Recently I had a scare. I ran out of my antidepressants (both of them) and had to wait to get more. Where I was it was £80 for 6 days worth of them and I just don't have that kind of money.
The thoughts that these pills help to silence are insane. It put me back in the place that I had been in 2 years ago and I honestly did not know how to deal with it. In one week I had 3 breakdowns, I struggled to just have conversations with people and I couldn't concentrate on anything. However I was slightly prepared for it to be a lot, I just don't think I was prepared for just quite how much it was. And how completely mentally and physically exhausting it would be. This led to me writing last week's post. Believe it or not, being thrust back into a mindset similar to what mine was when I came home somehow got to me. It made me think about the fact that I am going through all of this, but I have never really talked about it to anyone. Yes I've given bits and pieces to people but it's painful to talk about. I honestly am so happy for the support that has come my way. The story had no names because this story has been played countless times before by countless amounts of people in countless situations. This kind of behaviour is never ok. The ramifications of these actions are huge. And often people don't feel they are able to share what is happening with people around you. Painful because it screwed with my head, painful because I don't recognise that person and painful because knowing about it impacts so many people that I love. But instead of cowering away from this fear and from my illogical brain I have decided to fight fire with fire (or madness with madness if you will.) Why should I spend my time keeping all of this locked up inside of me and letting it continue to keep hurting me? Surely that is how he wins? I left so he would have no more power over me, and despite him trying his hardest, there has been no contact. Last week's post is my story, it's what I feel comfortable with and able to share. I am 2 years into my recovery and there are still things I don't feel ready to talk to people about. There is still a tiny doubt in my mind that I've made a big fuss over nothing. And that is part of the issue. Yes, some people have it considerably worse than I did and some people have it considerably easier than I did. But this is my trauma. And I am choosing to own it, to face up to it, to accept that it has happened. Because wether I like it or not it is a part of me. But it does not define me. I am not my trauma. And you are not yours. Wherever you are in your journey to recovery, wether just starting or feeling considerably more in control, be proud of yourself. You are in the middle of the biggest unseen struggle. You, with the work of your tribe, have come this far. You are finding out who you are now, with this new added piece. But that is not all you are, regardless of how all consuming it can appear at times. And one very important tip that I have learnt the hard way is that it is completely fine to take a day. If you are completely exhausted and don't have anything pressing that day, then take a day. Go sit and cry in the car, go hide under your duvet, go and eat whatever you want, watch whatever you want, listen to whatever you want. All of the parts of your illogical brain will still be there tomorrow. It's not giving in, you're not letting the negative thoughts win. You are recognising that you are having these thoughts and that you are tired beyond belief. There is no way you can fight them if you are running on empty. You wouldn't run a car with no petrol in the same way that you can't run on empty. Take a day. Cry. Laugh. Blow snot out of your nose. Eat chocolate. Build a pillow fort. Hug. Sleep. Be just the tiniest bit proud of yourself. You are enough. You are not alone. You are ok.
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You know exactly how this goes.
