It’s Sunday the day of rest. Yeah right! So I went to work for an hour on the morning, came home cleaned up, helped the Mr with some stuff in the garden, had a quick pint with him in our garden bar, went school food shopping (how do packed lunches cost so much), watched a film with the Mr, we went out for a curry (on the house 🎉) and did nothing much else for the rest of the evening.
Lockdown!
After working from the age of 16 and only having six months off on maternity leave, lockdown sounded like heaven. Finally some quality time with the family.
What we didn’t realise was what a struggle home schooling was going to be. How hard it is living together 24/7 and how the slightest little annoying thing could turn into something so major it can cause an argument.
I had so many plans for lockdown. I was going to redecorate the house, get on top of the garden, do the front garden, repaint the outside of the house, be a resounding teacher for my daughter and the list goes on.
But………….. only a few of those things actually got done.
It turned out that not having work and the usual routine of everyday life gave my head wayyyyyyy too much time to think. I started over thinking things (although I’ve always had this trait) it became magnified beyond belief. I started dragging up my past and things that had happened to me throughout the years. These thoughts controlled my head so much that I had to have some sort of background noise constantly on, anything to divert the thoughts in my head.
When I went back to work in June this became worse as I still had my head in such a mess but now I had to try and deal with normal life and this is where I broke. I couldn’t cope. I was so angry at the world so hurt and disappointed in everything, I didn’t know where to turn. I started drinking too much, posting stuff on social media I really shouldn’t have, arguing with anyone that would argue with me. I really lost it.
Life became so dark I didn’t know how to fix anything. My life was falling apart right in front of my eyes and I couldn’t stop it. My medication wasn’t working because I was drinking. I was drinking not every night but when I was I was I was drinking enough to try an blot out the feelings these thoughts gave me. Only it made it worse because I would eventually have to deal with it all.
While I’m writing this my daughter has just come downstairs after liberally applying my Chanel perfume 😭😱. I’ve just had to sit her down and explain that it’s not a toy and if she wants to use it she can but I have to apply it for her. Seriously dreading going up there to see how much she’s got through.
I started to feel out of control, useless completely worthless and then I became ill. So ill that I was bed ridden and in so much pain that my brain didn’t have the time or the capacity to think about all these things. I was very ill the illest I’d ever been and was off work for a week (the first time in my whole career if you don’t count holidays and lockdown). It got to a point that I was in so much physical and emotional pain I considered stopping my antibiotics and taking an overdose of painkillers. I’d already been told I was hours away from sepsis so surly it would be easy. My son saved me without him even knowing, he was bringing me my meds checking when I’d taken them, made sure I was drinking water, helping when I was being sick. I knew there and then I couldn’t do that to my children and I powered through.
As I started to recover the Mr and I were talking more and he was for the first time in a while actually hearing me. We weren’t shouting and arguing just talking everything through and this was my turning point. I heard him for the first time in many years, I started to try and rationalise things and trying my best not to over think them.
And then through all this I remembered a woman who is a daughter of one of our older friends, who has since become a friend of the family, and I remembered that she blogged. She too has had a lot to deal with in life and it got me thinking what if i tried it. I had toyed with the idea of writing a diary but the thought of that didn’t really seem to work. But I still tried it and it didn’t actually make me feel any better. So blogging was my last resort. And oh my god the relief I felt just writing that first blog was instant. Even though there are still things I can’t say on here the majority of the cloudiness in my head was clearing. Which helped me rationalise the other stuff better because there was more space to think. Also if you haven’t written before I have to say it’s so therapeutic getting those words down and the time it takes to write doesn’t leave much time for your mind to wonder. Also you can voice so much more in writing than you can ever verbalise.
I wonder when I’ll feel confident enough to share this with the people close to me?
I think there maybe a lot of people out there that have struggled mentally with lockdown and it concerns me that there is not enough help out there already for people.
Just to clarify I didn’t have Covid I had an horrendous infection that made me very ill.
Was it a mental breakdown? I don’t know, all I know is I was the lowest I’ve ever been and now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Dam, nearly a quarter off a bottle of my Chanel is gone, note to self put it back on top of the wardrobe once I’ve used it.
Coffeebreakgal 