The Kids

One incredibly worrying thought is how every aspect of my health affects my children. Of course, this blog focuses on my mental health as this is predominantly what changes the day to day with us. My physical health is good, I am young enough and healthy.

We talk openly about mental health – I firmly believe you should as a parent. You OWE your children that. When I look at suicide stats across the world; I panic. It makes my blood run cold. I have fallen foul to the lack of mental health services throughout the UK and I am incredibly lucky to be accessing them now. I genuinely feel if I hadn’t gotten the help I needed; I may not be here.

That fucking scares me. It terrifies me. I don’t want this shit for my kids. I want them to grow up feeling mentally strong and healthy. There is so much shit goes on in every single person’s life, it’s a wonder we all cope. I see signs of anxiety creeping in with my pre-teen daughter and I am worried about how she will cope with this.

I will continue to be open, but, should I be doing more? Accessing services for her? Helping her work through things or letting her use her own resilience to work things out? It’s really hard to know where to step in. I don’t want to be too overbearing and upset her about it; talking about anxiety is really bloody hard.

Things Have Never Been So Swell

That’s a lie.

It’s up and down. Some things just don’t feel right some days.

It’s been a while since I posted. I have been caught up in so much. Nothing important. Nothing dramatic. Just stuff, too much of it.

Every time I see my mental health decline it is because of too much stuff. The baggage.

I’m starting to wonder if I can actually get to a point where I can function – mentally – whilst being able to have shit going on around me.

Right now that doesn’t seem possible. I can’t do too much without reverting to a vulnerable, fragile wreck. It is so fucking frustrating.

I literally want to put things in the bin, get rid of them. All my feelings about the sad stuff, all the responsibilities that have been handed to me – without my consent. I can’t seem to get rid of them at the moment. I know part of being an adult is taking on responsibility. I accept that as a parent, as a partner. I accept it as a grandchild and child too – but I shouldn’t have to do SO much. I am fucking exhausted. I can’t hold everything up.

I actually can’t.

The Crash

If you suffer with your mental health, you may have experienced what I refer to as ‘The Crash.’

It happens with me after a bout of depressive mood or high anxiety. I am so exhausted. So exhausted. It takes time and energy to even think about completing tasks; never mind starting them. It feels like I have ran a mental marathon and I need a hot bath and a few days rest to recover.

In some ways, I find this the hardest part of my mental health issues as I can kind of deal with the depression as I have gotten so used to it over the years. I think that may have something to do with how aware I have become lately? My recovery is a very ‘active’ process. I am really pushing to get myself better. I am writing, blogging, reading and pursuing happiness!

In the past; I have taken the meds and done the therapy in a very passive way. I used to want to get better but I used to expect it to fall in to place itself. It certainly doesn’t. You have to be active in your recovery, you have to put the effort in. I’m not saying that is easy or possible for everyone but it is what I have learnt for myself.

This particular mental health crisis I have suffered was a big reality shock to me. It floored me. It made me feel worthless. These feelings hurt like hell and it has taken a lot of will power and strength to try and turn things around.

Because of this, I believe the crashes are affecting me more. I am trying to manage my mental health SO much that I am noticing every peak and trough. That is why I blog, also, to try and keep a record of how I am feeling and what I learning through recovery.

One thing I have found the most important is to stop punishing myself. At the beginning of all of this I punished myself because I could not work, I struggled seeing friends, I wasn’t the greatest partner, I didn’t play with my kids as much. I would spend all day shit talking myself because of all my failures.

I have learnt that being like that is utter bullshit. It’s BULLSHIT. It makes you feel a million times worse, it makes you act worse and accept shittiness because you feel that is all you are worth. Well NO. I am worth so much more. It has taken MONTHS of therapy for me to finally say that – it feels good.

I am a worthy person- worthy of love, affection, friendship, happiness. I am not a failure, I am succeeding in making myself better and making my life better.

Drink Lots of Water

I have just written a list of things to live by, rules, I guess.

My first and biggest rule is drink lots of water. It’s really fucking important. I can’t stress that enough.

Hydration is key to good brain function and it makes you feel a lot more human too!! I find it really helps when I am going through a bad bout of depression. It only helps when I remember to do it, though.

The list was prompted by the mind management book I am reading (I know I have talked about this in the last few posts – I am enjoying the book!)

I have typed my list up, printed it on nice paper and I am going to look at it every morning when I write my positive affirmations & reasons to be grateful (thank you to the person that suggested that in my comments!!).

I suppose the idea behind printing it out is that I can surround myself in my beliefs and positive words in the hope it will re-train my brain and give me a better outlook on life. I am hopeful. Half a lifetime of depression, suicidal thoughts and anxiety will not wash away with the creation of a poster but it seems a good start.

Another thing on my list; get lots of rest. This is a new one to me. I love to be busy. I hate to be still. I am very, very high functioning for a depressed person. I hate this so much. I don’t like to hate something that comes naturally but I get so overwhelmed and frustrated that my body will not slow down.

That is something else I am re-training within my brain. It is OK to rest. It IS OK. The world will not stop turning if I sit down and relax. I know these feelings centre around guilt. Guilt for not doing ‘enough…’ The idea that there is always something to be done. Housework, studying, reading, bathing the dog, visiting family, educating the kids… the list is endless… It is exhausting.

I actually welcomed lock down with open arms. Not the pandemic, the fear, the virus, the grim bits. I welcomed the slowness. The idea of not being able to do all the things I felt I needed to do. It has made me massively re-evaluate how I go about life. I am certainly learning that life is too short to give too much of a damn about how clean my house is.

