Passing Me By!

I have once again been neglecting my little blog. I've been back to work (I know), and seem to have been doing nothing but sleeping and working!

I guess you could say this is progress as I made it through a whole week, must admit I'm enjoying my week off now though :)

So what have I been up to?

Working
Job hunting for Hague
Walking The Boo
Sleeping
Not sleeping
STILL taking photos
Enjoying the sun
Still loving my phone
Not blogging

So there you have it, life has continued as normal! ;) I shall be updating more often, I promise!

Sleep. The Final Frontier!

The time is almost upon us. On Monday I shall (once again) be heading back to work. This time I'm hoping it's for good, no more trip ups or bumps in the road, just a straight up back to work and back to normality!

My moods are pretty much there, no more wild swings and deep depressive days. My anxiety seems to be under control, I still feel anxious, but am more able to control those feelings. However, there is one stone in my return to work shoe.....my sleep. I'm still not sleeping well, I either sleep too much or not enough  - waking up shattered and wanting to nap again later. This is the last hurdle I have to overcome, and I'm sure that when I'm working the sleep will be easier, at least I hope so.

This last week was supposed to be a week of fun, of enjoying these last few days and making sure I was in a good place ready for Monday. We did manage to head out and enjoy the sunshine on Tuesday, but on Wednesday I was walloped by a migraine, that has only just retreated today, so that wiped out Thursday completely :(

That means the (free - yay) visit to the cinema to see Avengers Assemble as been held off until the weekend. So here we are again....returning to work, having normal weekends, and getting back to myself! This time it's for good!

Coming Out The Other Side

It's been an age since I've blogged. I guess the urge to share my life disappears slightly when each day blends into the other, locked in a Groundhog Day existence of similar, anxious days and sleepless nights.

However, over the last couple of weeks, I've noticed a rather pleasant change. Slowly, but surely my anxious moments are lessening. My moods are quite even now. I am able to leave the house on my own and be just fine. Today I had a meeting at work, something that a few weeks ago would have thrown me into days of anxiety, passed by without incident. A HUGE step forward for me, and something I'm quite proud of. It looks like I'm finally getting there, finally getting back to normality, and am now just over a week away from a return to work - I'm feeling okay about that too.

I'm also still in love with my iPhone. I love the things it can do, I love the camera, I love the apps and I love the sheer fact that it streamlines everything into one phone. Just wonderful :)

I'm sure I'll be blogging more now that I'm starting to feel a lot better, here's hoping anyway!

Getting There?

I've realised something today. Whilst driving home from Asda it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't felt anxious once.

Perhaps it's had something to do with Hague being away for the weekend, so I HAD to go out and walk Boo, and pop to the shops on my own, and I managed. Despite feeling anxious then, I got through, and so today, the first day of having Hague back, I've not felt panicky.

I'm really hoping this is real progress. I've been following my Occupational Health advisor's advice and it does seem to be slowly helping, it would be nice to think that maybe I'm getting there, that maybe, just maybe I'm only a matter of weeks away from being back to myself, feeling normal again. Able to cope like most other people cope with the normality of life from day to day.

My certificate runs out on Friday, and whilst I don't feel quite ready to go back, I'm certainly feeling like that isn't an impossibility, that going back will be happening sooner rather than later. A feeling I've not had in a long time!

So I shall keep pushing myself onwards, I shall keep doing as I'm advised, and with a bit of luck, I'll be back earning a living before too many more weeks have passed :)

Going Backwards

It's 6.12am on a Monday morning and I should be at work. I have spent the last fortnight doing my utmost to get my head straight, to stop the stressy, anxious feelings and have myself back to work today.

I've failed.

I wish I knew the reasons behind this backward step, I wish I knew why anxiety grips me when I contemplate returning to work. I WAS back at work, I was getting back into the swing of it, I was (just about) coping with the shifts and was getting to know my new workmates and making friends. Yet now I find myself going back to the days of feeling like I'm letting everyone down, the days of being in tears due to the sheer frustration of feeling so damn useless.

I'm still on my medication, even my sleep seems to be getting a bit better (earplugs FTW!), but I feel trapped inside my own head, trapped by my own inability to cope with the simplest task of just going to work in the morning.

If you have never suffered from a depressive illness, you're probably reading this and thinking "Oh pull yourself together for goodness sake", and I wish more than anything it was that easy. When you are trying to cope with a mental illness the effects are just as crushing as a physical ailment. This morning I literally could not get myself ready for work. I even got up early as I knew it would be a bit of a hurdle for me, but when you are still sitting in the bathroom after twenty minutes, telling yourself in so many different ways that you NEED to go to work, you NEED to at least get yourself dressed and the only achievement you manage is to reduce yourself to tears the barrier might as well be a brick wall rather than your own head.

