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.
                                        *******************************************
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 :-)

I worked today. I visited my team leader at her home to sort out some things to do with our job. I was cheerful, attentive and focussed as she went over PDR's and clinic plans. I nodded at her suggestions and made a mental note to get things right, since I care about my job immensely. I gazed out of her dining room window and thought about my body hanging from a tree!

I live with suicidal thoughts and have for several years. I am two faced, probably multi faced. Outside I promote and efficient, kind caring and engaging woman but on the inside I am smashed to pieces and broken...I am damaged beyond repair.

I remember seeing a counsellor several years ago, she was nice. The kind of lady who was intelligent but ever so slightly nuts herself. The kind who reads feminist theories and Sylvia Plath poetry with coffee stains on her blouse and papers spilling from her desk. Uncontrollable frizzy hair pinned into a heaped bun and fingerprints on her glasses.

She told me I was not failing because I was washed and dressed. I was not worthless because my house was clean and I got to work on time. Apparently it's much easier to spot a suicidal person if they are standing on a ledge holding a razor blade to their wrist (and they haven't cleaned the toilet). In reality we walk amongst the fatalists on a daily basis but they are keeping a lid on things, holding in the pain and trying to cope on their own.

I cope alone...I am alone and shall most likely always be so. I am middle aged, reclusive, shy away from company or fun of any kind. I am a private hermit and I hate it because I didn't ever want to be this.

I have read a lot about depression, have tried medication, but there isn't a pill that will cure loneliness or shyness. Joining things compounds my anxiety and even mixing with work colleagues makes me feel uncomfortable. I always worry that my depression will be subject to ridicule or expose me as an inept worker, but work is the one thing that really keeps me going.

I am not going to list all the reasons I suspect are responsible for my mental health 'issues' because only I need to know and they would be insufferably boring for anyone else to know. Sometimes I do not even mind being as nutty as a fruitcake, as long as I can keep up the facade and not let anyone else see. Suicidal thoughts are my comfort because if things get too bad I can 'off' myself and spare the human race the extrodinary burden of having me in the world.

I have the weekend off and I know when I stepped through this door about an hour ago, that I won't step outside until Tuesday morning when I am back in clinic. I won't see or speak to anyone and nobody will call me or come looking for me...not even my family.

I will clean the house, write, read some books, watch a movie or two and do what I mostly do when I am alone...sleep. I will probably cry too, I find it helps to release the tension and lessen the bitter dissapointment I have about myself.

I know other people have worse lives, I am acutely aware of that fact and as my Mother says 'Well you've just got to get out more'...yes, well I would if the fear didn't grip me and the feeling of being completely and utterly unloved and useless left my mind for even a few minutes.

The doctor said I am a highly functioning depressive, well that's nice isn't it. It's easier to be machine like and not allow emotions to strangle you...it's much more functional to just be there for others rather than look for your own happiness. In fact I have no idea what would even make me happy these days since there is no point even thinking about it.

I do not know how to make things different, I have tried and failed. If I make connections with people they tend to move away (as in my whole family...yes everyone...and my friends) I cannot date either because the catalogue of horrors I have been through, where men are concerned, is like a 'burning bush' to remind me that that kind of thing(love/romance) is most definitely not mapped out in the stars for me.

I live in my head, have done since I was a child. I have been afraid my whole life and even though I have fulfilled my role as a Mother as an employee as a woman, I am no closer to my own sense of achievement...I just lend a hand in others.

Depression dulls your senses and mutes life, everything is fuzzy and muted by the rocks you carry in your chest. I wished I drank heavily or was addicted to something else, but even that scares me...it would be so nice to get so stoned that I could not even remember my own name, I could put the rocks down and take a rest, but they are sewn to my body.

I know loneliness will kill me, it's already beginning to do so, I just have to wait until it catches up with me...

and so the weekend begins.

Thoughts on depression...

This month continues to squeeze me and it feels like I still have a mountain to climb financially. The majority of spare funds this month were diverted to my youngest daughter, who has chosen to stay in Worthing until university begins again in September. She has a job in a bar, but the work has been sporadic and her student grant ran out quite a few months ago, so I and my ex husband have been keeping her afloat. It's annoying to think that she missed out on a huge lump of her student grant because she filled out the forms wrong. She stated she would be living at home, when, in fact she was living in rented student accommodation and this cost us dearly. Fortunately the same mistake has been avoided for the coming year so we can all breathe a little easier.

