Breaking Point

I suck at housework.

Really suck.

Clean I can do, tidy I cannot.

I need this to change because it’s majorly getting me down.

Today I have decided I’m going to really, really try to sort things out. I have attacked the kitchen already – the floor needs washing but aside from that it is tidy, organised and more clean than not. There is a box of stuff headed for the charity shop and I can stand in the room and feel calm and happy.

I want that feeling in the rest of the house.

I’m going to start with the Kid’s bedroom now, whilst they are at their Dad’s house, then make my way round the rest of the house over the next few days.  Once I’ve done the big mass clear out and clean up, it will be easier to maintain, right?

This is my theory anyway.

It has to work because I’m feeling a bit wobbly at the moment and it’s starting to feel like life is too big a mountain to climb again. I don’t want to feel like that, I’ve been there and it’s no fun and it makes everyone else miserable too.

I’ve hit breaking point, but this time I’m fighting back.

Failure. And how I stopped being one.

Supposing you have tried and failed again and again.  You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down. 

~Mary Pickford

Sometimes you read a quotation and think ‘pretentious rubbish’ and sometimes you read one and think ‘that’s it! Perfect.’ For me, the above quote is one of the latter.

If I had read it a few years ago I probably would have been in the other camp.

What happened between then and now was a lot of things, including for a time, being a total failure on many levels.

I had a bit of a rocky break-up with my childhood sweetheart at uni, I forced myself to go out there and feel good and found a new person to share my life with, got carried away with the emotion of it all, got engaged, got pregnant. I battled my way through final year of uni getting bumpier and bumpier and see-sawing from ecstatically happy to pathetic and miserable as the rollercoasters of university life and pregnancy met and multiplied. Liberty dragged me through the crap bits and kept me laughing so I finished on a high, ready to face the world when Baby arrived and determined to live the life I dreamed of, now I was accustomed to the idea of motherhood.

Then PND hit. At about the same time that the fuzzy honeymoon period of my new relationship ran out. I crashed and burned and cried and fell apart, picked Tori up and walked out of the flat.

But I got up, brushed myself down, walked back in and determined to make the best of it for our baby girl. In hindsight, I probably should have stayed out but I can’t go back and I can’t change the past so there’s no point dwelling on it.

I went back and slowly but steadily sank further and further into the fog of depression, setting aside who I was in order to keep my partner and my baby happy. I thought that would fix everything.

It didn’t.

I was determined for a number of reasons that Tori wouldn’t be an only child and so, despite everything, I got pregnant again. Ready for this to be a whole new start.

It wasn’t. It made it worse.

I lost my desire for life. I didn’t want to play with the kids, I didn’t want to talk to or see anyone, I couldn’t focus on anything, I let everything in the house pile up til it was at a point that both depressed me even further and overwhelmed me too much to fix. I just stared at Facebook all day because I could click through lots of things not having to concentrate for longer than a few seconds.

I made sure the kids were clean and fed and safe. I never dropped that responsibility, but I didn’t enhance it. I didn’t want to sit on the floor and be silly or colour in or anything. No urge to at all.

So I went on anti-depressants. What people often don’t realise is that anti-depressants don’t make you happy. They just make you numb.

I wasn’t sad anymore but I wasn’t anything else either. I still didn’t want to play with the kids and I simply didn’t care about the washing up or the cobwebs.

And I wallowed and I didn’t get back up.

I failed at a million little things and I let that failure define me.

Then I cracked. I thought some dark, depressing things and a voice in my head said ‘enough’.

I had friends and family who loved me and it wasn’t doing any of the four of us in the household any good me being the way I was.

So I  left.

And in doing so I stopped failing.

I took the kids and me out of an unhealthy situation and started over.

I found my way through, not on my own, but with help. I got myself and the kids a flat and started to pick myself up.

I play with the kids, I colour in, we go to the park and play silly games. I can focus on things for longer than forty seconds. I laugh. I still suck at housework but I try and I do enough for the place to be clean, even if it’s messy (and I genuinely don’t own an iron…).

I still fail. But I am not a failure.

I keep trying. That’s the difference.

Dancing With The Devil

We all have our own daemons, everyone is different and so are their tormentors. Even if they look the same on paper, chances are they’re all unique either in their manifestation or effects.

