FINAL POST RE MY SUKKY PAST 6/7 YEARS ... PROMICE, REALLY IS MY FINAL INSTALLMENT

I seriously appreciate the posts of concern and compassion that have been expressed via your replies. Altho somewhat surprising (as they have not been predomently RLS related) your acceptance has been extremely gratifying.

So I shall continue on with this last installment.

I think I left off with my depression and the inability for me to leave my bed for 12 months.

There was however, a tad bit of information that I had neglected to inform you of (and altho not particularly paramount to the story, it is however worthy of mention and should've been divulged earlier). It was when I sold my house, I didn't have enough leftover cash to purchase another home back on the Sunshine Coast (where my home was before) so I 'gave' my daughter $50k, (as knowing full well that it would eventually be going to her anyway) and, because of her income, I was extremely confident in her ability to be successful in obtaining a housing loan. The prospect of me accomplishing this was 0%, what with my only income being that of a Total and Permanent Disability Pension (due, in fact, to my chronic RLS). And I would much prefer to help pay off my daughter's mortgage than that of a stranger's. She was successful in gaining said loan and I paid an extremely minimum rent.

So, now that that bit of rather important information has been divulged, I can continue on.

Back to my inability to overcome the overwhelming and confusing pain of not being able to understand and accept the consequence of not being able to leave the confines of my bed, and altho realising that it was indeed not a normal existence, it was extremely confusing and upsetting for me.

My daughter (who lives in Sydney ... a considerable distance away) picked up on my mood, via our phone conversations, and rocked up paying me a surprise visit. When she witnessed the situation under which I was living, well, to be quite honest, she was absolutely horrified.

Major depression was simply unacceptable, and I actually got the impression that cancer would have been received with more acceptance.

She immediately took control of the situation and had me committed to a dementia clinic. FYI ... I am not demented, I have/had depression. BIG BIG difference. So in less than 5 hours, I lost my home, my car, my constant companion of 8 years (my Joe ... my world, my pet cat) my bank account, my independence and my freedom.

As one could surely imagine, I was totally inconsoluble, filled with guilt and shame and for the next three weeks spent the worst existence of my life.

Please tell me people, I'd be extremely interested in knowing what you would do, if you should find yourselves in the situation that I was in? My phone was confiscated, no-one knew that I was there, the staff all hated me (as they knew that I was not demented) and altho I did try to escape, I was actually physically forced back to this hell-hole by security. I was literally Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

The 30 other 'inmates' wanted to love me as they too, were aware that I was not demented. So after my hideously inconsolable three weeks, I did the only thing that I could think of that would get me out of this hell .... I cut my wrist!! (And to my dismay, the bloody thing refused to bleed). But after much squeezing, eventually the blood surfaced and an ambulance was called and I was OUT. Even the paramedic was shocked and amazed by my incarceration.

At the hospital i was spoken to by this amazing young psychiatric doctor who listened intently with compassion, empathy and understanding, and stated that anyone of sane mind (let alone someone experiencing major depression) who had experienced any one of those intense loshe's (even without taking into account the immensely tight time frame) would be considered to be a person of an extremely strong constitution and be blessed with a determined personality. FYI ... for what it's worth ... I've been told, for many years, by many different people, the exact same thing. My response was always the same ... 'If I am so strong, then how come I don't feel it?

But, at that particular time, on that particular bed, withe that particular doctor, I felt it. I felt the strength. For the first time in my life ... I felt strong. And I 'thought' that I'd had an epiphany. I suddenly realised that I had survived probably the worst three weeks of my life, and I only had to get thru the next two months and I knew I had the strength to do it. And I did.

After the two months was up, my daughter arrived and took me to the Buderim private hospital where I was supposed to be weaned off Siffrol (supposidly the cause of all my problems. However, the doctor, who's care I was under, apparently knewes SFA about RLS and wasn't prepared to replace it with another med.

Sorry guys too tired to finish tonigh