Information Overload

Information Overload (IO) is something I'm affected by much more than the average person.

I wish I had a brain like a room out of an Ikea catalogue - uncluttered. Everything neat in its place. Peace and quiet to just simply breath. But no! My brain is chaotic, crowded and very very messy (rather like my bedroom).. There is no room for any more stuff and I really need to have a clear out. 

Y'see.. I tend to have a lot of trouble absorbing information. Written information especially. And in this age of endless emails, social media, blogs, apps, and up to the minute information about what is going on in the world, I frequently find myself with that tell-tale headache, brain-freeze, lethargy, insanity and frustration which makes me want to have a good metaphorical sweep out with a broom.  

Sometimes I'm very envious of my partner, a brain-box who thrives on knowledge and eagerly hoovers up information far more effectively than any Dyson. He says he finds it relaxing - I look on in disbelief and wonder, quietly slipping in to a catatonic stupor whilst feeling like a clapped-out old Electrolux letting out more than it takes in.

Thankfully all is not lost.

Over the last year or so I've been doing some experimenting to see how I can make things easier for myself.

I mentioned before that written information is a problem. Now I limit my time on Facebook..I even sign out after each time so it's more of a hassle to get back in again. 

I don't read blogs. I don't really scour the Internet unless it's for something specific (like ancient vacuum cleaner brands). 

I try to limit the amount of times I check my email in a day..not always easy mind you.. 

I rarely pay attention to the news these days, probably as most of it is rather depressing anyway. 

I do read books and if they're rather complicated I like to read them over and over again.

My partner rather ungraciously laughed when I found "The idiot's guide to Windows 8" too difficult to comprehend, while I much preferred a book with step-by-step photo illustrations. Cut all the wordy waffle and get straight to the point I say! 

Visual learner, me.

It's a simpler life, and quite nice in a way. I would love to be able to read more, but since adopting the strategies above, my mind is less cluttered and I'm less overwhelmed. 

Maybe it's like a muscle I need to exercise more and more..but I've not yet heard of any personal mind trainers yet!

Kerry. 

Discovering meditation.

I've always been a bit skeptical about meditation. I just had this vision in my head of hard-core, new-age hippies sitting round in a circle burning incense sticks and in the lotus position.

I wouldn't even know where to go and get incense sticks, let alone manage to get in to the lotus position without doing some serious ankle damage. (I've tried!)

But what do you know? I've actually been converted..well..maybe not the incense stick bit..yet.

My doctor told me to try it months ago, and I came up with every excuse you can think of to get out of doing it. It just wasn't my thing. But I started to get curious after a close friend told me she meditated every day and the difference it made to her life had changed it for the better.

I still wasn't totally convinced though. I just couldn't picture myself chanting "Ommmm" and inwardly thinking "Hell, my ankles hurt.."

It took a very severe depressive episode a few months ago to make me try it. I got pretty desperate and it was a 'do or die' kind of situation, so this time I decided to 'do'.

Before when I've tried meditation/mindfulness CD's I've just never connected with the voice on the programme and always ended up in hysterical laughter because it was so corny and I gave up pretty quickly.

 

But this time I was advised to try "Headspace - Take 10" - a free app in the app store which means I can access it on the go. I connected with the voice of the man straight away and decided to give it at least a couple of weeks to see if anything would happen.

Almost immediately I started to feel some changes.

It was hard to stop my mind wandering at first and I could let it run for ages before I noticed that it had strayed. Now I'm more aware when I have gone off course and can bring it back to focus sooner. The trouble I have most is trying too hard.

So, what are all these wonderful benefits then?

Before I started I was having constant anxiety about everything. A few days in to the meditations I noticed it dampening down. The chatter in my head was also quietening down. But what made it really curious was I couldn't work out if I was slipping in to a very deep depression as I lose all my feelings and thoughts when this happens, or it was the result of the meditation balancing things out. It was hard to tell and I was rather curious to see what was going to happen with this calming down over time.

Fast forward a few months down the line and I feel a completely different person!

