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Levelling down

I've been depressed and anxious for a lot of my life. I guess it first started in my late teens...and now I'm' 40 and supposedly used to it. It's a horrible illness to suffer from...but over my life, I've found ways to get through it. With depression, that's the best you can do, really - sit tight and ride it out. Wait, pray and keep still until it passes.

I have 2 instances where depression nearly killed me.

"The great sadness" of 2009 where the sadness was so great - so tactile and so real, it literally knocked me onto my knees every single day. I remember when I came out of it - it took months - I promised myself I could never go back to that. Ever again. I knew if I ever did, it would definitely kill me.

Praise God, I never did.

I had another really bad instance last June/July where depression got it's hands around my throat. It was overwhelming but it didn't beat me. It got close a few times...but praise God, I survived. I think it was mostly due to Alun and my friends who surrounded me and loved me through it.

Now it's back, but this time it's different.

It's not heavy. It's not tactile - I can't feel it on my chest the way I have done in the past. It's not controlling - it's not black and scary and powerful the way it always has been. This time, it's more of a dull ache. A constant whisper of "you can't do it" in the back of my head. It's a little voice of doubt and fear, thumping away as steadily as my own heart beat.

This is an unexpected enemy. A gentle attack. Like being beaten to death with a white feather.

And I'm not sure what to do with this one. It's a shadow behind me - not the usual big monster in front of me.

I'm scared.

I don't know how to cope with something so foreign to me.

Logic screams in my head all day long "There is nothing to be afraid of. You've got a wonderful husband, the world's best friends, you're in a new home which you love and you're in a happy job where you have good mates to hang out with and you love your new role"

If anything - I should be CELEBRATING life. My hard work got recognised at work and instead of letting me go - as we all originally agreed to - they want to keep me on and teach me more.

That's a reason for fist pumping, right?

But I'm scared.

I'm scared of change. I'm scared to fail. I'm scared to let everyone down. I'm scared I'm not the badass person you all think I am...the badass girl I think I am.

So deep down in my heart, I want to destroy it all. Burn down every good thing so that when I lose it, it will be of my own doing.

I want to leave Alun before I fall more in love with the man he is. I love him a little more every day and that is scary as f**k. Every day, I marvel at how generous he is. How kind. How talented, smart, sweet and so funny. I look at his face and oh my heart - my heart could just burst because I love him so much.

So I'm convinced need to run from this. I need to leave him before he leaves me because this man - I would never get over.

I need to not go to work so they fire me. Because in my mind, that's better than taking on the Facilities manager role they want to assign me and failing it. I want to quit before they all figure out I only know how to clean the kitchen and not how to run a building.

And this is not who I am!

Yeah, I get nervous. I worry. I don't want to let people down.

But I'm not a quitter and I'm not a runner. 

I at least try things.

So why do I desperately want to destroy all that is good in my life?

What kind of depression is this? That I want to make my own hell and live in it?

This makes no sense to me.

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