Depression Is Biting My Ass (Yet Again!)

CW: mentions of depression and a mental health crisis, self-harm, hallucinations, dissociation and medication.

Hey, gang! 

During the summer, I made a blog post called “A Bookmark For Depression”, in which I detailed a few days’ worth of diary entries during a depressive episode. Well, I am (not) pleased to announce that my depression has returned!!! ()

This post is similar to my previous, with daily-ish reflections spanning over the past few weeks, showing my experience with my current depression and my getting used to more medication changes. 

Strap in...

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It is Friday the 14^th of November 2025 and I have been depressed for a fortnight. 

It all started with a breakdown in work one mundane Saturday morning two weeks ago, and has culminated in tonight’s events of calling 111, pressing option 1 and waiting beyond the far-too-joyful hold music to speak to a call handler (for what feels like the 100^th time this year).  

These past two weeks, I’ve had daily contact with my community psychiatric nurses (CPNs)- either in person or on call- and last week, for the first time in my history of mental illness, they mentioned hospitalisation to me as an option for treatment. Yikes.

Not to get too explicit but my parents, under the guidance of my nurses, have had to safeguard the house and ensure any implement that could be used for harm has been neatly hidden away. 

An hour after calling 111, a psychiatric nurse returned my call and gave me the sunshine lecture of a lifetime. “You’re starting your new medication tomorrow, give it a chance!” My new medication being Lamotrigine/Lamictal, the drug known for causing Stevens-Johnson Syndrome (SJS) - a skin disease in which your flesh develops a rash, turns dark and rots off. Certainly something to look forward to indeed! Of course, it isn’t guaranteed that this skin rash will occur, however it is hardly a desirable side effect to have the prospect of experiencing. 

I’m terrified of starting this new medication. I always become nervous of the anticipation of starting a new pill but this time around, my anxiety is through the roof. This is because of the aforementioned rash, but also if this new medication doesn’t work, the chances of being put back on lithium are very, very high as I *need* a mood stabiliser and there are only three the NHS can offer- lithium, Lamotrigine/Lamictal, and sodium valproate/Depakote (a seeming devil drug that causes infertility and birth defects, and isn’t prescribed to those of reproductive age which, as a ripe 24 year old, simply isn’t an option for me). Lamotrigine is my last proper hope. 

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It's Tuesday the 25^th of November 2025 and I have been depressed for 3.5 weeks. I have also been on Lamotrigine/Lamictal for 9 days.

I have, luckily, not fallen victim to the SJS rash. Huzzah! But these pills have made no difference to my moods and have only provided violent nightmares (which I wake up from approximately 5 times at night) and profuse sweating. To combat the nightmares, I was given more Zolpidem/Ambien which admittedly has helped me stay asleep for longer but has not stopped the vivid dreaming sadly. 

I have been off work now for almost a month which is almost as bad as my summer stint (2 months/8 weeks). As much as I miss serving customers and being around my cheerful colleagues, the idea of returning to work is impossible. I just want to be tucked away into my bed 24/7. Carrying out simple tasks such as washing my hair and brushing my teeth or distracting myself, like my CPNs suggest, with colouring or watching movies have been almost out of the question. I’m a shell. 

However, I have managed to read two books during my great depression which is something I always struggle with when I feel like this. These books were 4.48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane and I Want To Die But I Want To Eat Tteokbokki by Baek Sehee. If you’re anything like my nurse, the titles of the books might make you wonder whether I’m doing the right thing by immersing myself in the world of mental illness but believe me, these books have brought me so much solace and made me feel like an actual human being. The former book is a play written about a woman suffering with suicidal ideation and depression, with the latter being a conversational memoir between a dysthymic (moderate but constantly depressed) patient and her psychiatrist. Both Kane and Baek have since sadly passed since the publishing of their books, with Baek only dying within the last month. Her death struck me deeply as, although I hadn’t read the whole of her book at the time, I knew of her depression and the subject matter of her writing. It’s hard to see/hear of people dealing with the same thing as you dying as a result of the shared illness. I loved IWTDBIWTET so much that I bought its prequel, I Want To Die But I Still Want To Eat Tteokbokki, yesterday!

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It's Wednesday the 26^th of November 2025 and I think I am going crazy.

My vision keeps becoming shaky, I feel trapped within my own skin as if my skeleton is trying to escape, and I feel dizzy as hell.  I feel as if I am being fried alive.

As nuts as this is going to sound, I have become very aware of my feet recently, especially my toes (particularly the pinkie toes). I feel nauseous just writing this. I’m overcome with the intrusive thought of amputating them. My CPN says this is fairly normal because, as you become more aware of a body part, you become overly uncomfortable with its presence, “if I think of my hand every time I write, I become agitated and feel tired”, she says. It’s not the same thing though. I feel violent and horrified towards the concept of my extremities, coming close to just cutting them off, which isn’t the same as feeling cramp in your hand from scribbling or doodling. 

