Romeo, O’ Romeo what BE sleep?

I’ve taken all my meds, meditated, my crystals are under my pillow and to be honest I have had the best couple hours sleep of my life.

Wait

Hell NAH

That cannot be it for me tonight!

My son is sleeping people, he is sleeping that is one sorcery miracle right there! Yet here I am flipping through social media like my life depends on it. Honestly, that’s probably the problem. It’s a calming though, I like having a nose at pictures, watching viral videos and people walking into glass screen doors!

When anxiety crept up on me in the first place I never believed that it would have that much of an impact on everything I did. Yeh prevents a hell of a lot and some tasks that are tiny to some people are MOMUMENTAL to me. For example being able to sleep throughout the whole bloody night!! I’ve learnt to reign it in though I can’t lie.

For example I went to a job interview last week and intend to take it on all being well with childcare. Again completely normal to some but a nerve wracking, nail biting, body shaking concept to myself!

Although I have learnt with anxiety that pushing through it for me works wonders. I do my self talk, my meditation, my pros and cons and I get there. Somehow. Probably the clonazapam!

So I guess what I am trying to say is it’s totaly doable. We can beat anxiety. It’s hard exhausting work but we can do it. (Says she unable to get a decent nights sleep for years) it’s true though. More often than not the worse that can happen isn’t even that bad when we truly truly think about it.

Now I’m about to do something naughty to help me sleep kids.

Thanks for reading

Sleep though shall not sleep

What the fuck is sleep?

No seriously?

I have no idea, I can’t seem to find it, I don’t know what it looks like, what he or even she likes to be called. No bloody idea, for the purposes of this small blog we will name them a gender neutral name of wanker.

Wanker doesn’t like me, rarely comes to visit. I’ve been prescribed zopidem but wanker doesn’t seem to like them. Maybe wanker was the wrong word I seem to be writing it a lot. Damian!!!! That’s it Damian hates zopidem almost as much as he likes visiting me.

I do everything I’m told. Sleep meditation, no phone, tv etc. My room is set out clean and is a calm space which I enjoy being in. No visits from Damian.

The thing is it affects everything, my BPD, depression, CPTSD, anxiety, IBS I feel like a walking collection of symptoms from a psychology book.

My days are long and hard and my nights longer. I feel like I’ve tried everything so now I’ve just given up. Damian don’t wanna see me that’s fine I’ll just do my nails and play with my dog.

Yet in the morning I have to reach for the energy drinks and coffee-which does nothing for my anxiety. It’s like a horrific vicious circle.

So I’m willing to try anything now, if I give up my mental health will just suffer. But I’m not going to beg for Damian’s attention anymore. These are the steps I’m going to take and share with you incase it helps anyone.

1. Exercise daily

2. Eat well

3. Half an hour before bed no screens

4. If I get up no phone, or any screen.

5. Read a book for 30mins and try again.

6. Sleep meditation.

7. Zopidem

Damian you like that? Because I swear to god this mummy may just loose it soon.

Help

I’m currently sat here at 6.30am wishing I was in bed. Both dog and son want attention but don’t want the other one too.

Flats a state

I’m a fat slob (I just weighed myself) and I’m DONE.

Let me tell ya! I’ve had suicidal ideation most days this week short but practiced so much self care and techniques I feel now I’ve gone the other way and feel exhausted.

I have psychology today thank fuck. I think the point of this blog is no matter how you’re feeling there is a way out.

No matter how you’re feeling it can get better. My stress may be heightened to fuck today but I know it’s not forever and that’s a skill I’ve learnt that I’m so thankful for. I used to think depression, anxiety, stress and extreme moods last for ever-slowly overtime I realise that’s not true.

Don’t let your mind defeat you, your soul is stronger. I promise. The pain may run deep and your body feel cold and in a deep sea of nothingness but that doesn’t mean you can’t turn it around.

It’s possible, I’ve done it multiple times and I’m nothing special.

Short and sweet, hardly poetic but please don’t give up on this life. You’ve got this 💜

Time Just Goes Take Care with Kidness

It’s been so long since I last wrote a blog and so much in my life has happened.

