Doing the sensible thing

I've not been anywhere since I signed off my last post - I've just been sititng relaxing, having breakfast, watching tv and snoozing in my chair. My guest is still in bed - normally, that'd wind me up as I'm always raring to go, but today it's an advantage. I'll get myself ready for the prayer meeting after I've done this - but the cleaning can wait!

Yesterday, we went on a bit of a grand tour, by bus. First to Stirling for an hour - just time to walk up to the castle esplanade, take a few photos and buy some postcards. Then, on to Crieff, where we had lunch and a seat in the square (it is surprisingly mild), before catching one of the twice daily (schooldays only) buses through the Sma' Glen to Aberfeldy. This was a treat indeed, as we had the bus to ourselves, front seat, lovely scenery and all that. Then after another little wander, a twice-daily bus (which also just runs on schooldays) along a single track road to Dunkeld, and onto Blairgowrie - where we crossed the road and immediately caught another bus to Perth, arriving there at about 6pm. Here we had tea - carvery for a fiver - before catching another bus back to Edinburgh!

Now, I feel a bit embarrassed about describing this, so forgive me if it seems a bit odd or inappropriate - that, I fear, is oftent the nature of mental illness...

During the journey I began to visualise the sensation of a really prolonged snog. Very localised - really just concerning the mouth and tongue, and breathing - I didn't have a picture of myself actually doing it, just the feeling and the sensations. Try as I might, I just couldn't get that picture out of my mind. Now that for me is an early warning sign: the earliest stages of my depression could easily be a cold coming on, or a myriad of other things and are therefore hard to identify as such - but when that sort of visualisation starts to appear like that, I know I'm getting depressed as opposed to anything else...

Amidst it all, I also get other visions of a more sexual nature - and again, I don't actually appear in the picture as such (and nor does anyone else I can identify), it's just the extremely localised feelings and sensations - such a a hand giving a sharp smack, and stinging flesh - and well, I'll leave the rest to your imagination.

It stopped happening when I'd decided I was going to post it here. If it comes back, I will ring the crisis line I think...

So there you are - a good example of an early warning sign - some very subtle, entirely internal occurrence that nobody else would have any way of knowing about unless I told them about it - that follows on from triggers being set off. This post - and any subsequent conversations arising from comments, or phone calls to the crisis service or whatever, is my action plan. Let's pray that it works, and doesn't worsen!!