Depression

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I was not going to publish this post, this was supposed to be something just for me, but I think, since this blog is a my digital diary, I will publish it.

I think I am suffering from depression. This is not my imagination, but something that’s been bothering me for a while now – in fact from the beginning of this year. On hindsight, this was one of the biggest reasons I left my previous jobs, thinking a change of place and pace would ease all that was happening inside me. Web MD defines depression as “Depression is a serious and pervasive mood disorder. It causes feelings of sadness, hopelessness, helplessness, and worthlessness. Depression can be mild to moderate with symptoms of apathy, little appetite, difficulty sleeping, low self-esteem, and low-grade fatigue. Or it can be more severe.”

Depression is apparently more common in women than in men and twice as many women are likely to develop clinical depression as compared to me. Some of the symptoms of depression are:

  • persistent sad, anxious, or “empty” mood
  • loss of interest or pleasure in activities, including sex
  • restlessness, irritability, or excessive crying
  • feelings of guilt, worthlessness, helplessness, hopelessness, pessimism
  • sleeping too much or too little, early-morning awakening
  • appetite and/or weight loss or overeating and weight gain
  • decreased energy, fatigue, feeling “slowed down”
  • thoughts of death or suicide, or suicide attempts
  • difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions
  • persistent physical symptoms that do not respond to treatment, such as headaches, digestive disorders, and chronic pain

Image from Wikipedia

I’ve mentioned before just how toxic the environment was in my previous place and I think that environment was the cause for all this. The way I was treated in my previous work place is the underlying cause for this. I have now decided that after they give me the one thing I still haven’t gotten from them – my testimonial – I will cut all contact with the organisation and the people there. Unfortunately quite a bit of my coworkers are my friends on Facebook and now I have to decide how to get rid of them from my life without seeming to get rid of them. Any ideas?

The symptoms that I’ve been experiencing look like this – No interest in anything any more, especially the things I used to enjoy doing; Sleep patterns all over the place. Most of the time, I just want to sleep – even if I have just gotten off bed less than a couple of hours back. Then some days I just can’t sleep at night even if I am yawning away to kingdom come!; No energy to do anything and a feeling of tiredness all the time

I just took this test at the Health Promotion Board website and my test results reads “Your responses suggest that you have some depressive symptoms. You may feel down from time to time but these symptoms are unlikely to impair your daily function. It might be wise to reassess your symptoms in a few weeks.”

I told S about this yesterday and he wants me to see a doctor this week. I’m not sure if I want to, but in this case, I guess I may just have to give in.

I initially wrote this post yesterday and didn’t want to publish it. But looking back, the very act of putting my feelings down on paper has put me on the path to healing! I’ll go and see a doctor today but I know in my gut, I will get better soon

Yearning for school – Part 1

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When I wrote about my school going life earlier this week, it made me nostalgic about my school. So this post is dedicated to my alma mater – J.B. Vachha High School. JBV is it was (and is still) called is the short form for the loong formal name of the school. The name which used to be printed on all our school note books for the 12 years that I spent there reads like this – J.B. Vachha High School for Parsi Girls & The Cawasji Jehangir Primary and Infant School. I can’t find the school website so there’s no link to the school, although I did remember checking it out a few years back!

The school badge

I studied in the same school right from Junior KG (or Kindergarten 1) till I completed my Secondary School Certificate or SSC exams. Most of the teachers who taught me, saw me grow from a naughty 4 year old to a mature 15 year old young lady. The school was a purely girls school and except for our Games master and Indian music teachers, all the teachers were also female. While I was growing up, this was the most popular school for girls around the area I lived in (this would mean the Dadar, Wadala, Matunga, Sion areas, but we did get students from other places like Chembur, Parel also). I also remember seeing huge queues of people waiting to get the admission forms for their daughters and this was at a time when school admission was not as difficult as it is today. My mother used to see the queues and say that they didn’t really have to queue up so much – they just went to the school in the morning, got the form and I was called for an interview, which I did well and just like that I was in! In fact my grand parents were against my joining JBV as they wanted me to go to the same school as my dad – this school was literally a hop, skip and jump away from home and more inportantly for them, was a south Indian school and hence to their eyes, had all the right values and attributes. But I am so glad that my parents, and especially my mom stood her ground and put me and later my sis in this school.

What we called the 'New Building'.

Those days, when it was just education all the time, this was one of the very few schools which had a big emphasis on extra curricular activities. From the time we were in third standard till we graduated these were the extra activities we did – embroidery, needlework, library, Indian music/Western music/Dancing (you had to choose one), cookery, gardening, laundry, girl guides/social service. We also did typing and economics as special subjects in the IX and X grades. We also had one period of drill or PE every week and from the VII grade till the X grade, we had to stay back after school once a week for around 90 minutes of games.

Since this is proving to be a loong post, I’ll stop here for Part 1 and do Part 2 another time.

In My Hands Today…..

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Nice Girls Don’t Have Fangs – Molly Harper

Maybe it was the Shenanigans gift certificate that put her over the edge. When children’s librarian and self-professed nice girl Jane Jameson is fired by her beastly boss and handed twenty-five dollars in potato skins instead of a severance cheque, she goes on a bender that’s sure to become Half Moon Hollow legend. On her way home, she’s mistaken for a deer, shot, and left for dead. And thanks to the mysterious stranger she met while chugging neon-coloured cocktails, she wakes up with a decidedly unladylike thirst for blood. Jane is now the latest recipient of a gift basket from the Newly Undead Welcoming Committee, and her life-after-lifestyle is taking some getting used to. Her recently deceased aunt is now her ghostly room-mate. She has to fake breathing and endure daylight hours to avoid coming out of the coffin to her family. She’s forced to forego her favourite down-home Southern cooking for bags of O negative. Her relationship with her sexy, mercurial vampire sire keeps running hot and cold. And if all that wasn’t enough, it looks like someone in Half Moon Hollow is trying to frame her for a series of vampire murders. What’s a nice undead girl to do?