I spent several hours yesterday having a bone imaging test done. Over the past 5 or 6 weeks I’ve been experiencing a terrible amount of muscle/joint pain throughout my entire body and it has been getting increasingly worse to the point where I decided (or was encouraged) last week to finally make an appointment to see my GP; something that I avoid doing at all costs as I find it very difficult to even just pick up the phone to make the call. Sadly, my depression and anxiety are constantly chattering back and forth in my head telling me that I am bothering her and making me feel guilty for bothering her which in all honesty I know is the furthest thing from the truth and that my doctor has been nothing but one of my greatest support systems since day one but it just gets too damn exhausting trying to argue with a warped sense of yourself all the time.
When you picture a person struggling with depression many individual’s first thoughts that may come to mind are that of someone who is sad, someone who isolates themselves or someone who sleeps a lot or not at all. What many individuals may not realize is how much depression also affects someone physically.
Throughout my journey I have been affected by my fair share of physical challenges, many of which have caused a limited ability to do everyday tasks and have also included countless visits to doctors and specialists, much of which were due to many of the medications I was taking and although I have recently started a new medication (see blog: Should I Or Shouldn’t I; Oct 30, 2019) these symptoms began several weeks earlier. However I have now been on my new medication for just over 2 weeks and the physical side effects have sometimes made it difficult to know what may be from the meds or not as the pain has become so unbearable some days and my new psychiatrist has decided to wait a few more weeks to increase my dose.
My depression and anxiety have become quite heightened over the last 6 weeks which I have mentioned, along with many (or most) of my senses have also become super heightened too (especially sounds and smells) and lets not forget to add in a spoonful of sudden hormonal changes as well and now the task at hand is to figure out if there is any correlation between them all.
Physical symptoms are very common in major depression and major depression can most definitely cause physical distress and long term physiological distress as well but for now my doctor is taking all the necessary precautions in order to rule out other causes of my pain first, something that any great support system would do!
Who are your greatest support systems?
#depression #anxiety #mentalillness #mentalhealth #mentalwellness #youareenough #youarenotalone #endthestigmatogether
YouAreEnough 