Boy meets girl. Girl falls in love with what she is presented. Boy falls in love as much as he can. Girl and boy move in together. Girl starts to do more at home. She does all of the cooking and cleaning. Boy starts to use more harsh language. Girl resolves to do better because after all she is in love with boy. Boy starts to dictate what girl wears. Girl presents outfits for approval before leaving the house. Boy starts to tell girl who she can and can’t see. Girl asks permission before making plans. Boy turns up to places when girl goes out on allowed outings and watches her to make sure she doesn’t do anything he doesn’t like. Boy compares girl to any other woman that he sees and tells her how they are better and how he is only with her because no one else would. Girl starts to apologize. More and more. Girl changes how she behaves during nights out to appease boy. Boy tells girl to sleep on the sofa when he is away and checks to make sure that she does. Boy drinks and shouts at girl. Girl thinks it must all be her fault because that is what she is being told even though she only had one beer. Girl stops drinking. Girl doesn’t tell boy. Girl leaves when boy starts drinking and will cycle or walk around the city for hours until boy is asleep. Boy continues drinking and becoming angry. Boy likes to list areas in which girl is shit and then begins on subsections. Girl realizes that it is not her fault but can’t leave. Boy makes girl sleep in the spare room of her apartment when he is drinking. Girl and Boy move to a new city. Girl gets a more senior job than boy. Girl rents the apartment boy wants in her name. . Girl works long hours and learns a lot at work. Boy asks what is for dinner, even when she is in a meeting or a class. Boy gets angry when there is no food in the house (no food here means nothing cooked for and served to him) Girl becomes more anxious and spends spare time in the gym. Boy dictates what food is eaten in the house and during outings. Girl is not allowed to be vegetarian. Boy’s drinking gets worse. Boy will take Girl’s money and leave her to walk home after nights out. Girl gets used to calling Boy’s father to calm him down when she is allowed back in the house. Every time. Girl gets used to continuously being insulted. Boy doesn’t even have to drink to do it any more. Girl starts wearing flip-flops all the time so it’s more comfortable to walk home. Boy gets very drunk. Boy pushes girl into a wall and uses her to break a tap off the wall. Boy starts pinning girl up again the wall or pushing her around when he is angry, which is becoming more frequently. Girl sleeps in the spare room. Girl wakes up in considerable pain and cleans up the water that has flooded the downstairs with the help of neighbors. Boy sleeps it off before asking where his coffee and breakfast are. Girl struggles to teach because she is in pain. Boy waits for dinner to be cooked for him. Girl reattaches tiles to the wall that have fallen off due to the water damage. Boy goes out. Girl is questioned at work why she is in pain. Girl doesn’t tell. Boy decides to go out with girl. Boy drinks. Boy leaves girl to walk home. Girl spends her weekends cooking, cleaning and buying whatever is needed for the house. Boy will not put washing on unless he is very loudly applauded for doing so. Boy will not let girl leave the house if he doesn’t want her to. Boy gives girl time limits on how long to be out for. Boy uses various tactics to make sure girl doesn’t leave. Boy throws himself down the stairs so he can say girl pushed him. Boy hides girl’s key. Boy stands outside holding the door handle closed. Boy hides girl’s phone/money/important work items. Boy follows girl. Boy bombards girl with messages. Girl spends time napping at work because she is tired. Boy continues drinking, shouting at and criticizing girl. Girl’s work suffers more from tiredness and anxiety. Girl believes everyone thinks she is worthless too. Girl can’t leave because no one will want her. Boy and girl go out to girl’s work (girl is not allowed to go alone). Boy gets drunk, girl drinks too. Girl invites people back to her apartment. Boy gets angry and walks off. People come back to the apartment. People leave the apartment. Boy tells girl she is worthless and punches her in the face. Girl loses her glasses which are now broken. Boy backhands girl across the face. This is the trigger for girl. She calls her parents on the other side of the world. She sends picture of her bleeding and bruised face to parents. Girl calls a work colleague. Girl takes her stuff with lots of fighting from boy and collects the rest from outside where boy has thrown it,. Girl buys make up to cover her bruises. Girl hands in her notice. Boy cooks pasta with cheese and starts drinking. Girl spends her birthday in a state of panic that she will do something wrong and be in trouble again. Boy refuses to move out. Girl sleeps in the spare room. Boy takes the lock off the spare room door. Girl stops sleeping as boy comes into the room whenever he wants. Boy alternates between telling girl she will never get away from him and she is the worst piece of scum he has ever known that no one could love. Boy still expects girl to bring him food. Boy starts waiting until late at night when he expects girl to be asleep and climbs into her bed. Girl sleeps on the sofa. Girl spends time organizing replacement of water damaged floor boards. Boy tells girl she has to start spending time in his bed or he will make her. Boy tries to hug or cuddle girl. Girl spends as much time as possible out of the house. Boy continues to turn up at places that girl goes to. Boy expects girl will walk with him to work and give him a goodbye kiss. Girl books flights and find job to get away. Boy hands in his notice. By finds the job in girl’s emails. Boy applies for the same job. Boy tells girl he has an interview. Girl’s parent’s come to the country. Girl leaves boy. Boy continues to contact girl by phone and email. Girl blocks boy’s number and email. Boy uses a different number to contact her. Girl blocks the next number. Boy contacts girl’s friends to get in contact. Girl apologizes to friends. Boy uses email to get in contact with girl’s family. Girl apologizes to family. Boy makes fake account on social media using girls email address then adds himself as friend. Girl emails social media sites to have them taken down. Someone recently asked me a question. And it was one of those questions that made me pause and then think. So much of the time we focus on the person with the mental illness, the person fighting the illogical brain. Sometimes taking a step back to look at what you are doing and if you are helping them is good too.
