(This post is about my experience of depression, anxiety and PTSD, including self harm and suicidal ideation. If you feel this would trigger you please feel free to skip. I have included the contact details for Lifeline, Australian emergency services and Beyond Blue at the bottom of the post).

It’s been nearly a year since I last wrote anything. A year where words were lost to me, and sentences disappeared into a fog so thick I thought they would never come back. The rawness of getting through a day meant writing was a luxury; caviar and truffles, where I was surviving on dust. I missed writing as one misses an arm but I didn’t have the emotional energy to even try.

At the start of last year, I was suffering from severe depression but didn’t know it. As I see now, the signs were obvious – I was barely sleeping, I’d wake up in the morning feed the cats and then be so exhausted I had to lie down again. I isolated myself thinking I just needed space, I was unable to work, and only went out when absolutely necessary: church, the shops and walks with mum. I spent hours and hours just staring into space, unable to do anything other than curl up in a chair or lie on the couch. I hated people looking at me, clothing was too tight; housework, personal grooming and talking were beyond me.

While we might call depression a mental illness, my experience of it was physical – tingling in my hands and feet, loss of appetite, nausea, my body feeling heavy and slowed down, and I was exhausted like I have never been before. Depression came with a side of anxiety and PTSD; it was much more like anger, terror and unending blackness than sadness with significant suicidal ideation thrown in for good measure.

I’d had bouts of depression and anxiety before so I thought that I could tough it out, get through because I was so much stronger – after all I’d beaten it without help before. I didn’t want to be the person who falls into the hole, so it took me far too long to go to the doctors. She took one look at me and prescribed antidepressants. I was reluctant to take them but in the end I had too. The first one I tried helped me to sleep a better but not much else, it wasn’t until June when I got onto a medication that helped.

I won’t lie those six or so weeks when I got used to my second medication were horrible, SSRIs are known to make your depression worse before it makes it better and I can testify to the truth of this. I gave up for a while because I couldn’t see a way out, it got so bad at one point that I wrote a goodbye note to my parents and considered taking all the medication I had in the house. My doctor phoned my mum and they took my medication off me – for months my mum had to dole it out to me so I wouldn’t take it all if it got too much. If there was one saving grace, I did start to sleep better and for a few hours there was the oblivion of sleep.

Depression is not an illness I would wish on my worst enemy. It’s the most terrifying experience I have ever been through. It felt like something foreign had crawled inside me, taking all the lightness and hijacking my brain. And as much as I wanted to reach for the joy and happiness I knew still existed, I just couldn’t. I was a shell; alive and walking around, forced to keep living, while all the best parts of me were gone.

The worst part about it is it’s seemingly endlessness, it makes the days so unbearable that I just didn’t know how I’d make it through a minute let alone a whole day. And then there is the suicidal ideation and tendencies to want to self harm. For quite some time, every unoccupied thought was me wishing I was dead and when that wasn’t happening there was an urge to hurt myself by throwing myself up against a brick wall. At one point I got so overwhelmed I took an overdose of valium just to give myself some relief.

And while all of this was very bleak, there was also something else too. Call it the belief that hard times end, the will to live, or sheer bloody determination but there was just something that kept me going. It wasn’t a joyous or happy thing; it made no promises of survival and it wasn’t about living for the people who loved me, although they were never far from my mind. When I wanted to give in because my brain was on fire and I was so overwhelmed that a minute seemed like an hour it refused to let me because maybe, just maybe tomorrow might be better.

Is that what hope is? The thought that tomorrow could be better than today. Or the grim resolve to not give in because I wanted to see how it ends. Maybe it was my faith in God and knowing somehow we would get through this, and maybe it just doesn’t matter because whatever it was, it helped me survive.

I’m alive today and words are slowly returning, and that is everything.

If you struggling and need help

Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14

Beyond Blue: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/

In an emergency call 000.

Life is back to normal (whatever that means anyway). I went to actual shops with actual people in them and bought things and didn’t have to wait to have them delivered. It was, well, so 2019, except for the face masks and the checking in.

When I’m back out in the world, I wonder if the last two years actually happened. Everything is just like we left it and everyone seems to have picked up where they left off. It’s a bit disconcerting actually, I’ve feel like I’ve changed so much but the world seems too have stayed the same.

I’ve seen a few friends since lockdown finished and most seem to say the same thing, they thought they were ok but they weren’t. And it’s only in going out and doing normal things that they realise how very not ok they were; how much we all missed people, and a sense of freedom.

