Mind how you go!

Mindfulness: It’s quite the buzzword these days and is touted by some as a cure for many ills. Is it worth the effort? I think so.

My first foray into guided meditation, sometime in 2011, is etched on my memory. Andy Puddicombe had the perfect analogy for what I thought of as my horribly ‘busy head’ … cars on a motorway.  There I was caught up in the maelstrom of the traffic, trying desperately to direct it and, at the same time, risking being mowed down.

Andy taught me that I can safely get off the motorway, that it’s possible to take a step back, that those cars can carry on speeding about but that I need not be in their midst.

Earlier ‘dabblings’ with relaxation ‘tapes’ (that long ago, yes) and CDs offering meditative exercises rather left me cold. I needed a guide to follow but found the voices grated and put me right off. Andy’s is a voice with the power not only to guide but to soothe, calm and assure me, all while sounding like he’s speaking only to me.

I’ve been a poor student, often distracted from my practise. Frequently I’ve resisted it for fear of having to face head on the horrors of grief, loneliness and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from which I was trying to distract myself to avoid being completely overwhelmed. I had lost of sight of the knowledge that mindfulness meditation can reduce rather than exacerbate my stress.

After a very long gap, I’ve tentatively begun to again make a habit of meditating daily. I’ve completed eight or so guided meditations, of either 10 or 15 minutes each, in the last two weeks. By the end of this afternoon I plan to have clocked up a consecutive run of four days. It’s early days! Meditation, and generally ‘being mindful’, do take practise. The more you do it, the more you benefit. It’s not difficult, not really. It takes some commitment and gentle effort.

I’m already reaping the rewards.

Meeting with my advocacy worker yesterday regarding the complaint we are submitting following my experience of the Intensive Home Treatment Team last year, I read my discharge letter for the first time. It contained such a catalogue of factual errors that it could have been written about somebody else. Memories of the mistreatment I received from some members of that team and new horror at the huge errors in the letter and the impact of them left me feeling very angry, sad and anxious.

I used a specific meditation for stress last night to help me to manage my feelings. Today I’m aware that my mind is regularly running away with thoughts, worries and memories of this distressing experience. It’s haunting me. I’m using mindfulness to help me to cope and to continue to function. Each time I notice that my mind has been distracted by this, I gently guide my attention back to what I want to focus on, such as writing this post, folding laundry, washing dishes, reading, watching a film or doing my physiotherapy exercises.

I’m using it in a similar way to help me to improve my posture and reduce some of my chronic pain. For example, each time I notice that I’m hunching my shoulders, I gently ease them back to where they belong. It helps me too in many more ways.

Mindfulness helps me to take one day at a time, to be present in the present moment, which after all is all any of us has; the past has passed and the future is not guaranteed.

What could it do for you?

I love Headspace. because it’s done exactly what it says on the tin; it’s given me some space in my head. (This is not a sponsored post, I receive no benefit, nor do I seek to, if you should check it out. I’m merely sharing what works for me.)

Sound Asleep Secrets

Latest newswire: Mangled earphones are a thing of the past!

I heard mention of a ‘sound pillow’ on last week’s episode of the BBC2 TV series Trust Me I’m a Doctor. Instead of looking puzzled, as is often the way, I thought to myself … ooh, I’ve got one of those! I recovered it from the bottom of my wardrobe where I’d put it for safe keeping until I had time to try it out. I’d received it as a gift more than a year ago, but at the time my head was too full and life too frantic for me to have given it more than a cursory glance. Within five minutes yesterday I had it up, running and tested. I hadn’t realised it would be so easy.

If you follow me on Twitter (@heartsetonlivin) you might have seen me bemoaning the fact that I’d mangled not one but two pairs of earphones by listening to audio books in bed. I find it so soothing that I’m lulled to sleep. I then crush an earphone by accidentally sleeping on it! In a matter of weeks I’ve managed to ruin one set in its entirety and had been limping on in mono with Exhibit A …

Exhibit A: One mangled earphone

My woes prompted sympathy … and some good-natured teasing … from Twitter pals.

