Chicken coop...

I have a week off work and the weather is beautiful. It's not possible to not be lifted by the warm morning sun and the birds singing.

I sat with my coffee amongst my newly planted vegetables and meditated for half an hour, it was peaceful. This week will be dedicated to the garden and decorating the back bedroom. I have a tiny courtyard garden on two levels with no grass or soil so I plant everything in pots and troughs. It is one of the rare things that absolutely fills me with joy to see everything growing all higgledy piggledy with beans and cabbages and tomatoes enjoying the mild weather along with potates, courgettes and lettuce. I had a pretty good growing season last year and learned a lot about what will grown well in such a tiny space with restricted light. My garden is over shadowed by an enourmous ash tree so the sun is only intense in the morning and the late afternoon, but this probably serves the garden well and stops the plants getting scorched!

I do not grow massive amounts, no great sweeping rows of plenty. I just grow a little of everything, enough to supplement my own needs and maybe a few tomatoes and chillis shared with the neighbours...it's not about the food, it's the act of growing and watching something thrive. Just sitting with the veg becomes a very peaceful and fulfilling activity which I enjoy and find very healing.

I have been attending therapy and I think I am getting past the emotional, outpouring stage. The main problem of my family will never be resolved because, with regard to eachother, they cannot change and neither can I. I can only change how I feel about myself coping with their absence and the fact that they are not perfect and neither am I. There has been no contact but the more I think about it, I think this is what I needed to be completely free to focus on my inner self.

I don't discuss with anyone else because they are private matters pertaining only to me and I do not wish to burden others with something only I can fix...the journey continues and my black thoughts are still there, but I am learning to live with them and accept that they are a part of myself.

Today I am going to see a friend and we are going to clear some space in her garden and build a chicken coop. I am looking foward to being able to help care for the chickens and learn about how to look after them properly. We will share the cost of the food/vet bills and also share the eggs :-)

I have returned to eating just one meal a day (evening). I found this so helpful before for restoring my energy levels, helping me sleep better and also losing weight. Other bodily ailments are also reduced, constipation, piles, allergies as well as avoiding the mid afternoon slump. People criticize the practice but I think if something works for you, then it works. It is also the practice of Buddhist monks and nuns and they have been doing it for over 2000 years, so I see no difference for me. I admit I did not originally find the idea from Buddhism, but from a man who wrote a blog about doing it himself

.http://hubbyshome.com/486/how-to-lose-weight-fast-eating-one-meal-a-day/

it inspired me!

I am listening to Buddhist teachings, learning about how to let things go!, how to not be so attached to things and how to meditate for a peaceful and compassionate mind. I listen to Robina Courtin and Ajahn Brahm amongst others and it has been immensely helpful to my troubled mind.

It could be argued that I am not showing compassion towards my family by not contacting them, but for now it's OK, I know now is not the right time and I need to focus more on myself and find out what most makes me happy.

Time to go build the chicken coop and enjoy the rest of the gorgeous day!

Therapy...

For the last five weeks I have been having therapy to try and unravel my negative thoughts and chronic lack of self esteem.

I knew I needed to take action as my thoughts and feelings were becoming ever more delusional. I was losing my grip on reality and even though I knew what the root was, it was shrouded in denial and fear.

I had almost split into two people. The hard working healthcare worker, organised, functional, dilligent and unfaltering in my desire to please. The thought of making a mistake or dissapointing someone was unbearable. I just always want to get everything right to avoid something bad happening.

The other me is the hermit, still hardworking, organised and dilligent BUT with the absence of other people and fast sinking into a permanent state of depression and loneliness. I have a smattering of friends, but maybe only one I'd admit my psychological state to.

My inability to make new friends, to feel good about myself, to accept I was drowning under the influence of a hidden history made me want to kill myself...and this has been going on for years...........................so following a late night trip to A&E, I was suddenly 'plugged in' to 'appropriate assistance'

The counsellor is a man in his late 50's, quiet, calm but challenging. The first three weeks were filled with my memories as a child.

Tearful explainations, that it was normal to see your parents fighting and hitting eachother, to be bullied and manipulated in such a subtle way by your own Mother because she, not being able to cope with any stress, passed that stress onto her children. The need to please, to stop her exploding became a permanent fixture for my life.

