To complete my fifth anniversary posting of the three parts of My Story – which is where I view this blog as really beginning – here is Part Three.
As I’ve said before, I wrote this after I’d been back at work for a few months, and just over a year after I had been diagnosed with depression. Unlike the first two parts, this one concentrates more on recovery than the illness itself. It covers quite a lot of ground, but provides a good bookend to the story – I think!
What strikes me again, reading this again, is how different my life is now from the way I envisaged it five years ago. I said when I started these reblogs that I would follow them up with a ‘how am I now?’ post, and will do that in a few days. I need to gather my thoughts, and to reflect on how this whole experience has affected me. I also need to work out what lessons can be learned from this and to share these with you – as I’ve often said, the whole point of opening myself up hasn’t been to wallow in self-pity but to try to help others. That hasn’t changed.
See you again soon, I hope.
For this third post on my experience I’m pulling together a number of thoughts about the process of overcoming depression and of ‘getting better’, as it has been for me. As this is a long article I’ve divided it into sections, to make it easier to digest.
Human ‘MOT’
Alongside the treatment for depression my GP started a series of tests to establish if there were any physical conditions for which I needed treatment. I’m overweight, so there were some obvious possibilities. I was given one of those cards to take to the hospital for blood tests – it felt like I’d hit the jackpot, every box had been ticked and a few other tests had been written in the blank space too! I was also referred for an ECG, as my GP had noted some irregularity in my heartbeat, which she thought might have been a contributory factor in…
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Take It Easy 