Introducing...

I take two pills a day. Two. Plus I've been told that since this is at least my third episode of severe depression I more than likely won't ever come off them.
I'm thankful that I wasn't born in the early 1900's otherwise I would have been shipped off to an asylum by now and drugged into some dribbling stupor.
Okay, so I've never done anything newsworthy it was so horrible, but even so I can be a monster and that is what scares me. I'm Mummy Monster. No kid deserves such an up and down personality as their mother and I dread the day when I'm going to have to explain to them that Mummy isn't mentally stable. Thank god I don't have to do it now when my oldest is almost three otherwise I don't think I'd be able to answer the more than likely 'why?' I'd get in response.

How did it all start out? How did I discover that this monster lived inside me?

I remember it clearly. I was fourteen/fifteen and my mother had left me a cheque to drop at the local council for a bill that was due that day. All I had to do was walk about three kilometres into our small town centre and drop it off at the counter. But I didn't. The first thought that brought dread to the idea of doing this, was that when I got to the council I'd have to talk to someone. A stranger. And what if I didn't know where to go when I got there? What if I had to ask for directions? Surely then I'd be laughed at and ridiculed for not knowing where to take the cheque? But even worse was the second thought. To even get that far I'd have to walk down the main street first. Oh, hell no. What if somebody who hated me saw me and heckled me? And I had no doubt they would. Had you seen me lately? I was such an ugly try-hard. Somebody trying too much to fit in when they had no place doing so.
Yeah. So as you can guess I never went and as mad as Mum was that she incurred a late payment fee, what could she do other than book me in with the Doc? See, I thought that feeling this way was a normal part of the highs and lows of being a teenager. Well, it's not. It even has a name. Social Phobia.

Enter round one of medication - Prozac. Hell, I even remember the yellow box it came in. Did it help? I think so. But the few friends I had told me it made me moody and hard to be around. So I stopped taking it. Looking back now I'm sure it was just the depression that made me those things, not the medication.

I battled my way through life for several years before I hit rock bottom again. This time early in my working career. Didn't help that my first bosses attitude was that even if you were bleeding on the floor he'd expect you to show at work. His words, not mine.
This time it wasn't as much about the social phobia but equally about a feeling of complete uselessness. I medicated, I came through and again I came off them.

Round three was a year after I was married. By now I had changed jobs three times, returning to my second place of work with the last shift. I'd also had a health problem, my spleen grew a cyst that made the organ about four times what it should be. It was removed. I made the wedding invitations while I was couch ridden after surgery. A year on we had our honeymoon and I remember vividly the claustrophobic feeling I got when we went to a seminar. I knew I didn't want to be there at the start but thought it was simply because I felt off colour. But when the exit doors shut for the show I panicked. The only way I could stop myself hyperventilating or running from the room was to take my shoes off and cross my legs on the seat. I remember hubby looking at me like I was crazy. Christ, I was.
Over the next few months I realised the feeling was associated with situations I felt not so much out of control of, but overly aware of. By the time we were thinking of having our first baby, some two years later it was at the point I couldn't sit in the middle of a row at the movies, or at the far end of the table in the boardroom. As soon as I was shut into a situation where I knew excusing myself would be obvious I panicked. I knew I was past the point of helping myself without med's when one particular meeting with the company's Financial Controller, I had to excuse myself to get a glass of water before he shut the boardroom door. I didn't. I went straight to the ladies and sat on the toilet for a few minutes to let the feeling of lava in my veins and spontaneous sweating pass. Little did I know that I had just experienced Anxiety 101.

Round four went to pregnancy. Shortly after my first bubs I returned to work full-time (case of having to). Around a year into it I was back at the bottom of the heap only this time the anxiety wasn't so strong. I had another symptom. Uncontrollable rage. Like incredible hulk kind of stuff. One minute I could be folding washing, chatting away to my son and the next, something would cause me to snap and I would be stomping, yelling, screaming even. Not cool. Not cool at all. I was told it was probably post-partum and that it'd even itself out but nup, I could tell this was more. So I went back on meds, this time Fluoxetine which is the same as what I had taken previously. I tried to wean myself off - three times. But each time I would have a moment of absolute bottoming out that scared the shit out of me.
So needless to say I stayed on them throughout my second pregnancy with the blessing of my Doc. The stress I would give myself and bubs by stopping them would be worse than any possible side-effects.

Thirteen months later and I'm on two a day. Yep. I'm a nutcase alright. That, I can live with. What still worries me is the fact I continue to have days where I don't cope and all hell breaks lose. I just want to feel what normal is.

One such crappy day I decided to create this blog. See if venting my non-existent spleen by typing out my worries, frustrations and goals helps me. For now, I'm doing this purely to help myself find peace. But ultimately I would love it, that if by opening up, by being candid about the stuff people usually shove behind closed doors, I could help somebody out there. Somebody who, like I did for so many years, thinks they're the only one.