I am writing this blog on the train coming home from a lovely quiet weekend in Harrogate with my husband. We have both been very busy lately and last weekend we had a family wedding to attend which was lovely but very tiring. It was also my husbands birthday this weekend and we often go away around this time of year before the Christmas busyness sets in. 

Over the last few weeks I haven’t been feeling that well. My anxiety and paranoia have steadily increased and become more and more disruptive and I have also experienced bouts of depression that aren’t constant (and are actually relatively quick) but when they suddenly occur they are terribly painful and often come with a wave of emotion that I struggle to control. 

As the train gets closer to London with the inevitable ‘back to a routine and normality’ that it brings, I am anxious, as I worry that whilst I had the same head with the same illness with me this weekend that it might seem all the more difficult at home. 

During dark times I often have the urge to ‘run away’. When I was younger I used to actually do that (probably causing untold stress to those that love me) but I was convinced that I could run from the depression and the anxiety that was building up inside me. It did though help a bit and even now when I get away on mostly pre-planned trips it does give me some breathing space and a chance to gather my thoughts before trying to fight this illness in the midst of work and ‘normal’ life. 

So as I return to work tomorrow I will do so after 48 hours of ‘getting away’. It hasn’t been always easy this weekend as reading and relaxing in general are pretty difficult in my current state of mind but I have been able to enjoy parts of the weekend and it is those things I need to hang on to through the despair of depression.