Part 5 - The Early Years

"I Miss You" - Blink 182

I had a pretty easy start to life. My Mother didn’t go back to work until I entered school, and although my Father was often absent due to his R.A.F. career, my Mom did a pretty good job of bringing me up. My Grandparents were around a lot too, as previously mentioned, so I was a warm child, who always felt very loved. My Dad was the disciplinarian of my parents, and during his many work trips away, I would often play this to my own advantage, and was probably a little bit of a handful for my poor old Mom. But we did get along great when push came to shove, and I never felt like I missed out on anything.

The first event that I believe played a part in ‘developing’ my illness, occurred when I was approximately ten years old. My Mother seemed to be going deaf in her old age, despite only being just over thirty years of age. She went to visit her GP to try and rectify the problem, and was sent to a specialist for further tests. She had an acoustic neuroma (tumour). The size of a golf ball. It was interfering with her ear, and that was what was causing the deafness. I have spoken to her about this in more recent years, and it seemed that although her condition was rather serious, she never experienced a single head-ache or migraine. She went to the doctors for a hearing-aid, and walked away with the knowledge that she would have to endure major surgery. Luckily for her, this was to happen over one of the many Summer school holidays where I was staying with my Grandparents. She wouldn’t need to worry about my care whilst she went through this very difficult process. I visited her in hospital only once. It was deemed too upsetting for me at such an early age. She had half of her head shaved and filled with ugly metal staples, and, because the doctors had to touch some of the nerves in her face during the removal of her tumour, the whole right side of her face was completely immobile. She’d lost her hearing in her right ear forever, as they had to remove her ear-drum. She still can’t use cotton-buds to clean her ears now, for fear that without her inner ear, she’ll end up poking her brain. It took her a long time to recover from this procedure, and many years to gain anywhere near normal mobility in her face. We no longer have any photographs from this period in our lives, as she wants no reminders of what she went through. We laugh now, when she can’t whistle or drink through a straw, but at the time it was a massive upheaval for us all.

It hit my Dad amazingly hard. He’d already applied for voluntary redundancy from the Air Force, and due to the circumstances, they allowed him early release. I didn’t see much of him during this time, but have since discovered that this was the first event that really emotionally shook him. He adores my Mother, even though he sometimes finds it incredibly difficult to show it, and the thought of loosing her threw him to the edge.

This was compounded by the fact that during this time, one of his sisters (Aunty Number 2) experienced a mental breakdown and had to be sectioned. During her period of hospitalisation she finally admitted that she had been sexually abused for many years, during her childhood, by her Father. She had never spoke of this before, and only wanted to find some closure on the matter so she could find the strength to leave her first husband, who was extremely abusive. Although my Dad had not been close with this parents, and had very little contact with them, he was devastated. I’m not sure anyone really knows how to come to terms with something like that, especially when already under extreme pressure due to a spousal illness. My Father decided to cut all contact with his family from that moment on, and it lasted for well over ten years.

I say this was an event that influenced my life, but I wasn’t really around to see many of this, and, in the case of my Aunty, was too young to fully understand. But the crushing blow to my Dad was the beginning of his unravelling. An unravelling that I would majorly contribute to over the coming years.

Part 4 - The Medical View

"Missing" - Flyleaf

The following definition is taken from http://www.enotes.com/gale-psychology-encyclopedia/ ; an on-line encyclopaedia of psychological terms and illnesses:

Depression - An emotional state or mood characterised by one or more of these symptoms: sad mood, low energy, poor concentration, sleep or appetite changes, feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness, and thoughts of suicide.

Although a very basic definition, it is concise in it’s accuracy. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), the most used diagnostic tool in psychiatry, delves further into this condition, and breaks it down into a much more detailed synopsis. I wouldn’t like to recite them all, so I’m just going to focus on the specific type of depression that I suffer with.

I would like to stress at this point that there is, and always will be milestones of difference between stress, anxiety, mood disorders, and depression; although one of them may lead to further symptoms of one, or more of a variety of conditions relating to the others.

I do suffer severe anxiety, and stress, but this is largely a direct result of my illness: Clinical Depression.
I believe clinical depression to be different from other similar disorders, as clinical depression can be viewed as a medical illness.

The brain produces chemicals to influence your emotions, one of which is called serotonin. Serotonin is the chemical your brain releases when you are "happy". For example, most people enjoy chocolate. Chocolate has been scientifically proven to increase the production and release of serotonin in the brain, so therefore you feel really happy when you eat it. Simple biology really. The vast majority of the world’s human population have slightly fluctuating levels of serotonin production, so may feel a varying degree of happiness throughout their lives.

Clinical Depression is caused when the brain does not produce or release anywhere near a "normal" amount of this chemical, leading to the symptoms briefly described in the above definition. This is a medical disorder, and not just a "made-up" illness for those deemed less able than others in society‘s eyes, as some people would see it. I find this misconception irritatingly ignorant, and one I try to dissuade people from, whenever possible.

