Tag Archives: mental health

A grey cloud on a perfect day

20 Monday Sep 2021

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Life has been difficult lately. So bloody difficult. I’ve been overwhelmed and struggling to get through each day. Some days are easier than others. Some days I feel OK, normal, or as normal as I’ve ever been. But lots of days have just been about getting through, doing what needs to be done and nothing else. Sometimes just getting out of bed can feel a success.

I’ve never previously had anxiety, but now I feel it bubbling up in my chest, for no apparent reason, as if someone has put a squirt of washing up liquid into a stream of hot running water and I feel each bubble rising up gathering together in my chest. It threatens to take my breath and suffocate me. When this happens nothing seems to calm it. I can go for a walk to distract myself slightly, I can run, but the bubbles of anxiety are always there, just below the surface. Waiting.

No one thing has caused this, I mean I can pinpoint events that made it swell up into a stream of unstoppable molten lava; traumatic events, sad events, heartbroken moments that all came together into the perfect recipe for anxiety bubbles, but none of these things could have done this on their own. A perfect mess has happened and its overwhelming. Some days I can control it better than others. Sometimes I can hide the mess from everyone. The turmoil inside me hidden by whatever camouflage I have found to dress up the anxiety, but its always there, like a grey cloud on a perfect day.

And what I have learned is that I’m good at hiding it. I’ve probably been hiding it without realising it for years. Every time I have risen to another difficulty in life I have actually just been adding a layer of camouflage to the volcano in my chest. Hiding it so that no one can see. Occasionally it breaks through and wells up in my eyes breaking cover.

And also I have learned that it is mine to deal with. Nobody else knows that it’s there most of the time, even if I decide to tell them, they don’t understand the way it is holding me captive, sucking the joy out of moments that should be joyful. Keeping it hidden has become a full time job. In fact I have stopped going to work as I can’t do my job and control the bubbles.

I’ve learned that it is impossible to care enough for someone who has anxiety. Because they will examine everything and over analyse it until it is out of all proportion to the intent. They will feel better in your company and then fall back to pieces the moment that you leave. They will tell you that they are OK, even as every little piece of them is falling into tiny fragments at their feet.

But actually, I’ve learned that that’s OK. You may feel that supporting someone with anxiety is a fruitless and thankless task, but I’ve also learned, the hard way, that even if they fall apart after you’ve spent 5 hours counselling them and comforting them, that is 5 hours that they felt better. That is 5 whole hours that they were able to force that bubbling molten lava back inside, and I live in hope that one day, I will be able to push it back and lock it away forever.

Can someone explain to me?

23 Friday Nov 2018

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It’s been a while. I’ve got all kinds of excuses as to why I haven’t blogged but in reality I’ve just not had a strong enough opinion about something to rouse me out of my apathy to put pen to paper…..until now! I woke up this morning enraged and outraged by something which has drawn me to write, I’ve written about it before; I can’t seem to let it go or stop thinking about it so I thought I’d write about it in the hope it helps.

A friends child is in year 7 (that’s the first year in secondary school for all those who are used to the old way of making year groups) at an academy school that prides itself on its strict rules and regimented regimes. Anyway, late on Sunday evening this child suddenly remembered that their school shoes had a hole in them. Not a small hole, but a hole the size of a 10 pence piece. It was 8pm, the shops are closed, even if they had been open my friend doesn’t get paid until Tuesday next week and so my friend did what any sensible parent would do; she wrote a letter to the school explaining the situation and sent her child in wearing black trainers.

Back in my days at school that would have been the end of the issue. The school would have accepted the situation; maybe offered some financial help to get some shoes before the mothers pay day and everyone would have been happy. The child would be educated, the mother would have felt like a decent, hard working parent and the teachers would be satisfied that a child was learning and it would all be forgotten about as soon as the mother got paid and bought some new shoes. But not today. Oh no, not today.

Monday morning the child went into school in full school uniform, but wearing the black trainers. The child was picked out at the school gate by the teacher guarding it. The child was told to go home and change into school shoes, when the child then produced the note from the mother and tried to explain, embarrassed in front of school friends, she was sent to the school principles office, where she once again handed over the note and the headteacher made her sit while he called her mother.

The mother, also embarrassed explained that she couldn’t purchase school shoes until the following week and was told by the headteacher that her child would, in that case be put in isolation and have work set by her teachers to do there! There was no offer of help or understanding from the school.. They just put her daughter into isolation. For over a week. For something that was no fault of her own. Not for misbehaving, or not working, but as a punishment for something totally out of her control. Because her mother couldn’t afford to immediately go out and buy school shoes this child was to be segregated from her friends and her classmates for 6 days! She was going to have work set for her; miss out on the learning experience and the benefit of having lessons, because she was wearing the wrong pair of shoes.

I’m fucking outraged. As many of you will know I work with prisons. In a prison it is recognised that segregation is one of the worst forms of punishment. The impact that segregation can have on a person’s mental health is so great that there are prison service rules that mean that a person put into segregation has to have a full physical and mental health check undertaken by a clinician to agree that they are fit and mentally well enough to be there. It is seen as so damaging that this has to be undertaken within 24 hours of them being put there. There have been countless studies into the effects of it in prisons, in conclusion they nearly all say the same thing: solitary confinement has a negative effect on an individual’s wellbeing.

And yet we are socially and physically doing this to school children because they are wearing the wrong school uniform; through no fault of their own.

Let that just sink in a minute… We are risking a child’s mental wellbeing because their parents can’t afford a pair of shoes. We are risking them falling behind in class as they have missed the benefit of lessons, because a school can’t put education over a pair of shoes.

Countless studies have shown that the connections that teachers make with their students in classes make a difference to the child and an impact not only on their learning but their overall wellbeing and resilience. And. We. Are. Risking. This. Over. A. Pair. Of. Shoes.

I’ll just take a moment to let that sink in; Wearing the right shoes or having the right bag, or coat or haircut is more important than the education, and future mental health and the wellbeing of our children.

It is that simple. I get having rules. I get having a uniform. I understand that. But how can we say that a child can only have one day off of school after the death of a grandparent on one hand because the education they will be missing is too important:

Schools minister Nick Gibb warned in 2015 “taking just one week off during term time can impact a child’s GCSE grades…. Any absence, even if it’s illness actually, can damage the long-term chances of a child achieving good GCSE’s if they take just a week off a year.”

and then stop them going to class for 6 days over a godamned pair of shoes. And somehow, this is seen as a positive thing. Can someone explain to me how exactly? Schools mete out this isolation punishment as the first level of a behavioural policy, as if it is nothing. And yet it is damaging out children for things that are no fault of their own.

And we wonder why we have a disenchanted generation of children growing up.

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.

Battle call. 

29 Sunday Jan 2017

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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

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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.