My life always has and always will centre around family and love. I surround myself with the people I love for a reason. They make me feel good. I have learnt hard and fast that having negative people around you is a bad path to follow, I have let them go.

That’s all for now, remember to drink lots of water.

Practising Positive Affirmations

During a chat with a friend about mental health, she suggested writing positive affirmations daily.

Three nice things about myself – every… single… day!? It is SO hard.

I have an automatic response to regularly beat myself up, despite what I achieve. I’ll be honest it annoys the fuck out of me – but I still do it! Say for example; I complete a piece of work that achieves a really high score; I will still focus on the one grammatical error that is pointed out.

I am having to slowly train my brain to stop myself doing this. I know it isn’t going to be easy; particularly when I have a bad day.

A great deal of my therapy centres around the way I treat myself.

I am often told of my hypocritical positioning. I would never dream of treating others the way I treat myself; it’s harsh. So why do I do it to myself!!?? I’m certainly a hypocrite. It is years of self inflicted torment that I am trying to undo. Positive affirmations are only one small portion of this.

So I am trying it! I am a week into my positive affirmations. It’s actually quite lovely. I forgot what I had wrote on the first few days, so I just flicked back and it made me smile. I am super hopeful that continuing to do this will give me a book full of amazing things about myself.

I’m guessing that doing this alongside therapy will hopefully change my outlook and perceptions about myself. I hate that I treat myself this way; I would be devastated if my children did this to themselves. A habit can be broken. Taking tiny baby steps!!

Standing Out

Therapy last week consisted of me being made aware that there are points in my life where I have experienced trauma and how they link to my cycles of depression.

We looked back to the ‘start’ of my depressive episodes, pin-pointing high school bullying as the catalyst to the majority of my negative feelings. I was asked if I had experienced depression during primary school to which I responded that no, I was happy. The question altered slightly. Had I experienced any trauma in primary school? I thought back to a time that has always stuck in my mind.

At the beginning of the conversation I said I remember the event as clear as day, despite it being over 20 years ago. The process of talking about these events meant people, feelings and thoughts were described, along with the general idea of the situation. I shared information about a childhood encounter with a slightly older boy, who followed me and watched me repeatedly at school during break times. I felt under surveillance and very scared.

What happened that day has never struck me as relevant to my current situation, however, throughout the years I have thought about the event multiple times – recalling that I felt incredibly uncomfortable.

The therapist highlighted that this event must have evoked a strong feeling to be recalled so easily, which rang true. He had asked me to recall my first day at school. I couldn’t. My first pair of shoes. I couldn’t. The reasoning behind this is that the negative memory of the boy following me was more than likely my first real feeling of fear.

I was then asked to find the person in question and tell him how it has affected me. I suggested that was a ridiculous idea. The therapist presses on. Why? Why is it ridiculous? This person made you feel uncomfortable. Why not go and tell him? My response was that it wouldn’t be a very ‘adult’ thing to do, that it’s a bit silly.

Is it?

When I reflect on this- after the conversation – I realise the therapist’s point. It isn’t silly, maybe I could find some closure? (Despite this – I would never find the guy!!) I think about similar situations – I hate the idea of being watched, I constantly feel like I am being followed when walking in public, I don’t like people walking directly behind me in case they grab me.

The link may be tenuous and have no relevance. There have been similar situations as an adult – being followed from the train station, having a customer continually watch me through racks of clothes, day in day out. These could prove more relevant and to have shown greater impact with my anxiety. Simply being a woman could be the reason I feel anxious when in this position – we are constantly made to feel we have to watch our backs, protect ourselves, be vigilant – classic victim blaming. Anyway, I digress. Is it an acceptable thing to go and find those who have done you wrong, express how you have been affected by their behaviours?

In this situation I think no, this guy was a child at the time. He didn’t know the affect he was going to have on me. Then I push forward. High school, a time of great trauma for me. Surely these bullies should be held accountable for their actions? They were much older – around 14, 15. It took me years to find the answer to this and it is simply; no.

They should not be held accountable. If you would have asked me this during the events; the answer would be the complete opposite. I wanted revenge, I wanted to fuck them up so bad. I used to day-dream that I would react to them, hit them, make their lives hell. I never did.

I sometimes wish I had done, just to see what had happened. Despite that, I never wanted to hurt anyone, I just wanted them to feel how I did for one minute so they knew what they were doing. I built a wall during that time, a tough exterior. I became the funny one that would let shit bounce off me. I became rougher around the edges and I pushed people away who wanted to get close for a very long time; a way to protect myself.

I refer back to my actions during my teenage years. I didn’t always make the greatest decisions. If I had been held accountable for every misdemeanour I had partook in; I would be a completely different person now. This makes me consider the age of consent, another reason why I believe those people shouldn’t be held accountable. Consent laws are in place to protect vulnerable people – children. And yes, I know they don’t seem vulnerable when they are kicking the shit out of the geek or throwing eggs at the goth kid – yet the fact still remains.

After all of this – I find myself asking WHY has it taken me over 15 years to come to a conclusion about this? Experience? Forgiveness? Motherhood? Age? Maybe a combination of those? I don’t know. This isn’t really a complete conclusion anyway, it is just a collection of thoughts and questions.

I can’t profess that I have fully forgiven some people within all of this, because I haven’t. The issues it created within me have affected my life since and continue to do so. I am trying to understand though, I really am.

Being a teenager in a rough school is tough – I know that. I had the bravery (or stupidity?) to stand out and be an individual and I got thrown to the wolves.