It’s shown me something how quick time goes, we all say it goes so quick. We’ve given birth and all of a sudden our children are at school or on their first date. It’s Christmas and then we’re sunbathing in July.

But

How many times have you wanted the day to be over, or counted the hours until the end of your shift or bed time for the kids?

There’s something wrong here and I am just about done with being BPD, I’m fed up with the label, I’m fed up with loosing people because they don’t understand. I’m fed up with my week broken up by appointments and having no money because I can’t hold down a job due to my just intense emotions, feelings and anger.

When someone does something wrong, or not right I can’t let it go and it always leaves me in a sticky situation because I don’t understand why the world can’t just be kind and loving and people treated nicely.

So how about we take a different stance on this. We don’t count down the hours. We take it an hour by day. Each hour we do something that makes us happy or grounds us, reminds us who we are.

I’m thinking have a cup of tea, listen to a favourite song, getting up and dancing, messaging a friend, reading a book, taking the kids out, just taking a break for five minutes. Each hour.

We need to fill our heads with love and light otherwise the world seems like the darkest place and even though it can be. It isn’t always

You’re a not born to pay bills and loose weight…

I came across this picture and it got me thinking about myself and about what I constantly worry about.

I do get grave anxiety when it comes to pay bills and how I’m going to afford them and also I hatteeeeee my body. It actually grossed me out this morning. That shit ain’t healthy

So changes need to me made ☘️

I make it my mission to go out and enjoy my surroundings, the fresh air, the trees everyday but I’m starting to think I’m escaping what is the actually making me depressed and anxious instead of dealing with it head on.

I accept that I put it to the back on my mind. Focus on other more positive things which defiantly helps but it means the actually problems like money worry and my weight don’t ever get a look in.

Is this the right way to be?

What I’ve decided to do is be proactive, which is extremely hard when you constantly lack energy due to your mental health and other factors.

Plan of action.

Self work.

Why do I hate my body?

Whoever told me it was disgusting to vile.

I’m unique like everyone on this planet and we need to find the unique beauty within ourselves instead of doing fad diets and denying ourselves nights out or late lunches. I know personally I feel extremely guilty when I eat with friends or when I eat in general it’s almost like I don’t deserve to eat. Which is BS! Something I strongly plan on working on!

The next

Money

This is one of the biggest causes of depression because so many people now a days scrape by. Are on the breadline, turn to food banks and are on debt management. Before we all jump on these people I’m one of them and I currently work and am also studying to better myself.

So as a result of money stress I have cut back on a lot, which again has a negative impact because some stuff I need or use to make myself feel good in times of need like £1 Poundland nail polish to pamper myself or cheap face masks. They’ve all gone.

Whatever I’ve decided to do is focus on the end goal.

Work on my inner self to love who I am and what I look like.

Save for my future and remember my end goal instead of the instant gratification.

When I’ve tackled these minor parts of my illness hopefully it will teach me how to deal with the more serious.

Get grounded 🌳☘️🍀

My anxiety cripples me, it robs me, it keeps me in, it stops me growing; it’s basically the most toxic relationship I have ever had the pleasure of having. The worst thing it does?

It LIES.

It lies a huge amount, catastrophic, tells me I can’t do this, can’t be this, this person hates me, I said the wrong thing in 2001. It’s a recurring nightmare.

I spent years trying to fix it myself. Drinking way too much, drugs, self medicating, rebelling, feeling sorry for myself, staying in bed all day.

Until I had my boy and I psychically couldn’t stay in bed all day, I couldn’t watch Netflix, I couldn’t drink and I certainly couldn’t self medicate.

Saved me.

Even though the post natal depression, post natal psychosis demobilised me, stopped me dead in my tracks I am so grateful. It taught me how resilient I am and how above all else I will do anything for my son. Even when it means leaving the house and coming into a new social group when my anxiety and depression have both my arms and my legs and are fighting to keep me on the floor.

Saved me.

With a child I have to get out everyday because he has the energy and power of a little cute mini tornado. So I make myself. This is hard. Not everyone has children so doesn’t have this need to get out but the same rules still apply you still HAVE to. For your own wellbeing and sanity. Even if you’ve just walked down the road and posted a letter. The whole process means you had to get changed, get up and leave the house.

