Wow. It’s three months until Xmas. So I have been an alumna for seven months (officially). It’s been a rollercoaster year for me.

Next week I am giving a small presentation on some research I have been doing infrequently over the summer. I’m nervous.

I was also due to be starting my college course, but I am not. I missed my enrolment and induction, then got back in touch with my tutor and administrative department to negotitate a later start date. They arranged one but I decided against pursuing another course this year.

I have rereferred back to counselling (so I feel a bit weird to be studying counselling too!). I was due to start that last week but I’ve been experiencing agoraphobia, so I have been working from home more often. I decided it was time to shake myself out of my funk so I took a bus to counselling. It was noisy, crowded and busy. The movement around me hurt my head and my eyes. I could hardly breathe at moments.

When I got into the counselling office I felt nervous; I normally do when meeting new people. But I am glad I went. Once I start talking I forget how afraid I was an hour earlier.

I spoke for forty minutes pretty much non-stop. This is the most I had shared with anyone this year!!! I realised how much I had isolated myself from people. Also, as a blogger, I write about my feelings a lot. But there is a type of self-censorship I use here. Even when I talk about depression I feel like I’m putting on the socially acceptable mask of depression (you know, the one when I tell people I’ll get through it rather than the one when I tell people that it all feels hopeless?).

I felt like I had taken a load off my mind.