So, what is a sound pillow and would I buy one?
It’s a pillow with a speaker inside it, and a cable on the side to be plugged into a smartphone, tablet or mp3 player. I have this one. I think it was purchased using an Internet deal and so may be available elsewhere for less than the advertised price.

Set up is a doddle, just plug and go. I use mine with my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 tablet, because that’s what I happen to have. I have audio books and my favourite sleep meditation loaded on to it, and I’m also able to listen to the radio or music via wifi.

Sleep can be a challenge if you’re a #spoonie. Pain, anxiety, depression can all take their toll, and that’s just for starters. My recent episode of serious illness brought with it catastrophic sleep disruption. As my mood began to recover, I decided to revisit some favourite audio books, in the hope they’d help me to relax and also distract my mind from anxious rumination.

It works*, I’m pleased to say, and so does the sound pillow!  I used it last night and happily fell asleep while listening. I found I had to play the tracks more loudly than I would if using earphones, but that’s no hardship. I’m lucky enough to now have a king-size bed to myself. Largely sleeping on one side, I tuck the tablet under the pillow on the other.

Using the sound pillow felt a little odd at first, but only because I’d become used to ‘in ear sound’ that, for the most part, moved with me when I moved. I soon adjusted, and found the best pillow spots for optimum listening. Once settled, I didn’t have to faff about with earphones or worry that my remaining one would be crushed. I have both a padded pillow protector and a normal pillowcase over my sound pillow. I didn’t find the sound to be obstructed in any way. I did have to adjust to being able to hear some ambient noise, previously blocked out by earphones, but this wasn’t a great problem.

If I had the cash and hadn’t received one as a gift, I think I would be tempted to buy a sound pillow. I am a new user, so I can’t yet report on its longevity potential.

*If I’m in need of additional distraction, I will play ‘Snake’ (remember that?!) on my mobile phone. I had to abandon my smart phone last year because I was skint and I’m using a basic old phone on loan from my friend. Anxiety is no match for Harry Potter audio books, read rather marvellously by Stephen Fry, combined with a few rounds of ‘fruit gobbling Snake game play’, I can tell you!

Alas, I haven’t yet found a way to combat sudden, unplanned waking, due to medication side effects, pain, nightmares or other irritation, but I live in hope … 🙂 .

N.B I have NOT been paid for this review.
This not a sponsored blog, nor do I want it to be. There are probably similar products on the market. I have chosen to review this product because I was given one as a gift by a friend, and because I think it may appeal to readers of this blog.

 

 

The third floor …

The third floor is out of reach

Beyond a wall I cannot breach

Only if escorted may I proceed

Life beyond my front door to lead

 

Anxiety has imposed these limits

To beat it will take more than minutes

For now I must accept my life curtailed

and that in doing so I have not failed

 

I’ve watched scaffolding contractors outside the windows of my second floor flat, working today to reach the floor above, and beyond. I realise that despite the safety harnesses, teamwork and effort involved to scale this extensive Victorian building, they are able to reach the third floor far more easily than I can at this time.

As the summer of 2015 arrived and illness took hold of me I found it increasingly difficult to get out and about. At first I chose to retreat as a form of self protection. Severe depression led to self neglect which led to feelings of shame and a fear of exposing myself. I didn’t feel like me and didn’t feel able to face much of the world, once more so vulnerable and reduced. Broke and with my home at risk, I struggled too to confront reminders of the life I’d been so assiduously working to build. Later, anxiety, rather than I, chose to restrict my boundaries still further.

My world shrank, as my illness grew. I stopped travelling the mile or so into the city centre. I stopped making the 15 minute walk to my GP’s surgery. I went no further than the pharmacy at the end of the street where I live. I only got as far as the bins right outside this building, to put out my rubbish. I stopped being able to go outside. I found myself trapped behind my own front door.