I'm not sure why I'm sharing this, I'm in tears still as I type, wondering what it will take just to get me back to where I was a few short weeks ago. I want to be me, I want to be normal, I want my life back - but right now I feel like I have a mountain to climb, and despite having support, in reality only I can drag myself back up, a task that right now might as well be an actual mountain soaring over my head :(

Zooooooooom!

2012 has barely started and already we're nearly at the end of the first week! Madness! I really don't know where the time goes sometimes.

I've managed to complete 2 shifts so far this week, with a third to do tomorrow, and I'm getting more involved with the tasks in my eventual job as part of my phased return, however...I'm still not sure that I'll be going back full time in just over a week, but I have a review with my boss tomorrow, so things will be clearer then. I actually feel fine about being back at work. It's a nice change, and it definitely makes me feel a whole lot better just being there and getting to know the new people I'll be working with. That has to be a good sign, but I'm struggling with the routine, with sleep and controlling my moods - I'm sure a happy medium will be found that lets me continue at work until I'm ready to get back into it full time :)

As for the rest of the week, Hague has had a phone call and hopefully his CRB check is in it's final stages and he might be starting his training by the end of the month - which is wonderful news. We also managed to get a statement sorted and posted off in time for his next court hearing, and my 365 has continued unabated, so things are definitely looking up in just about every area right now :)

One thing I haven't managed to do is weigh myself. Rather than diet this year I'm going to just make little changes to make me fitter and healthier, merely being at work will increase my activity and I'll be just cutting back on fatty things for now...but I need a measure, and my weight will be it - so I need to get my fat 'ol butt on the scales so I can get me (yet another) weight ticker to track my progress.

All in all, not a bad start to the year as far as I'm concerned!

A Surprisingly Good Day!

When I woke up this morning after not enough sleep the day didn't promise much...It was only 9am, and ahead of me was a meeting at work, a counselling session, trying to remember my Mum's enormous order for my company shop and trying to juggle the finances as I'd managed to leave the Sky bill out of the monthly budget :(

But...

The work meeting went well. My new manager (another one) seems to understand that my return has to be handled carefully and together we have worked out which days and shifts I'll be working. Planning ahead seems to be the key to keeping me calm and so this was a perfect way to achieve something quite difficult. So, I shall be returning to work on December 12th and right now, I feel just fine about that :)

My counsellor was up next, and she was really pleased with my progress. It will be my last face to face session with her, and she has helped me so much over the last couple of months - even a month ago returning to work seemed miles away, but now I'm well on the way to recovery, able to cope much better with problems and much closer to the person I thought had gone AWOL for good!

After such good results from unexpected places the draw of going into town to see the Christmas lights switched on was just too much to resist. I love Christmas, and I love fireworks and this evening the two combined. I rather like the fact that it is practically December as well before the council switched on the lights - keeping it relatively special. The marketplace was packed, and the mood was joyous, little children everywhere festooned with reindeer antlers, santa hats and various neon crapola :) I managed to forget my tripod, so any technically perfect pictures were never going to happen, but I liked the results.

Due to the lights being switched on, the shops were open late and so we were able to pick up another present, the list is getting much shorter now :) Finally, when you're out on a chilly night, all wrapped up, literally NOTHING warms you up like a portion of market chips, fresh, delicious and hot! Me and Hague got a portion each, and wooden forks in hand devoured the paper wrapped morsels of nom. Just sitting eating the chips next to Hague, all cosy and with his birthday tomorrow just made me happy. Happy that I have him, happy that my life is getting back on track and happy that simple Christmas lights and fireworks can still create childish wonder in me.

Optimistic

We had an early night last night, and I woke up rather early - however I am feeling quite happy today. I've had a bit of a morning, some time to myself to watch some old Come Dine With Me episode and to see the sun creep into the sky. Today looks as if it's going to be utterly glorious, right now the sky is blue and the sun is shining. I have an appointment with my counsellor at 12.30, but after that, the day is ours.

We have a tiny bit of spare cash, and so we are heading into town after my appointment, we have nothing planned but it will be nice to be out and about, especially if the sun keeps shining :)

It's a nice feeling to feel optimistic, enthusiastic and relaxed, with my time off work hopefully coming to an end before Christmas I've been told to get out and enjoy myself, make the most of the time off and get myself back to my old self, and for the first time in a while, that feels very do-able. It's a very good feeling, long may it continue :)