Daemon’s are hard to live with, obviously, but something I have learned recently is that they can be lived with happily. If you let them take over, then you’re stuffed, but if you take a deep breath and accept them then you can learn to live with them in a delicate balance. You can dance together along knife edges and it can be beautiful even if it’s never easy.

My daemon is depression (post-natal), but in my head I generally refer to him as Dennis (I like to give things names, always have). Reflecting on my life recently I have decided that Dennis has probably been around for longer than I realised, lurking in the shadows and taunting me from behind my back.

Dennis frightens me. In fact, he frightens me a whole lot more than I ever really admit. These days most of the time I can push the fear aside, forget it even, but not so long ago it was almost as all consuming as the depression itself.

On the days when I was feeling pretty good it was there, catching my breath occasionally as the thought ‘how long will this last?’ flicked through my mind, pressing down darkly on the corners of my mind as I went about my day. Slowly closing in until it felt like I could see Dennis physically hiding in the shadows of my peripheral vision. That sounds ridiculous, even to me, and I experienced it.

Other times, when Dennis was sharing the sofa with me and I was struggling to control him and build up the energy to feed and dress my children, I was afraid of just haw far Dennis was going to push me. I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to push him away again and get myself back. I was losing sense of what was me and what was Dennis. Was it rational me thinking or Dennis pushing irrational thoughts and words into my mind?

I was so afraid I just wanted to shut my eyes, bury my head and disappear until it all went away.

I’m still afraid now, just not in the same way because I have recognised Dennis for who, and what, he is. I have stood up to him and I have asked for help, both medically and from friends. I have taken myself out of the nest Dennis had built around me, too. Changed my life for the better and started trying to learn the steps to the dance Dennis is leading me on.

As Kylie so wisely sings, it’s better the Devil you know. I know Dennis and I am slowly but surely beginning to recognise him and his ways in my life. I am learning the things that trigger his appearance and I am learning the things that make me more susceptible to his seductive mutterings (like tiredness and alcohol, especially combined).

I still have days where I start to falter and wobble in the delicate dance, I can feel Dennis creeping closer and wrapping his arms around me – tempting me to relax my guard, slip from the knife edge and wallow in the semi-comforting embrace of misery and depression. It’s odd how feeling so detached from feelings and life can be comforting but it is in the strangest of ways because I became so accustomed to it. It was normal.

That in itself is frightening.

Luckily now I have discovered something better than that dark comfort – life and all it entails. I don’t want to be in that easy dark place where I can torture myself and watch every day merge into the next in a big blur of nothingness and depression, I want to be up in the light sharing the laughter, stress, excitement, anticipation and anger of every day life. Now I know what I want I am more often than not able to duck away from Dennis and, after a few shaky Argentine Tango tussles, leave him behind me again.

That doesn’t mean I don’t slide. Doesn’t mean I don’t spend an evening biting the side of my hand so violently it bruises and hurts for the next few days just because I need the pain to focus on and feel alive. Doesn’t mean I don’t completely fall and crash violently and find myself struggling at the bottom of my consciousness trying to remember what the point of climbing back to the top is.

It just means I’ve reached a point where those times are the exception rather than the rule.

It takes two to Tango and for a long time I have been content to let Dennis lead me a merry dance and ditch me at will. Well not any more, you hear me, Dennis? I’ve been watching Strictly Come Dancing. Your girl is learning the dance steps. And winning.

Sunshine And Happy Things 249/365

“I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”
- Martha Washington

Warm and Content.

Kids sleeping upstairs.

Fingers burning from playing the guitar.

Tummy full of good home cooking.

Head full of songs.

Heart glowing with simple happiness.

 

Bliss.

Today has been a good day.

2011 – a very mad year

This year has been a year of extremes. I have been so happy I was walking on air and so miserable I never wanted to get out of bed and speak to another person again.

My little boy was born on 1st March and I learned that to have two children didn’t mean sharing the same amount of love between two but meant being filled with twice as much love. I thought I might burst with it all: twice as much love, twice as much pride, twice as much worry, twice as much fear, twice as much joy.

