Tortured Artiste | Mark-McQueen.co.uk

Depression is bad. Anxiety is worse.

I’ve had to try and explain what’s wrong with me, why I’m off work, to a lot of people lately, both face to face and over the Internet. It’s been arduous just trying to convey why, while I have no physical ailment (my arthritis aside), I am nowhere near fit to work. It’s quite awful when I explain I have stress, depression and anxiety and feel it very difficult to function on a normal level but people just pick up on the depression bit.

“So what if you’re a bit unhappy? Surely you can still get on and go back to work by now?”

Believe me, and I reckon you won’t unless you’ve suffered this as well, if it were that simple I’d have been back at work two months ago. I’d have been off for say, two weeks to get all my shit in order then I’d have got back in the swing of things. That’s simply because I’ve been suffering depression for nearly a year and before March I’d been dealing with it not too badly.

Depression is part of the battle, but anxiety is a different kettle of fish and then some. Getting me out of bed in the morning amounts to an epic task just now. Getting the motivation to do anything (I’m meaning doing the housework to going out to even putting a pencil to some paper) is mentally draining. Touching back on going out, I normally have to build myself up to step over the threshold, normally turning back 5 or 6 times before finally either stepping out or giving up. It’s even affecting my speech, regardless if I’m talking to a complete stranger or a close member of my family - I’m finding it hard to hold an intelligible conversation with anyone.

I wish it were as simple as ‘get some rest, take some pills and you’ll be fine’. I really, really do (and so does my bank balance, it’s not been this empty since my time and university). But people seem to be experts on depression while disregarding the other, more serious and debilitating problems (again, not meaning the arthritis). To an extent, it exacerbates the problems as you wonder if it’s all something stupid as everyone else is dismissing it.

Take it from me - it’s not something stupid. I’ve went from and outgoing and outspoken person to one who’d rather crawl into a hole and not come out. Think it’s stupid now?