World Mental Health Day

Apparently it's another one of those Days again today !

As per usual though, this kind of thing is not a Thing for one day. When Depression gets its hooks into you, it's something that's with you for life.

I have it too, although mine is mercifully not a permanent imbalance with my brain chemistry as it is for many of the people who I know who have depression. Saying that though, I do notice occasions when stuff I've had has been affecting my mood probably due to upsetting that brain chemistry temporarily.

Let's see :

Multivitamins and Iron tablets. This is a long time ago but after maybe a week on those, I went evil. Dark Sleepy was well and truly out. I had gone well grumpy. When I realised, I ditched the tablets and my mental state recovered after a week or so. I'm now on basic multivitamins, which seem ok.

Last week's hayfever tablets. Mounting exhaustion was contributing to feels of being down and it was needing to be up and active for work which was keeping me going. My Happy State has been improving since I ditched the hayfever tablets again.

Coffee ... oh yes. The demon drink. I get headaches if I don't get a reasonably constant supply of coffee. That said, I managed to steer clear of the coffee this weekend albeit after topping up on the Canteen Co**a coffee. That's strong stuff. You could probably melt metal in it.

Exercise ... and lack of it. This can do funny things to the mind but I found it was more inability to do exercise.

I'm always a little confused about the people who do so much exercise but that's partly lessons from my own experiences with the exercise. Yes, it feels wonderful when you're running around and when your brain is filled with the endorphins (natural painkillers) from that but ... for every mood upper, there is withdrawal. You have to keep exercising or face that withdrawal. And there is the inevitability of injuries that will prevent the exercising.

I learned a lot of that from realising that my big strength, power legs, were also my worst enemy. The injury I got most often were strains and mini-tears from my legs, either from cramp or muscles that couldn't cash the cheques I was trying to write with them.

I had the bad feelings from when the condition of my outsides was really bad too. I'm still not fixed but I am far better than the times when I had zombie patches under my eyes, chunks missing out of my ear lobes, inability to shave cos of a torn up chin and lots of very messy bits that kept on leaking.

Yep. I was in a bad way and don't really want to look back to that.

I'm preferring to look to now, where the leaky bits ... aren't leaking (no leaks today !) and my outsides are gradually improving.

But I still look back to the Dark Times where I could easily do damage in seconds that will take weeks to fix. I'm still doing a bit of that even now. It's just too easy to damage delicate half healed bits.

I get the depressive feelings when looking at the mess in the house too ... and the amount of work that needs to go in to clearing up before I'd be content to let another person see this place. I have been too tired though to make a start, which is daft again because the place needs a good vacuuming and I'll be sensitive to the amount of dust in the air here.

But my problems are very minor though compared to those people who suffer the depression, the anxieties, the social fears, the phobias.

I have a negative feedback type feeling where if I don't get acknowledgement on things I do for people, I get sad. Especially when it's people who I'm desperately trying to reach out to. People like the Internet people who just don't acknowledge anything these days. I think there has been a certain shield or armour gone up due to having to insulate themselves from the worst parts of the net.

I do have all sorts of people keeping me nodding towards Happy though. There are the people in Chrissa's stream chat who banter along with the craziness. Crazy is fun. There's the Chrissa herself who will burst into chuckles if she spots something especially crazyfunny.

And there are those lovely people associated with work and outside too. You know who you are ! People who get my daft messages and ... actually reply and join in the fun.

Those people are awesome.

Even those people who just see my daft grin and reply with smiles of their own. A smile is ...

Quite.

There is no easy cure for depression though. It's insidious. It's repressive. It's obsessive, relentless and all sorts of other words.

But we can help. We must listen but not assume we have answers for the other person. Sometimes the best answer is no answer, it is to listen and try to understand what the other person is going through. How they are being betrayed by their minds and bodies.

Make a difference. Be there for someone who is struggling. Just ... be there, that's what they want.

I've said it before but I would be so honoured if someone chose me to be their tinie pokkit listener.

Yep. Even if you don't think you are, you are. Awesome that is.