Because of circumstances, she has been asked to leave her current accomodation at the end of the term. Not because she didn't pay the rent, but because she had a dispute with the landlord and he has refused to renew her contract. It means we have to find another deposit to get her into somewhere new because the old deposit will not be returned until 10 days after she has moved out in September (already into the new university year) This has caused me untold stress as there is no actual sum of how much we shall need and I have had to save every penny, so that she has enough. Of course I will get some of the money back when the deposit is returned from the current landlord, but what with house and car repairs, it's all been a bit mind boggling and I do not want her to get any other loans because she cannot afford to pay them back and it could potentially turn into a fiasco!

She remains problematic, but what do I do?...abandon her? I am determined to keep her at university because we worked so hard and went through so much stress to even get her there and she needs and wants (more importantly) to see it through. I am not a pushy parent, never have been, but seeing your child so close to self destruction with drugs and observing them physically and emotionally trying to escape that hell pit...you literally will do what you have to to ensure that they do not go back!

There are many who would tell me 'She's an adult' 'She needs to sort things out herself'...and this is true, but she's an adult with emotional problems and if she were disabled in a visual way, I'd be scorned for turning my back. To me, depression and anxiety are a disability and as much as I step back and allow her space to make her own way, I am there for her 100% if she needs me and if that takes every penny I have then so be it.

I am fortunate that I do not have any nagging partner or an unsupportive family. My own Mother understands completely what is going on and also helps out when she can, even if it's just a phone call to allow my kid a firewall.

I have an older daughter also afflicted with chronic depression, but she is altogether further along the path and is learning with the help of medication and CBT, to live with her condition. She graduated uni, works (has always worked) has hobbies, knows how to budget and lives with her boyfriend...she's a good kid and is so generous in her nature towards me, never complaining that I help her little sister so much.

I have learned to manage my own depression too. I tried the medication route and found it really worked in bringing me back from the brink when I was at my worst, but I also learned to simpilfy my life and to destress myself by eradicating as much negativity from my life as I could. Setting small goals is important but not as important as giving yourself a break when things don't go to plan.

At my worst, it was a victory if I had even gotten out of bed or brushed my teeth. A few years on and now medication free, I have come to terms with myself and can function quite happily and feel positive about myself if I get through the day just doing normal stuff.

I do not want to climb mount everest, or cycle across India. I do not even want to lose weight or join a gym. Those are goals for other people. I am a home bunny, living frugally and happy, growing veg and supporting my girls. I work, keep a neatly run home and that is enough for me to cope with. Do I get lonely?...sometimes, but not as lonely as you would think.

In another few years, I may have ventured a little more 'out of the shell' but right now, where I am is fine...and I am grateful for that xx

Four years in a moment

I cannot believe I abandoned this blog over 4 years ago...it almost felt as if I was reading the words of someone else and it was like finding a friend :-)

Four years on a range have things have changed, or should I say moved on.
The girls are now 21 and 24 years old. Holly has graduated university and now lives in London. Vanessa is still riding the perpetual roller coaster that is her life but is anchored for the time being to University. I am just glad she isn't dead, because over the last few years I was more than prepared for that news as she swung and spiralled from one limb to another. She never did move back in with me, but I support her finacially as much as I can and for that to happen I have lived a life of frugality and austerity.

I am still living in Rochester, I am still single. I actually resent the word 'still' as it makes it seem that I have never progressed and desperately want to. The thing is, that over these past few years, I have dated me myself I, haphazardly, depressively, hopefully and finally acceptingly.
I have made some progress into unlocking my inner self and I realise that singledom is my peace and sanctuary in life and it is unconscious and enduring and has prevented me stepping into a relationship.

I still date from time to time. I enjoy meeting people in small doses and it's good for me and stops me buying 15 cats and growing a menopausal beard!, but I have never met anyone who I would allow to step over the emotional threshold...and believe me, a few have tried.

I am currently writing in private about my 'Year of living cheaply' as I call it and I along with the rest of the country have had to adapt to the current economic crisis that is crippling the world. I am totally blessed and lucky, not just because I have a tiny mortgage and a fairly decent job, but that I have the thirst for knowledge to find out how to keep myself above the waves whilst a lot of people are drowning, that in itself is a miracle.

I read a lot of the frugal blogs on here such as Frugal Queen and Frugal Living UK both who are excellent, inspiring and have kept me going this year, so much so that next year I shall begin my own account of frugality, so watch this space.

Here is a picture of my tiny garden and some of the higgledy piggle veg plants that have taken it over...happy days!