Susie: The Comeback

Hello. 

Remember me ?

Probably not. It's been a long time. 

I want to tell you, it wasn't you, it was me. No, really it was. Big-time.

Before I start this isn't meant to be what my daughter calls a 'Poor Me' essay. I haven't written much if anything in a very long time. I'm only just starting to read again. This is a bit of an outpouring; a clarification in words on the screen of how I've felt. I hate to use the cliche but I think it could be (does air quotes) cathartic.

This last school year, and certainly since Girl left for Uni in late September , has been what I choose to call 'challenging'. It certainly has been for many people I know and I feel wrong at times, thinking how I have struggled when I have see people lose beloved family members, jobs, had health problems - their own and those of their nearest and dearest. 

By November I had hit absolute rock bottom. My new role at work left me isolated and stressed and completely unsupported by management. This is how I felt, I must say, I should probably have gone to them, it might have made things better. I also should probably have seen my GP but no, Susie is too proud, too stubborn, too embarrassed. She decides to try and self manage the situation.

If I had gone to the GP would he have told me I was depressed (again) ? I can't help but feel that would have given me some sort of validation for the mess in my head. Might have meant I could cope with the stress and anxiety I was feeling. 

I knew it was bad when I met up with an old school friend and poor thing, burst into floods of tears in her car on the way back from lunch together. Sorry, B. You had enough of your own stuff going on. You've always been so patient with me.

I started barely being able to get out of bed in the morning but forcing myself to do it, for my son, because we needed the money. If you know the 'Spoons' idea , well, I was using up my quota far too early in the day, and needed extras. I was screaming inside when I was at work ; I just wanted to be at home, where I felt safe, tucked away. So the day I was pulled aside and reprimanded for sometimes having shut my laptop down (I work in a noisy corridor) seven minutes before I was supposed to finish I was beside myself. I was speechless. Often I work my lunch (three quarter) hour ( for the record I don't mind). I check work stuff from home. That day I was feeling particularly lost and physically very unwell. But that didn't matter. I was devastated; I am a very conscientious individual.

Then we had a set back just before Christmas (now resolved, no-one was hurt in the making of this  by the way - it was just something that meant we had to rethink) . Well when I say we, I mean hubby, my Rock. It was Comic Relief Christmas Jumper Day when that happened and there I was in a silly sweater, (bought for me by my Girl) feeling more lost than ever. We had a service at the local Church that afternoon and I just lost it during one of the Carols. Burst into tears absolutely involuntarily and fought to wave it back in.

I was told at the time - 'This too shall pass'.

It did.

We re-grouped; sorted things out; lifted our heads and decided that life was for living and wasn't going to grind us down.

I'm not saying it was an overnight thing - you don't go from feeling lower than low to sky high in a few days. I've had personal mental struggles aplenty-minor by the lives of many many in this world (thinking of the children in Syria, Palestine, heart breaking). I know it's my struggle ; my failure. I still need to break my superstitious OCD about walking on the right side of things(the left, in Medieval literature is sinistra , or sinister = bad luck !). Or picking a shopping basket in Tesco that has the new knobbly handle and not the old style one.
(Yes, I know...)
But I'm getting there.

If no-one reads this I don't mind. I feel better just putting it together. In a way I hope no-one does read it as I feel a bit embarrassed but it's something I felt I needed to write.

Onwards and upwards. And to paraphrase my favourite sit-com character of all time, I wish us all  good mental health.