Tag Archives: Mental Health

Day 7: Finding the time

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How is it that we are forever searching for more time?

I am currently on holiday; time should be plentiful. And yet, I have done it again, chosen to fit too many things into my day. Something I am renowned for. Every year on our holiday, I have grand ideas about starting new daily regimes. This challenge is one of them. I have also added exercising, face yoga (yes, I have succumbed), reading, sunbathing and swimming. I also have a long teeth brushing routine because when I was suicidal, I drank a lot of alcohol and didn’t brush my teeth. Years later, when I finally went to the dentist, he said I had bad gum disease and was at risk of my teeth falling out. The only way to resolve this was to use interdental brushes, and clean every tooth individually, this takes about 10 – 15 minutes, that’s not long, I hear you cry. However, I have to wait an hour after eating before I can do it so as not to soften the enamel. Invariably, if I don’t do it before I eat breakfast, it doesn’t get done. I tend to eat every couple of hours and once I have had my first meal, I forget to brush my teeth because the rest of daily life takes over.

I was managing to do all these things until our family came to stay: three adults and a one-year-old. Therein lies the rub. Now, I want to have time with them and do my daily routine. For any of you who have young grandchildren, you will know how much time they consume. They are so innocent, fascinating and inspiring that you can spend hours watching and interacting with them. Experience all the joy, and then you can hand them back (an added benefit to being a grandparent). My husband and I were happy not to eat an evening meal, instead having a big late lunch and snacks in the evening. Now, with a family in tow, my maternal instincts have kicked in, and I want to provide lovely meals for them and ensure everyone is fed and watered. We want to take them to all the places we love and absorb their joy, which in turn reignites ours. We want to play games with them and chat. All of these things take up time. So, how I can I fit in the other things I want to do?

I am full of emotions, such as joy, excitement, frustration, guilt, and gratitude. I am grieving lost time. I appreciate that may appear extreme, but it is a genuine human feeling that can wreak havoc with our minds. Does that make me sound selfish? That’s where the guilt comes in. For what it’s worth, I am not selfish, it is one of my problems, I am too selfless. I put other people’s wants and needs ahead of my own. Sometimes, so much so that I don’t know what I want and need.

As I write this, my grandson has started to cry. Already my stomack has knotted, I want to come to the rescue, I want to help. Make the problem go away for my daughter. But if I leave my laptop, that in itself, will create a problem of my own. I will not achieve my writing for today. Resulting in a surge of emotions all over again.

Where does my constant desire to come to the rescue come from? Did I feel no one came to rescue me from boarding school, so I have spent my life wanting to do for others what wasn’t done for me? Taking their pain away because mine was crucifying? I think that is a strong possibility. 

Can’t do this, going to help my daughter. I’ll be back.

I’m back. I was only a couple of minutes. They are trying to build his confidence in the water. I am not needed. Is this something else I crave – to be needed? I imagine so. It’s a fairly common human feeling. It helps build your confidence and self-worth. On the flip side, if you offer help and it’s not needed, it can lead to feelings of rejection and/or inadequacy.

I have no definitive answers. What I do know is that these emotions and feelings need to be acknowledged and attended to.

Wish me luck.

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

If you have stumbled across my blog and are thinking “Day 6 of what? Have a quick read of this explanation:

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

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

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?