I didn’t go out at all for five weeks. I’ve ventured out three times in the last three, each time escorted by my friend, but no further than a shop in the area immediately surrounding my flat. I’ve put goals in place to stretch my boundaries and to make at least one solo journey to the pharmacy by the end of this month. Next month I’ll push the boundaries further still. I can’t Tigger my way of out of this, at least not to the extent of pushing myself too hard too fast, as I am oft’ liable to do. Slow and steady wins the race. Pacing? Yeah, I think I’ve heard that word … a few gazillion times. Crash and burn? Not this time!

Something over a decade ago I experienced life living with Generalised Anxiety Disorder (G.A.D.), Social Anxiety and Agoraphobia, alongside my severe depression and physical health problems. Life was such fun back then 😉 .

I have discussed the question of which is worse, depression or anxiety, with others who have experienced these illnesses. It’s like asking how long is a piece of string. They are both difficult to endure. However, some have told me they feel, as I do, that if they were forced to choose to live with one; they would choose depression. My reasoning for this is that with depression at its worse I feel I have to die. With anxiety at its worse I feel that I am dying, horribly and perpetually.

I highly commend No Panic for its support in the face of anxiety. The charity has expanded in the years since I used its services and appears to have even more to offer. Clinical anxiety is much more than worry or concern. It is a pervasive, debilitating and life-diminishing condition.

After discovering water dripping through the ceiling in my bathroom this week. I knew that I had to visit my neighbours living in the flat directly above, in order to try to discover the source of the problem. I don’t actually know who lives there and, as the configuration of that floor is slightly different to this, I am uncertain even which door belongs to which flat. Anxiety doesn’t appreciate uncertainty or unfamiliarity!

I had a very productive day yesterday, in spite of limited #spoons after little sleep. I tackled some stressful tasks with aplomb, but I could not open my front door, let alone venture upstairs. I tried repeatedly, deploying various strategies, but my feet might as well have been set in concrete. Shame and a sense of failure crept over me and, try as I might, I could not shake it. I tried to compose a blog post but found I couldn’t write, so consuming was the anxiety. I went to bed at 9, feeling gloomy and weary. I slept fitfully.

Today, I have once more been productive. I succeeded in opening the door to the postman and a further delivery. I haven’t tried to venture out.

I consider myself lucky that this time around I am not experiencing panic attacks frequent or otherwise. This time I think of my anxiety as ‘the wall’ – a sturdy but temporary fixture – that is blocking access to certain aspects of life. I learned a great deal as I sought to conquer the anxieties of old. I’ll use that knowledge to take down this wall, brick by brick.

That anxiety has sneaked back into my life is a bind. It is no more than that. I will get past it as I did before.

Coming next: Poor Self Care 

 

 

 

 

 

Medication … miracle?!

TW: This post contains discussion of suicidal intent and a suicide attempt.

So, after stepping back from the brink, how are things now?

Well, by goodness, there is a LOT going on in my life, a great deal to manage and to process but I have some support and may yet have more to come. For the first time in my life that support is appropriate and reliable and it’s paying dividends. There remains a long and challenging road ahead, more of that in later posts, but the outlook is positive.

I have a long history of depression, I’ve lived with episodes of it for more than 25 years, since I was around 18 years old. Mine is always reactive and triggered by major stress. Alas, when you are survivor of abuse and trauma, life does rather tend to have more than its fair share of that!

I wrote about the attempt I made many years ago to end my life by suicide, here. It happened in the years immediately following my disclosure, to a GP and subsequently a counsellor, of my experiences of trauma, physical and psychological abuse within my family over many years. I was not well supported then and was lucky to survive the attempt. I was discharged from hospital with no follow up support. I tried to be proactive and so sought it out but soon realised there was nothing doing. I feel great dismay when I read accounts by others who are still having this experience in the 2010s.