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It's Sunday the 30^th of November and I have been depressed for 4 weeks.

I have been dissociating for the past few weeks, barely feeling myself operating or reacting, everything I do is blunted and numbed. Every step I take is a violent jolt. Despite this, I decided to go for a walk to get some fresh air and exercise while it was still light this afternoon. Another thing I have been experiencing is hallucinations again, seeing things such as dark shadows and spiders where there aren’t any. But still I persist.

On my walk, I became increasingly numb and disconnected from my surroundings. I tried grounding techniques but to no avail. I came across a patch of grass with a dozen or so black birds all sitting and flapping their wings. I thought what an ominously glorious sight and, as I blinked and looked back, they had all silently disappeared. I was aware that I had hallucinated the birds and they didn’t actually exist. I’m used to hallucinating, it first started 10 or so years ago, and I know when it’s happening, but it doesn’t make it any less scary or disconcerting. I’m lucky that I’m aware when I’m hallucinating (even when hypomanic and detached from reality) and I can reason with myself and my visions but, as I said, it doesn’t make it any easier.

On my return home, I had to run across the road at one point. I had to run barely 3 feet, with the pavement right in front of me, almost within reach. I began to move my legs quickly, but I was cemented into the ground. It’s like when you’re in a dream and you cannot proceed fast enough and you become aware that you’re asleep, everything moving slowly and dizzily. Only I was awake and in public, and moments from being hit by a car if I didn’t move.

When I got home, I retreated to my room. I’ve been hibernating within these four walls for the best part of four weeks, apart from going to appointments or seeing Andy really, which normally makes me feel safe and tucked away, but today I was overcome with the feeling of suffocation as if I was drowning in the air. I’m almost bored with the sight of my bedroom now. I’m bored of everything. I pray my nurses can offer a cure for this feeling. 

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It’s the 1^st of December 2025. 

My CPN called me while I was at Andy’s house to tell me she had spoken to my psychiatrist and I was to be put on Fluoxetine/Prozac. Oh goody! I was given Prozac at 18 years old which pushed me into a 3-month-long hypomanic episode which ended in me feeling absolutely exhausted and full of fear. That’s when my GP said if I “had regular depression, this reaction wouldn’t have happened” and that I may be suffering from bipolar disorder. I tried to reason with my CPN not to put me on this again, but she resisted my pleading and said to give it a try. I know I prayed for a cure, but this is not the one. 

The Lamictal is still making no difference so my nurse said if my hallucinations persist and my mood doesn’t change, I may be taken off of it.

“It’s not a very exact science, is it?”

On a fun/bright note, I'm now on the exact same pill regimen as Carrie Fisher was before she died (Aripirazole/Abilify, Lamotrigine/Lamictal, and Fluoxetine/Prozac)! How fun!

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It’s the 3^rd of December 2025. 

I took my first Prozac pill today at 2pm. I’m feeling nervous about it as I was up last night looking at the contraindicators and the interactions between my other tablets. I learned Prozac mixed with Lamictal can cause seizures and even death...whoopee! Of course, of course,  it’s very unlikely this will happen. 

I shall just have to wait for my medication to kick in and see what happens init?

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It is the 4^th of December, and I realise I am no longer dissociative.

After napping for 2 hours this afternoon (after yet another semi-sleepless night) and being wrapped up in my duvet like a hermit, I decided to haul my butt out of bed and forced myself to go a walk. The act of leaving my cosy cocoon was difficult enough, never mind leave the house, but I wasn’t going to let myself rot for the rest of the day. 

Over the past few weeks if I went for a walk or even moved my body, every step would feel like a violent jolt and I’d feel dizzyingly numb. I’d be completely disconnected from everything around me, and I’d float through the world. Today, however, was different. I noticed how real I felt. You know the scene in the Wizard Of Oz where Dorothy is in the middle of the cyclone and everything is disorientating and hallucinatory and, finally, the house lands with a sudden bump and everything is calm? It’s like that. 

See, dissociation is a double-edged sword; you feel so sickeningly anaesthetised that nothing feels tangible and you yourself feel like some hologram of a person but at least you’re numb to your own emotions so in a way, you’re protected. Because I’m back in my body, my surroundings feel back to normal like if I touched a tree, my hand wouldn’t pass through, but my emotions are now intensified, and I feel doubly as depressed today. Is this a curse or a blessing? Am I beginning to get better? Is this the true end to my dissociation? Who knows. I only pray my Prozac boots into my system in a few days, and I recover fully.

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I’m going to end my diary here on somewhat of a cliffhanger...dun dun dun!

I have no idea how I’ll progress into recovery or how Prozac will affect me. I’m sure I’ll keep my blog updated soon enough with how I’m doing and how the drug has impacted my moods, but until then we can only stay hopeful.

I have a post planned for the end of the year, a sort of ‘2025: Year In Review’-type essay, so until that has been uploaded, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

(Thank you as always for reading this <3 xxx)