I loved my Mother. Afterall, didn't she tell me how great she was? Didn't she ask me all the time 'Am I a good Mother?' knowing full well none of us could say 'No, you are an insendiary control freak who is so enmeshed in your own dysfunctional childhood, that you have blindly brought those terrors upon your own babies'...I think she resisted the cycle of abuse for a while, but it got the better of her in the end!

The counsellor tells me 'This isn't how a normal childhood should be' to treat your children so differently, to focus on one but not on the others. To meter out thrashings to all, if only one child was naughty and to have us all cowering in the cupboard whilst her and my Father went to war on eachother. To pussyfoot around her, never knowing which way her mood would swing or to be ignored and overlooked because she was on some weird personal mission or odyssey to find herself.

I was the quiet child, the sensitive one. These are NOT bad things to be. It isn't wrong to be shy or withdrawn. It isn't a crime to not be a dominant person but it does make you an easy target.
People tell you to 'toughen up' but they never tell the bully to reign in their terror because this little shy sensitive person cannot take it!! This subservient muted pleaser cannot cope with the rage and the fear and the terror!...it leave a terrible stain! It causes damage!

The legacy if things go the wrong way, is a person who eternally feels unable to relate on a personal level, a person who cannot establish their place in a group, so they tend to prefer being by themselves. Never feeling 'good enough' is a hard thing for people to identify with. You might feel a modicum if you miss out on a job or get dumped by your boyfriend but to be made to feel not good enough by your primary and fundemental caregiver...the person who was suppose to teach you about unconditional love in the first place is absolutely devastating!...and you hold it in, and never tell anyone...for years and years it festers until one day you realise that you missed out on the largest part of being a human being...being loved and being able to accept that love without being under duress.

I have been in denial of this for so long. I always knew it was there but for the love of my Mother I sacrificed the love of me.

I have been unable to speak to my family for almost 6 months and they have made no attempt to contact me. They probably think I have gone insane...I wasn't far off it! I know I will not resolve these issues with my Mother (not even via my Father) because I still fear her. I fear hurting her or challenging her. I fear her wrath...yes even after all this time. Sometimes it's better to just accept it's not fixable and walk away...and it's OK to do that, it's OK to break free.

My building site starts with me. I haven't looked at myself in years. All the practical stuff is there, working hard, money and home management, making sure the kids are doing OK, coming to terms with my permanent state of singlehood...but I need to be able to tell myself that I love myself more...I have to begin to believe it and that it's OK to feel those feelings about yourself.

The counsellor thinks I am hiding out and that may be so, but it's OK to stay behind the curtain if you want to, if you feel safe there...you just have to rid yourself of the guilt that you are not someone your Mother wanted you to be. I still have a lot of 'coming to terms' to deal with and I think I am now ready to do so.

I am GOOD ENOUGH! I am GOOD ENOUGH! I am GOOD ENOUGH! and it is OK

That's enough for now...

Christmas was a good one :-)

Christmas dinner was nice (thankyou Aldi), pork and turkey breast this year, no brussels but leafy green cabbage and cauli (lovely), crispy potatoes and stuffing and a gorgeous chocolate cake for pudding. I was joined by my youngest daughter and her boyfriend and in the evening I went to my friend (who is also single) and we played Risk with her young daughter and ate sausage rolls and drank tea. We also watched Call the Midwife, which we love, working for midwifery services as we do.

My oldest daughter is staying here for a few days, which is brilliant and it's so nice to have a tea drinking companion. We have had a total duvet day today, watching movies and just being together. We have picked and nibbled and taken turns in the tea making and tomorrow we are going for a mooch down the town.

Having sort help for my depression, I am told by the mental health team that they cannot offer me any counselling sessions at this time, but that some may become available in the new year, so I remain hopeful that something will come along soon.

Generally I am feeling quite cheerful although I am in constant pain with my hip. Again I am waiting for physiotherapy from Medway, it could quite literally be months. I have a trapped nerve behind a slight dislocation so I have constant sciatica and some weakness in the whole leg. (I sound like my mother going on about my ailments) I am going to start swimming again as I think this will give me some relief.

