Life

It's been a couple of weeks since my last blog and I have had some odd feelings about life in that time.
Joy for a friend who recieved a life saving lung transplant,and delight at watching my youngest turn 4.
But I myself have been unable to drag my mind out of feelings of gloom, like a shadow is hanging over my head. I don't like my job that much, I want to move house but cannot until someone wants to buy ours. I feel stuck in a rut and cannot seem to be happy for some reason.
Why am I putting my feelings out there for you all to read?
DEPRESSION.....It can be in many forms and I have suffered many years ago after a car accident which changed my life perminantly. I did have physical injuries which I still suffer from today but I also worry about the depression I suffered during those times.
I got little in that way of sympathy or understanding and was made to feel like I was making it all up and that I should just "pull myself together". But real depression is not something the sufferer is aware of and it's not a sudden thing that comes on overnight. Neither is it a case of popping a pill on one day and your better the next.
I always, when I feel like I do at the moment worry that I might be slipping back into that dark place that I was in 10 years ago but then I remind myself that although feeling down and pissed off, I'm far too aware that I am that way, and that I have a beutiful wife and kids that for as long as they are in my life will mean that I could not possibly be depressed.
My reasons for this blog mainly is to say that mental illness, is exactly that, an illness as common as Flu and just like flu can affect anyone at anytime. Mental illness certainly doesn't affect only the mentally weak and anyone that thinks it could never happen to them should think again as I once thought that as well.

I mentioned a friend that is recovering from a lung transplant. She mentioned struggling with the thought that she had accepted that she was going to die, but woke up with someone elses lungs after they died and donated their lungs to her. Something we all thought she would just take in and get on with it. But this is something unless you go through it that none of us that haven't cannot begin to comprehend how we might feel. my point of brnging this up is this:-
We all saw this as a physical fight, and I along with i'm sure many others will admit, but the biggest fight to start with was a mental one, as difficult as the physical one her body was undertaking. I believe she has won the main part of that fight and is now concentrating on the physical but I want to make everyone aware that just because someone looks ok, and says they are ok, it doesn't mean they are.
If you have a friend or loved one that you think is not well mentally, be brave, be there and be strong enough to help them deal with it, because not all illness is visable and sometimes we all need someone to say to us I know your not alright but i'm here and lets deal with it together.
I myself will be fine, because I have my family and friends around me, not everyone is as blessed as me and I will drag my sorry arse out of the doldrums very soon, but I know that some people cannot do that alone. x