We spent much of the last two years in survival mode; telling ourselves we are ok because we needed to be, we accepted all the hardships for the sake keeping each other safe and surviving the pandemic. Now lockdown has ended and we are not in survival mode anymore, we realise the necessity of all the things we were forced give up. Life was not just meant to be a series of endless days but a thing that is sustained and indeed nourished by people and things that bring us joy.

Lockdown 6 was devoid of joy. It felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel, just relentless, monotonous days. The things that had got me through the previous lockdowns no longer helped. I knew I had reached the end of my rope when I started thinking that if I had to go for a walk in my area one more time I’d lose it.

Admittedly, I’ve had a few medical issues but my brain has felt on fire now for a while. It’s funny how in my last post I said I’d been ok but the last few weeks of lockdown and reopening, I’ve been distinctly not ok. There’s just been too much change to absorb and too much isolation to absorb it in. As a classic over thinker, this combination has been really damaging in the end.

If there is one good thing to come out the pandemic, it’s the recognition that I don’t want to live like this anymore. I want something else; I want to embrace the future and live fully in God’s grace. And if I want to do that I need to remove the barriers that are getting in the way. I’m pretty proud that I’ve taken myself off to a counsellor to work through all this, and miracle of miracles got into see one before I could talk myself out of it.

Counselling has been a revelation; I’ve found words for experiences I didn’t have before, I’m digging deep into my past; my thoughts, my feelings, so they are not part of my future anymore. It’s a blessing that sometimes doesn’t feel like one; it is often confronting, I feel both elated and like I’ve been beaten up at the end of the session. As hard as it is, it is the pathway through.

In a few weeks Victoria will reach 90% vaccination rate and there will be even less restrictions. This is a good thing for everyone. We need a nice summer and some return to normality to help ease the burden of the last two years. I’ve got plans to go to shows, concerts and the ballet before Christmas. I might even get to see colleagues and friends before the end of the year.

Melbournians have been through so much, and while the pandemic is still with us, we can safely move forward in 2022 with a little bit of hopefulness about the year ahead. This does not erase what we have been through or give back the two years of our lives that have been lost. Although maybe it makes us value all the things we will get to do and perhaps took for granted in pre-pandemic times just a little bit more.

So, to my hometown of Melbourne and to her resilient and community-minded residents, I say thank you, we did this because we care about each other and that IS something to celebrate. Oh, and I’ll see you soon. I’m going to dance, laugh and clap all the harder because of our time apart. I’m going to walk your streets, eat at restaurants, see a play and revel in the joy you bring me.

Go well friends, be safe, look out those around you. I’ll be praying for joyful things  in your lives and new starts for us all in 2022.

For mental health support contact Beyond Blue – https://www.beyondblue.org.au or Lifeline – https://www.lifeline.org.au

Lockdown in Melbourne ends at 11.59pm today – Thursday, 21 October 2021. We have had 262 days of lockdown since March 2020. A world record no one wants.

Tomorrow we will reach 70% vaccinated and around the end of October we will get to 80%. In the last few days 100,000 people have been vaccinated, which is brilliant. This should be the last lockdown of this pandemic. Fingers, toes and everything else crossed.

There’s still very high numbers of virus circulating in the community, which is scary. Opening up will be amazing but it does need to be done cautiously. This approach suits me, as it’s going to take some adjustment to remember what you do when you’re allowed outside your home for any reason you want.

After two years of  isolation and lockdowns, so many of my pandemic behaviours have become normalised. Working from home is the most obvious example – I can’t even imagine going to a physical workplace anymore but the sense that the world outside is a risk is not going to be easy to let go of either.

Besides catching the virus, I’m worried that I will have a very low tolerance for noise and crowds. I never exactly thrived in places with lots of noise (I was not a fan of nightclubs for this reason) and crowds were ok as long as I could get fresh air or see an escape route. Who knows now? Maybe all the noise and the people will send me into sensory overload or maybe when I am bumped into by someone I’ll cry because how amazing is it to be around people.

It’s been rough the few years – I’ve more or less been ok mental health wise, being a home body who likes their own company has helped.  But introversion has its limits – you can only spend so much time with your own thoughts before you need external stimulation of seeing new things and the energy you get from other people. And this has been sorely lacking in recent times.

We crave novelty, it stimulates our brain, helps us learn and makes us feel nice.  In the last two years there’s been little novelty – just working, staying home, worrying about case numbers, and whether we are all going to die. The lack of novelty lately has made me feel like I’m going a bit stir-crazy being cooped up at home, doing the same walks, not seeing new things. It’s not exactly boredom – more like stagnation, and its had physical impacts, as well as this overriding feeling of just not being able to do this anymore.

For this reason, despite my anxieties about re-entering the world, I need to start going back out there.  The outside world will be different now because we are all different now. Negotiating and finding my way in this new world will take some time. Working out what matters to me – what brings me joy, is both exciting and daunting.