I cannot wait until spring and for my growing season to begin again. I learned a lot from last years efforts and know exactly what I shall be planting this year, but after the strong winds and torrential rain of recent weeks, I have some serious tidying to do but it will all get done in good time.

No sign from D, no merry Christmas and I guess no Birthday wishes will come either. I am not as sad as I was, I am reaching acceptance and I know it's the best thing for me.

One foot in front of the other and one day at a time...that is the way to go. No thoughts of dating, just home, work, kids and trying to save money...that is enough for now.

Before I am done...

October was the lowest low of the year. My depression and anxiety was off the chart and required a visit to A&E, I stopped talking to my parents and brother and sister because of family stress I couldn't cope with, my frugal living attempts crashed and burned and my weight was out of control. Add to that an increasing work load and suicidal thoughts and before I knew it...CAR CRASH (not literally).

I took myself in hand and wrote down a list of improvements that needed to be undertaken. The need to change was crucial because I was very close to the edge and still feel like that on some days.

The things I decided to change were:

To stop trying so hard to see and keep touch with my family (not including my children). I have spent years visiting, calling, helping, fitting in with their lives all in the name of maintaining some sort of familial connection. What I got back was very little, just a few empty promises and some rather disturbing and negative statements. I have lived where I live for 5 years and the amount of times my family have visited collectively comes to less than 10 times. The amount of times I have gone to them and miles racked up...well I lost count. My family are business orientated, money makers, busy, distracted, peripheral. You have to fit in around them and their money making pursuits. They do not give undivided attention or one to one...you just have to go along and hang on the edge to get any kind of family fix.

We have tried the Christmas get togethers in the past and they are stressful miserable affairs because my parents hate Christmas...they always did. Efforts were made when we were small but as soon as it could all be shaken off and everyone could be holed up in their own burrow, Christmas was pretty much written off. Presents came in the form of cheques in envelopes, Christmas trees were an inconvienience and the thought of making merry together had scorn poured on it in abundance.

I was amused when I visited my Aunt and uncle recently. My Aunt was looking for special chocolates on the internet and I asked her what for. She told me that they were a special item on my cousins Christmas list. My cousin is 46!! I was just amazed that my Aunt and Uncle still gathered Christmas lists from their children and Grandchildren and painstakingly went to a great effort to find
 the desired items!!. We arn't talking cars and jewels here, just special little requests that could be wrapped and enjoyed with a gathering of family...it was a joy to hear tinged with bitterness at my own family lack of caring.

Another change I have made is to switch to a High fat low carb diet. It has taken weeks of reading and studying and the weight loss has been slow because the diet is very restricted, but the health benefits have been good and my energy has been restored.

Another change was to rid myself of D.
D is someone I have known for several years and with whom I have been in love with and intimate for as long. I have broken my heart many times over him and nothing has ever come of it. He would never quite let me go and I have wasted good years pushing away other men who have come into my life because I always thought he would be the one...he sadly wasn't and after recent contact with him, I decided that things would never be and so made the decision to let go. People ask if we could have stayed friends, but it is not possible to stay friends with someone you deeply love and watch them go off with someone else.

I am in pain over the final goodbye, made much worse by my recent horrific depressed state, but I know, give time, it will pass and my heart will let go. Too many tears have been shed already.

I don't really know where my life is going at the moment, I am luckier than most but, as always, there are thorns. Work is busier than ever but I have friends there (despite telling myself every day how useless and invisible I am...I know there are people there who care about me).

I don't know how life will go now I have no extended family. I neither want it fixed or unfixed...it's just a big plate of nothing...just like I am to them...nothing.

On 20th December I have a psychiatric assesment as I want to try and untangle my life. I want to know how to cope when I am standing at 3am in the full midst of a terrifying nightmare with a rope in my hand. I want to know how it came to this.

I do not tell anyone because I know nobody cares or understands...it is my problem and only I can make it better.

I want to find some peace and happiness before I am done.

Depression...

Pay day is on Thursday, I am so relieved it has finally come around and am already working out my budget for the month so I can save as much money as possible.

I am pretty sure my car is brewing a problem as there is a kind of flapping sound when the engine is running and I am thinking it might be the belt although it was checked on the last service less than a year ago. Mind you belts can go at any time so I should get it looked at. The car only needs a half service this time around which will be about £150 with parts on top so I need to make sure I put that aside this month.