Sometimes we love someone so much that we do anything and everything we can think of to help them. This is a wonderful quality that so many people have. Often times people do not feel that they understand how a person thinks when their brain is being difficult. And this is true, through no fault of their own. People who are fighting an illogical brain often cannot articulate the way this makes them feels, or become so completely overwhelmed by their silent battles that they don’t realize they are doing anything that is out of the ordinary. This means that in order to get through to a person fighting the fight, you first have to try and understand what they are going through as well as how much control they currently have over how they see what they are going through. For me I had no idea that I was behaving in such an odd way. I genuinely thought that if I ate a salad and exercised in the morning, then did an 8 -hour workday and went to the gym after work I was behaving like everyone else. (I now know this is not the case but it took a while). However my family let me. They let me work through what was happening and didn’t tell me what to do or that I was doing something wrong. They didn’t take charge, they gently prompted (things like my mum buying higher calorie options to put in the salad, or asking to take the dog for a walk with me instead of me going to the gym). They showed that they cared and were interested (they still do) but at no point did they tell me what I was doing was abnormal. They could see it, clear as day. But they went with me along this journey of realizing something was wrong and working as a tribe to make it better. Recently a young man that I am very proud of asked I, how to help someone who is feeling very anxious. It made me pause for thought because I can only speak from my own experiences, and I often trivialize them because it seems to me that I sound like a drama queen otherwise. People who have anxiety imagine the worst things that can happen. They don’t go for the best because, quite frankly, they feel they don’t deserve them so it’s never going to happen to them. It might happen to people they know. Honestly anxious people make the best encouragers, they have already thought of every bad thing that could happen, which means by default that none of them will but in the delight of an illogical brain you then believe that it is only because you have thought of every possible bad thing. One of the most important things when dealing with someone who is feeling very anxious is to make them feel that they are not alone. For example: using words like ‘we’, ‘us’ ‘together’. When battling anxiety your brain makes you feel completely alone. Knowing that someone around you is working with you rather than, as your brain is telling you, that you are all alone. By using these kinds of words you also build a bit more of a safe area for the person who is in an anxious spiral. The next part is to try and break down what is causing the problem and how you can work together to try and make it better or more manageable. When you fixate on something with severe anxiety it can become all encompassing. You cannot see a way past it. Having someone break it down into smaller manageable chunks helps because you have lost the ability to do that yourself. Coming up with small solutions may seem obvious to some people but when you are spiraling it is beyond your brain. You have succumbed to your illogical brain and you effectively need a ‘kick up the bum’ in the gentlest sense to get you back in fighting mode. One of the best things that you can do is be present. I mean this is the sense of a hug, a physical presence. The feeling of touch, of something real can help to bring you back into the room. It can bring you back to where you are, rather than where your illogical brain wants you to be. This is one of the biggest things for me. It’s like people are telling me with a solid hug that they understand and I’m allowed not to know the answers to everything right now. Another thing is also not to force. In the tribe I am with we make it incredibly clear that if you can’t face today, then you don’t have to. Take a day and see how you feel tomorrow. This works well because it gives you time to process the suggestions you have come up with together and also allows you to recover from how exhausting your brain has been. The people who help when someone is spiraling with severe anxiety or depression are genuinely incredible. There are not the correct words in the English language to let you know how amazing you are and how thankful we are for all of you. If the shoe was on the other foot, we would do it for you in a heartbeat. We are enough, We are not alone. We are ok. You are enough. You are not alone. You are ok. One of the things about having bad mental health or an illogical brain is that it changes small things. Things that you don't realise until they are pointed out to you. Then you look at yourself and who you are now and you wonder, how did I get here? All of a sudden you have to take a look at yourself and how parts of you have changed and how you didn't even realise.