Finding myself at risk of homelessness was at the root of the prolonged episode of depression in the year from December 2014, but there were other contributing factors. I had been pushing myself much too hard, for one. The prospect of losing the roof over one’s head would be stressful for anyone. As a result of my experiences of abuse, loss has loomed large in my life. I lost all my family, many friends and with those losses connections to my history. I’ve lost some memory. I’ve lost some hair (!) as a result of alopecia. I’ve lost my beloved career. I’ve lost my marriage and I’ve lost the chance to have a family of my own. I’ve lost health and fitness and I’ve lost a great amount of time to illness and recovery. A few things can be recovered, others are gone for ever, others can be replaced with a great deal of flexibility and endeavour. Throughout it all I have hung on to a home – there have been many of varying types scattered around the UK – this one is mine and mine alone and with that has come a fledging sense of safety. The threat of its loss became unbearable.

Depression threatened me again and as its impact intensified, I was disturbed to find that it was once again very difficult to access support, despite effort and honesty on my part. [I’d like to discuss this issue in more detail but will do so in a later post focusing on issues around suicide prevention.]

Medication was mentioned but I was very reluctant to go down that road. Having previously been prescribed various anti-depressant and anti-anxiety medications over a period of four years. I never felt they had any benefit or served to ease my psychiatric symptoms in any way. The doses were regularly increased to no effect, in my view, except to ensure that I had a veritable pharmacy on hand at home. It was while on the highest doses that I made the attempt on my life all those years ago, by swallowing a massive overdose of more than 100 tablets.

I came off all medication in the year following my suicide attempt but continued to pursue counselling and other forms of psychological support that I found in the voluntary sector  and which were hugely beneficial to me.

When my friend made the call to my GP that brought me back from the brink, a few short weeks ago. medication remained the only treatment option on the table. I was told I would not be allowed to access further psychological support – such as specialised trauma therapy – on the NHS, without having first tried medication. My GP, whom I have known for 18 months, remained convinced that it could help me. Knowing that something had to change if I was to continue to stay alive and after lengthy discussion with my GP during an hour long home visit, I made the decision to try medication again.

I didn’t want to be able to accumulate medication at home, knowing myself to be at risk of suicide, so we agreed that I would receive my medication weekly and that since I am having difficulty getting out and about it would be delivered to my home each week.

After just two weeks on a relatively lose dose of anti-depressant medication, I realised that my mood had been steadily improving during the preceding seven days. Side effects were unpleasant at first but manageable with the help of my GP and they have subsided. We increased the dose after those two weeks and I’m due a final increase next week. My mood has remained stable and this is despite receiving some devastating news four days prior to Christmas and, additionally, having an encounter that forced me to relive episodes of terrifying violence in my childhood.

When considering whether to try medication again it didn’t occur to me that something is different this time around. Although I’ve been experiencing the most severe depression again, I have come a very long way in the intervening years and I’m in a very different ‘place’. It certainly seems as though the medication is doing its job this time – ironically, I am taking Sertraline which is the very first of the medications I was prescribed all those years ago. (That news very nearly had me running for the hills, I can tell you!) Perhaps the fact that I have moved on so very much, has made the difference.

A Twitter pal has been expressly wishing me miracles in recent months and continues to do so. It looks like that wishing worked 🙂 …. I needed a miracle and I think I got one … thanks LongJohn 😉 !

Small comfort(s) – friendship in the face of trauma and illness – PART TWO (first lost then rewritten!).

*PLEASE READ PART ONE BEFORE READING THIS PART :)*

I had a close group of friends from university, and others from different areas of my life. I tended to be the linchpin of the university group, the organiser, the one who brought us together. We each went off in different directions after graduating but would congregate at my home. They were like a second family to me, but my disclosure of abuse and mental breakdown was not well received.