It can be quite disheartening to only ever make ends meet on such a small salary and when I scoop money aside, I wished it could be for more exciting stuff or just for it to be able to grow into a nest egg would be nice but there is always some or other huge bill that comes along to wipe it out and I say what I always say 'Oh well at least I had the money available' and of course, I am only able to do that by being frugal and watching every penny.

I am still feeling very isolated and you read so much stuff about isolation being bad for you and causing early death. Strangely the early death thing doesn't really bother me that much because I think about dying all the time.

It must be very hard for 'normal' people to understand social anxiety. People judge you all the time, saying you should get out more and join things, but that is the whole point...the fear of failure and rejection is so huge and daunting and people are so fucking horrible most of the time, why would you even want to do that??

I am lucky because I work and I am tolerated by those I work with because I am useful and get things done but nobody would actually choose to spend time with me...it's usually a one time thing and then they realise how much of a bastard I am and I don't see them again!!!

I speak to my kids a couple of times a month, but they have busy lives and partners so you cannot really expect them to make me a priority and I would not actually want them to because I am hoping they will build stronger and happier relationships without any vacuous influence from me.

I am lucky in that I have one good friend, sadly she moved over 200 miles away a few years ago but she is single like me and suffers from depression even though she has all her family around her. She was with me when I had my heart surgery and stayed when I was ill afterwards when it took my own family 3 days to even make contact with me!!

We use SKYPE to talk and can natter for hours which is great. She said she can see that my mental health has gotten much worse and always encourages me to get help, but the help is so pasturised, so formal and almost completely inaccessible. My doctor is a muslim and when I talk to her about depression she looks at me and speaks to me like I am saying 'I have three heads growing out of my arse'...she just mentions pills and tells me to make my own online referral for the mental health team and I always leave there thinking she was glad to get rid of me and I don't make the referral because you don't know who you are going to have to face and tell that you are a completely freakish nut!!

I don't want to cry in front of people because they judge, they think you are putting it on, they think you are attention seeking...when you are so full of fear that anyone will find out and you are alone for 80% of the time because you don't know what else to do. If I was attention seeking I'd be on the Jeremy Kyle show, not sitting home by myself so much.

I do what I can to keep occupied and the frugal thing, although self sacrificing does keep me focussed, as does writing, cleaning the house and work. I don't want someone telling me I am wasting my life because I couldn't give a flying fuck what anyone else though of my life. I have to carefully manage and negotiate my life...because, for me, every day is torture and thinking that I am better off than starving Africans or people with more acceptable illnesses than my own, does not even register in my brain and it is not my fault I was given this life without the aid of a likeable personality or an instruction manual!!

Mental illness is stigmatised and always will be, it doesn't have the sympathy or shock factor of cancer or MS, people don't want to know about it, they are scared and think they will get caught up in it or that the sufferer will cling to them and drag tham down or become a burden...that's why depressive people are so isolated and that's what makes it worse!...In the end you just have to hold on as best you can, fight the voices that tell you to kill yourself, put on a brave face and try to act normal when you are around 'normal' people...that's just how it is and the one saving grace is that one day it will be over!

Just keep going...

Another weekend alone for me but it has not been as unproductive as usual. I am extremely broke this month, having paid the majority of my surplus to my kid for living expenses at University and pay day isn't until next Thursday.

My food stores are low, as I like to try and use up everything in the fridge and freezer before I buy more food, so I spent yesterday devising and cooking up some meals to last me until pay day.

I work full time and that coupled with my depression makes me extremely tired and unwilling to cook when I get home so I like to have meals in the freezer that I can nuke in the microwave.

Yesterday I made a bacon and mushroom risotto, using a couple of slices of smoked bacon I had in the freezer and some mushroom I bought for 50p as they were approaching their sell by date. I threw in a splash of white wine from a bottle I opened a couple of weeks ago but never finished...totally undrinkable now, but then again I am not a huge drinker. I have frozen the rest in cubes to be added to future meals.

I also made a vegetarian bolognaise using a half pack of frozen quorn mince and the rest of the mushrooms. The two pans were split into 5 meals and 4 were put back in the freezer.

