Mental Illness Week at Joe’s Blog – Part 2: Identifying your Mental Illness

Mental illness is quite complex and hard to diagnose…. but here is a list on what you can ask your doctor about….. I will go into detail on each of the different mental illnesses in future entries

1. Anxiety – anxiety is a blanket term for many complex issues. Anxiety can be broken down two ways: generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) or social anxiety (SA). One of the most common mental illnesses
2. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD and C-PTSD) – a disorder brought on by traumatic events (eg. war, traumatic accident, trauma as a person, etc)
3. Depression – another common mental illness which affects most people with anxiety. Anxiety and depression go hand in hand

These three are my main focus points during this week as I know people with the above and as a sufferer of two of the three myself – part 3 coming up tomorrow

Mental Illness Week at Joe’s Blog – Part 1: Welcome

Hi folks!

I am starting a week of mental illness blog entries on my blog. I wish to share all my trials and successes throughout my journey with mental illness and a few tips and pointers on how to get through the tough times with you…. so please stay tuned for new posts.

Joe

Day 2 on Eleva – am I any different???

Day 2 on Eleva – am I feeling better? Well…. sort of…. my doctor said it might take up to 6 weeks to begin to have an effect on me. In the meantime, I will just keep on taking it as per his instructions….

In other news…. I have had an absolutely productive day today – got one of my lawn mowers (my lawn tractor style Murray ride-on) back in the grass…. that made me feel a bit better! Only problem is a rather sharp stabbing pain in the back of my leg…. climbing over the big moody sumbitch is hard because of the deck height lever being right there next to me!

Updates to come…..

Life Update

Well – I haven’t updated everyone with the happenings of me…. so here it is!

I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday my time – it turns out I have depression, major anxiety and stress (according to my DASS 21 test – scores were 8/15/16). I have been put onto sertraline (Eleva 50) – I will be taking this for a fortnight then going back to my doctor for a follow-up. We will be putting together a Mental Health plan to try and get me back to where I want to be…. I hope to get better soon but I know it will be a long, hard road! Will keep you all updated as I go!