Depression, stress and anxiety

This is likely to be seen as a moaning post, so feel free to stop reading now!  And I'll be turning the comment facility off for this post, I'm not looking for sympathy.  This is more for getting things off my chest and organising my thoughts.

Recently I've had several people tell me, in real life and virtual, something along the lines of I should be grateful that I'm still alive, many people aren't.  Although I never say it, my first thought is always how presumptuous of them to tell me how I should be feeling.  We all cope in different ways, we're not all clones!  And, unless we choose to tell all, nobody knows what another person is going through, or what's going on in their lives.  I certainly don't reveal everything, not on here (why would I on a blog that could be read by any amount of people I don't even know?) and not even to friends and family, for lots of reasons.

I suffer from depression - not all the time, 24/7, but it does creep up on me and take me over, sometimes just for a few days, sometimes weeks.  That's clinical depression, as diagnosed by my doctor.  It's not feeling a bit down, and it can't be cured by a kick up the backside or 'pulling myself together' (it's a chemical imbalance in the brain, so how can that work?!).  Mine is reactive depression (there are different types of depression), meaning it comes about as a reaction to things that have happened.

Right now I am depressed, stressed and full of anxiety, and there are many reasons for that, a lot is and has been going on in my life, it's not just the Covid situation which is affecting us all hugely.  

I have a new health problem which started 3 or 4 months ago, I was seen by my GP who referred me to a hospital specialist.  I had a phone consultation with the specialist (surprisingly quickly actually), who said I need a scan and tests and referral to a different department, she had to get back to my GP for him to make the different referral.  Owing to some kind of mix up, he then referred me to the wrong department, causing another delay whilst he got in touch with the right one.  To cut a long story short (other things went on too resulting in yet more delays), this week I rang to make an appointment for the scan and tests, knowing that it was likely to be a long wait due to the Covid situation.  However, I was then told that they're not accepting any new referrals and therefore cannot make me an appointment, even for the distant future.  I'm on their list and simply have to wait for them to get in touch with me.

This problem impacts my life every day, some days worse than others.  I have no diagnosis and therefore no treatment, and no idea when it might be forthcoming.  I'm simply left to manage it on my own.

There's other stuff going on too - husband's health and family stuff which I'm not going into, car trouble and other things.  I just feel buried under a mountain of problems.  I struggle every day to put a brave face on and get on with things and not 'self destroy' (an accusation that was flung at me recently by someone with no empathy whatsoever), but there are times when I either want to stay in bed with the quilt pulled up over my head to shut the world out, or I don't want to go to bed at night because the night time is when my brain goes into overdrive and everything is magnified.  It takes an incredible amount of strength for me to get through each day without giving in and falling to pieces, and some people just don't realise that.

I will get through this, nothing lasts forever, I know that.  It's just difficult to remember it at the time the shit is happening.