Hello everyone,
I am not going to pretend I’m having an easy time of this year’s national Novel Writing Month. I’m already behind and just do not feel I have the words in me at this point in time. Hoping I can get some words down but honestly, I feel so detached at the minute.
I don’t think my own mental health is helping and my creative juices are flat.
Here’s hoping I have better news next time I write. There is so little to report at present. The struggle is real!
Hello everyone,
I had debated whether to even bother writing a reflection on this past year. I often do it to appreciate the good and mentally ditch the negativity but this year has probably been one of my hardest to date!
Most of you know, i’ve suffered with my mental health considerably this past twelve months. The one thing I had always stood by was the fact I did not want to take antidepressants. It isn’t because I don’t believe they work, but for me, it always felt like the absolute last resort.
Other people get depressed. Other people feel crippling anxiety and stress. I am enough aware of mindfulness that I should not need to take medication. That was arrogant of me. And I would be the first person to tell someone to do what they could, whether conventional or alternative. It seems though, I have fallen into that age old predicament of therapists. Great at supporting others well being and yet shocking at supporting my own.
I’m going to be rather candid here, so be warned, potential triggers here for some. I have self harmed. I have felt suicidal. And I was that person who thought it could never happen to me. But it did.
I have cried constantly. I wake up with panic attacks. I am often frozen in terror in busy supermarkets and without my beautiful guide dog and his need to exercise and be mentally stimulated, I would frankly have never left the house.
I’ve been taking medication now for three weeks. I’m not yet seeing a drastic improvement but time will only tell. I have incredible doctors and counsellor who have supported me to no end. I am blessed with a family who loves me and have been so incredible this past few years. And my friends. Some of you know the bad days, and some have been there even when I didn’t know I needed you. You all know who you are. The trips to cafes, the offers to be there either in person or on the phone. The weekly zoom chats. The facetime calls or the regular phone calls. The knowledge you are there if I just need a friendly ear.
A few months ago, my counsellor asked me a question that at the time I found strange but one which I have come to understand and mark my feelings against. He asked me on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 being I don’t want to be on this planet anymore, and 10 being my life is pretty damn perfect, where would I mark myself. I’m not going to lie, it’s been low but it’s been on the whole higher than 0 just because of my friends, family and Bertie dog. As cliched as this sounds, those calls, those texts, those chats and visits have been the pricks of light in a very dark world.
I can’t even apologise for this very gloomy post because I’m trying to not apologise for my feelings anymore. They are real and they are valid. For one reason or another, and sadly there are a fair few, this year has been probably one of my worst to date. I can’t dress that up. I can’t sprinkle glitter on it and it be brighter. I gave up horses. I’ve rarely been out. I’m virtually scared of my own shadow, [OK, not quite] and people quite honestly panic me.
All I can do, is keep trying and keep allowing myself to believe that things will get better. That 2022 will be an upward climb to a more happy place and a happier me.
I don’t know what next year will bring, I just hope I am strong enough to get through it.
This was certainly not the most inspiring post I’ve ever written for the end of the year but at least it’s an honest one.
All the best for 2022 and here’s to health, happier times, and prosperity. Stay safe and carry love in your heart. Love is what gets us all through the darkness.
Hello everyone,
It has been a very long time. And i hope you understand by reading this the reasons I have been Missing In Action.
I’ve toyed with the idea of writing this blog for well over a year now. But through my own struggles, I decided I wasn’t in the best place to articulate what I wanted to say.
As a really big disclosure, I am still not OK, and am struggling mentally at the moment but the one thing I have learnt this past few years is that if we don’t talk about mental health, and genuine well being in a candid way, then we contribute to the taboo it has been for as long as I can remember, and longer.
Let me be frank, I am not writing this for sympathy. I want people to hear that I’m not OK, and if they to are not OK, that is fine to. this past year has thrown so much at so many of us and even my most stoic friends have opened up they have struggled.
So for me, someone who already has experienced anxiety and stress through various periods of my life, it’s no wonder I had a pretty bad mental break down last year.
I thought I had it under control. Yes, I was feeling anxious. I was struggling concentrating and all of my triggers had indeed been triggered. But, instead of taking care of me, I tried to carry on.
We had just come out of the first lock down, and I wanted to be that “strong” person who could just get back into life and blows to Covid-19. But the strains of social distancing, others attitudes toward disabled people really hit me like a 7 ton truck. Also being locked away from people, friends and family took its toll.
Having a mental health condition, you would think I would know when I’m spiralling. But sometimes, you think, one day of feeling anxious will pass and before you know it, you’re struggling to keep your head above the water.
Granted, I wasn’t hospitalised but I sincerely cannot remember most of last august or September. I was forced onto the sick from work and hardly left my house without a sighted person with me.
I would never profess to being the most independent blind person I know, but I would say I’m rather self sufficient where mobility is concerned. To be reduced to someone who, if could see, would be frightened of their own shadow is sometimes hard to swallow. But I did become that person. And residual feelings remain now.
I have tried to get back to life. But I am struggling again. I’ve listened to my triggers this time and I’m standing up and saying to myself and everyone around me… I am not OK. And that is completely OK!
Despite all of the coping mechanisms I have learnt over the past few years; Despite the natural remedies I take daily to keep me calm; I am again in a place where I’m struggling to concentrate for long periods. I’m not sleeping or eating well. I have zero energy and I fear for my safety in busy places.
Since 19 July 2021, England changed the rules on social distancing and made it advisable and not a legal requirement to wear a mask. Imagine not being able to see if others are wearing masks. Best case scenario everyone is, but the reality is much different and I will never know if a person is wearing a mask who is standing opposite me on a crowded tram/bus/etc.
This pandemic may feel it is over for most people but for those who live with compromised immune conditions, or a disability that reduces their mobility, this pandemic is far from over. And the real cost to people’s mental health is still to early to count in the atrocities this virus has left behind in its wake.
I hope by reading this, others feel they can stand up and say they are not feeling OK but that’s fine. It’s natural for people to struggle, and to brush this past sixteen months under a carpet and stoically hope for the best, is not the solution we all need.
Please take care and reach out to family/friends/or a professional if you need help.
You sneak up behind me
When I’m not aware,
You creep in the darkness,
You hide on the stairs,
You find little places to hide in plain sight,
You fool me into believing all is alright.
Your cunning is enviable,
Your cleverness untrue,
You like to catch me off-guard,
And you make me question who?
Who am I now,
When you’ve crept into my mind,
Where has that smart, funny, confident woman gone,
where on earth can she be found?
You take all the gusto
And throw it away,
You crush on the confidence,
You make doubt stay,
You’re handy with the panic attacks,
It’s how you keep me in,
A box of your designing,
my mind in the bin.
Paralysed with fear of life,
Saddened by the shadows that remain,
You’ve been having a party with me,
And you just won’t go away!
You’re like the bad fragrance,
The one that will not shift,
You’re engrained in the fabric of me,
As I’m lying in this ditch!
You stand so proudly over me,
Triumphant in your task,
You’re the anxiety monster, I know,
I discovered what’s beneath your mask.
Right now I don’t have the energy,
I just want to lie and sleep,
My heart is grieving for the woman I was,
I fell into the darkness too deep.
As it swallows me whole,
And you think you have won the game,
Know that the love that surrounds me,
Will somehow make you not stay!
life with no eyes 