The anxiety and internal chatter are still absent. I feel more balanced and stable which has increased my self confidence which in turn makes me less needy and lonely.

A calmer mind gives me more mental energy and it's easier to concentrate.

I'm more productive, less stressed, less impulsive and I actually feel happy.

I have clarity which I never had before, and any issues I need to sort out come straight to the surface rather than me digging around the murky swamp of my mind not knowing if it is the right thing I'm fishing out.

My relationships with others seem to be much easier and I've had comments that I appear more balanced and calmer.

Some sessions speed by and seem very "easy", while others are frustrating and I can't seem to get in to it at all..part of the meditation journey I guess, and it's during those harder sessions where there is more scope to get to know yourself better.

I try to do it first thing in the morning just after I've woken, but if I sleep in or forget, it can be a struggle to find a space in the day where I will be uninterrupted. 

When things are going especially well in my life, I think "I don't need it today.." and this can turn in to several days, very quickly my mind will begin to chatter again, and back comes the anxiety. Then comes my frustration because I knew this was going to happen and why didn't I just keep doing it all along blah blah blah...

I can't believe what a difference this has made to my life and I'm rather looking forward to where this journey will take me.

I've not discovered any down sides to it yet and there is the added bonus of having that time tucked away in the day knowing that I am taking that time out for "Me".

It's the first time in my life where I feel I can become the person I've always wanted to be. Sometimes I can feel a bit 'defective' as a person because of my mental struggles but this is fading and as I become more balanced it bothers me less. 

It's hard to believe that something so simple can make such a difference. I really wish I'd discovered this years ago. (Thanks Mairi for converting me - I owe you!)

And no! I don't need to get in to the Lotus position to do it.

Kerry.

Eating Disorder recovery. (Part Four).

Afterword..

(It's advisable to read parts one, two and three before you get to this one!)

I'm very fortunate that I did recover from my eating disorders. Of course, there is the whole debate about what recovery actually means. A full recovery? Or maintaining symptoms to achieve a decent quality of life?

For me, it was a full recovery..a thing I never thought I'd see. It was done entirely by me..I had been discharged from the eating disorder clinic four years by that time. They tried many things to crack the disorder, but in the end they gave up. If I didn't know what had triggered my illness and what was driving it, how on earth were they supposed to know how to help me?!

There were many reasons I became anorexic in the first place..buying time..a fear of growing up and responsibility, sex, a job, having a partner, becoming a mother and more. Now I have the majority of these and don't know what I was so scared of..I guess back then I just wasn't ready. 

I now eat food without a second thought as to how much of what is in it. I used to know the calorific content of each slice in every brand of bread stocked by my local supermarket or every type of (diet) yogurts on the shelves, or tomato or banana or...you get the picture! (I was a walking calorie guide in my day!)

You probably wouldn't believe me if I told you that I have no lasting food/weight issues from my illness years. This is true - up to a point. There are a few things which are nothing to do with weight/calories/body shape or disordered eating which I am left with:

The first few months in to my recovery everything was almost psychedelic. Food tasted amazing and I devoured it quickly. 

Now I don't seem to have much of a sense of taste. I don't know if it was the excess of regurgitated acid (or my love of hard-core sour sweets) that caused this deadening of my taste buds but because of this, food is more of a function than a pleasure. 

The other thing is I tend to cut food up in to squares all in one go before I eat it (dunno where that comes from!) It's possibly a control thing but I haven't really thought about it. I just know I do it!

I get very annoyed if people comment on my weight. I know I have no problems now and it just takes me back to those illness years where many people were unbelievably rude. Complete strangers came up to me in the street and felt they had the right to comment on my weight when in normal life it would be unthinkable. I'd rather forget about all that now.

I'm still very unfit compared with most of my contemporaries. I lost a lot of muscle and never regained it. Often I'm fatigued and very frustrated by my limitations but I'm making it a priority this year to get really fit. It's not always easy and my lazy side can get the better of me, but I'm fitter now than I've been for years and I'm enjoying that!