One example of this is two little words. Victims of abuse (and this is from an article someone close to me read which made me stop and think) stop saying thank you as much and start saying I'm sorry. Part of the issue with severe anxiety is it makes you think of every thing. Couple it with depression and the thoughts that brings and it becomes everything that you could do better. Add in a nice large helping of Complex PTSD amd you end up with a nice spiral of everything you could possibly think of and then how you can do it better because you are worth so little. You have to somehow prove your worth and the worst part is that you have to prove it to yourself too. The part that gets me the most is that I am the last person my illogical brain tells me I should care about because everyone else has to be ok first. So it ends up in some kind of mad battle with the different parts of my brain. This is not what it is like for every mental illness. I can only speak about my own experiences and how they have changed me and people around me. When I was told about the victims (I've never liked the word choice because I feel like lots of people have it a lot worse) of abuse, it made me pause and then look at my own actions. If someone comes into a room or an area that I am in with something (actions or words) that make it seem like they are not happy, my immediate response is 'what's wrong?. This in itself is a perfectly adaquate response I think but when I am doing it whenever anyone has any slight change in how they are it becomes a bit overwhelming for all concerned. âFor me, this has taken a considerable effort to work on because it had become so engrained as part of me. But I'm not that person who constantly has to look behind them because they are being followed by someone who will use all of their actions against them. The use of the words 'I'm sorry' come about because you preempt the fact that you will have done something wrong and you need to fix it before anything gets worse. You have to make the situation better because clearly you are the one who has caused it through whatever you did that was not good enough. Lately I've been trying to be more positive. I cannot achieve everything in one day so now I take the time to think of one goal to achieve throughout each day. When I accomplish it, then I allow myself to feel good about it. Because I have done it, regardless of what it is, I set out to do it and I've done it. With apologising all the time it becomes a constant reminder of who you were at your lowest. It took so much time for me to even begin to believe that I was valid in feeling the way that I did (and still do, just with more of a handle on what is actually happening and what my brain is telling me is happening). It took so many people with their patience and kindness over things that I couldn't even explain because I did not understand what was happening inside my head. To that end I have been trying to use the words 'thank you' more often. Instead of saying 'I'm sorry I did this or that' I look for a postive thing to be thankful of. One recent example of this is being with training the new rescuse puppy where I am staying. Even when she pees on the bed (she is maybe 5 weeks old at a push and hasn't been a house dog before) instead of saying I'm sorry the puppy peed on the bed', I can say 'Thank you for showing me that I should run outside with her when she starts peeing'. That way, we are all learning together and I get some cardio in. And to that end there are many things that I can say thank you for. Thank you to the tribe of people (you know who you are) who have spent your time and energy on just being with me. I do not have the words in my vocabulary to adaquately express how thankful I am for each and every one of you. You continue to prop me up when I stumble and support me when I falter. pl Thank you to the Love of my life for showing me true love and for our beautiful life, for communicating with me and accepting me with all my flaws. Thank you to the people (old and new) who have listened. To the people who have blessed me with their times, with their ears and with their wisdom. Who have never judged me but work with ne so I feel safe and valid in my emotions. âThank you to the random strangers who have given me a smile when I've been feeling down, who have hugged me when I've been breaking down or who have given me heartfelt advice on where to go from here. It's a huge struggle every day. But looking at where I am now compared to where I was when I started this journey, the transformation is insane. It is not complete by any stretch of the imagination. But if I can now start to see positives in little every day things, then so can you. It's so worth it. âYou are enough. You are not alone. You are ok. |
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