A Bookmark For Depression

A Bookmark for Depression

At the time of writing this, I’m one two three weeks deep into a depressive episode- one of my longest and deepest yet, and I’m struggling to make sense of the world and of myself. 

I started to write these diary-like entries a week ago as a bookmark for my depression, and also to try and maintain some semblance of purpose for myself. Writing has always been therapeutic for me but especially in difficult times I find myself pouring my inner thoughts out onto the page as a way to handle uncomfortable feelings and to better understand what is happening around me.

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Thursday 03-07-25

I have experienced many depressive episodes in the past but still have no idea how to navigate them. I currently believe that this will never end, and I’ll be doomed to a life of suffocation and unending melancholy. This, I am told, is of course impossible. I know depression ebbs and flows but each time I am plunged into its waves, I become convinced I will forever find myself drowning, until miraculously, somehow, I’m finally granted release, and I can live and breathe again. 

Two and a half years ago, as I’m sure we all know by now, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was terrified and twenty-one and had no idea what this would mean for my future. At the time of my diagnosis, doctors and psychiatrists were questioning whether I had bipolar or BPD (borderline personality disorder), as the two can be co-morbid and present in similar ways. In the end, my consultant decided bipolar was the best fit for me and I was sent on my merry way with a menu of medication to choose from, and a lifetime of mood swings to look forward to. That was that.

Yesterday, I saw my community psychiatric nurse (CPN) for a last-minute emergency appointment. She discussed how resistant to treatment I had been over the past two and a half years, and that the medications I had been prescribed should have kept me stabilised, and how they clearly hadn't worked for me. Her hypothesis: I didn’t really have bipolar because if I did, my medications would have worked, but I continue to have the same instabilities. She proposed my diagnosis was wrong and I better fit the criteria for BPD. My psychiatrist from when I was between the ages of 18 and 21 had also noted I had traits of BPD (but hadn’t thought to tell me!) Along with the aforementioned doctors and nurses who also had considered BPD, my CPN decided she would gather evidence for a new psychiatrist to assess and possibly re-diagnose me. 

My head is spinning. 

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Saturday 05-07-25

Today I was struck with the wild concept/idea/thought that surely this isn’t the same brain I used throughout high school and college. Sure, at drama school and university, I took time off for my mental health sporadically and handed in assignments late and became somewhat of a slacker at times, but in high school and college I was at the top of my game. I achieved A’s (and of course the occasional B’s), and I never took time off. I just wonder if whatever I have is degenerative and if it means I will be stuck in a cycle of calling in sick from work, hibernating in my room for long periods of time, dissociating, and of course, never quite knowing who the hell I am.

A few years back, one of my closest friends at the time gave my other friends and I a sort of identity analysis for fun, basically asking questions to read our personalities. One question she asked was “what colour would you be?” I chose grey because I never felt I quite fit into any particular strong category, for instance neither black nor white, just somewhere liminal in between. My friend’s analysis for this was that I struggled to find a pathway and do a lot of self-searching in life which, at the time of writing this, couldn’t be more astute. I suppose I’ve always struggled with self-image and knowing who I am/who I’m supposed to be, even down to what hair colour I should have. As I write this, I’m sitting with purple hair dye setting on my head for the second time this week (I wasn’t content with the colour the first time). God knows I’ll get sick of being purple and go back to the blue-black I’m used to sticking with, or perhaps I’ll go back to blonde like I have done so many times, OR maybe I’ll say fuck it and buzz it off again. I just get so bored of myself that I desperately seek some difference in my appearance and in myself, whether it be a new piercing, tattoo, hair colour, or style of clothing. And I’m so bored of feeling the way I’m feeling I’ll do anything for change. I think having the label of bipolarity brought into questioning and possibly being stripped out of me is causing somewhat of an identity crisis. I don’t mean I’ve tied my personality entirely to a diagnosis, but after years of being labelled and treated for something, it’s kind of hard to detach myself from it and accept a possible new diagnosis that I don’t fully understand.

 

Tuesday 08-07-25

I’ve read what I’ve written so far, and I just question my intentions behind it. Chances are that I’ll publish this on my blog to serve as a reminder of what my depression looks like so in the future when I inevitably run into another long episode, fearing it will never end, so I have something to look back at and remember that I will come out of it eventually. Eventually. Who knows when, I don’t even know if I’ll get out of this cycle never mind a future episode but perhaps publishing this will serve some purpose. Last summer after an episode of depression followed by hypomania, I published a similar blog post as a reminder of how far I had come and how my moods are forever changing, so perhaps this will act as this year’s reminder and next year, should I find myself in the same situation, I can look back and have this bookmark for my depression.

Tomorrow, I’m seeing my CPN again and I’ve to get started on sertraline (again) which I’m apprehensive about but hopefully it works this time around and lifts me out of this horrible mindset. 

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Wednesday 09-07-25

It’s been a week since my first diary entry and I honestly don’t remember anything from the last seven days. I barely remember writing my previous entries. Like, I remember the act of opening my laptop and typing, but I feel as though I’ve zoned out completely and just blurted out my brain soup onto a Word document. My sleep has been all over the place for the past few months and has only worsened over the last few weeks, so recently all my days have been blurring into one. This became painfully obvious today. 

I saw my CPN this morning and we agreed a plan for me to see a psychiatrist in a few months’ time, and in the meantime see how I react to the sertraline, as well as starting a new sleeping pill since my current one isn’t working at all. I picked up my antidepressants and took my first dose this afternoon. 

As is customary these days, my dad kindly took me out for a coffee after my appointment and we had our usual visit to Cex to look at cheap DVDs and video games. Without thinking, I half-jokingly said “we’re never out of here, we’ve been in here every day this week” to which my dad said “no, the last time we were in here was Saturday, don’t you remember?” I could’ve sworn on my life we had only just visited yesterday, and even the day before for that matter, but he explained how we had visited the town centre on Saturday and had a gander into Cex then, and how we hadn’t been in since. This knocked me back, how had I lost four days? I asked my dad what day it was today and then asked to trace back what I had been doing over the last few days since I couldn’t for the life of me remember anything I had done in the time between. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I felt lucid. Through reading texts between my family, friends and boyfriend, I discovered that I had forgotten a whole host of events; 

Saturday- I went for coffee with my dad (also the last time I was actually in Cex),

Sunday- I met with my two best friends for lunch and went for a drive,

Monday- I went to my boyfriend’s house and had dinner with him, and 

Yesterday (Tuesday)- I apparently went for a walk and then spent the rest of the day in bed. 

None of which I would have remembered had I not retraced my steps. And now it is Wednesday which means I’ve now been stuck in this depression for three weeks exactly and I’ve lost track of time completely.

I feel like I’ve woken up today after being asleep for the past week, moving through my daily life on autopilot. I hope this dissociation ends and I can begin to function clearly on my new antidepressants, along with the medications I’m currently on. You’d think being on a cocktail of four different pills would be enough to kick a person into reality but here we are (!) 

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I’m going to end this post here and give an update once I’ve had time to acclimatise to my new antidepressant and sleeping tablets. If you made it to the end of this post, I want to thank you for reading this and I hope it gives a little insight into the inner machinations of my brain at the moment. I’ll hopefully update y’all when something interesting or positive happens, but until then, we can only hope in the power of modern medicine. 

Write soon,

    Quinn x

(A picture I drew a while back depicting the final episode of BoJack Horseman 

which I thought was fitting for this post.)