Hi @Shaz51 @HenryX @Dimity @SJT63 @eth @Appleblossom @Exoplanet and all reading,
I only visit the forum occasionally these days. This morning I felt like I wanted to reconnect with the years-long friends and understanding people here at the forum, all of us going through our own mental health struggles.
I got shingles about two months ago and have really gone backwards ever since then. I am still doing many of the good regular NDIS activities I'd been doing before then. But now everything is just so much harder and overwhelming. Crying and on the verge of tears a fair bit, highly anxious about all the threads of organisation and 'just showing up' there are these days.
This morning I am experiencing depression so sickening I actually feel nauseous from it.
The main part of this is a med I am now taking for the continued severe nerve pain that followed the shingles passing. It's messing with my psych meds. I'm hoping I may be able to come off it in two weeks.
At that time it will be a month since this med ended the terrible ongoing nerve pain I was experiencing. I think they usually keep you on this pain med perhaps a month longer than that, but we may try earlier because of the considerable worsening of my depression, anxiety and overwhelm with small things.
My 86-year old mother is due to arrive from interstate for 12 days on 21 December. We have a very troubled history and our time together is often very difficult for both of us. It's not from lack of love. That's something we say to each other heartfully at the end of every one of our phone calls. But the darkness of our history together has affected me profoundly and just takes me over at times, especially when Mum and I are in close quarters.
I am so down on myself about this still being the case even as I'm now aged 59 and spent 30 years in therapy, on meds and exploring various alternative/complimentary medicine approaches. It seems no matter how much I do, how many positive mindsets I try to take, philosophical attitudes - the force of the unconscious just overwhelms my puny conscious mind.
Our personalities are very different: she is very excitable, intense and talkative in a monologuing way, and in a loud voice. My nerves are frayed at the best of times. I do guided meditations and hypnoses up to 90 minutes every day, practice conscious breathing throughout each day, mindfulness, walking - all to find ways to quiet myself. You can see the clash that inevitably arises between the different energies of me and Mum.
We had a difficult phone conversation yesterday. This morning I rang her to reassure her that I so do want to see her for xmas and that with good luck my mental health will be better once this shingles med is out of my system. We are both intense people in different ways. I so want her to enjoy her time with us. She has told me it will be her last visit up here, due to age.
I pray all goes well with timing of my med changes, for us to have less pain and more enjoyment in each other's company on this visit. This will be the first time we have seen each other in person for two years.
Thanks for listening. 
