Protected: I hate nights like tonight!!

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Muddling along..

I can’t quite believe it’s only 2 weeks till Christmas, it doesn’t feel festive at all despite having the tree up now and the decorations, every year I hope for some Christmas magic feeling to come along but I beginning to think it’s just not the same being an adult! I think I need to get the Christmas songs on the go, that usually does the trick!

I guess it’s hard to be festive when your sick, most of my blogs about illness recently have been private because no one likes a moaner right ?

I’ve been back to see the consultant at the hospital so will now be referred to the GI people, the pain team and have the excitement of looking forwards to a colonoscopy perhaps there will be more sedating drugs which cause some fun havoc with my mind again!

They spoke about starting me on amitriptyline as a painkiller, I’ve been on it on the higher dose as an AD and walked around like a zombie for months, it also knocks you to sleep, so maybe it would be a good drug for me to try!

I treated myself to some lovely new yarn today, it “knits” a lovely lacy scarf but it is so fiddly and time consuming! i also bought a new set of bamboo needles seen as my other ones got snapped or lost, I really need to get a knitting box (other than the falling apart cardboard Amazon box that is currently being used)

I also picked up some oil pastels and drawing paper, I am by no means artistic but I do enjoy drawing and painting so had a little play with them tonight, it might have looked like a kids picture but it kept me amused for a good 30mins and made me happy! 

I never thought I would hear myself say this but I wish mother nature would return my monthly gift, it appears to have gone missing since I became ill, I do believe it is trying to make a return due to a couple of random PMS days, or am I just a bitch hmm who knows!

Just not good enough….

Do you ever feel like your just not good enough for some people ? No matter how hard you try or do you’ll never mean the same to them as they mean to you ?

After years of bad friendship choices I shut myself off to the social world and it’s only been in recent years that I let more people in, I don’t like feeling hurt and therefore don’t put myself in position where that can happen, yet here I am again.

Maybe part of it is my mental health issues but I’m sure I’m not the only person in the world that needs to be told they are loved by those close to them, how are you meant to know if you are important to a friend if they don’t tell you ?

Maybe it’s time to pull the shutter down again, I can’t deal with these types of emotions while being this ill.

There is no end

Yesterday I fell apart, reached the limit, couldn’t take anymore…In such a way that I splattered like a puddle over the floor streaming off in many directions, some of me won’t come back, there will now be mental scars impregnated in my mind.

Illness has taken over my life in ways I could never imagine, the feelings of being trapped, dependant and useless can’t be understood by anyone unless they have been through it themselves.

There’s the pain, I’ve not been pain free for months, I’ve managed to get to the “I’m just uncomfortable now” stage but never pain free. I’ve been given all the painkillers I can, if it gets unbearable then morphine and hospital are the only options left.

Then there’s the not being able to eat which leads to a severe lack of energy, think about the most tired time you’ve ever been, then add on the flu and a sleepless night and you might be getting close, your body physically aches all the time, just going to the toilet it a huge effort, you’re constantly fighting against your eyes which want to close, never mind the social act of food or the fact that you still get hungry at times but can’t have anything other than liquid.

How would you feel if you had been told that the majority of people in your situation end up on a feeding tube, not working and needing carers.

My life as I knew it has been torn away from me and there’s no hope in sight of it getting better, I can’t go to uni, I can’t drive most of the time, I can’t look after the kids, most of my life is about resting in the hope that tomorrow will be a better day but it never is.

If you’re familiar with the spoon theory then you can relate to my energy levels just now, I’m borrowing spoons left right and centre which is resulting is some sire situations.

Yesterday I went into uni because I had my counselling appointment which even with no energy I really need just now. It was a long day for me and by the end I was physically struggling, I was dizzy and faint, my heart was racing and I had to sit down, I was sweating and disorientated and needed to get home. A misunderstanding with the BFG made me think I had to drive home that terrified me so much that I burst into tears in the middle of the atrium, I couldn’t help it, weeks of anger and pain that had built up came out.

It turned out that he did come back and stayed which was what I needed because the kids were here and I just CANNOT cope with them when I am this ill but I still have my pride, I don’t want to have to point out to people when I need help, I already feel bad enough that I NEED people to be helping me out on a practical level.

The husband has always been a practical person where as I am an emotional person but I am so grateful for his help just now, he is taking the kids every night he’s not working and coming round each day to tidy up for me and wash dishes etc., to him it’s not much but it means a lot to me, any day I’ve done the dishes it’s taken hours as I have to keep stopping and resting, a bit like this post which has taken me hours to write!

I’ve not even had the energy to phone the BFF this week which saddens me a lot,  I hate myself a lot just now and the physical ailments are dragging my mental health down bit by bit. I used to be the strong one, I used to be the fixer not the broken one lying on the floor……

Cats and mental health

 

So from looking at the previous poll I am pleasantly surprised that people do not appear to mind talking about mental health issues, this is reassuring to myself as someone who constantly worries about how other interpret me and over analysis most conversations and actions of people 😉

Moving on to cats, I was never really a cat person, I used to think they were dirty animals that had evil tendencies, the BFF has always been a cat lover and over time I have came round to them, realised they are actually very clean animals and can provide entertainment and love without too much care input from the human.

When the husband moved out I got 2 18 month old cats Maggie and Oreo, unknown to myself Oreo was pregnant so 8 weeks later 4 kittens came along too! Oreo is the loving sooky one, she’s too tolerant of the girls and allows them to carry her around and treat her like a toy doll. Maggie is wiser and only comes for cuddles on her own terms, but is lovely in her own way.

