Lulu’s Story – Depression

Most of the time despite being on some seriously shitty meds, and in the process of recovering from life-changing surgery I can hold it together and not let these horrid mood swings and depression get to me. Today I break and cry. This is why.

1. My books – I want to make the world a better place with my books but I am struggling to find the energy or brain power to be able to start a charity so that I can apply for funding from bodies like The National Lottery etc. Everyone is really busy with their day jobs and I am kicking myself that my stupid hepatic encephalopathy means I struggle to understand communication or to communicate. I want to ask for help and I try but I can’t expect others to do the hard graft on something like that if I want a charity I need to make one. Not ask for help from people with busy lives. I get tired – fatigued and just am not the person I was or thought I was or want to be. I don’t care about being famous or having money – I just don’t want others to go through the shitty time I had of feeling broken and worthless and without hope.
2. My health – it’s a blessing I look fine – even when I feel so wretched but that means people think I am fine, and ask me to help them and I say yes even though I am not up to it and then feel horrid when I let them down.
   I don’t have the body I want because I don’t have the energy to exercise as much as I would like. I’ve barely gone jogging this year and I miss it. I know I’ve got a cold and that is making things seem worse than they are, but I want to be fit. I want to be healthy.
   I feel I am letting my donor down as well as me right now by not being out jogging and getting better.
   I thought I was on the road to recovery and then out of nowhere – organ rejection – I know it’s not uncommon but it’s scared me – I don’t want to go back to being that sick again which is why now I am investigating alternative treatment and maybe that’s why the world did what it has to me – I wasn’t meant to stop investigating and learning – my journey has further to go, but seriously? Now? While I am so fatigued? :/
3. My friends – so I lost a lot of friends over the years who I couldn’t explain my behaviour and my drinking too and didn’t understand what it’s like to be told you are broken and will need fixing one day, but you know that there might not be an organ for you. It’s been really horrible, having memories slowly coming back and seeing snapshots of how I was when I used to get drunk and how I used to behave. I hated myself then, and I hate the person I was then now even more.
   I can understand why some people won’t acknowledge me reaching out with an apology and I understand they have moved on with their lives, but it still hurts to know that they will never know that wasn’t me. Not the real me. But that’s life and you just have to accept it don’t you? But it still hurts.
   It’s hard to make new friends when you don’t work or haven’t got the energy to go out and socialise as normal people do, and yes sometimes I feel sad about that.
   I’m blessed with the friendships that have come from nothing over the internet and one day hope I can hug those who so often have given me hugs and support through their words.
   I was always scared when I died no one would notice my absence. It would be an empty church. Now, I can at least hope for a few attendees. (Sad smile moment.)
4. Love life – yes – I don’t have the energy to date like normal people. But I don’t want to give up on love, on finding someone to share my life and Bella’s adventures with. Yes, I was unlucky in the past but I was so scared of being homeless and unable to eat I looked for men I thought could support me emotionally, physically and financially. Now I hope to do so much more for myself, and gain my own independence, all I hope for is love. The real unconditional love that I know is so rare and hard to find but does exist when two people actually bother to get to know each other and become friends first and then lovers.
   That’s why I was on apps, I was hopeful for new friends then maybe more, but clearly I was naive as now I’m told they are just sex shopping sites and apps.
   I love my engagement rings, I love to wear them. I thought by doing so I was showing to myself I could be alone and learn to love myself instead of needing a man to buy one for me to where, I could just wear them – but people are saying that will put people off (even if I wear them as thumb rings??) and be a blockage to new possibilities. So that’s depressing.
   With any men I do like, I am rubbish at playing it cool, and trying to be aloof. I don’t have the energy for it, but have to learn it, as being myself is so clearly an unloveable possibility. Even though I tell me I am. Self-love is so easy to say so hard to do. It’s really hard when the first man you were married to chose drugs and the lies of his friends about you over your love for him and your fiance decided that his job was more important than coming back to visit you when your liver was failing. Before deciding that he couldn’t support you through the sick times. That helps to build a feeling you are worthy of love, worth something… 🙁
   I don’t mind being single. I feel blessed when anyone flirts with me or says I’m attractive but will I ever get over this hurdle of not feeling good enough so often? This worry about being yourself as that will put people off?
5. My writing – I have so many ideas, so many thoughts and yet why is nothing coming together? Why can’t I at least finish one thing?
6. My art – I want to be creative. To be drawing and painting again, but life always gets in the way. Something always needs to be done, and art is a treat I can never seem to find time for. This makes me sad.
7. Work – my sister is always trying to find me employment. A little something to keep me going, but what she doesn’t understand is that it could take one, two, three or more years for me not to feel like this. To have a head which works and is clear. Not confused, and unable to communicate. Not have mood swings and depression, caused by medication and also just what is happening. It will take time for my blood counts to improve. But all the while I am on immune suppressants, I am ripe for infection. A cold could become a virus or pneumonia very quickly and then bang, I could be dangerously sick. I’m not scared of people and the world, it’s just I’ve come this far and I don’t want to go back on my progress.
8. Money – I want to write a book proposal for ‘Fix Me – How I cured myself of my autoimmune disease’ and then approach publishers with it so I could try and get an advance to cover various alternative therapies but my mind just seems to keep messing it up, and although I try to be positive on days like today my crazy ideas and plans seem delusional. I want to go on this health journey so that I can try and reduce whatever is upsetting my immune system and making it flair up. I want to try and fix myself so I can come off some of these meds. Worst case scenario I would show it’s not possible and stop other people from wasting money on things which I can be a test dummy for them not working on me.
   I want to finish my proper ‘me’ book – and get it out there – it might not make any money but a few fifty pence pieces wouldn’t be unappreciated.
   I would love to exhibit my art – but how will I ever do that if I can never allow myself to do it?
   On days like today, it’s all too much. I know that when my strength improves I will be able to go back through that list and nail it as the sensible positive person I am most of the time. But not today. Today I am just a failure. A jobless, careerless, unloveable person who owns no property has no savings because she used them to have her book illustrated and is not getting any younger or more eligible.

It’s ok to be depressed.

It’s ok not to feel ok.

You think it’s not ok to tell people.

But sometimes it’s better if you do.

To be continued.