I believe this attitude towards the "none existent" condition of depression can be cured with awareness, knowledge, and education, about the illness. It can be hereditary, either through the passing down of this chemical deficiency (which cannot be proven), or the environment of your up-bringing being altered by a parents/guardians experiences with the illness. This is something that I will have to live with, to a varying degree, for the rest of my life, and the constant up-hill struggle to validate this disorder to uneducated people, is never going to help sufferers of the illness. And there are millions. 

Part 3 - Roots

"Perfect" - Simple Plan

So I guess I should fill you in on a bit of my background and history. Although this may take a while; bear with me. It’s a, hopefully, worthwhile story (and maybe even a little bit of an interesting read), that will help you to understand more about me.

My parents both come from pretty conservative catholic families. I’m actually one of the few rare "Protestants" in the family. They met when they were both 16 years old, and still at school, and were married by the age of 19, only a short year after my Father had entered the Royal Air Force. He comes from a long line of service-men, and took that to be his only available career opportunity. My Mother fell pregnant with me shortly before her 21st Birthday, and in 1986, I came into the world.

My Mother came from a very stable family, with one younger, and one older brother. From what she tells me, she had a pretty normal upbringing, although religion did play a bigger part in her life than it has ever played in mine. Through her closeness with her family, I have developed an amazing relationship with my Grandparents. I love them both dearly, and am grateful for the hand that they had in my up-bringing, particularly during those long school holidays when my Mom had to work, so I was sent packing to stay with my Grandparents about 100 miles away.

My Father, however, came from a much less balanced environment. He is the youngest of four children, having three older sisters; the oldest of which is almost 20 years his senior. He had a slightly over strict and barren upbringing, with a fractured, and often turbulent, relationship with his parents. He eventually left home at 14 years of age, and went to live with his oldest sister (Aunty Number 1), who herself was then married with her first child on the way. I never really knew my Father’s parents growing up, except as people my Dad wanted as little contact with as possible, and have never really thought of them as my Grandparents. Although, little did I know, how big a part they would play in my life in more recent years.

I got "The Gene" from my Father. He was only officially diagnosed a short time after I was, but through his unsettled beginnings in life, and rather troubled outlook, it is obvious that he has suffered with this condition for an unbelievable amount of years. He claims that depression has little bearing on his life now-a-days, but, largely due to my own self-awareness, I can still see it, lurking over his shoulder a few too many times. He’s had a mostly rocky marriage to my Mother, although it is often easily observed how much they genuinely care for each other. I can’t say he’s been the best of Fathers, but what counts is that he’s strived to be the best possible parent that he can be.

I believe that clinical depression can be hereditary, but, that the environment, your up-bringing, and life events, can decide whether or not you will actually suffer the symptoms of the disorder. This is only my opinion, but one that I feel is an educated opinion, and something I will share and explain more in the next part of my Blog.

Part 2 - Blog Rules

So I figure I should lay out some basic rules for my Blog, which might help in the reading process.

Rule 1. I intend to be brutally honest with this Blog. Everything said here is 100% true, otherwise that would defeat the objective of my Blog. People can’t relate to a story that isn’t true. However, there may be some incidents in my life that I will not go into in an extraordinary amount of detail on. These are events that I have found incredibly painful in my life, so although I will mention, and briefly explain their effects, I may hold back very slightly on step by step reconstruction of events. There is one incident in particular that I am referring to, but I will get to that later. Whenever I am finding the writing process too emotionally difficult, and therefore have to skirt around some the intricate details, I will explain this in the relevant Blog entry.

Rule 2. I think it might be interesting (and a little fun) to at the start of the Blog entry, include a song that I am either listening to at the time of writing, find particularly appropriate for the subject of that Blog, or find myself listening to a lot at that point in time. I may even quote a line of two of lyrics to indicate my point. I’ll start this with the next Blog entry.
I have found music a constant source of relief, support, and at times, very therapeutic, in my journey with depression, and hopefully, people reading this may enjoy my musical selections.

Rule 3. My name is my real name. Emma’s name is her real name. Those are the only real names I will use in the Blog. I do Blog under a pseudonym of Fallen Angel, but the reasons behind this will be explained in future entries. Although this is not going to be truly anonymous, there are some people in my life, who may not want their part in my story to be related back to them. So whenever a person will crop up, I will either use a pretty basic system to hide their names (for example, Mom, Dad, Aunty Number 1), or will use a pseudonym, and highlight this with an asterisks (*), the first time I use the name.

Rule 4. I am not a Doctor, Psychiatrist, Psychologist, Counsellor, or a Therapist. The events, experiences, and incidents related in this Blog, are only my own. I may express opinions concerning my, and other, mental illnesses, but they are only my opinions. I do hope these to be educated opinions (I have read a mountain full of literature on all elements of psychology), but all mental illness experiences and symptoms differ from person to person. I can offer advice, but this cannot be take as the "gospel truth", and should anyone suffering with symptoms they perceive to be related to depression, my first piece of advice would always be to seek medical advice from your GP or a local counselling service. I hope people with depression may be able to see solidarity in my Blog, and hopefully find some comfort in knowing they are not alone in their suffering, but this is only my personal journey and relationship with depression, and cannot be used as a manual on how to survive, manage, or express, depression.

