One week

It feels like a lot more than a week (and a day) since I got out of hospital.

Already, the whole experience, the whole of September and the beginning of October, is beginning to feel unreal.

And a week on, the ‘just got out of hospital’ excuse feels like it’s wearing a bit thin.

If I’m being kind to myself, I can see that I have achieved things this week.

I’m back at work, have kept on top of daily deadlines and have written five articles.

I’ve survived on my own all week, with Ian at work, and got the children everywhere they needed to be, on time and with the right things.

I’m on top of the washing, have cooked meals for the kids, and although the house isn’t spotless, it’s just about clean and tidy enough.

I managed – after an abortive attempt on Monday – to do a secondary school visit with Tom yesterday.

Small achievements, yes, but achievements nonetheless.

But on the other hand, I feel useless, hopeless, pathetic.

I’m still struggling hugely to get out; the three hours taken up by the school tour yesterday was the longest I’ve been out of the house (or hospital) since the beginning of September.

They were hard, so hard that by the time the tour had finished, I was shaking and so desperate to get home that I couldn’t even stop at the Co-op for milk on the way back.

I’m still good for nothing by the time Ian gets home in the evening, and going more or less straight to bed.

I’m yet to muster the courage to face people, avoiding Bible study and Hotshots.

I’m still feeling far too reliant on PRN meds, meds that turn the volume of the world down a bit, make everything feel quieter and fuzzier and less intense.

I *know* that I can’t carry on like this indefinitely. At some point, I have to rejoin the world, stop using ‘I’ve been in hospital’ as an excuse.

But the thing is, nothing has really changed. Being in hospital kept me safe at crisis point, but it didn’t do anything to tackle or treat the illness. My symptoms, physical and mental, are no different from when I went in.

Next week I have my first psychology assessment. Everyone seems to have latched onto that as the answer, the solution, the thing that’s going to make me better and help me get back to ‘normal,’ whatever that may be.

But it’s not going to work in one appointment, is it?

And yet it feels like it’s being set up as the turning point, the point where the CAT visits will probably stop, where it’s considered that I’m ‘being treated’ and therefore can start living again.

I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to use my depression as a lame excuse for not doing anything, for being lazy, for opting out of things that I should be doing.

I have to face people at some point, and I know that the longer I leave it, the harder it will be – but I don’t feel physically or mentally strong enough to do it yet.

My hospital admission has made me feel different. Properly mad, rather than just run-of-the-mill depressed. An outsider. Other.

And, yes, ashamed. That’s probably the biggest barrier of them all to me overcoming this massive fear of getting back into the world.

I’m bitterly ashamed of who I am.