Meanwhile, down south

A slightly disturbing piece of news today is that last night's overnight National Express 592 (London Victoria - Heathrow Airport - Carlisle - Hamilton - Glasgow - Dundee - Aberdeen) service crashed on the junction of the M4 and the M25. This is a journey I've done quite a few times, and this was a three-month old coach. Since the crash, the driver has been arrested for dangerous driving (two fatalities and lots of injured), but also, the twelve (eleven) of these Neoplans have been taken off the road, by the owners Trathens (part of Parks of Hamilton).

National Express updated their statement at 1745, stating

"A National Express Coach was involved in an accident on the M4 / M25 earlier today which resulted in a number of serious injuries and two fatalities. 11 customers remain in hospital.

Our deepest sympathies and condolences go to the families of the bereaved and injured on that service. The cause of the accident is still unknown and we are co-operating fully with the emergency services.

Paul Bunting, Chief Executive of National Express said "During the course of today we have been in touch with relatives to make sure that any onward travel arrangements we can make are being put in place to ensure that everybody who's been involved is as comfortable as they possibly can be at this time".

National Express has over 600 different coach journeys a day operating throughout the UK covering over 64 million miles a year. This is the first accident of this type with this type of coach on our network.

All our coaches and drivers fully comply with all the current European legislation. In addition all coaches are liable to random checks by government agencies to ensure their safety compliance. We also use the services of an independent specialist to further check that they are in proper order at all times.

Our coaches are well known throughout the UK and during our long history we have always given customer safety the highest priority. Coach travel is widely recognised as one of the safest forms of public travel in the UK."

My current feelings

Firstly, thanks to everyone for your kind words and thoughts. Over the last few weeks, I've had a large number of thoughts and emotions going on in my head.

Briefly, I will go back in my mind to the last day of September. There were lots of contributing factors, but even I was somewhat shocked at the way I'd reacted. In the meantime, yes, lots of happy times. Lots of confusing times, and some rather sad times.

On Monday 1st, I woke up with conflicting emotions. I felt as if I'd failed, on at least one occasion. Yes, I'd managed to "drop" that low. On the 2nd, I said so in the morning, and then later on. Why more than once? I had other feelings in the meantime, and tried to bring myself around with all the usual mind pleasers... none of which worked (this time!)

After I'd said it, and I told everyone... I bizarrely became happier... and then back to being upset... and then happier... I'd had a nap, as I'd felt fairly tired. On the 3rd, kind of stuck in between. I was back at work, but the swings were more in the middle, than the extremes of the days gone by.

There are two possibilities here - my first really serious mood swings, or the start of depression.

Of course, they can be linked, and one can be a side-effect of the other. The latter may be an option, but I'm not "always" down. Most of my medication can cause this as a side effect, but two are especially known for it. Naturally, this may or may not be helping, and I will mention it all at my next GIC review (February), as they prescribed them originally.

Then, there are the mood swings. Someone put it so brilliantly when she said "You feel depressed, you feel tired, you feel confused, you can't sleep, you can't lie down because your t1ts are aching, your body aches, you keep bursting into tears..."

... yes, every one of those, and sometimes all at once. You do sometimes feel up and happy too.

As I warned you lot a few months ago, I started on progesterone mid-November. I'm still on a fairly low dose, but after six weeks, I guess this was to be expected. In cases of people on higher doses, the moods seem to get more agitated and sometimes more upset... as if feeling you'd failed your entire world wasn't bad enough, yes it can get worse!

I've experienced the highs, and the lows, of recent times. I guess once I'd had one, the other was inevitable... but do they have to keep swapping around every few minutes/hours?

So far I've managed to keep a lot of my emotions in my head, which may not be the best policy all round.

I did get about six hours of easy sleep last night, before waking up in pain, and then awake/asleep for a few hours. Today (Thursday 4th), I started fairly content. Went up (laughing at my email, but not at a joke), and then went down at work, back up again, and down... and further down... and currently I've got a pain going through my head. Came home, had a bite to eat, still slightly sore... and tired... and run-down. Not really badly depressed, just lots of changes to my head.

Usually I try to get on, and forget the problems, and try to carry on with life, for what I can have left of it. Except for these occasions, I'd usually manage it too.

So, now, do I feel like a failure? Depends how I feel about myself at the time. If I go that low again, I just hope it won't be for a while - like everyone else does! Having reached such a low low so quickly may seem a bit worrying, but I knew this day would come sometime, and there probably will be worse to come! In the meantime, please bear with me, as I try to work through the highs and the lows of transition. If I feel bad for more than two complete days at a time (without coming back up too), I will seek more urgent help.

Thanks to you all for your time
Suzy x