There were mutterings about how abuse only happens in ‘terrible families’ and that seemed to lead to the conclusion that I must be terrible by association and so was best avoided. Some shared their disbelief with me that someone they considered to be so strong, bright and capable, could be so weak as to have depression. At one point I was told to get down on my knees and beg God for forgiveness for my terrible sins (after my attempted suicide). Some of these reactions were repeated as more friends became aware of my circumstances.

Illness, of any chronic or acute kind, can be isolating when it leaves a person unable to live as they once could. Mobility and energy may be compromised, together with many other aspects of normal life. They may become housebound or even bed bound. Friendships are tested, strained, and may even break down. People are often unsure what to say or do in these circumstances. They will often back away, for fear of doing the wrong thing and contact can ultimately be lost. Others are just not good around illness, while others are fair weather friends – around for the good, but not for the less so. For a decade my life revolved around healthcare appointments, depression and panic attacks, psychotherapy, pain, and my loo – thanks to a debilitating, progressive, and during that period, untreated, digestive disorder. The condition led to my becoming agoraphobic for a lengthy period, and further isolated.

*Over time I cut myself off from the very few friends that remained, for fear of having to face more rejection or misunderstanding and stigmatising judgements that, ill and traumatised as I was, I didn’t have the strength to challenge.

I came to realise that I had never been particularly discerning where friendships were concerned. Devoid of self-esteem, because of the abuse I’d experienced, I took all comers. I’d grown up without my needs being met, brainwashed into believing my purpose was to serve the needs of others. Anyone who wanted me to be a friend, got me, I didn’t stop to consider whether or not this friendship was right for me –  it’s perhaps no surprise that these friendships broke down in (my) extremis.

New people came and went over the years. Isolated and desperate and so ever less discerning, I leapt into a number of unsuitable friendships, often made via the Internet – one of few means of contact with the outside world.

Finally, after all these experiences and additionally the challenges of a very unhealthy marriage, I came to a point where I could no longer imagine trusting anyone ever again.

I decided I couldn’t go on like that.

Small comfort(s) – friendship in the face of trauma and illness – PART THREE.

*PLEASE READ PARTS ONE AND TWO BEFORE READING THIS POST :)*

I knew that if I wanted to do more than just survive, if I wanted to THRIVE, building trust and building friendships had to be an integral part of rebuilding myself and my life. However, there were more difficulties therein. How when you’re continuing to deal with chronic illness and, for want of a better expression, chronically difficult, often traumatic, circumstances, how do you make new friendships?

New person: Hello! What’s your name. What do you do?

Me: Erm, I’m heartsetonliving, I’m recovering from decades of abuse and subsequent illness 🙂 

New person: *is thrown* Oh. Er. *falls back to the usual script* Do you have family?

Me: I lost all my family due to a combination of death, abuse and abandonment. I haven’t been able to have a family of my own due to illness and a dysfunctional and damaging marriage 🙂 . 

New person: Lovely! *legs it*
I jest. That’s NOT what I say! 

But I hope perhaps you get the picture. For a long time my full time occupation has been coping with the aftermath of years of abuse, managing illness and rebuilding myself and my life. What I do end up doing is skirting around my circumstances, probably coming across as awkward and evasive, perhaps even furtive and untrustworthy – which is far from the reality of who I am.

It is possible to find friends in similar circumstances to yourself as Ruby Wax has said it can be a relief to find support and empowerment from your own ‘tribe’, people who can more easily relate to you, and you to them. In a mental health setting where I was a voluntary worker in a mentoring role, I unexpectedly made a close friend who has since given me more support than I can ever remember receiving. After the ‘straw and camel’ event of late spring followed by the desperate summer, I am still alive today, able to write this, because of that friendship. There can also be complications making friends ‘in your tribe’, with others like you having more than their fair share of problems, often limiting what they can offer.

