A Bad Day Is...

It's when you have days when you're exhausted but you feel like you can't sit still. You want nothing more than to be asleep and away from the shouting in your brain but you can't drift off. You don't want to eat anything but you eat non stop to try and fill the emptiness in your stomach. When you suddenly become convinced everyone hates you, and you realise who you want to love you. When you want to be alone but you don't want to be on your own. When you want to scream but you don't have the energy to open your mouth. It's when you sit in bed and think of all the things you'd give to be 'normal', to go just 24 hours without these kind of thoughts in your head. 

When you want to punch, kick, and shout obscenities. But you also just want someone to lift you in to their arms, cuddle you, kiss you on the forehead and tell you they love you and everything will be okay. 

Bad depression/anxiety days are more than just feeling 'a bit sad' or 'a bit worried', they're days where you feel every single emotion a human is capable of. You're happy your alive, but you're also sad that you're alive. You're jealous of everyone else, you're angry that you have to be like this, you feel helpless that it's out of your control. A bad day like this is a constant adrenaline fuelled fight in your mind, and ultimately no one is going to win. 

Always learning.

I know, you've probably read countless other anxiety posts on countless other blogs. But sometimes you just need to talk (or type) about what's going on in your head. The thing about anxiety is that you're constantly learning about it, so expecting other people to understand it and solve it for you is ridiculous.

The new things I've learnt lately;
1. Dating someone when you have anxiety is hard. Really, really hard. The slightest misused word, the wrong kind of look, a call back or text taking what you think is a little bit too long, anything can set you off. Which is why if you're dating someone you can't trust, you might as well give up now. But I've been lucky to end up in a situation where I trust the other person. However I still can't expect them to understand when my brain starts running off and I convince myself, for example they're about to break up with me, that I'm not trying to insult them. It's because I care that I have these thoughts, because I don't want anything to go wrong. There's a fine line between just being paranoid and pushing someone away though. It's a pretty hard line to not cross.
I don't really have anymore thoughts on this point at the moment, it's one that I'm still working on. And I will probably have to continue on. If anyone reads this and wants any immediate advice, I'd like to say be honest, tell the other person that you're not trying to insult them. The thoughts you have can at times feel a real as the screen you're reading this on, and it can take a while to reign yourself back in.

2. Drinking alcohol will ALWAYS affect your anxiety. You won't be able to build up a "tolerance" to it. Just because you go out one night and have a panic attack and all hell breaks loose, doesn't mean it's going to happen every time. But just because you've gone out and had a good night and remained calm, doesn't mean that you can start being complacent. You still need to be careful.

3. Family problems happen. This one might sound a little bit selfish or ignorant to some, but I'm going to say it anyway. If the problem doesn't directly affect you, and you can't do anything to directly fix it, you need to try to stop worrying about it. Sometimes it's okay to let other people deal with things on their own. They don't always actually want you there all the time. The best you can do I've learnt is to keep yourself as informed on the problem as you feel comfortable with, Don't overload your brain if you avoid it, try not to pry in other areas of it, and just be there when other people need you. Trust me, they will be there for you when you need them as well.

4. Phones can be turned off. Landlines can be unplugged. Phone numbers can be blocked. Doors can be locked. It's okay to avoid things.

I've tried really hard with this post, but like I said, I'm still learning. My anxiety problems kicked in properly about 6 years ago tomorrow. Life hasn't been the same, and I'm willing to accept it will always be different now. Anxiety, and especially paranoia, can't be folded up like an old coat and shoved in to a box and ignored. It's always going to be there, you just have to learn to live with it. Not focus on trying to live without it.


With Love,
Rose-Marie.

Grief. One of the hardest things you will ever deal with.

So many times I've sat here and tried to write this post, but it never seems to come out right. It's never eloquent enough, or never emotional enough, just never enough if you get what I mean. I want to write this, even though I'm fairly sure that no one will ever see it, just in case. Grief is a fact of life, same as death is a fact of life. Whenever you face it for the first time, it hits you like a round of 10 punches to the face. I'm not sure about any other times, I've been lucky enough to only be dealing with it for the first time round right now.

Last year on October 7th 2014, my Grandad died. There wasn't really any warning, he wasn't unwell for a very long time, and I knew he didn't want to die. Just after it happened I came across a quote that said "if you could live on love, you would have lived forever." If that had been the case, he would still be here now, he would have been invincible. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. And on that Tuesday morning, my world collapsed around me. Sounds dramatic, but that is what it was like.

We all moved in to the house we live in now, on the same day when I was 9 months old, and ever since then aside from two or three days here and there, he had always been sat in his special red chair.  22 years. Then suddenly he wasn't. For months I was angry, then I was devastated. Then I thought I was almost out the other side of it, until the other day when I realised I have been in denial this entire time. I was standing at his graveside and suddenly realised I'd been thinking this was a temporary situation, I'd been thinking that in a years time, he would be back in his special red chair and the last year, weekly visits to the cemetery, everything, would just be a memory.

What I'm trying to say is that, it's been a year and I'm still no where near near the 'acceptance' stage all the leaflets talk about. But also, I know now its okay to not be at that stage yet. Everyone reaches that stage in their own time. Yes there will still be moments when I get angry and lash out at people, or moments where I break down and cry. Sadly there will be moments when I forget and expect him to be standing in the kitchen making tea while I'm making some toast, telling me about something he read in his newspaper. But like I said, all of those things are okay. Because eventually I will be okay. I'll miss him, and he will be in my heart and my thoughts forever. But one day they'll be only happy memories. All I can do now is try to keep making him proud of me, so he can point down from the heaven version of his little red chair and say, to the person next to him, "that's my daughter, my two grandchildren and my great grandchild down there, they make me the proudest I could ever be."