Anyone who reads this blog (even sporadically) knows about my ever lengthening battle with depression. That chronic shadow that’s always lurking just out of reach in my brain, just on the outskirts ready to pounce.

(With those awful metaphors I could Salinger a run for his money)

I haven’t been taking my medication for around three months. It started because I couldn’t afford to take them (hello poorness!) and then it became a principle matter. I hadn’t self harmed since stopping them, nor had I had any thoughts of ending my own life. I was liberated. I was a new GK. A new partner, a new house, a new lease on life.

Fast forward to now and I can feel the self hatred, the lack of motivation, the lethargy, the fog creeping back in. It’s becoming harder to get out of bed. I am struggling to maintain eating two meals a day and instead seem to be living off as little as possible. My work has slipped. I am not as interested in sex. I imagine and dream of cutting my self again.

I’ve had a hard couple of months. I have lost and gained a support network. I entered the last year of my nursing degree. A close family member, who I have an abusive relationship with, has been diagnosed with cancer (updates to come about the treatment/ or lack of) and I have become a carer/nurse to him and others around him due to my nursing knowledge. These things were bound to stress me out. But my moods, my internal lethargy are more than that. The depression is actively blocking my ability to cope with these situations.

When I first got diagnosed with chronic/clinical depression (although I have been in and out of therapists and on/off medication since I was 13) last year, my main goal was to be cured. All I’ve ever focused on is getting of medication and to become a “normal” functioning person. Getting off medication this time round (this is the first time I have actually maintained taking medication, instead of flushing it down the toilet etc) was seen by me as reaching this goal, as being “cured” or “normal”.

Slowly I am beginning to recognise that there is no need for me be to be “cured”, for there is nothing to cure. I will always be like this and there is absolutely no shame in this. Being depressed is awful, it eats away at your soul. Being depressed and thinking there is a magic cure is worse, trust me. I could talk about why I think I’m not normal, but ya’ll know why. The media, mis-informed GP’s, horrible stereotypes and lack of understanding - I’ve wrote about this time an time again. But this here, this is about me coming to terms with me.

I’m GK. I’m depressed. And that’s OK.