Rule 5. I will include a sort of glossary with the Blog, to explain basic terms that I have used in the Blog that people new to this experience may not understand. I will update this at regular intervals as I take the Blog forward. These definitions/explanations will either be taken from a website, stated at the beginning of the definition, or will be a basic descriptive statement, based on my own knowledge.

Rule 6. I never mean to cause offence to anyone in anything that I write here, or any opinions that I express. If I do accidentally caused offence, I apologise, and hope that people will not think too badly of me for this.
I am very emotive in regards to my illness, and sometimes this may come across as slightly irritating, but I do not mean to be perceived that way. I am only trying to be as open an honest as I can be, in my writing, to make the reading (hopefully) more enjoyable.

Rule 7. It’s not all bad. I’m relatively accepting of this part of my life, and it’s not everything about me, or all of who I am. Future Blog entries may have nothing to do with my on-going battle with depression, because, in general, a lot of the time, it’s only a very tiny part of my day. But when I do feel it has loomed over my life, I’ll try to bring this to the Blog as open and honestly as I can.

Rule 8. Due to length of my journey to date with depression I wrote everything up to Part 24, before beginning to post the entries. This was to insure that I was confident I have included all that I could in the entries, and get me a good start on the whole Blogging issue. Everything from Part 25 onwards was written at the time of occurrence, and posted as soon as possible. To start with, until all parts of the introduction Blogging are uploaded, I will update every three to four days, but once the day to day entries start to kick in, this may slow down somewhat. Please feel free to follow me on Twitter (AmyFallenAngel) as I will Tweet every time a new entry of the Blog is uploaded.

The only thing left to do is to name my Blog. Myself and Emma put great thought into this, and threw around quite a few names, before it just came to me one day. A moment of true revelation. So thank you for reading, and welcome to my Blog: "Monster In Me".
And to celebrate, please enjoy this entry’s song : "Letting Go Of The Monster" by Amy Can Flyy.

Part 1 - Inspiration

Hi. I’m Amy.

My friend (B.F.F.), Emma has a Blog, and she suggested that I start one.

Let me tell you a bit about her. We met about 3 years ago when she started working in the office where I work. She was quite quiet to begin with, and there was a couple of years age difference between us. We didn’t work too closely together, so I didn’t really get to know her until the middle of last year.
Another of our work colleagues set up a Birthday surprise for Emma, last June. Her other friends weren’t celebrating, so we decided to show her a fun time, and a large party of us surprised her with a big Birthday bash at the local Indian restaurant. I think that was the beginning of our friendship. That night I got to know this really awesome person, with an amazing sense of humour. Being able to laugh with someone is a joy for me, so after that event, I gravitated more towards Emma, and found myself enjoying her company more and more.

Over the next couple of months, due to some impromptu Saturday overtime, and other events, we got to know each other a lot more and discovered we had a lot more in common than we had at first thought.
I hope she would agree, that now we have had some serious bonding incidents, and about a million laughs, we’ve found a good friend in each other, and hopefully a life-long friendship.

Emma was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes a few months after her twentieth Birthday. It’s not as bad as it could be, but I wish to hell that I could get her a working pancreas on the black market! She has a good sense of humour (at appropriate times) about her disorder, and has been an angel when it comes to my over-curiousness about medical issues. She’s taken the time to explain to me the symptoms and issues connected with being a diabetic, and I would like to think that she knows she doesn’t have to carry the responsibility of being diabetic, alone, particularly when she’s in my company.

Although, she deals (from my point of view, at any rate) absolutely amazingly with her D (as we call it), she still finds a certain amount of therapy in Blogging about her disorder. She’s gleamed a lot of help from certain internet forums (thank you, for the support you provide her; you know who you are), and gained advice from people who themselves have to deal with diabetes on a day to day basis. She’s found this support invaluable, and is now putting her own experiences in the ring in an effort to increase awareness, and help provide support to other people in her situation.

And she’s now encouraging me to do the same. I’m not diabetic, and will never claim to begin or understand everything that she has had to go through in the last couple of years, but I hope that I can continue to provide her support in any way possible, whenever she may need me. She is an inspiration to us all, and the reason that I have made the decision to begin a Blog myself.

I was officially diagnosed with clinical depression when I was 16 years old.

However, I’ve been in and out of therapy since I was 13, and began self harming when I was 14.

I’m now 25 years old (some might say a proper grown up) and have a very different perspective of the world than I did when I was first diagnosed. I’m know that I’m high functioning (can still maintain a certain level of "normalcy", where my condition doesn’t affect too much of my life) with my condition, and am extremely self-aware when it comes to how my illness can play a role in my life, but it is still with me every day. I hope that in starting a Blog, I can come to terms with being mentally ill, and hopefully maybe help others going through what I went through, or suffering with depression themselves.