Category Archives: Pain

Day 2 – Alcohol

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If you have stumbled across my blog and are thinking “Day 2 of what?), have a quick read of this explanation:

I have set myself a challenge and need your help, (please).

Tomorrow is here. I am back. Although, tomorrow isn’t here, it never is, is it. Weird that. Nonetheless, it is today and I am writing again. In a strange mood. that happens sometimes. I am sure if it does for you too. I fear perhaps alcohol had a part to play. It has a funny effect on me. Turns me to the dark side, if I am not careful that is. I have spent years finding a level that I can work with. For a long time recovering from being suicidal I was terrified of the stuff. Too scared to drink it, or at least more than a glass. As time went on I managed to increase my intake without any obvious disasters and now I have a pretty good handle on it. Hang on a sec, I am just making some tea.

Have tea will travel. Oh and also have milk on my fingers and now my keyboard. If someone could tell me where that expression comes from I would be truly grateful. Have … will travel. What does it mean? No bloody idea. 

Anyway, back now, where was I. Oh yes, alcohol. Now I wouldn’t exactly say it was my nemesis, as in I was never a functioning alcoholic, I didn’t drink during the day but once I started, invariably on an empty stomach, I found it hard to stop, I know some people would argue that is exactly what an alcoholic is but in the years leading up to being suicidal and those in recovery I manage fine drinking and stopping, so I believe I am not an alcoholic. I felt the numbness quite soon, that was nice, for a bit and then the thoughts came. The dark ones. This was always the worst times when I was suicidal. It was bad enough during the day when I was sober but in the evening when I had been drinking my mind did a total number on me and I was on a downward spiral of destruction. This is all retrospective understanding I hasten to add. No bloody idea at the time. Just didn’t want to think or feel. Pain mainly. I didn’t want to feel my pain. Mental and physical. Although it was the physical I was acutely aware of. The mental crept up on me and took me by surprise. Never cried so much in my life. One night when I decided the alcohol wasn’t enough to numb the pain any more. I decided to raid my pant draw. No, I wasn’t planning on sticking pants in my mouth, duck taping it and scaring the shit out of myself. My pant draw, like the draw most people have in their kitchen, is also filled with a fuck ton of other stuff, most of which I will never use. No, I wasn’t searching for my best silk panties, which is handy as I don’t have any. I was searching for pain killers and lots of them.

I have had so many surgeries that my pant draw is normally full of enough stuff to take someone’s lights out and that was my plan. So, in anticipation I slid it open. Pushed back my selection of old, hard and frayed Primark pants to find four paracetamol. You are kidding me right? That’s not enough to take out a mouse let alone a human. All be it a skinny one. I fucking hate that phrase. Mainly because people use it to describe me. And it isn’t true. Yes, I am slim but I am lean, 20 years of physio therapy exercises and you get lean. Back to the paracetamol, skinny is for another day, as is girl, another one of my favourites – to hate that is. Four – for fucks sake (excuse the pun). I finally decide to put an end to it and I have already swallowed all the other pills. Fortunately, this actually made me laugh. the irony of it tickled my dying sense of humour and I said “fuck it”, laid down and went to sleep.

Well bugger me, over 600 today.

For anyone reading my posts who has a story in them they are struggling to tell. I would recommend getting Anne Lamott’s book ‘Bird by Bird’. It has inspired me to create this challenge and is full of great knowledge and insight. She also has a wonderful sense of humour and writing style.

If you would like to buy ‘Bird by Bird’, please feel free to use my Amazon associate link: https://amzn.to/47Pdkx7

If you would like to join me on this journey, please like, subscribe and comment. If you make a comment, please explain what it was that made you feel that way.

Thanks, Liz

Don’t worry…

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About what may or may not happen in the future.

Last year my pony had to be put down, laminitis finally took its toll and nether he or I could take it any more.

That meant Horse, yes that really is his name, well not officially, his breeder named him Equus but my sister said “we can’t call him that, it’s far too posh. Let’s call him Horse until we come up with another name”

Needless to say over a decade later he’s still called Horse

Anyway, Horse was left on his own,

I was really worried about how he would cope as he was always very anxious on his own.

I was worried about his behaviour, he can be quite a bully and I thought he might start to push me around.

I was worried he would get depressed and not want to do anything, after Troyble died, (Troy, was nothing but trouble when he arrived, so became Troyble), Horse spent hours just standing looking out across the fields, he seemed so sad.

Guess what…

None of the things I was worried about happened.

Instead, something happened that I really wasn’t expecting.

Horse got laminitis!

