Tag Archives: mental health

Riding the waves.

01 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by in Emotions, Friends, Life, Uncategorized

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I live life to the full. I pack in more in some days than others do in a week. I socialise, I work, I organise and plan. I plan and re-plan and change plans. If I’m your friend I will be there for you if you need me. I throw myself into everything and people always tell me to slow down. To relax. To take some time to be myself. To look after myself. But I don’t. I can’t. I’m terrified of not having people around me. Of solitude. Of having to face up to the demons inside of my head. Of finding the time in my life to look at what I am doing and working out where I want to be. Because, in all honesty I have no bloody idea.

I seem to lurch from one thing to another. No concerted plan or design. Rolling with the onslaught of waves that never seem to stop coming. Just as I pick myself up from one thing another comes rushing up to take its place, pushing me back over, throwing me back. Like a wind whispering in my ear “know your place” forcing back. And I’m standing here drowning and everyone thinks I’m doing a great job at staying in the water. Well I’m not.

I don’t know how to get out. I don’t know if I want to. Because getting out will mean examining all of the things that took me to this point, and I’m not sure I’m ready to do that. I’m not sure I ever will be. And so I’ll keep riding the waves and battling with the tide in the hope that one day, soon, it will turn. That it will run in my favour. That I won’t have to work so God damned hard to just stay where I am; on an apparently even keel.

And the pretence will remain, as will the illusion of peace. Because all the while no one knows you are drowning, they don’t have to reach out a hand to help you.

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Battle call. 

29 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in Emotions, housework, Life, Motherhood

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I am a mother of three children. 

I am a wife. My husband lives abroad. 

I work full time in a stressful job that requires me travel a lot. 

I have a part time job. 

I am a school governor. 

I am learning a foreign language. 

I am writing a book. 

I am all these things and I am also, today, struggling with my mental wellbeing. 

I am tired. I am anxious and I am feeling miserable. I am also making life miserable for those around me. 

I know why I am anxious, and tired and stressed; I only have to look at the list above to see why I feel like this, only I can’t seem to stop it. I take too much on. I can’t relax. I don’t even think I know how to anymore. It’s got to the point where I don’t even know what relaxing is. 

Take today for example. Today is my only day off. I work 6 days a week and today, I don’t work. So what have I done today? 

Well; 7am I was up and off to my Bulgarian lesson which is 30 minutes away and started at 8am. I then drove back to pick up the kids from Paul’s where I stopped for a coffee and took the boys  clothes shopping.

 I then did shoe shopping for the eldest before buying birthday presents and doing the weeks food shop. 

Back home, I put the shopping away, made snacks, put a load of washing on. Did the kids homework (with them, not for them!), then put washing on dryer.

 I baked a birthday cake. Wrapped 6 presents (3 grandparents birthdays in 2 weeks!), put a load of washing on, cooked a roast dinner. Put washing in dryer, got kids school uniforms ready, ironed uniforms, sorted out piles of socks. 

I then Hoovered and steam cleaned the floor (never get shiny white floor tiles, you will live to regret it). Put another load of washing on, emptied dishwasher and finished cooking the roast. 
I then changed sheets and bathed kids and put on another wash. I still need to do so many things, but my mind is buzzing and I’m finding it hard to cope. 

I slept for 4.5 hours last night. About 5 the night before. I’m a terrible insomniac, who struggles to sleep then wakes up constantly. 

I feel guilty because I haven’t visited any family, especially my elderly aunt, who will definitely have noticed that I didn’t go see her. I feel guilty because I want to go see my sisters but I cannot summon up the energy. 

I feel guilty because I have 4 unanswered emails regarding school governor stuff that I really should look at and that’s without mentioning the other 263 that require attention. 

I feel guilty that I have reports to write for tomorrow that I haven’t had time to do. 

I feel guilty that I haven’t spent enough time with my children.

 I feel guilty that I am doing my full time jobs far less than perfectly because I’m trying to cover the jobs of 3 people. I feel that I am letting people down left right and centre and half the time I don’t even know why I am doing it or how not to. 

