Ever since my breakdown about three years ago, I seem to get stressed out very easily. I wind myself up over the most trivial things. I blow things out of proportion and then brood and worry over them until I am so stressed that I make myself ill.
The trouble is it affects all my life in different ways. Some more subtle than others.
I keep saying to myself I must worry less and try to enjoy myself more. At the moment I think I am feeling particularly vulnerable because when V is bored and depressed this sets off an underlying tension in me which makes me much more easily triggered into stressing myself.
I always worry, ‘am I doing the right thing’, ‘an I doing too much, or not enough’. I worry that I cant get things right.

We had a drama over Christmas.
My niece Faye, arrived on Christmas day after her parents had a massive row. She had left home and had come to live with us.
Previous to this she has been having problem with her parents for a long time. Her father is a drug addict and has massive mood swings. Unfortunately Faye was the object of his wrath when he was in a bad mood when he could not get a fix. She was blamed for all his ills and he would take it out on her. Faye’s mother was on drugs, but now appears to have kicked the habit. Her home life was very volatile. She is taking her gcse exams this year and her work was suffering.
She is much happier with us. She goes to visit her mum a couple of times a week, the rest of the time she is busy studying. She gets a much better quality of life. We treat her like a sixteen year old, and not a ten year old child.
She is going to college in September to study I.T.
She is quite bright and should do well (now she is away from her oppressive parents).
Her parents live on state handouts, they obviously do not like to see anyone, including their own children make anything of themselves.

At the moment Faye is full of a cold…poor thing…she is all bunged up.
Just hope I don’t catch it!

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V appears to be better today. After a few phone calls from work and a bit of TLC she seems to have brushed off her depression.
Deep down its still there but I am sure she can fight it.

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We have a new dog. He is a King Charles spaniel, his name is Ben. He is young and boisterous. He was a rescue dog from a divorced couple. The poor thing comes from a broken home and has behaviour problems. I am sure with a bit of persistence we can retrain him into a normal dog.

Last night, my better half V. told me she was feeling depressed. As she lay in bed she was telling me how she is feeling down.
About four months ago she finished work to look after my father who is eighty seven. He has been in hospital a couple of times this year and is not managing on his own. Before V agreed to this she knew that where she was working was going to close due to a takeover and she would be out of a job. So to finish and look after my dad seemed a good idea at the time. Now she is missing the banter of the job, the social contact - there’s not much banter from my dad. However she does get around. She takes him shopping once a week. She takes him to the doctors and the warfarin clinic regularly.
Also it’s that time of year, and her hormones are playing up.
I have suggested maybe we should take up a hobby. Maybe ballroom dancing, I have two left feet and it would be a challenge! But she said that with her knees, bad back and excessive weight she would not be able to cope.

The problem is, when she gets depressed I am so empathic that I try my best to cheer her up, I don’t succeed, I can still sense the underlying sadness in her heart and the I get depressed myself.
All the time I am at work I feel as though I should be with her. I think of her all the time and feel so helpless.

I am not just depressed but stressed and depressed.
I feel like saying to her that she should pull her finger out and stop feeling sorry for herself and get on with life. But I think that would probably make her worse.

Yes I am still alive......

I wish I was a teenager....so many things on the internet, so many computer games, (quake4, half life2,Doom, etc) gaming on line competitions etc and I am too commited to other things. When I finally will have to the time to play around a bit more then I will be too old - too slow. Especially for FPS games !!


Sometimes lifes a bitch.