Explanations.

When you have to tell the world something, but you're not sure how. Man, this is hard.
With such a taboo subject as depression, it can be difficult to know how to put it in to words to tell everyone how you feel. How do you tell your friends, your parents, your boyfriend, your teachers, the people who bear the brunt of your frustration and bitchiness, the people who think that you're actually a happy, bubbly, fairly confident person? Outward appearances and the effort of keeping them up can take it's toll, and eventually the mind underneath crumbles and starts to crack, and the negative energy kept inside starts to seep and lash out.

Recently I've noticed, and I'm sure my friends have too, an increase in negative energy coming from within my own mind. And I've finally decided to acknowledge the ugly creature that is trying to prise open the cracks and burst out of it's shell, in the hope that doing so will tame it and make it calmer and happier.

Over the years, I have attempted to put my feelings down into writing a lot. I have made numerous anonymous blogs, I have started writing diaries that didn't get filled, I have written on random bits of paper. All in an effort to stop the shell that is my mind caving in on myself. It has always temporarily worked, and I have now realised the problem. So this will be different - I'm going to start to publicise it. So hi guys :)

I go through long phases where I don't DO anything. I will sit in a dark room, often in bed, and I will literally do nothing. The most I can do tends to be to put something on on my laptop, usually something I've already watched, and just listen to it.

I lose track of days - chances are if you haven't seen me, I may not remember what I have done on those days, because in reality, I haven't done anything.

I have intermittently suffered from insomnia, and also hypersomnia for the past three years or so. Hypersomnia is where you over-sleep - not through laziness or anything, there have been points where no amount of alarms or anything would wake me up and I'd sleep for 15 hours a day.

I keep myself over-busy on purpose - so I do NUTS, I do Latin & Ballroom both in Newcastle and Durham, I work at the tennis club and a salsa club, I make as many commitments to going to the pub, QBs, out for coffee as I can. I try and avoid going home as much as possible once I'm out of the house because then I have a better chance of finding something to do. I think I give off the impression I really hate my housemates - I actually get on really well with them, I avoid home for other reasons.

As soon as these activities slow down, I find myself at a loss. I also find it easier to do work when I have all of these things going on - so when it all slows down, if I then have to work up the motivation to do an essay or revise, I find it extremely difficult to do so. I'd rather do the 70-hours awake in the library right before rehearsals start then wait until plays are over and then do one, because I have no motivation left for the latter.

Therefore I find keeping up with university difficult too. Not because I do too much extra, but because when that extra stuff stops, I have no get up and go.

Luckily it's not all doom and gloom. Having people to see and talk to makes everything better. It makes me forget about the fact that I often comfort eat to deal with the above, even when that impulse ends up costing me money I don't have. Socialising takes up more money than it should in my life, but when I joke about the things that keep me "sane", it's not usually a joke - they genuinely are keeping me sane.

So bear with me, while I try and make sense of my life, finally go to a doctor, and basically sort my shit out. This isn't really the best explanation, but it's the best I can do right now. Oh, and thanks for being all awesome and shit. Turns out I'm the biggest Shnev of the lot :)