Horse had never been ill in his life before, if there was one thing I hadn’t even considered it was he would get laminitis. He is now inside on medicine and I am hoping he will recover.

So what does that tell you?

There is absolutely no point in worrying about the future, we don’t know what is coming, even if we expect the unexpected we will still be surprised because none of us have control over what is coming next.

Even if we think we do or even worse if we try and control what’s coming.

We have the moment we are living in, the present, that is what we should put our energy into, not what has been and not what might be coming.

Today, if you find yourself worrying about something that may or may not happen, bring yourself back to the present moment and get living.

Enjoy this moment, it is the only one you have right now!

I would just like to say thank you so much to everyone who helped me turn a barn full of stuff into a stable for Horse,

I am only 10 weeks post op of a total hip replacement, so not able to do the things I normally can. I needed help and I was inundated, we worked as a team, all came together to make the best stable we could.

That is what life is all about, being there for each other and helping people when they need us.

Have a good day, and if you can help someone, do.

It will make you feel good.

At last, I have found the solution!

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I have had this deep seated feeling my whole life, that I am here to do more than I am doing. Alog with the pain I have been in, I believe it has been the root to a lot of my depression. A constant feeling than what I am doing is not enough, not my purpose and that frustration has left me feeling I have failed to achieve what I am here to do.

I have an inherent desire to help people, it is who I am, my make up as it were (well it would be if I wore any!) I get such pleasure from helping people, I seem to seek it out, it is like my drug fix, that rush you get when something feels really good.

However, on the flip side when I don’t get my ‘fix’ I start to go under, suffocate in my own need to help others. It isn’t a distraction technique, to avert attention from my self, although I did think it was for a while, it is genuinely my need and when your needs are not fulfilled, you are not happy, go figure!

It has literally driven me insane trying to find a way I can help people on a grand scale, I have done lots of one to one work which is great but is nowhere near what I want to achieve. The frustration in trying to work out how I can help lots of people simultaneously, has, at times been unbearable.

I am thrilled to say, at last, I have found the solution!

As well as writing my book, which I hope will help people, (to be brutally honest), want to stay alive! I am also creating an online course to help those suffering from chronic pain get more out of life.

My course is called:

The 30 Day Stay Sane Despite the Pain Challenge – The achievable step by step method to increase energy and reduce pain, (even when you’re sleep deprived).

I am in the process of fine tuning the course structure and have created a survey to make sure its’ contents provide people with the outcome they are looking for.

Below, is the link to the survey. If you have chronic pain and want a way to lead a better more enjoyable life, please complete it. Once you have, I will be in touch. https://04p76909hxd.typeform.com/to/MLRhKTg9

If you can think of anyone else you know who struggles with pain, please pass the survey on. Remember, I want to help as many people as I can, to do that I need to build a community of people who can relate with each other, a support network is one of the best ways to improve your life.

Thank you in advance and happy Friday, Liz

Laying Dormant

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I have been acutely aware of late that ‘Woman on the Edge’ has been taking a back seat in my life, as has my depression, has it gone or is it just laying dormant?

Sadly, I believe the latter to be true and isn’t it strange that as it seems to rear it’s ugly head once more, what is the first thing I turn to? My blog. Why is that I wonder? It doesn’t answer back, it’s not judgemental, I can be truthful, I am not afraid when I am writing? I don’t know for sure, probably all of them in varying degrees. Nonetheless, I am back and I apologise for my absence.

Not that I really need to, as the reason I started this blog in the first place was just for me as a release but it became apparent, over time, that my ramblings were being read by people all over the world, 22 countries to date, a massive shock to me I can tell you. Why is that, I wonder again? Unfortunately, I think it’s because depression is world wide and based on the messages I have received in the past, many people gained solace from reading my posts, so again I apologise if I haven’t been there for you when you needed me. I shall do better from now on.

Life in the last six months has been really very good for me, finally things both health and career wise have been great, well in comparison to how they have been in the past that’s for sure.  However, recently, the last month or so I guess, I haven’t been feeling quite right, can’t quite put my finger on it, no obvious reason, things still going well, in fact, better than that really, some things have been bloody brilliant. Finally getting good paid acting jobs, gone back to riding, galloping and jumping, feeling alive and free and yet something isn’t quite right. Wake up in the morning in a mood, what’s that all about? No apparent reason, cross, agitated, hot and bothered. I have gone back to heaving on my dog walks and lost weight but why?