I was diagnosed with post-natal depression and had some pretty rough times with it. Days where it took every ounce of energy in my being to respond to the tears of my baby and go change his nappy. Days where it took everything I had to just get dressed and venture out to the shop to get food for the family. Days where I was ready to give up feeding Arthur myself because for reasons I couldn’t explain to myself I didn’t want him that close to me.

My concentration and drive deserted me.

I no longer wanted to play my guitar, I forgot how to write and I forgot how to read. I forgot how to be myself. I forgot who I was.

My relationship wobbled. I tried. He tried. We tried and tried. But it wasn’t enough.

A multitude of things all came together and I realised that the only way I was ever going to get better, the only way I was going to drag myself back to a state where I could deal with the world, was to leave. It broke my heart to admit that I wanted, needed, to pull my family apart but if I didn’t, I fear I would have fallen apart irreparably. I would have reached a point that the mere concept of frightens me.

The worst thing of all was that I could tell how we were and how I felt was affecting the children. They might not understand what is going on but the strain is showing on them too in a million tiny ways and I can’t deal with that. I won’t have that.

2012 starts at midnight. I am determined that it is going to be a better year. A new start. There are lots of things I am looking forward to for next year, the Olympics being just one of them, but the thing I am looking forward to most? Remembering who I am, learning how to love myself again and watching my children grow and thrive.

It might not be the 2012 I was picturing back in March when Artie was placed in my arms but that’s okay. Things change and change, quite often, is good – even when it’s unexpected and difficult.

Life has a way of working things out – it might take a while and it might not be how you planned but it will work out. Just give it time.

So farewell 2011 and hello 2012 – I don’t know for certain what’s in store for me and my family but I am going to make it good.

I promise.

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5 Things I Hate Most About PND

1. The feeling that I never want to get out of bed again. Not in that nice ‘it’s cold out there and I’m all snuggly’ way but in a ‘I want the world to go away and someone put a cork in that baby’ way.

2. Lack of the ability to concentrate. I can’t write more than a sentence or two, I can’t read more than a page, I can’t finish anything, I can barely manage to watch a whole TV programme. It’s frustrating.

3. Loss of the desire to play with the kids. Some days I just haven’t got the energy, patience, want or urge to sit down and play with the babies. So instead I sit and beat myself up about it whilst they amuse themselves/each other.

4. Lack of emotion. Some days I don’t feel down. Or up. I just feel nothingy. And it’s hideous – I’m not excited about anything, I’m not angry with anything, I’m not even bored – I’m just ‘meh’.

5. Not knowing any answers. I hate not being able to give a reason when someone says ‘why are you miserable?’ But I can’t. If I knew I’d do something about it. Be warned – asking me ‘why’ is likely to make me cry on you.

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25 Things I Like About Me

This isn’t on my Day Zero list but Love In The Nest inspired me to do it anyway. I’m not at the brightest point in my life at the moment, struggling a bit with my PND so sitting down and coming up with 25 things I *do* like about myself can surely only help me to feel a bit more positive about life. It may, however, take me a while!

1. My eyes are cool. They seem to change colour depending on my mood/the light between green, blue and brown. I generally describe them as grey but really they’re a mash of everything.

2. I can spell/write reasonably well. I am a grammar and spelling nazi, I know this irritates lots of people but it is actually something I enjoy. Maybe I should take up proof reading as a career.

3. I’m a good Mummy. I make mistakes, but who doesn’t? None of them are too major and hopefully it will just help make the Smalls nice well-rounded people when they are older.

4. I can laugh at myself.

5. I take pretty good photos when I try.

6. I have an over-active imagination.

7. I am a daydreamer.

8. I’m creative (though not in an artistic/drawing way)

9. I’ve never let go of my inner-child. I still see the wonder in most everything & am a sucker for Disney Classics.

10. I am patient. I wasn’t – but then I had babies and somewhere discovered that I do have some hidden away inside. Most of the time anyway.

11. I can cook. And it tastes good 9 out of 10 times too. This is something else I have discovered since having kids. I enjoy it too which surprises me.

12. I’m not bad at making cakes. Apart from when my useless oven bakes them wonky.

13.  I have faith and enough confidence not to hide it away. It’s hard being an open Christian through secondary school but as I came through college and university and life ever since I have found myself becoming more and more confident in what I believe and less and less inclined to just ‘not mention’ that I go to church every week and believe in God and Jesus.