It seems a whole other world away now..It's been nearly six years since I recovered and I'm almost double my lowest body weight (and I still feel too thin). Looking back, I now wonder how I managed at all...

I guess I see the whole mental illness/eating disorder journey as a path to self-knowledge and learning to look after myself and listening to my body..facing my fears, overcoming them, and realising that things are not as scary as I think they are.

If you want to ask any questions about recovery, feel free to get in touch. I'll try my best to answer them if I can!

Kerry x

What, Sorry?

I hate apologising for my hearing impairment. It's usually blurted out after a conversation has got completely out of hand, the person I'm conversing with staring at me with an expression of horror wondering if I haven't quite lost it..

Then when it seems as if the ground will never open up and swallow me, I manage to splutter out those words, "I'm sorry but I'm deaf".

It never fails to amuse me the reactions of some people when I tell them I have quite a significant hearing impairment...

"But you're so young".. (I'm 35, but thanks for the compliment anyway!) "Really?? You would never be able to tell".. (How would you?), and my personal favourite, "But you hear me okay..are you sure it's not just selective deafness?".. (No, my audiogram will tell you otherwise!)

Y'see..people sound different from each other. It very much depends on the pitch of the voice..how loud they are, how fast they are, how clear they are, how busy it is, their accent and whether or not they are having a latte 'to go' from Starbucks which gets in the way of valuable lipreading!

I've been deaf since I was a baby..nerve damage or something like that. I've never known anything else. I think I manage pretty well, but it has got me in to trouble occasionally.

I find elderly gentlemen almost impossible to decipher which I found out to my cost (and everyone else's amusement) when I did a stint at the care home up the road.

Mannie: Hi Kerry, how are you today?
Me: Och fine..yourself?
Mannie: The usual... How old are you?
Me: 31
Mannie: Are you married?
Me: Och aye.. (I was single at the time)
Mannie: How long?
Me: Oh, a while..
Him: Do you have children?
Me: Yeah. (Er no!)
Him: How many?
Me: Oh..I don't really know...

By this time the staff were collapsing with hysterical laughter..- What was so funny about that?

Oh dear. And I thought he was talking about the weather..as most people in Scotland tend to do - always a safe topic of conversation which doesn't need any more than a few nods and 'Aye's' here and there!

The thing is..I couldn't hear a bloody word he said after his first 2 questions. I was using my fund of general answers that I use in situations like this. Normally nobody has any clue that I'm faking it and usually it works out okay! I was mortified when I was told afterwards what he had been asking. He probably thought I was weird..or didn't care very much for my 'children'! I avoided him after that.

Pessimist..?

Quote: "If you have no expectations, you are never disappointed".  

Would you agree with this, or do you think it's very pessimistic?

To be honest with you, I've always agreed with this quote but I tend to get slated by acquaintances over it for being very negative.

If you look at it in a certain way, this quote can be seen to be very pessimistic, so much so you wonder what the point is of ever doing anything..or having any ambition or bothering at all..

But look at it another way...this quote can be very liberating. 

As someone who took disappointment badly, my life suddenly changed the moment I came across it. 

It doesn't mean there is no point in anything. It means I can carry out my life never feeling let down by people or disappointed by the way things turned out-something that held me back for years.

I used to look to others..or possessions to make me happy, and time and time again I felt let down and would then beat myself up over it for being demanding and needy.

It took me a long time to realise that only I could make me happy. Not possessions or other people. Me. It had to come within, and having no (okay..few!) expectations of anyone has made that so much easier!

Of course, I still have my slip-ups from time to time, but I'm working on that..

Eating Disorder recovery. (Part Three).

I tend to be guilty of being a bit long-winded in my posts, so this time I'll get down to the nitty-gritty of my eating disorder recovery. It was so long ago, and there's still probably a lot I've missed, but I'll give it my best shot anyway! If there's anything you want to ask that I've missed, just get in touch!

It's probably useful to have read parts 1 and 2 first which has more background info.

