In Sickness

I'm very sorry to say that there won't be a 'proper' post this evening. I have been struggling for the past few weeks with withdrawal symptoms from a drug I've been slowly getting off. I seem to get knocked with the brunt of most possible side effects with anything I take! I've been struggling with little or no sleep for a few weeks now and side effects which combined resemble the flu and migraines. But I managed to rally through to get a post up to avoid disappointment, to avoid disappointing myself if no-one else. I do write my posts in advance but I always like to come up with some form of face art to bring the concept of each post together. And I can't bring myself to post something thats incomplete. In a way this is a good reminder that there is a person behind this blog that is still incredibly unwell. Sometimes it can seem like I am merely recapping my experiences of depression rather than showing that I am still going through this in a big way. I am nowhere near 'in the clear' yet, I doubt that I will live a life completely free of depression, it's an illness which is likely to pop up again throughout life once someone has experienced it initially. I'm OK with knowing that, when the bad periods come around it will be a reminder to cherish the good moments in life and I will truly know that life out of the shadows is and can be so much better than it is right now.

Jar of Hearts: "You're Gonna Catch a Cold From the Ice Inside Your Soul"

 Queen of Hearts? The blog title is a direct reference to the Ice Queen whom I'll be referring to in this post. 

So this is a story all about how my life got twist turned upside down, and I'd like to take a minute to just sit right here and tell you all about how I became the...well, not the prince of a town called Belair.   Damn. Not my original writing unfortunately! That just seemed like the perfect way to ease into this blog post. My life definitely got turned upside down, and most days I'm still hanging from the earth like a bat. I've written a fair bit about how it feels to be depressed, but I haven't written about when I first started experiencing symptoms of depression and what caused them.

Changes

No face art today, the inspiration was there but my hands and head wouldn't cooperate. So here's a cheery face instead.

When I am especially unhappy in myself I seek to change physical things. In the past year my hair has been a variety of colours, I've been tattooed and pierced. Most of these changes I have embraced and haven't regretted. I will certainly never regret my tattoos, both of which happen to be floral and could mistakenly be seen as being 'girly', which isn't an issue but a girly tattoo wasn't the outcome I was looking for.

Let It Go

Frozen face art in keeping with the blog post title. 

The past six years of my life have been incredibly testing, I have grown a lot as a person and have certainly become more knowledgable. However, I have also become a recluse, an introvert. Since my primary school days of being incredibly shy and reluctant to volunteer, being labelled as "mousey" for being so quiet, I have developed a severe social anxiety disorder. I struggle amongst large groups and also amongst small groups, even when those include family members and close friends. It is an incredibly tiring life, constantly worrying about what people think of me, fidgeting during uncomfortable social situations, and how my throat starts to close up at the thought of having to say something. Its like living life being allergic to the world around you. It can be a situation, a particular place or an uncomfortable conversation that triggers the sensation of being at the top of a roller coaster and waiting for your stomach to fall. But it doesn't. That sensation stays in my stomach and rises to my throat leaving me feeling even more uncomfortable and unable to speak.