Hello All

[Guest guest]

[i've just posted this to feeling-goodegroups, and Aisha suggested I

post it here as well. I have copied it here exactly, so apologies for the

bits that aren't really relevant. I have not been participating in the

group for some months due to my depression, so hello to all you new members

I haven't met yet, and hello again to those of you who know me but wonder

what rock I've been hiding under lately]

---

My name is Gwydion, I'm 32 and I live in Australia. My wife, Aisha, runs

the eGroup list " " which is a forum for people who are living with

illness and the people who care for them - she is chronically ill and I care

for her full-time.

Her illness has been very isolating for us both, as she is confined to just

a few rooms in the house and only goes out to see her Doctors. She has been

ill for several years now, and in that time almost all of our friends have

either left in an explosive way or just drifted away.

For most of my life, I have not fitted in with the people around me anyway -

I've seldom had more than a few friends at a time and when push comes to

shove, almost all of them have turned out to be more interested in what they

can get from me rather than just being a friend. So I've never developed

into being a social, gregarious person. I'm more used to meeting people via

work, but since I became a full-time carer for Aisha I don't work and

therefore get very few opportunities to really meet people.

It's also not easy for me to spend a lot of time away from the house, and

besides which I don't really want to go out and have a good time without my

wife (we used to enjoy concerts, restaurants, the theatre, etc, before she

got ill).

So I've ended up very much alone. I have always been prone to depression

but this situation has been a fertile breeding ground for it, the end result

of which is that I now suffer from terrible mood swings and extended periods

of depression. I'm on 100mg of Zoloft daily and while it's taken the edge

off it, the truth is that no drug is going to fix it.

Although it's necessary for me to be around a lot of the time, actually

caring for Aisha doesn't take a great deal of time, so I have a lot of time

on my hands. I can't go back to my job (I was a computer programmer)

because it's extremely difficult to get work of that nature from home and

also difficult for me to make definite appointments to meet people because I

never know from one day to the next if Aisha will be up to me being away or

not.

So I've been trying to find something meaningful I can do with my life which

I can do from home and which I will enjoy, but because I'm losing the battle

with my depression I find that more often than not, I simply can't motivate

myself to put in the necessary effort to learn. I know that I would like to

do cartooning, write comics, do animation, etc, and I have the tools, books

and computer skills to do it - I just can't maintain a positive attitude

towards it for enough time to really get anywhere - I tend to shoot myself

down fairly frequently ( " it looks like crap, I'll never get anywhere, -----

is so much better " , etc).

So I have three major motivations for joining this list;

1) To meet some new people and make some new friends

2) To have an understanding group I can turn to on my bad days

3) To give support back to other people suffering like I am

I look forward to meeting you all :-)

Regards,

Gwydion

PS: My instant messenger details are as follows - feel free to message me

anytime, but if I don't reply it's probably because I've vagued off and am

not looking at the computer ;-)

ICQ #5059241

MSN elderwyn@...