Questions that I'm asked about my own recovery.

1-What was different about this time, from the other times you had tried?

This time was different because I was fully committed to getting well. I was sick of the way things were and I wanted to live a normal life. I'd made that decision fully in my mind whereas before it had only been half-hearted and didn't really mean it. It was do or die this time. Quite literally. I knew if I carried on I would die. I was too young to die. There were things I wanted to do and see. My survival instinct kicked in.

Around this time I started a woodwork and upholstery training programme which was to last 2 years. In retrospect it was this that saved me. It gave me something to focus on rather than food and I got to interact with people in the real world who had a normal attitude to diet. 

It also gave me a routine - something that had been lacking in my life for years.

2-Was it really scary?

It was terrifying. I had been discharged from specialist ED services years before, so I was doing this completely on my own. I was starting my life over, with no idea of what to expect or where I was going.

I knew my journey was going to be a very difficult one, but I reasoned if I had the determination and willpower to get as sick as I did, then I could bloody well use those qualities to get better again.

3-Did you gain lots of weight?

This won't be the answer you're looking for, but initially I did. My metabolism was so mucked up and my thyroid under-active. It took about a year for my metabolism to get back to normal and after that the weight gain slowed down and actually stabilised for several years. The first three months were the worst but it did get better.

My weight gain was very rapid in the beginning and ironically I was told to cut down on what I was eating, as I was at risk of cardiac arrest because my heart hadn't got used to my heavier body yet. I had quite a laugh over that one!

4-How did you cope with the loss of your anorexic body?

I was devastated at the loss of the body I knew so well. It was something that had been my companion for the last 10 years and I knew I would never see it again. But I had reached the point that I couldn't carry on like this and this fuelled my determination to recover. I closed my eyes to what was happening to my body and I couldn't bear to look in the mirror for a long time. I shed many, many tears over it. It was a bereavement in a way. 

I know it sounds silly, but before I started eating again I said a proper goodbye to my body which in a way gave me a sense of closure and more prepared for the start of a new beginning.

A slight compensation was that as I went up dress sizes, I had to buy new clothes which is my all-time favourite activity! That part was fun. Plus, clothes fitted me much better as I put on weight. No more hunting for hours in the children's department!

5-I'm worried if I start eating I wont be able to stop. Did this happen with you?

Initially I went a bit crazy. Everything tasted very vivid - psychedelic almost! I'd deprived myself for so long and allowing myself the opportunity to try out all these foods I had never tasted was very exciting! My stomach had stretched due to the bulimia and my medication at the time made me very hungry, so it took a while to learn to adjust things. I'd not eaten properly in over a decade and had to relearn basic everyday things around eating.

My appetite did calm down after a few months once my body knew it was to continue getting food, but I was terrified that it would never stop. 

6-Did you crave things?

At the beginning I craved Mcdonalds chicken Mcnugget meals. It had to be a large meal with extra fries! For the first few months I had to go down there about 3 times a week, the cravings were so strong. I also had cravings for cheese, and I put grated cheese on top of every meal that I made for months! Oh, and also buttery microwave popcorn! It did eventually calm down!

7-Did you keep taking laxatives?

No. I was committed to getting better and that meant no half-measures. I think stopping the laxatives was one of the hardest things about my recovery. My laxative abuse wasn't that bad compared to some..once or twice a week at most..I stopped them cold turkey..not entirely as part of my recovery, but also because they made me feel like I was having a heart attack every time I took them..I'd be up all night, shaking, sweats, pains in my chest and a rapid heartbeat. They tasted so disgusting that I retched every time I took them. 

The down side of stopping the laxatives was that as I had been relying on them for years..my gut was unable to work properly..it took a month before I could "go" at all. It was uncomfortable and very painful but I persevered with it and things got better. My gut was very sluggish to begin with, but drinking a lot of fluids and eating fibre helped. It took well over 6 months before my gut functioned normally.

8-How did you manage to stop bingeing or resist temptation? 

