Neurodivergent

Just for something a little different as my first regular post, here's an essay that the other best friend wrote for her Creative Writing project last year, on depression (or should that be Depression?).

I expect you'd be pretty put out if I didn't at least put some sort of update on how everything else is going, so here's a quick precis of this week. I'm doing quite well at starting to incorporate the new diet. As I run out of things I'm replacing them with things that comply with the strict no dairy, no gluten and no legumes regime. I'm slightly intrigued as to what I'll replace cheese with... I've been told about non-dairy, vegan cheeses, so I might have to try some of that, and if that isn't any good I'll just have to cut it out completely. As for weight, I seem to be around about the 15st3 mark at the moment, which is better than the 16st that I weighed in at earlier this summer, but it's still waaaay too heavy for my liking, so I'm hoping that the diet will help me shift some of that. And last but not least, fitness. Well, I'll be back at spin on Wednesday night, so hopefully that'll go well, then I'm away over the weekend, but I'm going to try and do some walking as well so I can start working on endurance. When I get paid I'm thinking I might have to book a session with a Personal Trainer to pick up a few tips on how I should go about getting in shape for the marathon.

Anyway, here's the other best friend's brilliant essay:

“I know I have a good life. That's what's so depressing. I can't help it.”

– Stephen Fry

Nowadays, you hear a lot of people talking about depression. It's got a lot more mainstream as a diagnosis, and it's actually possible to admit you have it without people misunderstanding.

But that's still a very rare occurrence.

I have clinical depression. No, I'm not feeling a bit glum today. No, I am not a whiny emo teenager, nor do I need to get outside and smile. I have clinical fucking depression. It's not like getting a bit sad, or being upset because someone dumped you, or any of that. If you have depression, genuine depression, then you are spending your life walking around with a great big sack of rocks on your head. You can be happy or laugh or enjoy yourself, and like any illness there are always good days and bad days, but that does not change the fact you have an entire boulder balanced precariously up there. 

When I first started getting counselling, my mother refused to believe there was anything wrong with me because “people with depression can't get angry”. Considering that having a short temper is one of the ten main symptoms, I'm not entirely sure which part of her first class psychology degree she pulled that out of, but prejudices are always there. One of my friends has been diagnosed for years longer than I have; even when she applied for a job no less than a year ago they asked her why she couldn't snap out of it and be happy. These aren't isolated incidents; ask a person with clinical depression how often they get misunderstood and you'll be there all week.

I think one of the biggest problems is that there is no way of definitively separating medically diagnosed depression with the kind that people are talking about when they say they're feeling depressed that day. If we had two separate words in our language for them, I don't think there would be quite so many issues. Half the time, you tell someone you've got depression and they'll go, “Oh, I was depressed over summer, but I got out in the sun and it was fine” because they don't understand that the two are discrete. There are countless self-help websites that people will spout, suggesting things like going for a walk or dancing in your room, and these are great techniques. If you're sad. Not if you have clinical depression. Like I said, it might make me smile and on a good day it sure as hell cheers me up. But it's not a cure in any way or form.

People without depression often fail to understand that it's actually a reason for not being able to do things sometimes. I always try my hardest not to let my depression own me or control me, because I am not my depression. But there are days I have to stay in bed because the simple act of getting up and facing the world is so daunting that it leaves me in tears. Keeping easy to eat food in my bedroom, like apples and bread, becomes essential on bad days. Anything more exhausting than rolling over to spread peanut butter on some dry crackers can floor me. Fortunately, with cognitive behavioural therapy, medication and learning to recognise the signs of a down-spiral, I can mostly avoid these now.

Sometimes, though, I can't. And on those days, forcing a smile, eating a banana or listening to cheery music won't help. In fairness, neither does lying on the bathroom floor in my pyjamas, but I'm going to do that because it's about all I can manage. Just try to bear with me and be supportive, alright? Talk to me if I need it. Don't try to give advice unless you know what you're talking about. And above all, remember I am still a person.

Going Round in Circles

 I think the first thing to note here is that I am not, nor have I ever been, good at sport of any description. Ever. It's not like I never tried to be good at sport, I just never was. Having said that, I've always enjoyed exercise. I like walking, I always enjoy going to the gym, and I like swimming (apart from the bit where it involves water...). I'm just not very good at it.

So, for some reason I have decided to inflict the most awful torture on myself. I've decided I want to run the London Marathon.

There are several reasons for this stupid decision, the main being 'just coz'; I want to prove (mostly to myself) that I can do anything, if only I put my mind to it. I also want to prove, not to anyone in particular, that having MS isn't the death sentence that so many people seem to think it is. That you can still achieve amazing things. And lastly because improved fitness has been proven time and again to have such a broad range of benefits to people with MS (not least the keeping fit bit). There's more information here, here, and here about the studies that have been done in this vein.

This only leaves me with one mammoth task: training. How on earth do I go from being a size 18, almost completely sedentary student, to being fit enough to run a marathon?

So far, I have started attending spin classes at the uni gym, and sometimes walk to work (3 miles each way). Spin classes must be the first time I have ever found exercise relaxing. Which is weird. Especially when you consider how fast-paced and physically demanding spin actually is. In any case, I aim to go spinning twice a week. Walking to work happened every day for a week and a bit, although that stopped mid last week, after I went to spin in the evening after having walked to and from work earlier in the day, and I could barely do anything like what I usually manage. I'm still working on how I can incorporate both into my week without falling flat on my face.

Yet, despite all of this I'm still tipping the scales as obese. Which is frustrating. So in the fashion of so many other bloggers all over the place, I've decided that I'll use my blog as a way of documenting my progress, and hopefully inspiring me to do better. Come payday I'll be starting my own variation of the paleo diet, based loosely on the Best Bet Diet. Which means no gluten, no dairy and no legumes. I get the feeling that this is going to be the most difficult part of what I'm doing, so as with the exercise I'll start a little bit at a time. First to go will be dairy (I'll keep goat's and sheep's alternatives in to start with, and see how I get on), then legumes, then gluten. I'll have to start doing a regular post, so let's say weekly.

Wish me luck!