*I walked away from one long-standing friendship that had been different, one of give and take, warmth and good humour. Ten years passed. While my life stalled, that person’s life moved on in significant strides as they continued to grow and develop in a typical sort of fashion. But they seemed not to let me go entirely and as technology progressed through those years, so they would pop up with a greeting from time to time via the Internet through one medium or another. I would look the other way, trying to pretend I couldn’t see, too scared to hope. Finally I took the plunge and responded. Having recovered some health and rebuilt a good deal of myself, thanks to extensive psychotherapy, and regained some confidence; I decided this was the time to tell all.

They knew little more than that I had been low. They didn’t know that I had been living a ‘double life’ throughout our friendship, let alone anything about the devastation to my life, ongoing consequences and the fight to recover and rebuild.
That must have been some shock I delivered that day!
They didn’t know what to say … anxiety gripped me as I thought, here we go again.

We have persevered, but it’s been quite the rollercoaster ride, for both of us. We have floundered many times, and just recently I thought we were dead in the water.

It’ll be 25 years next year since we first met. I hope we’ll celebrate that.

I thought if this friendship could work out, it would give me the confidence to reignite and better engage with another long standing friend to whom I was not so close but whom I had not discarded entirely. We’ve remained in occasional contact by post or online. I know I have often backed away out of embarrassment or an inability to explain my complex circumstances. Perhaps I might introduce that friend to this blog …

My reunited friend and I used to work together seeing each other almost every day, and socialising from time to time. After three years we both moved on to different circumstances, a hundred miles or so apart. We wrote letters and met when we could. It was a friendship I cherished, not foreseeing the chasm that would eventually open up between us. These days we live more than two hundred miles apart, we sometimes email (OK, I do a lot, often in great angst or worse), sometimes we text, sometimes tweet, occasionally natter on the phone.

I can’t help but wonder how our friendship would work if my life were less of a ‘train wreck’. It’s like the proverbial elephant in the room and one around which it is extraordinarily difficult to negotiate.

My friend is not with stress or strain in their own life but has an extensive network: a close family, children, friends and work colleagues. Aside from this friend and following the death of a loved one a year ago, I have no one close to me from my life before 2010. I have no sense of connection to my history. I’ve been isolated due to illness and my circumstances. There is no doubt that I am in need of support right now, probably more so than I have ever been. But it can’t be fair to put so much onto the shoulders of this friend, can it? Immediately there’s a huge imbalance in the friendship. I’m crying out for that friend to provide support of the sort, they might more likely find from family – something I don’t have. We’ve re-established contact after ten years, and been immediately thrown into a whirlwind of intensity (admittedly by me) because my circumstances are so intense, rather than say laid-back or easygoing, or at least more everyday.

How I wish I had all the answers. I keep pressing forward trying to learn and make progress, trying not to berate myself when I think, when I see, I’m making a hash of things and I worry my socks off that my friend will decide our friendship isn’t worth the hassle I bring.

Consistency in support is so important to me right now. I don’t have roots, or solid foundations on which to depend and so feel secure as I tackle whatever life throws at me. My life has been built on quicksand. I want to know where I stand with friends, feel solidity, security from them. A more ad-hoc or casual approach is unsettling, sometimes even frightening. A regular text – even just to say hello, thinking of you, offers reassurance and a boost. A seemingly small comfort, actually offers enormous benefits. A simple set of ground rules can similarly reassure. Not knowing when next you might hear from that person or even how on earth this friendship is meant to work becomes stressful and anxiety-provoking. But my friend doesn’t need this like I do, in their more ‘normal’ life.

What if a friend doesn’t feel able to deal with that? What if naturally, in more average circumstances, the friendship would never have evolved to be that way BUT you, in your circumstances, clamour for them to meet your needs in this way – because there is no one else to do so?

Who compromises??

As someone in need, and someone who knows others in similar distress some to whom I have reached out to try to support, I want to say that the friend should be the one to compromise. It could be argued that they are more easily able to do so because they are not the one in distress. On the other hand, I find myself saying that it isn’t right to pressure or coerce anyone to do something with which they’re not comfortable.

