Energy

I don't have any.

Well, obviously I do have a little bit, otherwise I wouldn't be typing this. I don't have very much, though, and I'm starting to grow tired of being tired (see what I did there?).

It's hard to get on in life when you need more sleep than the average house cat. I find that, if I get out of bed before midday, I have to take a two hour nap in the afternoon just to face the evening. That's not normal, is it? And it disrupts my life. I'm not working right now, but when I do have a nine-to-five job, I feel like a zombie by about 11am, and go through the rest of the day on autopilot, boosted by frequent coffee breaks, until I get home in the evening and pass out. This is why I tend to go for jobs that don't require much thinking.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't always like this. My anti-depressants are the culprit. I started taking them at 17, and ever since then, my body doesn't work like it should do. I didn't do nearly as well in the exams I took at 18 as I did in the ones the previous year, because I was too tired to study properly. And I know I could have done better at uni, and probably not dropped out, if I had been able to get to my 9am tutorials without wanting to cry just from the effort of hauling myself out of bed.

For this reason, and a few others (notably, weight gain), I've recently been thinking about weaning myself off the medication. This is a terrifying prospect for me. I'm staring into the abyss. My psychiatrist originally suggested that I should take the anti-depressants for six months - instead, they've been propping me up for over eight years. I have no idea who I'd be without them. The reason I've put up with the tiredness and the weight gain and everything else for so long is that the medication makes me feel safe - it wraps a blanket around the darkness inside me, it keeps me sheltered. But I suppose I always knew I'd have to give it up some day.

I want to be a teacher. That's my ambition in life. And teaching is tough. I've done a little TEFL teaching, which I loved, but it also taught me that being a teacher requires stamina - it requires energy. And if the medication is going to get in the way of my ambitions, then unfortunately, it's going to have to go.

I wish I weren't so scared.

Creative writing assignment

The Spies Lane Witch

It's Sunday afternoon. I'm on my way back home from my walk down Spies Lane, where the branches of the overhanging trees are like my fingers, old and gnarled and bent. My fingers, which are now stained scarlet with the juice of the berries I've been gathering. As I enter my cottage, I hear the children running down the lane, shrieking and laughing, reminding me of my own childhood days. Simpler days. As I rinse the last of the juice from my fingertips, there's a knock at the door.

I smile down at the small form on my doorstep. "Good afternoon, Gladys."

Young Gladys's cheeks are flushed from her exertions, and her eyes are bright and eager. Did my eyes ever look like that? The years have dulled their colour, and if they ever sparkled, I can't remember when.

"May I come in for tea?" Gladys asks, with a grin. I let her in, as I always do.

"Your kitchen is so pretty, Miss James," she says. She calls me 'Miss James', but I know that she and her little friends like to call me 'the witch' when they think I can't hear them. It makes me chuckle. Through the eyes of the young, any old woman living alone must be brewing up spells and potions in secret.

I set the tea on the table. "How is your family, dear?" I ask Gladys.

"They're well," she replies brightly. "Mother is having another baby, you know."

I smile at this news. "Oh, how lovely."

Gladys is looking at me intently. "Miss James, did you ever have a little boy or girl?" She asks me.

"No, I didn't," I reply. "I've always lived alone. I think I'm better off that way."

I glance to the armchair by the fire, where might have sat the husband I never had. The smile goes out of my eyes a little, but I don't let it drop from my face.

"I think my mother has too many children already," Gladys says. "Our house is far too crowded and noisy."

I picture the house, filled with babies' cries and children's laughter. A merry circus.

"You should be thankful for your family," I say.

Gladys sighs. "I suppose so."

She finishes her tea, and leaves. I watch her go skipping down the lane with a peculiar ache in my heart.

Night falls. They say that ghosts walk Spies Lane after dark, but I'm not afraid. If a little ghost girl came knocking on my door, I think I would invite her in for tea.

The Power of Twitter

The hashtag #whatstigma is currently trending on Twitter in the UK. It was started a few hours ago by someone aiming to remove the stigma from mental illness, and since then it has received hundreds of responses from people confessing their mental health difficulties. "Confessing" shouldn't be the word, but unfortunately, due to the above mentioned stigma, it is. Admitting you have a mental illness can be even more humiliating than admitting you have an STD.

I never tell people about my depression or anxiety unless I know them very well, and sometimes not even then. Whenever I start a new job, I keep it quiet. I did once admit to some colleagues that I was taking anti-depressants, but that was after I'd been working there for over a year. The subject never came up again.

Why do I keep it quiet? That's simple. I don't want people to think differently of me because I have a mental illness. I don't want to scare away potential new friends. I want people to know me for me, and not for my illness. It's a sad fact that people are judged when they suffer from mental illness, but it's true. You only have to glance at the tabloids or watch the TV to find that out. If someone suspected of a crime is revealed to have suffered from mental illness in the past, the media will latch on to that fact, and use it as 'proof' that the person should be locked up. The mentally ill are seen as dangerous, as undesirables.

A few years ago, I was watching an episode of the Ricky Gervais comedy Extras, which I normally enjoy. Ashley Jensen's character Maggie was trying to set up Ricky Gervais's character Andy with one of her friends, who "has trouble meeting men because she's clinically depressed". Andy refused, saying "I don't want to go out with a psychopath! Slashing herself when she forgets to take her lithium ...". I know that Extras is just a sitcom, and that Andy isn't supposed to be an entirely sympathetic character, but I worry that that exchange is a true reflection of people's attitudes. Watching it made me feel belittled, and it enforced the idea in my mind that I was destined to end up alone.

My one serious relationship before K broke up because of my mental health difficulties. M said that he was constantly afraid for me, and that he didn't want to be in a relationship based on fear. Looking back, I can see that his attitude was cowardly, and that if he really loved me he would have tried to help me through my struggles with depression instead of just running away. But at the time, it made me feel like I didn't deserve love. That I was 'less than'.

I refuse to feel that way any more.

The #whatstigma hashtag has made me feel hopeful. Many, many people are sharing their experiences, coming out from hiding, saying to the world that they are mentally ill. I know it's only a drop in the ocean (a 'teaspoon', as they would say at Shakesville), but maybe it will cause some people to stop and think, and that's a start.

I started this blog because I wanted to be open and frank about my mental illness, for once. And now I know I'm not alone.