Previously I spoke about some of the more debilitating aspects of my illness, aspects which have had a serious impact on me and my family. Today, I will talk about some of the other, less severe aspects. I say "less severe" because they have less of a direct impact on my life and my family's lives, but that is not to say they are not difficult to live with, nor have few or no consequences. They of course affect me throughout my daily life, and can range from mild embarrassment, to irritability, to major upset for me and my family.
I briefly touched upon my nervous ticks; these vary from blinking or squinting to twitchiness to sometimes a severe nodding of my head. It is an obsessive action; at times I have very limited control over it, and find myself, often doing so in public. I have not yet been diagnosed with Tourette syndrome – I do not have any impulse to emit sounds or words when I do this – however there are non-verbal forms of Tourettes, however for reasons unknown I have never been tested for it. Perhaps because I tend not to show signs of it in doctors’ offices, or because there is little in the way of treatment available. Aside from mild embarrassment at times (which honestly I’m now over), it causes me little harm.
Anxiety, on the other hand, is something that does tend to cause me harm. Mainly in the form of emotional stress. Anxiety is a natural reaction to situations caused by hardship, worry or emotional turmoil, and obviously it affects me under these circumstances, as much as anyone else; sometimes I’m fine, sometimes I’m not. My problem is it can also spring upon me for no reason whatsoever. It is directly linked to my depression, of that I’m certain; it usually shows up before, during and even after my bouts of depression, and the helplessness I feel when I am at my lowest is exacerbated by this anxiety. For instance, one of my techniques for taking myself out of depression is positive thought – thinking about the great things in my life, and how little, ultimately, I have to worry about – but this can easily be offset by the thought “but what if this happens; what if that happens?” I tend to keep my anxiety to myself, but my wife can usually tell when I’m badly suffering.
The insomnia is something I rarely suffer from anymore; having a small child will do that to you. I do still have mornings where I find it difficult to rise (and no, not just on mornings after a night on the tiles, ha ha), and I have days where I feel listless and hardly able to generate the will to peel myself from the couch. Again, depression plays a large part in this. “What’s the point?” I often wonder, but if I push past this, and try to enjoy the day, I usually do.
So that’s it, that’s all I got; that and the depression. But I genuinely do have many, many good days, where it all feels worth it, and I go to bed at night feeling I’ve achieved something positive, and I look forward to waking up in the morning. At one point in my life, that feeling was rare, but it’s happening more and more these days, and for that I am very thankful. Just as I am to you for reading this.
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