Friendships, for all of us, take work to maintain – the level of work required can be multiplied many times in the face of illness or trauma.

I know, I’ve written an essay! Many congratulations if you made it to the end. I’m afraid there is no prize 😉 ! I’d genuinely love to hear of your experiences of managing/making/maintaining friendships in similar circumstances – whether you’re the needy or the needed 🙂 .

TTFN x

Small comfort(s) – friendship in the face of trauma and illness – PART ONE.

Stick your hand in the air if, by virtue of being a survivor of abuse or someone who lives with chronic mental or physical illness – or any combination of those, you’ve had struggles with friendships.

I know I have. Oh boy, have I … Any friend of mine reading this, and there are precious few these days for reasons which should become apparent, will concur!

 

What about being a friend to someone who falls into one or more of those categories? Stick your hand in the air and wave it about if that’s you. How is it for you??
Have you stuck by a friend through thick and thin? 
Have you struggled to know what to say or how to deal with a friend’s circumstances? Have you found it easier to distance yourself, although you might feel guilty about doing it?

I am, to use a cliche, a ‘people person.’ I can be shy but I can also be ‘Tigger’ . I am sociable and very interested in others. I’m warm, friendly, caring … and witty(or so I like to think!). So what’s going wrong, why do I have so few friends now and almost no one I can count on?

Disclosing experiences of abuse is difficult for a multitude of reasons. I began doing it in my thirties, at a time when I had many established friendships. It didn’t happen earlier because until then I didn’t know that what I had experienced, was continuing to experience, was abuse, and I was caught up in the machinations of life with abusers and stuck behind the wall of silence so often installed by those who abuse.

I remember so clearly. A locum GP had finally asked the right questions and discovered my real circumstances, not only those my brave front portrayed. She referred me to a counsellor, who told me so carefully and with such compassion …
‘This is abuse … you don’t have to live like this.’
I was assailed by a plethora of thoughts and feelings – everything from pain to confusion, fear to disbelief. I was clear on one thing. It was better this was out in the open, people would rally, I would be supported and loved through this.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

Peace and Loneliness

I’ve been seeking peace of mind for some thirteen years, since my abuse came to light and I finally broke.  I hoped to find it with my husband, but the marriage brought more fear and sadness. There was also laughter, sharing and wonderful cuddles ( I shall miss those) but the shadow of that fear and sadness loomed large above two people who in order to be themselves could not be together.

Peace of mind to me means living free from threat and fear; it’s a sense of safety, security and wellbeing.

I’ve yet to find that but in the new life I’ve made in the three years I’ve spent living in my adopted city home, I have experienced happiness, joy and contentment. Above all I’ve found me and quite frankly that’s really something to shout about. The freedom, the contentment that feeling comfortable within yourself can bring is immeasurably marvellous; it makes my heart sing.

I have always been able to picture the real me or my true self, my authentic self, if you prefer. The abuse I experienced could not obliterate that image but it did severely compromise my ability to be me.

In the last two years I’ve lost a lot of weight –  much of that piled on some years ago in the aftermath of my initial breakdown – and it’s meant shedding a physical and psychological burden. I was trapped inside somewhere, by losing weight I’m breaking out. I no longer cringe when I catch sight of myself, in fact I often beam! Photographs are still difficult because of issues with my teeth – which I hope to soon address – and my ongoing alopecia. My hair loss is permanent, I am teaching myself to just ‘rock it’! At last I have the confidence to wear clothes that I love and finally begin to develop the sense of style I could always picture. Shapeless cover-ups are long gone. I’m experimenting with make-up – not to hide but to enhance and most of all for FUN. Last week, for the first time, I had my eyebrows waxed and I loved it! I did it because I wanted to do it; I felt pampered. I grew up being schooled to ignore my own needs and to believe that self-care was a bad thing – self indulgent, selfish, an unnecessary frivolity.

