As I seem to be emerging from my haze of depression, I can start to finally see my illness clearly. Now that I am taking medication, it begins to feel like a tangible problem to tackle. My family have finally been able to start putting it out in the open, able to tell other family members what I have been (inadvertantly) putting them through for the last 8 years.

8 years. That's a long time to have felt this way. To hate oneself so completely that I have actually felt that I have deserved to go through self-harm; starvation; bullimia; an overdose & an abortion.

I cannot let this continue. With my increased vulnerability to pre&post-natal depression and even just bog-standard depression, I cannot let myself feel this way again. I do deserve more than this - and this is exactly what I am beginning to realise.