14. I have a nice figure. Despite having had two babies in a fairly short space of time I am still (after a bit of a healthy eating push) a size 10 and when I’m not having an ‘I hate everything’ day I can look in a mirror and like what I see.

15. I always see the good in people. Sometimes this comes back to bite me in the bum when I take a person’s ‘nice’ personality as their true one and it turns out they’re a prat but mostly it’s a good thing. I like to think that most people have good in them and I try my best to spot it – if nothing else it gives me a little more faith in humanity in an age where morals and good-heartedness seem to be fading.

16. I’m not afraid to give something new a go. I might sometimes need a push or an encouraging smile to set me off but more often than not I’ll give most things a go.

17. I’m a geek. I like reading, console & PC gaming, sci-fi and fantasy (books and films), I birdwatch, I love to watch documentaries about cooking and wildlife and things like trains.

18. I’m a softy. I will cry at almost anything – books, tv, films, radio, the news….

19. I still get excited about things like going to the zoo regardless of if the kids are with me or not.

20. I can cross-stitch. I get a bit cross (haha) but I can produce some nice things and they make good gifts for people.

21. I like to make other people happy. I’m the sort of person who will buy someone else a present just because I know it will make them smile. I like giving.

22. I am forgiving.

23. I can be brave when things get tough.

24. I’m stubborn and will stick with something even if it drives me mad. (For example I read Mr. Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire right to the end despite it making me want to throw things – mostly it – out of the nearest window. And I went to every PAD lesson but one at uni, despite it being a total waste of time – if you don’t believe me, ask Liberty, she went too.)

25. I’m good at remembering people’s names.

‘That’s Not Flying – It’s Falling With Style…’

I’ve been feeling pretty good recently. Balanced. Stable. Vaguely human (I say ‘vaguely’ because there have been a few days where I have been a zombie due to Arthur deciding 3a.m. was a good time to get up and play…).

So I skipped a tablet or two thinking ‘Hey! I’m feeling better, maybe I don’t need them so much now.’

Ha. Fail.

I was only feeling better because I was taking the tablets. Bit obvious now I say it (isn’t hindsight a wonderful thing?) but at the time that didn’t even occur to me.

Missing only a couple of tablets was enough for me to turn into a psycho at the drop of a hat – Shouting at random, throwing a total paddy, stomping, slamming doors, crying, standing in the middle of a room utterly at a loss as to why I was even upset, sulking, wallowing in self pity and generally being a total girl-woofwoof for no apparent reason.

It is safe to say that I won’t be skipping any more in the future until it is suggested I do so by my Doctor. I have learned my lesson. And I don’t think Sy would particularly appreciate it if I continued to randomly fly off the handle over precisely nothing at all just because I didn’t take my ‘Mad Tablet’ as I affectionately call them.

Reasons To Be Cheerful 1, 2, 3…

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1.

I had a brilliant day out with my Mum.

We went out for lunch at Nandos and then on to see The Lion King in 3D at our local cinema followed by a quick G&T in the pub whilst waiting for my Dad to pick us up!

It was good to have some time just us without the Smalls, the food was lovely and I got to see my all-time favourite film in all its cinematic glory – something I never thought would happen seeing as it originally came out when I was only six.

2.

I found some trousers that fit.

It took me ages because suddenly either I have shrunk or the standard length of jeans has got longer and almost every pair I tried on was massively too long. I’m sure I never used to have that problem!

3.

I had the urge to write something.

One thing my PND has done is take away my ability to write. Or rather my want to. Usually I have ideas and/or characters zipping through my head and I have at least one if not more WIPs on the go and notes building up about characters or locations etc. but just recently I have found myself losing all energy to write. For a few months now I have barely had the concentration or drive to write three complete sentences never mind chapters and although it was bugging me there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it – I would try but just end up staring at the screen/paper and getting upset or frustrated at myself.

Then, the other day I was having a shower and poof! Two characters wandered into my head and I knew I had to get them down on paper. Hey presto! I am writing again – it’s only a short story idea, no grand novel plans, but it’s a start and it makes me feel like everything is on an up again.

Just because I wanted to pick up a pen to get an angel called Chastity out of my head and onto a page…