I also made smome pastry from a bit of butter I had left in the fridge. I don't often make pastry and have never made it just using butter. I don't buy lard, so didn't know if the pastry would work, so I just took my time and handled it very gently and it came out brilliantly! I made jam tarts, using the end of a jar of jam I had in the fridge and also made two small rough apple pies using a couple of eating apples that were going off. Of course these only make small portions but enough for me to get through the next few days.

I also made some sultana and chocolate flapjacks using butter and honey, as I didn't have any golden syrup. I always put in a few extra sultanas as they make the flapjack more moist and chewy and when they had cooled I melted a half bar of dark cooking chocolate that I found in the store cupboard and coated the flapjacks with it before bunging it back in the fridge. I can use these for my lunches next week until pay day rolls around.
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Last night I had the most vivid and scary nightmare that I have had in a long time. I knew I was dreaming 'in' the dream and it was so real and frightening and went on and on and I could not wake myself up. I dreampt that I shot dead one of my ex's girlfriends and one of her relatives. I do not even know who she is but in my dream she was a beautiful tall brunette with a gorgeous figure. She was absolutely delightful and I can remember standing at the top of a metal fire escape and as she and her cousin walked up the stairs I shot them both dead with a pistol!!

My ex was absolutely devestated and he stood before me screaming at me, asking me why I had done it. Then I had a book in front of me of his life and I was looking through it at pictures of him as a baby and a child. It was so bizarre and I felt nothing but panic and fear. I also saw myself standing on a cliff watching the sun come up and pointing to the colours in the sky. He was beside me and he was utterly broken and forlorn and I asked him if we should jump off the cliff...and we did....

I woke up at 12.45pm, longer than I have slept for a long time. I felt the dream had lasted for most of my sleep and felt shocked that I had even dreampt it because in real life I would never hurt him or his new girlfriend and I don't really have anything to do with him anymore apart from the odd text.

I have felt horrible all day, tearful and upset and the only way I could fend it off was to clean the house and keep my mind occupied.

I have been thinking about changes I need to make in the new year. I need more help with my social anxiety. I need more support from people around me but feel so akward and ashamed to ask. I definitely need to set myself some more challenges that will get me out of the house more as all work and no play makes a person weary and boring.

Like every new year, you have to start again and just keep going.

Pushing the boat out...a reclusive view.

8am    Woke up to the sound of a text on my phone from a guy I used to sleep with. I'd text him a couple of days ago out of boredom and he took this long to reply. The ensuing texts were him telling me he was now in a relationship and I just thought about the few other people I have had relations with who have all found happiness in some form or another.

9am   Thought on this some more and concluded that I am the lauch mat that propels certain people into the arms of loving women and it made me think that perhaps I am so vile and repellant that it spurs these men on to 'sort themselves out' or else risk getting involved with a person like me again...it's kind of funny when you think about it, only not so funny for me who has the awful realisation that I am the 'fall back' person. I don't know how to escape except to say that I should avoid men probably for the remainder of my life.

Didn't really eat today, I had no apetite and just drank several cups of tea with milk. I worry about my weight, I come from a fat family, prone to pile on the pounds and in my worst moods I could quite happily crawl into a bag of Doritos and never come out.

7pm Have cleaned the house from top to toe, scrubbed the bathroom and changed my sheets, wiped down all surfaces, washed the kitchen floor , did a laundry load and tidied everything away. I vaccumed the downstairs and set everything in the lounge back neatly into place. I also took a longish bath with Sanctuary spa bath essence which sadly didn't bubble. I feel a little hungry but do not really want to mess up the kitchen, so may make some toast later...maybe another tea will deaden the pangs.

When I was going through divorce, my weight plummetted and I was lean and boney. I remember feeling so empty at denying my body food, but in a way it felt comforting too that I had control. I think it's fair to say I verge on the masochistic in everything that concerns myself.

Being harsh on my self and denying myself is a coping mechanism, to test myself to see if I'll crack. I rely on no one for anything (asides from my job which provides my money) but everything else is organised, bought, repaired, prepared, fixed and cared for by me. I get embarrassed to ask for help and it usually ends in disaster because something goes wrong...so I dont ask.

I did enjoy my bath and so it's a night in my clean bed with the TV and maybe my Anne Rice books...I know how to push the boat out :-)