h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I added you to my friend's list which makes you friend number one, I don't know if I'm supposed to just do that or if there's any etiquette around it so I apoligise if I did it wrong...

No that is ok, I don't mind, lol.
People often ask if it is ok first but few object. If it is ok with you, I will add you to my friends list too!

Yes, that's ok.

woohooooooooo!

I have a friend, I have a friend.

Well, to introduce myself properly, I'm Kat.
I've been on antidepressants myself before but was about 11 years ago and I didn't take them for long.
The ones I had were more for anxiety but, like with your depression, my anxiety and panic attacks started making me feel depressed. Or vice versa, I've read anxiety can be a symptom of depression.
I've had a couple of little hiccups over the years since that time but nothing too big and I've coped without any medicine and just by telling myself exactly what's wrong.
I do get stressed out far too often.
I find sarcasm and laughing at myself to help loads. I'm also fairly bubbly on the surface which helps, even if it's only a few layers.
I think if you have what you think is a "normal day" you should try to appreciate it, even if you don't know whether it's drugs or not.
How often do you have a normal or good day?
I'm going to my bed but I'll check tomorrow on here.
Night night...x

Ask me again the other side of winter as winter is the telling time, not nescessarily due to` lake of sunlight but due to people being stuck indoors more and doing little.
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For me a lack of a depression "death mask" this winter will be the key. People say they get depressed but deep depression often shows on the face and will give a fixed expression of basically missery which barely breaks into a smile which lasts only a fraction of a second. Watch a programme about centres that treat severe depression to see the death mask! No death mask this winter will be a possitive thing.

When I was medicated with antidepressants it was 11 years ago and I'd just had my second daughter, immediately after I had her (an induced labour) I felt myself slip into something I would describe as being dreamlike, this continued and didn't go away, nothing felt real. I had constant obsessive thoughts about death, in great detail, I'd go into all the ins and outs of it inside my head, would wonder who would die first from family members, would wonder what actually happens to us when we do die, all sorts of different theories on all the different aspects of death which I couldn't stop thinking about, I felt like someone was playing a radio station in my head and I'd no control over these thoughts. I couldn't sleep, I spent my time cleaning and worrying about my kids, regretting that I'd had children and realising that one day they'd have to face death. It was like I'd been shown mortality. I couldn't get on with everyday life because if I went out of the house it felt even more dreamlike than when I was at home, I'd also cry walking along the street because I just didn't feel like me. I visited the after hours GP sugery just about every night, thinking I couldn't breathe and was about to die. I'd get chest pains and think I was having a heart attack. My partner (ex) was looking after our 2 daughters all this time and trying to help me as much as he could, I slept, or lay awake, in the spare bedroom and developed no early bond with my newest daughter.
I was lucky in that I didn't try to hide it, I told the midwife who came to check on myself and my daughter of what was going on in my head almost immediately and she set in course a lot of help, I was visited by Community Psych Nurses and my GP put me on paroxetine as he felt the obsessive thoughts I was having were the worst thing.
This whole episode was very intense and I often think I don't know how I got through it. I used the medicine for about 3 months and saw a counsellor by which time I had already mostly recovered.
I still have problems with anxiety but nothing at all like that, mostly I fear confrontation so get a bit overwrought at the thought of it and I also have a fear of death which I hadn't had before, although it doesn't take up my whole thinking, it's just something I don't like to speak or think of.
When this happened to me, I was 20 years old, a mother of 2 (now 4) and I'd moved nearly 100 miles away from my own family not too long before. I then had to go through the induced labour which included one of the midwives removing the drip thing, which had been feeding me whatever drug helped along labour, from my arm and walking away, leaving me to notice a few seconds later a huge arc of blood showering from my arm onto the white sheet. I'm sure all of what happened to me after I had my daughter was a combination of all the stress I'd not noticed I'd been suffering before.
Anyway, all that isn't something that I think of too often, I'm just aware of what these kind of mental issues really mean for some people, which can't be a bad thing.
I went on to have a son and another daughter after this with no problems whatsoever.
I hope this winter isn't too bad for you.....x

Oh and I did have times when I wandered around saying "I'm going mad, I'm going mad". I thought I'd end up in an asylum or something.
Goes to show.
Here I am now, sitting around on a Sunday afternoon wearing my loveheart housecoat while the kids watch strange Sunday afternoon cartoons.

Strewth, sod all that death obsession you had to go through!
Wearing the same clothes for four days is one thing, and smelly, but your death obsession thing sounds nasty for you to go through!

It was, but it thankfully didn't last very long at all. I never knew what was actually wrong with me, to give it a name. It didn't seem to fit the bracket of postnatal depression but it was almost immediately there once I had my daughter.
Think I was lucky that I got the support I did.
It's not nice to not be able to control your own thoughts.
If you start getting smelly though, surely it won't be too bad, if you're dressed in a hippy like sort of style it'll be part of the general appeal won't it? lol.

Well sort of, lol. However I was thinking more of the general Hippy relaxed attitude. I have some clothes, of the Hippy kind, hanging up and a sleeve was pulled up and at a funny angle and I had to work hard not to walk over and straighten it, which I would have done, perhaps even withought realising it before.
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Hair is another case in point, I normally have a number two razor cut regularly so it growing slightly longer now and not combing it flat often is a step forward!

Yes but I'd never manage the relaxed hippy attitude anyway, is it something you get with practise?
Mary Poppins just came on television. Yippee!
The hair and clothes and washing, so people who know you well would be able to tell when you're not feeling at your best then?

Could you learn a relaxed Hippy type layed back style?
I think you could try. If someone for instance constantly lines up clothes on coat hangers and can't stand to see one out of line, the person could try to leave it just a little longer each time before they straighten them. It might work given time.
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Would people see me go down hill washing and clothes wise and realise I was getting depressed?
Well I did and no one realised, so the answer is no. I think if I saw that happening I might realise due to my experiences.