I have been on anti depressants for 7 weeks now, just over the 6 week settle period, I feel like they are helping me, but only a little. They have helped me cope better with some very tough situations, my Granddad has been drinking alcohol a lot lately and he ended up drunk on Monday and fell backwards down the stairs, he tore his hand into two and hit the back of his head, he was in hospital that night, he's now back at home but fell again yesterday after feeling dizzy. He seems better lately but he suffers from bipolar disorder and has been chronically depressed for the past year, he believes everything is his fault and he's using alcohol to help his depression, although that only came out when he was in hospital. My granddad is the leading male role model in our family, so it has hit all of us very hard to see him finally crumble like this after 70+ years. We are all giving him lots of support but he's the strong silent type that doesn't like to ask for help, he waits until he literally cannot cope any longer, and I'm very worried he may try and kill himself at some point in the future, I can't even bear to imagine how much that is going to destroy myself and my family.
There is also a situation with money at the moment, we can barely afford to live so I've had to give all of my ESA pay to help my Mum out. I would always pay the internet bill and pay for my pets anyway, but now I have to pay extra bills, which means I cannot save aside money to take my driving lessons and get my own car, which is what I've been wanting for a very long time. Suffering from severe anxiety, driving and simply being in a car causes great anxiety for me as I always think we're going to crash or something bad will happen, so taking my lessons is a huge thing for me, and with some help from anti depressants and finally feeling like I should be doing something and getting a job at 20 years old, driving lessons was the first and biggest step to me leading a normal life, but now I can't do that, I'm quite sad and back to square one, sitting in my room, playing xbox, and doing nothing other than that for another year.
My last and biggest problem, is I had to finish with my boyfriend 2 weeks ago now. He lives in Poland and I am in the UK, so it was already a bit of a stupid idea to get with him since we're not in the same country. He did however put in a lot of effort and money and he flew over here to see me 3 times in the space of 4 months, which I am grateful for, it's better than nothing. But the problem was that he was very possessive and controlling, I was not allowed friends or a life, I was only allowed him, and if I wanted to do anything alone or talk to somebody else without him, I would get the silent treatment, he would sulk, or he would throw a tantrum and embarrass me infront of my friends and family. I put up with it for 5 months until I threw in the towel 2 weeks ago, I have been very depressed since then, as I really felt like I loved him, he was always there for me and we had similar problems with mental illness and we were both lonely and wanted to be together. He would've been perfect for me, had he not been so restricting and controlling. I made a deal with him that we would try and be best friends, like we were when we got together, but that only lasted 1 week, he quickly went back to accusing me of cheating on him and telling me I'm a whore basically, when I've been 100% loyal and truthful the entire relationship, I also couldn't deal with him not trusting me at all. So I told him that it won't work as us being friends, so we are now strangers. I've blocked him everywhere I can think of, as he has a habit of stalking me and constantly harassing and messaging me, especially when we fall out, and I don't want him to try guilt tripping me in to running back to him this time, so I had to block him and try to forget about him, but it's hard, you know? =( I just miss him a lot and I really want to talk to him and hear his voice, but I decided to cut him out for a reason and I need to stop running back to him and actually teach him a lesson this time, that he can't keep going back to his old ways and making me feel like a waste of space all the time.
Life is just hard at the moment. I'm at the doctors this morning to ask if my dose of antidepressants can be upped, as 50mg of sertraline doesn't seem to be doing a lot for me, I want to try a higher dose before switching to a new medication.
Thank you for reading, I hope you're having a better week than I'm having right now... Please feel free to reply to this post with how your week has been, good or bad experiences, I'm here to talk. =)