Sometimes, like today, I can't keep the thought of being dead out of my mind. Let's be clear - I don't want to be dead. I like being alive. I mostly like my life - nothing a few grand couldn't fix anyway. That being so, when I'm driving, it still crosses my mind that I could just drive into the back of that lorry. When I am walking around the supermarket I can barely force my feet to keep walking. Trying to shop for food is only possible if I write a list before I go - otherwise the family gets cider, paint and maybe some cigarettes for dinner. I can be high as a kite one minute, full of fun and hope and belief and then I come crashing down to earth and it feels as though keeping going is the hardest thing anyone could imagine to do. Sometimes I have to make myself follow some really basic rules to ensure that I brush my teeth, have a shower, try to look my best - or at least 'normal'. Sometimes the only thing I can think of to do is to go back to bed. Sometimes I just can't stop my eyes from crying.
I am an intelligent person. I have two degrees - no guarantee of intelligence I grant you, but a reasonable indicator that I can string a few thoughts together... but it doesn't help. It might make it worse. On one front it helps actually. It means that when I feel like this I can refer myself back to feeling like this before and keeping going and it getting better again, so I don't feel quite so hopeless. I can reason my way through feeling this way. I'd also add that I am really lucky - I have a loving family who are all alive, a loving fiancé and soon-to-be-step-daughter. My partner understands my illness and is more accepting of it than I am. I have a roof over my head, enough food, I can buy clothes when I need them. I live in the first world and I'm a white, middle class woman - so believe me, I know I am fortunate. The unfortunate thing is that I live with depression and it is fucking exhausting.