To try to combat any slip-ups, I did not keep anything that might be a temptation in my flat. No biscuits, sweets, bread, crisps, jams..anything. Of course I had a few slip-ups where I thought individually wrapped biscuits might be the answer, but nope!.. If anyone gave me boxes of chocolates for Christmas or birthdays..I would give them away. I knew that I could never just have one chocolate...I had to have the whole lot and I'd be back to square one..so initially it was best to avoid them completely. I actually had to keep doing this for several years and eventually I just got in to the habit of it. 

Eating in the first place was the biggest help for stopping the binges. The majority of them were because I was starving. 

9-Did you get rid of your scales?

I tried a couple of times to ditch my scales, but could be seen retrieving them from the bin the next morning in panic. I needed to know what was happening with my weight. I only managed to part with them for the final time last year, and it was pretty liberating! It was nice to be finally free from them - the old shackles gone!

Since then I've moved in with my partner who has his own set of scales and I weigh myself maybe once a week or less.

10-Does it affect you if you see an anorexic in the street? Does it trigger you to relapse?

It doesn't affect me any more, but I used to get very upset if I saw an anorexic. I used to think wistfully "He/she's so lucky that they can be that way and I can't." I got very jealous, but it never triggered me in to going back to my old ways. I think the first two years of recovery were the most vulnerable in this respect. 

When I was ill, I used to buy lots of magazines with eating disorder articles (and hopefully pictures), but I stopped that too as it was very upsetting. I still have that folder of articles buried somewhere in the house. I don't know why I keep them..I never look at them..but I guess they are from an era in my life. A part of my history.. 

I never bothered with Pro Anorexic websites. 

11-Was it strange eating 3 meals a day? It seems so much!  

It took a long time to get used to eating normally. The concept of a meal time was completely alien to me. I had my meals at the same time every day..even if I wasn't hungry. Sometimes I really had to force through the fear, but as time went on it eventually became habit. 

I was stunned the first time it hit me a few years into recovery that I was in town, it was lunchtime and I'd gotten lunch and eaten it without a second thought. Progress!

12-What did you do if you really wanted a bar of chocolate but knew it would trigger off a binge?

If I ever did fancy a bag of crisps and chocolate, I went to the shop and bought a small bag of crisps and the smallest bar of chocolate and just stuck to that. There was no other temptation. If I "allowed" myself those treats, I didn't feel so guilty. It was very tempting to go back in to binge mode when I was buying these treats, but the control-freak side of me made sure I stuck to what I'd intended to buy. Five years on I still go by this. - Not because I'm worried I'll binge, but because it's just habit now.

13-How did you handle meals?

 After the initial euphoria wore off and the panic set in, I was very rigid about my meals. I cooked the same meals every night..ready meal sized so my tummy would shrink. I'd literally not cooked or eaten a proper meal for a decade, and had totally got out of the way of set meal times or amounts. I had to relearn everything. My stomach had over-stretched due to the bulimia. For the first few months after deciding to take the plunge I lived off ready meals which were roughly the same size as each other: I knew exactly what I was eating, and they allowed my stomach to shrink back to a normal size again. 

Later when I felt more confident in cooking for myself I would cook things, put them in ready meal-sized boxes, and have the same thing for dinner each night. I was eating, but I felt safe..I had cooked it, so I knew exactly what was in it.

I expanded my cooking repertoire later on, and slowly discovered the delights of eating out, though I got very self-conscious to begin with. Sometimes I took a book with me which distracted me. I shut my mind off completely to any thought of calorie counting and it all got easier and easier as time went on.
Shopping in supermarkets was excruciating to begin with. I felt very self-conscious that I shouldn't be there.
Again, perseverance and not paying attention to anyone else got me over that one.   

14-What are some of the things I can expect if I start eating again?

OK, this is the hard bit which will make you want to give up straight away, but bear with me on this one!  

Anorexics tend to have 'delayed gastric emptying' which is a way for your body to hang on to food. When I started eating again nothing moved for a long time. I became very constipated and my stomach stuck right out. 

