it in sequins and had lots of fun! Several customers praised my artistic ability! The sale is going to be a nightmare though, the price changes are totally random and make no sense and nothing is priced correctly and so many customers are going to bitch at me about it. Oh well. At least the ones who do get a surprise saving will love me.

Also, it's less than four days until my friend gets back from America after his crazy three month trip! Super excited about that!

I think that's all for now. Apparently I'm incapable of coherent thought today but have lots of thought fragments. Oh well.

Taking stock

So it's only 12.20pm, and there have already been two things today that have made me look back at the last seven months and smile.

The first was my doctor appointment. I told her how much better I have been recently and how much the counselling is helping. She told me that she wants to keep me on 40mg for now, which makes sense, but if all goes well I should go down to 20mg next month, and then hopefully be off anti-depressants entirely by the New Year! That gave me a very big boost. It seems amazing when I look back at how bad things seemed back in January, and how things have changed so much in what is really a very small space of time.

Then I got a phone call from the Time to Get Moving Campain lady. I told her my story, when I was diagnosed, how I felt like I couldn't cope, and what a boost I got from my cycling. It was really nice to look back on that, and she seemed interested in my story. I really like the TTGM Campaign. While I think Time to Change is very important, I have never been able to connect with it very easily. I looked into being a media volunteer for them, but they only really seem interested in stories on how people have faced stigma, and I haven't really had that problem too much. But I am an expert on how beneficial exercise can be! I really hope I can inspire others to get involved. Might even start going out on my bike again, it's been a while now!

Yesterday I was reading through some early blog posts in preparation for my chat with the TTGM lady, to see what frame of mind I was in back then. I was quite surprised how much I have improved since then.

Difficult decisions

Recently, I've been having the urge to talk openly with more friends and family about my depression. I talk about it openly on here, I'm more than happy to volunteer for Time to Change, etc... But it's a difficult thing to bring up in conversation with friends. I've told my parents, a selection of closest friends and my boss, but that's about it.

I've been toying with the idea of writing a note on Facebook "announcing" (for lack of a better word) the news openly to people. But it seems a slightly cheesy way to do it, I'm not sure if I like the idea. It would be the easiest way to tell lots of people though. I really want to talk openly with friends and family, be able to drop it in casual conversation, I find it helps to normalise the whole situation. I'm happy for people to know, I just don't know how to tell them.

I don't really know what's appropriate in this situation. I've known other friends with depression, but I forget how they dealt with this particular issue. Suggestions welcome!

I made a friend!

Because of my work schedule and train schedule, I always have half an hour to kill before my counselling session. Today, I found a very fun way to pass the time befriending a very cute cat. It was incredibly affectionate and leapt onto my lap the second I sat down on a brick wall nearby. I spent a long time with this cat. I got a lot of strange looks. I don't care!



Kitty posing on my lap



Kitty and me sharing a cuddle


Actually, I made another friend at work today as well. There's a regular customer who has known my manager for about six years now. Her and her husband come in fairly frequently with her 11 month old daughter, who is gorgeous. I always have a chat with the three of them, but today the little girl was in a particularly affectionate mood. She crawled over to me demanding a cuddle, and then I got several kisses as well, it was very exciting! (And the couple also spent quite a lot of money, so everyone was happy.)

In other news, the counselling went really well and I'm going to start having sessions less frequently to see how I cope on my own. I've also offered to be a media volunteer for the Time To Get Moving Campaign, which I'm really excited about! They're calling me tomorrow so I can tell them all about my charity cycle ride and how helpful exercise is for people with depression. Not sure what I'm going to say, but I hope it will be inspiring!

Mini rant

This week has been really good. I'm happy at work and everything is going well. But there's one little thing I feel the need to rant about.

People keep telling me that they're jealous of how I get to spend all day playing with toys. They seem to think I have the easiest job in the world and I just spend all day playing. This is not true. I work bloody hard. I'm not complaining, I enjoy the work, but it irritates me that people don't realise it is still a job.

I spent all this morning restocking the baby and toddler section, which involved making a list of everything we were missing, filling four huge sacks with the products, dragging them down two flights of stairs and then putting them on the shelves, making sure they are all correctly priced and well-presented.

I will also bend over backwards for a customer. I frequently open up two or three different products so they can have a proper look, have to figure out how on earth to get them back into the stupid boxes, and then they still often buy one or none. I will run up to the stock room if necessary. I would ring every shop in the country to track down a product if a customer really wanted me to. Again, I'm not complaining, I enjoy providing good customer service, it just irritates me that people don't really that this is the main part of my job, not playing with toys.

And mostly when I do play with toys, it is for one of two reasons. Sometimes it is just because we're really quiet and I've finished all my restocking and repricing and all the other tasks in my job description and have nothing better to do. But mostly it is so that I can get to know the product, so I can sell it better. I will work out the best way to demonstrate it to a customer, I will look at it through a parent's eyes and work out what their main concerns will be, what questions they are most likely to ask me, how the toy will benefit their child's development. That is the main reason I play with the toys.

Working in a toy shop is definitely fun work (at least most of the time...), and I'm happier there than I have been in a long time. But it is also hard work, and it annoys me how many people don't realise that.

Update time

I've started slacking. The thoughts that used to go in here have started going into the thought journal my counsellor asked me to keep. It's been really useful, but I'm too lazy to write out all my thoughts twice! I figure keeping that updated is more important...

I've been surprised how useful it's been actually. When I used to keep diaries they usually re-inforced negative feelings rather than helping to release them. But the important thing about the thought journal is that I make sure I record my most positive feelings as well as my most negative. The positive half is starting to fill up more, it's nice to see.

I've got quite a lot to be positive about at the moment. Boyfriend booked a trip to Tokyo for my birthday in October - can't wait! Really really excited. Went once before and loved it. Looking into all the things I want to do.

And bought an eReader! I wasn't sure how I felt about it at when they were first released, but I have so many books and so little space, I love being able to carry hundreds of books around with me on one little box. And it's so pretty and shiny and little!

Work is going pretty well too, we've launched a new catalogue recently which is pretty exciting (although it means we have to move everything around which is a bit of a nightmare). Sales are mostly pretty good and I'm still meeting lots of lovely customers.

So lots to be happy about. I just need to learn how to hold on to the happy things when I feel low...

Positive thoughts

Feels like a while since I last updated, think I've been really busy recently. Not really sure what I've been doing, just feels like I haven't had much free time. Lots of work, met up with some old friends, saw Toy Story 3, all good!

Had my second counselling session today. It went well. I found some of her questions really hard to answer, but she's really nice and reassuring. She gave me such a fresh perspective on things. It feels like my problems fall into two categories. Sometimes I do things that are bad for me and I need to not do them. For these, she's teaching me ways to break habits, distract my mind. With other things, I think I'm doing things that are bad for me. But she made me sit back, look in from the outside and asked why I thought they were bad. And I didn't have an answer. I was surprised to realise I do have a really "black and white" outlook on the world - I do have very clear ideas on what I "should" do. I had no idea, it was so ingrained in me. It was really refreshing to realise things are not black and white, I'm an adult and I can make my own choices.

I suspect to most people this sounds ridiculously obvious, but it had just never occurred to me. It feels like a lot of things in my life were pre-determined, often without me even noticing. There's still a long way to go, but it was a very liberating discovery. I feel like one day I will be able to process things in a healthy way.

She was even able to help me cope with the whole friend moving to America thing. This is definitely very much early days, but I could feel progress. He's back in less than four weeks anyway, I'll probably master it like the day before!