The pandemic isn’t over but for now lockdowns are. And that right now is everything.

We are at the end of lockdown 4.0. Since the anxiety inducing 11 cases of two weeks ago, we have had zero cases for the last few days and no new exposure sites. This is good news even if they don’t all know the chains of transmission of how the Delta variant got out.

But the end of lockdown doesn’t mean the end of restrictions, which makes things hard. The arts have been particularly hard hit again because the restrictions mean theatres can only be partially filled. The Australian ballet June seasons I was so looking forward to have been postponed until later in the year and plans for concerts or other activities are on hold.

In Australia, the effectiveness of the virus suppression strategies means we became a bit complacent about getting tested and vaccinations. The latest outbreak in Melbourne was caused by someone who didn’t get tested and then spread it. That’s not to blame them, I had a cold recently and did not get tested either, but I should have.

Since the outbreak, it been great to see so many people getting tested and lining up for their vaccinations. A stat from one of the pressers the other day was that 1 in 5 40-49 year olds had gotten their first shot, that was within two or so weeks of it being opened up to that group. I’ve now booked in for my second shot.

Brett Sutton the Chief Health Officer for Victoria (who is definitely a doctor) said “there’s no doubt people are over this” and he’s right I think most of us are wearied down to our souls. Lockdowns are hard, the disruption is hard, the anxiety about cases numbers and exposure sites is hard, sickness and death, being bombarded by news and the would have, should have, could have are hard, and we are all so tired.

There are very few people who are thriving at the moment, most are just trying to get through and make sense of what has happened. It’s like we need to stop, take stock and find new ways of being now.

I think back to June last year after the first wave, after the whole of Australia had been in lockdown or 6 weeks and we were all so happy that it was over. It felt like we could just go on as before. But when case numbers started rising in Victoria and second lockdown loomed I got the distinct sense that nothing would be the same, there was no going back to life before.

A year later and the pandemic isn’t over, and a whole bunch of things have now been normalised, like working from home and remote teams. And for a lot of reasons it’s better with flexibility and proper work/life balance that businesses have been dancing around for years.

In my team, a few of us don’t see the necessity of going to the office, we are more productive and work is more enjoyable if we do it from home. And while the pandemic is still swirling around us and people have caring responsibilities it feels like they shouldn’t have too.

The arguments of about a workplace community and culture just don’t seem to cut it as reasons to go back, which is not a reflection on my colleagues because I really like them. Just that while it’s important, I think community has grown in a different way and being online has brought new opportunities, like collaborating with a wider range of people.

For me, the benefits of working from home have outweighed the bad – although it was a struggle to start. I can plan my workday and make time for things that matter to me – like going for a walk or taking a proper break at lunch time. I also have lots of thinking time to plan and make good decisions, which I believe makes me more effective.

There are lots of stories around at the moment about workers reluctance for going back to the workplace. And of course employers want people back. The flash point between workers and their desire for flexibility and organisations need for them to be back in an office is the most obvious example of the way the world has changed because of the pandemic.

We bandy the word apocalypse around a lot without understanding it’s real meaning. Apocalypse in Greek means a revelation of great knowledge. I think the pandemic was an apocalypse and it revealed (and perhaps continues to reveal) so much about how our lives were unsustainable.

One of the ways it did this was to reveal how miserable most of us were about how much time and energy going to a workplace took. My daily commute was usually over an hour each way and regularly more than that, by Friday I was exhausted but of course it was completely normal and part of having a job. Now it  just seems like a waste of time and an energy snapper that polluted the air and made you stressed.

The revelation I had and I think many others as well, is that work while important, a proper work life balance where there is time and energy for the things that matter is more important. Putting work into proper perspective and making it sustainable seems to now be at the forefront of people’s minds. Having the flexibility to make time for things that make life worth living is not just a want it’s a need. And one I hope we can hang onto.

This is the first post of my new pandemic life series. Despite everyone wanting “things to be back to normal” and seeing the world as post covid, we are still in the middle of a global pandemic – 3.5 million deaths, 168.9 million cases, yesterday across the world nearly 13,000 people lost their lives due to coronavirus (source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51235105).

Melbourne is having another outbreak – at the time of writing we are in another seven day lockdown. A man became infected in hotel quarantine in another state and then as is the case with this virus infected a whole bunch of other people who then did the same. There’s about 15,000 people in isolation and about a gazillion exposure sites. It’s grim.

My workplace has just been announced as a tier one exposure site. So far a whole bunch of my colleagues are potentially exposed and need to isolate, and that’s not counting the students, academics or people grabbing coffee that might also have been there. It must be so stressful waiting for test results, and I’m worried for them.