It was very upsetting and sometimes I felt I looked pregnant. Don't let this put you off. Once you get past this, things ease very quickly and recovery seems more possible after this first scary stage.

Your digestive system will be very sluggish to begin with, but once it gets used to working again, it soon speeds up.

You can expect that you will gain weight quite quickly the first few months, but it DOES taper off - You will not end up huge!

You may have cravings for foods. These will also die down.

You will find you have more energy and as you put on weight, not as cold all the time. 

15-How long did it take for your periods to restart?

My periods restarted about 6 months after I had reached a normal weight for my height. I had found the loss of periods one of the few bonuses of anorexia but despite this, I still called up all my friends screeching down the phone to them that my periods had started again! It was a sign that my body, after years of abuse and neglect, was healing. 

16-Do you miss being bulimic and anorexic?

No. I don't miss it at all. Life is much easier without them. There are aspects that I do miss..there is less expectation placed on you when you are ill, and when I'm stressed about stuff I get nostalgic about a time when there wasn't so much pressure on me.

Sometimes I miss the ruthlessness and single-mindedness. It was the only time in my life where I have done something just for me with such focus and drive. Now it's difficult to focus on anything very much or for very long and I flit from thing to thing not knowing what my purpose is.

I miss the rebellion against the system and what was expected of me. In a weird way it was liberating to have had that rebellion, but in the long run, the only person I was hurting was me. Everybody else by that point had given up on me.

But I don't miss the misery, loneliness, self-disgust, having no money, despair, feeling cold and hungry all the time, the critical illness episodes and the things that an eating disorder forces you to do that make you despise yourself.

17-Did you have any relapses?

I've mentioned in a previous post that once I started eating normally again, my bulimia calmed down. A lot of my illness was habit, and I had to learn new ways of coping rather than reaching for the crisps and biscuits..

There were a few bulimic slip-ups from time to time but these gradually got less and less and now I no longer feel the need for a binge. 

I did have one anorexic relapse about 18 months in to my recovery. I wasn't hospitalised, but I was threatened with it. I guess I just wanted to see what would happen..but it was so awful to be back in that horrible place. It was quite a relief to get back to my recovery.

18-How did you keep going when things got tough?

When I felt my resolve weakening or I was just so shit scared, I remembered my friend who had passed away..and the reason I was doing this was for her.

I had to learn a whole new way of coping. Distraction. Once the starvation binges stopped, I noticed I still binged occasionally if I was bored, lonely, upset or angry. Emotional eating.

I increased my social life, started volunteering which gave me a purpose and something to do out-with my home. I did more exercise which combated any agitation and took my mind off the need for a binge. 

Nights were harder when everything had shut down for the day and loneliness kicked in, but when I started going out with my boyfriend we would hang out in the evenings which was another distraction.

Also.. a bad memory can be a good thing. I kept plodding away at my eating..and eventually it became habit. 

19-Do you eat many sweets?

Not really. Sugar is one of the things that can cause my depression to get out of hand, so no sweets for me! I also try to avoid fizzy drinks, but I do eat crisps sometimes (carbs freak!) but often I will make up my own popcorn and put salt, or a little bit of sugar or even chilli powder on it depending on what I fancy. 

20-How is your diet now?

If I got one positive thing from anorexia, it's being very aware of what I eat. I don't calorie count, but I am aware if things are processed or full of chemicals and sugar and I try to avoid them. I now have a wheat/gluten intolerance and I have to be careful. If I eat too many carbs, caffeine and sugar my mood really suffers and I get anxiety-ridden. It's a very fine line... 

People think it is a result of my past eating disorder that I eat healthily, but it's in fact to stave off depression and digestive troubles. Sometimes when I get PMS I have the odd craving for a can of fanta. I enjoy this occasional guilty pleasure but I know in a day or two I'm really going to pay the price with my crashing mood and lethargy.

21-Do you have any lasting effects from those years?