My best ever advice?

GET GROUNDED!

Get to the closest place that has trees, flowers, open space. Even if it’s just a local field or park. It really doesn’t have to be a massive nature reserve.

Look around you, what do you see? Trees, green leaves, flowers, purple, yellow, red, animals, people.

5 deep breathes.

What do you hear? Birds? Traffic? Children? People playing sport?

5 deep breathes

What do you smell? Greenery? Mud? Coffee? Pollution? Bonfire?

5 deep breaths.

What do you feel? Is it cold on your hands? Warm on your face? Wet on your feet? Can you feel a breeze, wind, rain or the sun?

5 deep breaths.

You can do this technique anywhere! Even if it’s just looking out your window!

Can do it on the bus, on the train, in town, at the park, on holiday. Works anywhere and MY GOD it helps me so much in so many ways!

Not only does it calm me right down and help me take on any challenges it shows me just how grateful I am to live in the most beautiful world with all we have around us. It makes me grateful for my local area, what I already have and what I’m close to. Each time I see, here or feel something new. Even when it’s the same place pretty much everyday on my dog walk.

You can do it with any budget, any crippling feeling. I was taught it by a psychologist but it helps ground me so much I can’t actually express. I would recommend it to anyone and when I have it’s massively helped!

Happy Grounding!

You are getting robbed!

It’s my sons bday tomorrow morning and every year I go through a massive period of reflection.

My son is my greatest achievement, my greatest love and my biggest inspiration.

It was not always like this.

In the beginning. The first year, I feared him, I feared myself, I questioned myself so much and to such an extreme that I made myself seriously ill which resulted in a 6 month psychiatric hospital stay in a mother and baby unit.

The best decision I ever made for us. They rebuilt me and taught me how to love in a way I wasn’t loved because until he was born I had not experienced love or being loved and it confused me. It made me vulnerable and I HATED that. I questioned it, I couldn’t understand why this little baby wanted me, why he sought comfort from me. I wasn’t good enough for him, or good enough to be given the gift of being a mother.

That and the 48hour long labour which ended in an emergency c section under general anaesthetic. I still have nightmares about the birth.

But now I am full of love and confidence with my boy. Don’t get it wrong sometimes if not most I am counting down the hours until bed time but all in all I love the bones of the boy. Post natal depression/psychosis robbed me of this. Robbed me of this initial love and confidence. Robbed me on beautiful sunny days out with my newborn, mum dates, coffee mornings, baby massage classes. Robbed me of the whole lot.

In truth my mental health can still rob me. It can rob us all. It twists moments, memories, feelings into something so poisonous it affects our feelings, our emotions, our entity and our relationships. It immobilises me while I have this strong force keeping me down and racing hyperactive over load on my brain exhausting every single cell in my body.

You know what cures me every time?

Knowing it’s not just me.

Knowing it’s ok.

Knowing it’s not my fault.

Knowing I have love.

Knowing it’s not the end.

Knowing I can beat it.

Knowing I am stronger.

Don’t judge the 1 out of 4

I’ve always wanted to write about this topic but never have out of fear I would just BLAB for 238399292832 pages and wouldn’t be concise enough BUT here goes anyway…..it’s bothering me……

People diagnosed with mental health conditions ARE NOT DOING IT FOR ATTENTION.

Even if you see/hear someone, and I have to admit even after everything I myself have been through and all the various people I’ve met in hospitals, psychology groups, recovery college, sometimes you do find yourself questioning people. HOWEVER instead of thinking about how “attention seeking” they are or “fake” it is; shouldn’t we be asking “why would someone do that?” because honestly anyone that desperate for attention or help or whatever reason we believe people may LIE about being afflicted with such a thing surely isn’t well anyway?!

Regardless.

For the people who are genuine, who battle everyday, take medication with awful side affects, attend appointments, are in hospital, face judgement I GOT YOU. When afflicted please believe having the condition is not the only battle at all.

1. You have to recognise and admit you may have something not quite 100%.

2. Then you have to actually GET the help you need. Whether it be talking therapies, medication, community or hospital care and BELIEVE me unless really severe, my friend, you have to FIGHT almost as hard as you fight the condition for this help. It’s almost impossible. Mostly due to lack of funding but a larger proportion because of people’s ignorance and belief that people’s depression and/or anxiety can be easily cured with a “you just need to be more positive” lecture.