The first 4 weeks after the kittens arrived you’d hardly have known they were here, they mainly stayed in their nest unless I brought them out, but now, well they have suddenly came to life and within a week have started to run, jump and explore! It’s all very entertaining and fun but also means kittens turning up in the oddest places and having to watch we don’t stand on them, I love lie there has been the odd case of a kitten scooting across the floor due to someone not noticing it but they are all still alive and well. If they can survive the youngest ones constant picking up of them and “delicate” touch they can survive anything. I’d like to say it’s so they will be used to children but none of them are going to homes with kids!

I really want to keep Moo, or CowCat depending on who you ask! S/he is so cute and well it would be wrong not to keep 1 wouldn’t it! The husband said we’re not moving back in together with 3 cats, I was thinking of re homing Maggie due to her litter tray “accidents” and fighting with her sister but it’s almost as if she’s a mind reader and has stopped this unwanted behavior. Perhaps some special favours will need to be called in so he can’t say no 😉

The cats are great for mental health, I was home alone last night which I would normally hate but having the cats keeps me company, it also means any strange noises can be blamed on the cats 🙂 

Right time to find some motivation to tidy the kitchen and sort the school clothes for the week!

Mental Health

So I am interested in peoples opinions on the discussion of mental health conditions. For many years I never told anyone about mine apart from my BFF, I was embarrassed, ashamed and very self conscious. As the years have gone on I have became more confident, learnt a lot more about my conditions and I’m pretty clued up now on what meds work for me and how to cope with the constant hurdles that depression and anxiety bring.

Also since starting my nursing degree I have became much more aware of the drive to dropping the stigma of mental health conditions and  promoting awareness of said conditions, but there are still times that I feel even people who should be fine with talking about it aren’t.

Now I’m not talking about getting into lengthily discussions or analyzing  thoughts over with people, the BFF and BGF get that privilege 😉 I’m talking about simply saying to someone “I have depression” or “Sorry I’m not feeling great today, I get really bad anxiety”

Please fill in the poll and help me find out, are we ready as a society to talk about these things openly ?

Paranoia

Mental health problems can be just as bad or worse than having physical illness.

For 10 years I have had major clinical depression and  anxiety, it’s most likely going to be with me for life, paranoia is something that happens a lot. Tonight’s paranoia is regarding friendship and a fear of friends being annoyed with me or fed up of me.

Like many people I don’t have a high opinion of myself, I know I am kind and caring in nature and I do tend to be over generous is some areas in fear of loosing people but often my mind goes round in vicious circles of convincing myself people don’t like me and find me weird and don’t actually want to be my friend.

Sometimes I can nip the paranoia in the bud if I notice it happening but other times my mind gets carried away and I end up having a full blown fall out with a friend in my head because I’m so annoyed about the situation.

For me paranoia ties in closely with social anxiety, my social anxiety has improved vastly over the past 3-5 years but there is always the odd bad day when it creeps up again and sends me off in to panic attack mode. There are no magic pills for mental health illnesses, I am on medication for both depression and anxiety but they do not fix you, they simply give you to tools to help yourself, it’s hard work and there are days where I think wow life is such an effort, why does everything need to be so hard ?

At the end of the day you have to work hard to make your life worth something, this is what makes you a stronger person.

 

Pain

I am currently in a lot of pain, I am reaching my limit to when i start to become delirious, I am already crabby and if anyone else was in the house I would be snapping and swearing at them just now.

Chronic severe pain is deliberating, imagine a headache for instance, you take some painkillers and usually feel better, but what would you do if they didn’t help, the pain just got worse and it was still there the next day and the day after and after that….

Between my back problems my stomach problems and now my gallbladder problems it’s been rare that I’ve had a day in the last year that I’ve not been in pain. Occasionally there are days where the pain is at a lesser “normal” level.

But how would you cope if pain was crippling your life, stopping you from carrying out your day to day activities, preventing you from leading a normal life, seeing your friends, going to work, what would you do if it got to the level where you needed help to look after yourself.

You would “cope” because there is no other choice, I don’t feel like I cope, people tell me I am a strong person but I don’t feel strong, I feel weak and worthless and a disappointment.

If you don’t already suffer from mental health problems your more than likely going too, it will be very hard for your friends to understand the impact pain has on your life until they have experienced this for themselves.

If your lucky you will have good friends who will come to visit you and help you out, but there will be many who simply forget about you, stop inviting you to parties or nights out because you’ve had to say no so many times before, little do they know that it’s the thought that counts or that there may just be that one night where you could come and it would do you the world of good. They don’t do it on purpose it’s simply the way the human mind works sadly.

Many people will feel like they are hitting their head off a brick wall with their Dr or hospital, pain is a hard thing to describe, throbbing, stabbing, achy etc can describe the type of pain but there no way for Dr’s to measure the severity of the pain apart from your word.

Sometimes I am made to feel like a wimp, then I have a think about it, i gave birth to 3 children naturally, 2 of them being inductions with a hormone drip to make the contractions harder with just gas and air, I do have a high pain tolerance, so if I say it’s 10/10 then it is 10/10!

People who live with chronic pain and illness have little positivity in their lives at times, so the next time you are having a party or a social gathering please don’t skip past there people, they probably won’t be able to come but the fact that you still thought about them and invited them regardless can do wonders for their self esteem and moral.

I shall end it on that note as I go in search of some alternative form of pain relief as I’ve maxed out on all pharmacological medicines for today .