It took a lot of hard work to recover from an anxiety disorder and agoraphobia and until very recently I still found it difficult to go into small shops. I live in an area with a fabulous old fashioned style high street filled with independent shops – an artisan bakery, a greengrocer, a cheesemonger, a health food store among them. I was too fearful to enter them because their small nature, their intimacy, felt too exposing and left me with nowhere to hide. I felt I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t worthy of being there. NOT ANYMORE!! I stride out with a funky basket on my arm (bought some years ago and saved for just such a moment that I was determined would come) and away I go. Now in my forties, I’m beginning to live.

 ****

Yesterday was difficult. I felt acutely lonely. Those feelings began on Friday evening and I felt bad about being so affected on a day when I’d had a considerable amount of meaningful contact. I rarely get so much and usually would ensure it sustained me for days.

There was an appointment at the GP surgery with a nurse with whom I have connected. During my mammoth weight loss programme she offered, unprompted, to accompany me to a local pool to fulfill a dream to swim again after a gap of many years; to ‘hold my hand’. Her compassion and willingness to engage quite took my breath away. My burgeoning self confidence received a bonus boost. I haven’t yet taken her up on the offer, although I did buy a swimming costume last year, but I hope to do so later this year. I still have a lot to do and limited spoons with which to do it and have had to accept that I can’t do everything at once. She was pleased to see me yesterday and recognised me although we have only met twice, the last time some months ago. It’s a simple thing but being recognised, feeling a connection, means so much. I’d lived so very long in isolation having lost all links due to illness and the abuse. I have no family, having had to cut myself off from what was left of it because I was being abused. Friends had distanced themselves then disappeared, some outraged that I’d had a ‘breakdown’ believing mental illness to be not an illness but a weakness or character flaw. Others were suspicious, appearing to think I had ‘gone a bit weird’ claiming abuse that couldn’t possibly be, so dazzled were they by the polished veneer expertly laid over our family to hide the soiled lives beneath. For years it blinded me too. Perhaps others just didn’t know how to deal with me. I distanced myself from the few who remained fearing further rejection or ridicule.

Back to Friday and I arrived at a lunch date with a friend, buoyed by my encounter with lovely nurse and it too was lovely – another connection and growing friendship. Our conversation was lively and varied. Talking about my situation and the realities of Operation Fight Back (my endeavour to recover from a recent set back and continue my lengthy ‘rebuilding programme’, in the wake of my marriage ending three months ago) was, is, helpful. Without an outlet, pressure builds to dangerous levels. However, talking and sharing as oppose to silently getting on with it, brought my isolation into sharp focus. My friend talked about being ‘adopted’ by older friends following the deaths of her parents. I’ve long dreamed of that happening to me – that may sound a bit drippy! I’ve had little experience of relationships with a parent figure that wasn’t toxic. I feel the absence of healthy versions of those relationships. I don’t have someone to look up to, to turn to, to seek advice from, or feel loves, cherishes, knows and accepts me. That’s how it is, I live with it, I seek to keep developing myself and my life … then who knows what might happen? Still, sometimes that loss, that absence, that pain, punches me on the nose … really hard. Watching Sport Relief  that evening I was undone. It featured a report about a 92 year old gentleman’s sense of loneliness following the loss of his much beloved wife to Alzheimer’s Disease. I felt for him so much but when the television  presenter spoke of the terrible problem of loneliness among the elderly, I wanted to shout at the telly you don’t have to be elderly to experience terrible loneliness. 

I ran yesterday (stats at the end of this post) morning but that and the bare basics were all I could manage. I felt low and I was hurting. Texts from two friends later in the day offered welcome respite. I hung on and today dawned more brightly.  The *?!*?’* is back in its box.

Treadmill stats for Saturday:

12mins 20 – all run = 0.73 distance and 67.1 cals