3. Once help is received you have to then do the necessary steps to maintain wellbeing. Now this is HARD. You are expected to talk about what your feeling. Sorry what??

You have to sit with a stranger and tell them and be completely honest about how you’re feeling. Really and truly you’re only going to get the help you need if you are completely honest, and this is almost impossible out of fear of repercussion. Do you know how many parents suffer in silence due to the fear of their parenting being judged? Or people who are afraid of loosing their job, friends or family? Again we return to people’s pure dumb ass IGNORANCE.

4. Now you have to live your life. Keep your head above water and maintain as much of a linear recovery as possible for yourself. This is nothing short of a war HOWEVER is 100% totally possible. It really is. Please whoever is reading this know despite what I’ve already said it is totally possible.

Once help is acquired there is no time for relaxing. You can’t take a magic pill or talk to a magician and have everything fixed by the end of the week feeling great again. Unfortunately we are talking about chemical imbalances in the brain, YES a psychical problem, that has to be addressed with sometimes quite aggressive medication that takes a while to work and often working through some really traumatic thoughts that can resurface original symptoms in the first place anyway.

It is a war with your own head. Constantly questioning feelings, emotions, thoughts and actions. Is this me? Is this true? Or is this my mental health? Talking yourself around and out of various thoughts and unhelpful coping behaviours. Getting out of bed every morning and living a normal life while facing constant exhaustion from the battle that is MENTAL HEALTH.

It’s so hard to maintain working relationships due to the constant guilt that the negativity you are feeling is going to affect people. The guilt is the worst, normally we then start to punish ourselves as well with the dreaded “they deserve better, why me, I’m such a failure, bad friend, wife, husband, parent…”

We have jobs, which please, can we just stop a second and celebrate this. People who have mental health conditions and maintain an income here’s your salute! Hardly ANY employers understand mental health. Would someone with diabetes get questioned for sick days? Probably not. Would someone with Bi Polar or Anxiety? Almost guaranteed.

So next time you catch yourself judging, which we all have to admit we do, please stop and think! If you have found out someone is suffering that means someone has spoken out. That takes courage and a fuck tonne of guts. Respect that shit. There is NO amount of words, social media lives, I could do or write which could explain or show 100% clearly what people go through. So unless going through it, working for or caring for someone with mental health, I think it’s bloody hard to explain or get people to understand and see just how hard it is.

RESPECT and bloody WELL DONE to everyone fighting. Nothing short of warriors. If ever in doubt with someone you love or care for and you don’t get it. Just look it up. It’s simple now, we have Google and YouTube. Use them. Be educated not judgemental!

Is there anybody out there?

Nothing gets to my soul more than relating to someone. When you hear that blessed “oh my god same here” “I do that” “the same thing happened to me.” Such a beautiful sense of not being a lone. You aren’t the only one. There’s freedom in that.

I can’t quite explain it but when I first became unwell I had no idea what was going on I just knew I couldn’t live like it and I was scared. No one spoke about feeling that way. I felt like an outcast, spoilt, like nothing could make me happy I was just an empty shell of a human being.

Months went by. Months. Maybe even years I don’t remember clearly of that time these days but I met people who felt like I did. Were just as confused, just as lost, just as darkened and just as scared. It was horrific to see so much suffering from trauma or just life in general but it was also amazingly liberating to know there is a group of amazingly special people out there fighting wars every single day with their mind. What their mind perceives as truth. What their mind remembers, focuses on and feeds. These people take it on the chin daily and Warrior is not a good enough definition.

It’s one of the hardest things to believe that it doesn’t last forever. This is not it. Things do change and YOU are the person that can change it. Unfortunately there is no job role on this planet that means someone can drag you off the kitchen floor while you cry uncontrollably but people can listen and people can encourage you to stand on your own feet and stand up.

