Hi,
I am new here and not really sure what to write, but after reading through so many of the posts I felt like this may be a good place to start. 3 weeks ago I got out of hospital after being in over Christmas for 10 days with meningitis, I am definitely not recovered but am so much better than I was physically. However, am so much worse mentally! I have been in Australia now for 9 months, initially only for 6 months but met my partner after being here 2 months, so i decided to stay until the end of my years visa with the plan that we would apply for a defacto visa. I went home in October for 4 weeks, where I had a bit of a mental breakdown and self-harmed. I have a long history with depression, starting when I was a child with my parents and emotional abuse, then followed by emotional abusive fiance. With hindsight coming back to Aus straight away probably wasn't my smartest move, I struggled to get work money was extremely tight (I have a high level of debt ) and my health took a toll, which probably ended up with me getting meningitis, though my health hasn't been great for a long time possibly due to high stress and having glandular fever when I was younger. My partner has been amazing, but he is realistically all I have over here and the toll is starting to wear him down. He suffers from PTSD and I'm not helping him. I feel like I'm pushing him away and I don't know how to stop it. He needs me to work so we can pay rent and buy food, to ease pressure on him, i totally get and hate the fact I have relied on him financially. But I am struggling with being back to work. I feel the sensible thing to do would be to move back to the UK for a while, but I worry that the distance will be the end. To make things a little trickier my sister is coming over in Feb to travel a bit, but of course I don't have money saved as being hospital and struggling for work in Nov used up savings I had. So in my mind I have no choice but to work every day to save money for her trip and to pay bills etc. to help out my partner. I realise I am so lucky that I have a job and it pays well, I forget to see how lucky I am my current situation isn't helping with feeling positive. I'm so lost and stuck in a spate of brainfog. I've been referred to psych and my dose of meds has been doubled, so I am waiting for that to kick in. I just thought that if anyone has any advice or has similar situations it could help. Thanks for reading my little cry for help. Emma