I feel guilty that I actually hoped that a patient would die so that I could go home and not have to stay late to deal with her. And that’s when I knew that I am on the edge. Because, that is not me. I am not that type of person and yet last night that was the type of person that I was. 

And so I am writing this very jumbled blog, because I know that I cannot go on like this. I need to take a breath. I need to surrender stop trying to do everything and I need to cut down my commitments. But then I look at the list and I can’t see what to give up. I care passionately about all of it and my mind is too confused to be rational. 

But I need to reexert some control in my life. I need to rebalance, to stop reacting and start preparing. Start setting realistic goals rather than think I am superwoman. 

My mental health is not great right now; Today. Tomorrow it might be different and I will have regained my equilibrium. But for today it is ok to be overwhelmed. And it is ok to say that I am not coping. Because I am not, and there shouldn’t be any shame in saying that. 

And this is not a cry for help. I do not need people to offer their help or say I am doing great etc etc. Because this is a battle call; to myself. And it’s a battle I’m going to win. 

The abyss.

28 Sunday Dec 2014

Posted by in Emotions

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I have been blessed, on the whole, for most of my life. I have enjoyed reasonable health, had the love of a close family and, whilst I may never have got everything that I always wanted, I have always been lucky enough to have everything that I need. Big difference there really. I might not have got the lottery win I wanted but I had enough money to eat, and I suppose in a list of priorities, eating is pretty high on mine!

In my life I’ve seen beautiful, talented and kind people be totally brought to their knees by depression and if I’m honest I’ve always struggled to understand why. They have everything going for them, yes everything in their lives might not be perfect but whose life is? I would sympathise in the short term, but eventually, and this is probably more a reflection on me than them, I would lose patience. I’d adopt the “they should pull themselves together” stance and eventually avoid them.

I’d avoid them because, if anything in life, I’m a doer. If I don’t like something then I do something about it. If I don’t like my job I retrain. If I don’t earn enough money I get other jobs until I do. If I feel ill I go to the doctors, find out what’s wrong and get it fixed. So, as a doer, it is incredibly hard to see someone who is depressed and can tell you everything that is wrong and listen to any advice that you may have given and then they do nothing about it! I just can’t understand it. At least I couldn’t until a few years ago.

I’d gone into hospital for a routine bladder operation and had had some serious complications. In short I couldn’t pee. I ended up being readmitted to hospital and being discharged with a catheter and a bag and somehow, something inside me seemed to die. It is difficult to describe and even more difficult to understand, even to me.

It felt like the joy had been sucked out of me. As if a Dementor, straight from the pages of Harry Potter had drawn a deep breath and stolen my happiness, indeed my identity. Things which would normally made me smile, I repelled from. I didn’t want my children to come and give me cuddles. I didn’t want the curtains open to see the sun, I wanted them drawn so that my surroundings reflected my internal thoughts.

This internal darkness was all embracing. I didn’t have the emotion I needed to sob even, I would just lay there in the dark, tears slowly falling down my face, with no energy to even brush them away. I felt desolate and alone, yet I was surrounded by everyone who loved me. I couldn’t even explain what was wrong. I just couldn’t face life, nothing invoked any feelings in me, it wasn’t that I felt particularly sad, I just didn’t really feel.

It was like stepping into an abyss. My husband, family and friends couldn’t reach me. I could hear what they were saying sensible words, the type of thing I would say in such a situation, but the words bore no relation to me, they were words to invoke feelings in someone who still felt, and yet I was emotionless.

I was lucky. Less than a week later, my health started to return and with it, gradually my mental health also returned. I have never felt that way again and I hope to goodness that I never do. I have often wondered why this relatively small event threw me into the abyss, when so many worse situations I have been in haven’t. I don’t think there is an answer to that. Perhaps that is why depression is such a difficult thing to deal with. It hits when you least expect it, it demands your entirety and it is extraordinarily difficult to be reached by your loved ones, when you need them most.

So now, I like to think I have more patience with those I care for who have depression. I understand that they aren’t ignoring my advice and support wilfully, they just don’t have enough will inside them to do that. It is just a void, a cloud of darkness, an abyss.