Numb Days and Smiley Faces

It is now 4 weeks since I went to see the Doctor and was put back on my 'happy' pills...not my proudest moment but a necessary one and in the passing days I have pondered several things.

Is this how my life is going to be from now on? An ongoing up and down where I am relishing the times I can enjoy and waiting for the next bout of darkness to creep upon me? Am I going to be cured? So I can move forward with my life and eventually look back at these nasty periods of 'depression' as one might look back on an embarrassing infection?

There is certainly a stigma that comes with the word 'depression', you suddenly are considered less than stable or maybe a bit melo-dramatic. People remind you that you have nothing to be depressed about and you should look forward and be positive. It is a dark, misunderstood and simplified term for what can be a totally debilitating condition.

I am doing alright on my new pills. One of the side effects is changes in sleeping patterns. The first few nights I slept badly, well I didnt sleep much at all! This has now settled and I found myself craving sleep early in the evening, sleeping deeply and waking slowly and very groggily. I am able to put up the facade again and some days I even manage to convince myself I am feeling bright and positive.

But I have discovered it is a very fine line I am treading and it only takes a fairly minor thing to tilt me into an achey heart, tear filled eyes and that awful sadness that I will never feel alive again.

I have this past weekend been away with my husband, to friends up north, to a party that was funfilled and lively and I have had a lovely time. Hubby and I are being kinder to each other, gentler and more affectionate, it feels calmer. But it has a strange discomfort about it, I want to love him, I want to be able to fancy him again, I want to have the urge to throw myself into a new type of relationship with him.

So why is it that there is still this deep hole in the middle of my chest that threatens to tear apart so painfully if I allow my head or my heart to dwell on any thought of the dream I once allowed myself to believe........