When you're in the midst of an eating disorder, you don't think about the future. The thought of recovery is impossible and you think you'll either be stuck with this forever, or it will end up claiming your life. You can't picture yourself after you are well. I never knew that I'd now be riddled with osteoporosis, extremely sensitive teeth, throat and gastric troubles, food intolerances, fatigue, a crappy immune (I catch everything going), low muscle mass and intolerance to the cold. I don't know yet if I'll have trouble conceiving if and when the time comes, but I still have a bit of time left before I have to worry about that. 

My initial weight gain was very rapid and I have a few stretch marks from this time. Many mothers my age have stretch marks so I don't feel too bad about them!

I'm very hypersensitive if anybody comments on my weight and I can end up attacking them verbally if I feel they are particularly rude. It bugs me that they feel they have the right to comment. It's none of their business. I lost a lot of weight during my Mirtazapine withdrawal and I got a lot of hassle from those who weren't aware of the withdrawal situation.

Nothing scares me more now than losing weight. I get paranoid that I am far too thin and that people will get the wrong idea. Each time I get a comment, it takes me back to those illness years and dredges it all up again. I'd now rather move on now thank you! 

Oops! I didn't realise how long this was going to be when I started it - sorry folks!

Kerry.

Mirtazapine Withdrawal - 9 months on..

Hi Folks,

It's nice to be back again after a wee break. Unfortunately, I wasn't sunning myself on a beach somewhere or hiking in the hills.. Rather, my choice of destination was in fact my bed, where I have been practically living for the last month.

Mirtazapine Withdrawal - 9 months on and things haven't been so good...Lots of tears, feeling like a dead statue, plans to do a runner and feeling suffocated and hemmed in with stress.

I think I'm starting to pull out of it now, but mind you..every time I say that, the next day turns out to be terrible!

It's been pretty bad, and I've been shit scared about the possibility of having to go back on the drug. It's not made any easier by friends and family telling me to restart it..'It doesn't matter how bad the side effects are dear' (Yes, but you don't have to put up with the bloody side-effects) ..'You were much better on those pills'... (You obviously have a very short memory!)

Considering how I was affected by the medication, (see my previous posts Mirtazapine Withdrawal and Mirtazapine Withdrawal - 6 months on.. for more info), I don't see restarting it as an option. Although I've been feeling bad, I still enjoy the perks of 'freedom' from Mirtazapine. My mind is clear(er), I don't have the terrible thirst I once did and my sleep is so much better.

The way I see things..in the last 9 months I have given up my flat and moved in with my partner, my financial circumstances have changed, I started my first job in over a decade, I gave up that job, got a new therapist, have an ongoing battle with "the Establishment", changes in support staff, one of my dearest friends passing away, the mirtazapine withdrawal and a big and exciting (but stressful) project at my other work. When I look at the above..it's no wonder I've crashed! Anyone would. Nothing in my life is the same as it was 9 months ago. Everything is different and I don't have that familiarity I once had to fall back on for reassurance and stability. 

Thankfully, things seems to be getting better and after a month of trying to get me to the gym, my boyfriend finally succeeded 2 days ago by resorting to bribery. Surprisingly it worked, and what do you know?! I actually felt much better after it!

My therapist has always advised me that if I am experiencing a depression, I need to take a look at my life (or my way of coping with life), identify what is wrong and do something about it.

In this case, I knew my job wasn't right for me, and I don't regret giving it up. Sad, yes. But it was the right decision. 

People around me didn't really understand, and were extremely disappointed, but I know that it doesn't take a lot to tip me over the edge and I came very close.

Now the job situation is out of the picture, I'm much better and don't feel the threat of medication anymore. I'm still wrestling with the "what the hell am I supposed to do with my life" thing, but I guess I have to take that in baby steps..

As for withdrawal symptoms from the Mirtazapine - They are over now. My appetite is pretty much back to normal and it's nice to feel hunger again and to have cravings for certain foods.

I had depressions when I was on the drug, but it's very easy to forget that! I've got to expect that depressions will come along, but the key is not to panic when they do. 

Kerry.