Don’t you just love that question, why? We ask it as if we expect to be supplied with, not only the answer but also the solution, no such luck. Especially when depression has a hand in it. My husband and I have had a few conversations trying to work out what’s wrong. “Have you got a black cloud?” he asks “I don’t think so” I answer, genuinely. And yet I am perplexed as to what is making me feel this way – answers on a postcard!

I fully understand that depression never really leaves you and that you deal with it by maintenance, by ‘you’ I mean ‘one’. What I don’t understand is how it can get you when you least expect it, i.e when life is great, I mean that’s not meant to happen surely? That’s just bloody unfair, it’s hard enough dealing with it when it makes sense and you can understand why you have it but when everything is going well and you can’t even enjoy that. Life can be such a cunt at times.

Strangely enough I have been meaning to write a blog for ages to say how well things have been going, as a kind of inspiration to all of you who struggle too. Only I didn’t and now here I am telling you when it’s gone wrong again. Human behaviour is decidedly odd, but then again, so am I so what do I expect?

I am not really sure what I am saying here, maybe that’s because I am not really sure what I am feeling, so finding it difficult to be specific. All I know is ‘Old Satan Claus is out there Jimmy’ – film, Last Boy Scout, seriously you didn’t think you would get a post without some sort of film reference did you? So if any of you out there can give me some insight as to what is going on and why I would be truly grateful.

I tell you what, next time I have a thought to post that something good that has happened, I promise I will.

Oh, as an aside, I am thinking of writing a book, telling my story, both good and bad but ultimately, hoping to spread the word on how depression first gets under your skin and then inside your mind until you reach a point that you don’t know there is anything else. What do you think?

 

 

 

I want to be thinner!

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Ok, so I am writing it when I am in it. I thought I couldn’t do this but I can. Here is an insight into what occurs, for me anyway, when darkness befalls.

Why is my blog entitled ‘I want to be thinner’? Well I will tell you, because it is as this stage of my depression that I convince myself that if I get thin enough I will eventually fade away and die. That way I don’t actually have to do it, kill myself I mean. Admittedly it is a much slower process and that is because I don’t actually want to die but I just don’t want to live either.

Maybe others feel the same, do you?

Or are you the opposite? When you feel the way I do, do you eat more? Then hate yourself for it, get heavier, feel fatter, feel you are useless. You are no different, despite what the media or government might say, when depression kicks in there are no written rules, it is whatever the fuck it likes.

And then I get to the next stage and this is not me being a drama queen, regardless of the fact I am an actor, this is the truth, reality, that thing we all hide from, it is here to get us, so be prepared. The next stage is when I want it to happen faster not an ailment but instant and terminal.

So where the fuck do you go from here?

I have decided not to tag anyone into this blog on facebook or twitter. Why would I, who the fuck would want to read this?

No-one I am sure but maybe someone somewhere can understand what I am saying?

Step away from the weirdo.

Does that happen to you, when people discover you have a mental illness do people avoid you? I am fortunate, so far, I have not experienced that,  I have an amazing group of supportive people, I guess that’s why am still here. You may not and if you don’t please for God sake, let someone know, me if you like.

I have nothing more to say right now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you – Take 2!

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Phew, I found it again!

I just wanted to say how completely overwhelmed and heart warmed I was in response to my last post. I was so worried about writing it and there have been numerous occasions in the past where I have felt like doing it but been too afraid. Which is silly really seeing as the reason I started this blog in the first place was to keep me above water and yes when I really needed to do it, I couldn’t.

I was talking to a very good friend about this the other night, as she had picked up on the fact that I had waited to feel better to do it and wasn’t it a shame I couldn’t do it when I needed to. The thing is when you are really in a bad way and your brain is telling you how awful you are it is near on impossible to tell your loved ones, let alone the world. I feel I can say that I told the world because my blog has been read in over 15 countries now which I find astounding. When I started this I didn’t believe anyone would read it, let alone it spreading across the globe, so thank you to all of you for your support. I would probably be in an even worse state without you.

I received emails, texts, fb posts, fb private messages and messages on my blog, not only from my dear friends but some of them came from people I haven’t seen in years and some from people I have never met. This was something completely unexpected but very well received I can tell you because for once instead of crying in pain, I was crying in love and appreciation, all thanks to you, my faith in humanity is restored and I have been able to tell the voices in my head to back the fuck off for the moment, otherwise they will have to take on a lot more than me!

Fortunately this week has been better, I have positive things happening work wise and my pain levels are bearable, one of the worst ones at the moment is my trapped sciatic nerve which, as it has been trapped for so long, has taken on a totally independent lease of life and twitches constantly, you can actually see it pulsing, that doesn’t hurt just feels weird but at night when I move that leg the calf cramps and it’s agony and really disturbs my sleep. So, if depression and pain are not enough lack of sleep gets thrown into the mix, I appreciate the saying things happen in 3’s but these are 3 things I could seriously do without.