Let’s face it the systems are not up to scratch and that’s why we are back here. Hotel quarantine has seen multiple breaches and is really just not suitable for this sort of airborne infection. Quarantine is a federal government responsibility but they aren’t really good at taking responsibility, so 18 months into this pandemic, there still isn’t purpose built facilities.

On top of this, the federal government’s vaccine rollout has been a bloody mess (to be nice about it). There’s been no campaign to encourage people to get vaccinated, many front-line workers, nursing and disability care home residents have not even received their first dose. The government has claimed that everyone who wants a vaccine will have their first dose by October but at the current rate it will be 17 more months before we are all fully vaccinated.

The Prime Minister has repeatedly said that it wasn’t a race and so with no community transmission no one eligible saw the urgency in getting vaccinated. The Victorian state government, growing weary of the federal government incompetence, has opened up the vaccination in state run facilities for everyone over 40. Chaos has ensued. It’s amazing how the prospect of another endless lockdown means that suddenly everyone wants to get vaccinated.

Walk in clinics are reporting up to 4 hour wait times and there’s only a hotline to book, which is weird given it’s 2021 (why isn’t there an online form?) but also has meant phone lines have been jammed. I probably spent at least 5 hours trying to call and waited for about 40 minutes before I got to speak to someone.  But yay I’m booked for Sunday.

There’s a certain feeling you have in the pit of your stomach when you know they are going to announce a lockdown – it’s anxiety and then resignation and just wanting to hear how long and how severe it will be. We were having a team meeting at the same time as the presser, and so we listened together, a deeply uncomfortable experience when I was already emotional from news reports earlier in the day.

I pulled myself together after a few hours, and while concerned for colleagues, I’m even finding things to enjoy in this lockdown. I had marmalade toast for breakfast this morning and it made me way happier than you can possibly imagine. I’ve also been chatting to friends, reading books and planning my vaccination outfit – because why not.

But let’s not pretend that this is anything other than terrible or that we are anyway close to this being over…

 

 

 

Here we are again. Lockdown 3.0 – five days, masks everyone, four reasons to leave your home – which is fine because there’s no where to go anyway. I’m back to wondering what time Dan’s presser is, whether he’s in business casual or family hike wear, anxiously refreshing twitter to see when the DHHS daily number of infections have dropped.

If I thought this year was going to be less of a bin fire then 2021 has already proven that we are in for tough times. There was an insurrection on the US capitol and the former President has been impeached for a second time. Perth suffered massive bushfires. The number of deaths from Coronavirus is over two million, with the US death toll close to 500,000 people.

Coronavirus variants are wreaking havoc – the current lockdown is because the UK variant got out of the hotel quarantine program. This piece explains the worries with these variants and this one how much more contagious the new strain is, which is why we find ourselves in another snap lockdown. We are fortunate that we have vaccines that are effective when the virus seems to rapidly mutating.

Before Friday’s announcement, I’d been thinking that I need to make more of an effort to go out and do things. I mean I’m happy but there are worrying signs that I’ve spent way too much time alone – like writing bad poetry, so I probably need to get out of the house soon.

But the thing about this global pandemic – you have to pivot so swiftly from I had plans, too now I’m staying at home; wear a mask in all settings, you don’t need a mask now. It’s dizzying. Who wants to make plans when it’s all so uncertain? It feels like a monumental effort with the prospect of disappointment, so it’s easier to just stay home.

Of course you have to go with whatever is changing around you but processing takes a lot of energy and space. It’s been hard to find that because the rapid nature of the changes means there is always something else you need to respond to. It’s like you have 25 tabs open and someone is pinging you on messenger – so much stimulation.

In the beforetimes, activities outside my local area were something that required planning, I couldn’t just decide on the day. As a classic introvert social interactions, noise and lots of people can be exhausting – so I needed to prepare myself for that. Living an hour outside the CBD means there are practicalities of getting there and back to factor in, which adds to the emotional energy needed to go do the thing.

After a year of staying at home, I have lost my match fitness for going out – even locally. The energy needed to do things just isn’t there, so I’m being more picky than usual. It’s not that surprising; so much has changed, how you feel and what matters to you.

The upsetting thing about this new lockdown is that I was just starting to feel like things were maybe ok. Not the old normal, but the new one created by the pandemic. By normal I mean safe – that I’m not going to spend the entire time I’m outside my house stressing about if I’ve been exposed to a deadly virus. Clearly, this lockdown means that normal isn’t here yet.

Of course, I’ll get through the next five days, though I’m not going to pretend to be cheerful about it. But for all our sakes, I hope this is the last one.