When your mind is taken from you it is impossible to see such beauty in the world. To see the wonder in a leaf changing colour or the stars lightyears away shining down so brightly. It’s there. It always will be, when you feel better it will be there. You will see the beauty again. That I absolutely promise you; a stranger to you I know but it’s pure fact and I hope you are willing to give it a go? To appreciate the birds, the trees the sunset or fog on an early crisp morning?

This is when it’s down, dark, twisted your mind unable to get your body to function to do even the most simplest of tasks. What about the hype? The manic, the buzz the can’t stop. Like a circle of torture created by a higher power who just hated humans! A false sense of security that you’re better or you’re getting there everything’s getting done, you’re a social butterfly, everything’s amazing but after experience you start to realise it’s all fake and then worry about when the “high” ends.

It’s hard, it’s a path I wouldn’t wish any to walk down but it’s a totally walkable path. Like any there are twists, bumps, divides but recovery is not linear. It is not perfect but it is worth it.

I know it’s hard to see, hard to believe hard to even understand when you’re going through it but the most important message of all is that you can honestly smash it. Get through the other day and dare I say it, have more good days than bad. It’s what’s happening to me now. Living proof.

Please don’t give up.

When the monsters move out from under your bed

STOP

HAMMER TIME

My head at 3am. If I’m to tell anyone I don’t sleep the amount of sympathy is unreal. Please believe I appreciate this. I truly do. What I do NOT is when health professionals ask there script of questions one of them being “are you getting enough sleep”

“Not even close”

“Probably why you feel so bad all the time, you need to get at least 8 hours, it’s so important you really should try”

I understand this, of course it’s important lack of sleep affects me more than anything and is infact one of my biggest triggers. Please believe when I tell you this I try. By god do I frikin try. Now I just give up. Now I just write.

It calms me, it’s productive and to be completely honest the normally mad house is soothing peaceful and quiet. I can hear the night buses pulling up outside, the dog breathing heavily at my feet and the most surprisingly soothing of them all; the clock ticking. I can’t hear it in the day but at night it feels peaceful. Like a reminder of the beautiful blanket of silence that surrounds the house.

I’m so lucky that after hours of talking it out and having very few close supportive friends I don’t lie awake thinking negatively. No trauma or past experience runs around in my head. Not like it used too. I use my day techniques in the night too. Immersing myself insenses.

The tick of the clock

The softness in my blanket

Firmness of my pillow

Warmth of the dog on my feet

The smell lingering from cakes baked the evening bedore

Sounds of work men on the train tracks

These beautiful sounds go on through the night, they calm me. I feel safe now. Like the ipifany this is I wonder. All the nights I spent awake feeling unsafe. Unsafe because of others and unsafe because of myself. That’s over now. I can enjoy the world. Sleep will come one day, until then I’m going to wrap myself in a duvet listening and taking in the beauty of the night knowing the trauma monsters of the past have gone now.

Slipt away into the darkness far far away.

So to anyone that rocks, tosses, turns and cries it gets easier. You’ll get through it. The pain will be forced out and you’ll have nights where it’s calm, nights where you sleep and nights where you feel happy.

Higher than I need to be

The days beautiful today.

Almost perfect, the sun is beautiful acting like a giant heat lamp on my face while the air freezes little droplets of water around my eyes like icicles.

The dramatic difference in heat on my face and cold on my body just reminds me how amazing the world is. And reflects exactly how my emotions feel. Two different sides of the spectrum being felt at exactly the same time. How nature and your brain can do this to you send such a variation of senses through your body leaves me in awe.

Also so confused is it unfair we feel like this? We feel such dramatics either simultaneously or they change so quickly not only confusing ourselves but people around us. Dark dark days that seem to last forever until that tiny sunshine creeps through the blinds. Or a dark hour turns to a bright one within minutes.

Just as if your brain goes through seasons. Although nature seasons are natural we are somehow made to feel we are unnatural and filled with medication.

Like the sun on my face and the cold air on my chest my heart is in two confusing places so I focus on the snow. On the crunch beneath my feet to the tiny holes all over the ice where it starts to melt.

This a lone is therapy for me, to really immerse myself in the outside, the smells, the feels, the tastes, the noises. It’s amazing to actually take in the surroundings instead of hurrying through them to get from one place or another or worse walk with phone in hand looking at what everyone else is doing instead of what you are.