Trigger happy

This morning I woke up refreshed and smiley. I awoke next to the man I love, ready to go to a well paid job, where I'm appreciated and have authority and respect. I was lying in my lovely bed, and everything was rosey.

I reached for my phone to snooze the alarm, and lazily flicked onto some social media pages to read some silly jokes while I woke up.

The first couple of mentions of a celebrity usually means something great has been on the tv the previous evening. This time, sadly, the news was more sinister. First you realise the world has lost someone truly special. Then you see how we lost them, and the gradual realisation of the tragedy truly hits.

Fuck.

Over the last couple of years I've opened up a lot more on twitter about my depression. It's not in some effort to be a poster girl for mental illness (and what a poster that would be, bloated from booze & medication side effects, lying in bed crying - woooo!), but talking about this stuff more openly really can be life changing. I also have eczema, and if talking helped with treating that then I'd be  ramming that down your throats too.

The mistake people commonly make is that depression is about sadness. That it's about anything. Depression is a debilitating mother fucker of a disease and it can be fatal in far too many cases. It's more the absence of emotion than a downpour.

I've  suffered from it for as long as I can remember.  During 2009/10 I spent almost a year living alone in a flat and  rarely venturing out whilst living on my savings, so I didn't have to hold down a job.  I had a glittering CV, and excellent prospects, but sometimes if you fall and there's no crash mat then you're going to get hurt.

So now I've had five years of psychotherapy, all paid for privately. I've been on ssris for nearly two years.  I've formed really good relationships & would describe myself as really happy. Yet, if I forget to take my meds or I get an unexpected trigger  it can feel like back to square one.

Today's news  more than hit me hard, it felt like it threw me off a cliff.

Robin Williams had done far more than me to work on his illness. As well as access to medication & psychotherapy he was a member of 12 step groups and celebrated sobriety (I, in comparison lazily use alcohol as an upper and downer). He had worked hard, found lasting love & had a lovely family. It was like a huge wake up call that appeared to be telling me that no matter how hard I work to beat it I might still be fucked.

So what took me from being a sad member of the public to feeling like I was drowning in my depression again? I think the answer is pure agonising fear.
All the work Robin did to fight his demons, just like I have, and yet he still took his life.
Just like my dear friend John Miller did, six years ago, after promising me he'd never succumb to that temptation. That despite everything and no matter how long he fought it won in the end. It could be twenty or thirty years, but that vicious black dog could be ready to sink it's jaws into me one final time. It's fucking petrifying.