Tiredness alone is enough to drive you mental, I have someone very dear to me that often doesn’t get enough rest and she explains that the tiredness just turns her into a maniac and someone she really doesn’t want to be and that then makes you hate yourself which is how depression starts. All I can say to anyone who is exhausted, ask for help in any way you can, get someone to watch the kids, walk the dogs, don’t do the cleaning – it will be there tomorrow and the scary thing with depression is if you don’t deal with it – you might not be there tomorrow. People who care about you want you to be happy and well, I know asking for help is hard, fuck me do I know. However, if my last post is anything to go by you are not alone and you don’t want to be treading water the whole time because guess what? That will make you even more tired and even more crazy.

 

Pain ends Relationships and Lives

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Hi, sorry for my absence, for those of you that read my blog that is. I have been experiencing feelings and thoughts over the last few weeks that I wasn’t sure I could share.

How ridiculous is that? The point of my blog was to stop me going under but once I went under I felt I couldn’t write about it because it wasn’t funny or people didn’t want to read about that Liz, that’s not OK.

Well you know what? Mental health is not OK! Mental health doesn’t read my blog. My mental health is like another being inside my head, a self destruct being that takes all my positive vibes and crushes them like a nut. It says to me, “What you would like to feel and think no longer exists because I do”, your thoughts from hell, your inner being that is set to crush and kill you.

I appreciate this is not enjoyable reading but it is a must. I am in pain, both physically and mentally, I don’t want to be here anymore, I can’t take it any more. I have just recovered from 2 hip surgeries, to discover I am likely to need knee surgery. Which wouldn’t seem too bad if I hadn’t already had 3 knee surgeries, spine surgery, shoulder surgery and some gynecological surgery that I had actually forgotten about, on the account of the fact I have had so many surgeries I can’t actually count them anymore!

I am done!

There is something about mental health that is just not understood or not communicated or swept under the carpet. We are in pain here, even if it isn’t physical and you can’t see it. We are dying here. This is mental pain. A struggle so many of us have to endure and not only do so many not understand, so many don’t even know. We are afraid to tell them – will they leave us, will they laugh at us, will they believe us? You cannot define mental health and you know why? Because we are all individuals, we are unique and the pain we suffer is as unique.

The fact that it took me until I felt better to tell you this, tells you a lot. Society still isn’t comfortable with mental illness. Are they weird, will they hurt me, what’s wrong with them? I will tell you what is wrong with them/me it all got too much, after over a decade of pain and surgeries it gets too much, it’s possible it is not one specific thing and quite frankly why the fuck does it need to be?

I have no idea what anyone else feels like when their inner demon takes control, but for me I have 2 predominant experiences. Firstly, I have the voice inside my head, that I know is not mine but that in the present moment when everything is too much it tells me, “it’s best I end it now, I mean no one will benefit with me being alive, I am such a burden”. But I also experience a running commentary like nothing I have ever experienced before, for instance: I will be talking and my inner speech/personality however you want to view it, will be saying “OK stop talking now, that’s enough” only I continue to talk and so it continues “oh brilliant, I am still talking aren’t I? Haven’t I done enough damage but yet I continue to ruin my life, my marriage or in fact anything else that means anything to me, why don’t I stop?”

I’ll tell you why you don’t stop  – because you are not in control. As much as people will beg to differ, mental illness is not something someone decides to do, you are not in control. I have never been more afraid in my life than when I was prepared to kill myself when my mental state had reached a state that no rational/logical intervention was possible. Guess what? Someone you know and love, or in fact you are feeling the same, they/you are afraid, they/you don’t really want to die but their/your inner demon tells them/you that is the only viable option. My suggestion, speak up, that’s what I did and I do, whenever I recognise the signs I start to tell people. I understand that is not so easy for some of you but I implore you to do the best you can to let others know. If that is still too much for you, then tell me, you can email me at lizbishop@btinternet.com I have never given out my email address like this so please don’t abuse it, this is for people that are in need.

When I get like this I don’t understand my purpose on earth, I mean, what am I doing here? I don’t do anything in particular, so I might as well not be here. So I wonder if it is OK to ask for some help? If you are reading this and I have ever said anything or done anything that has been of any use or inspiration to you, please let me know. The reason I ask? Just knowing your family loves you is sometimes not enough, you need to see the bigger picture. What is the point of me?