How to deal with anxiety is not easy or dealt with in one fell swoop.. It was after I had my fifth child that I was so overcome with the hardness of my life, of my young husband being so much under pressure that he drank too much, that we never had enough money to go round.. It hit me about three weeks after my last child was born. Everything felt too much. I would walk into the shops, knowing what I had to buy, but the counters in their shiningness seemed to hover above the ground, and the noise from all the people were just so much that I would dissolve into tears and rush away home again.
I tried to keep it from my husband, and would appear strong as I saw him off to work, then it would somehow all overwhelm me and I would be reduced to a puddle again. As soon as the time got near for his homecoming, I would wipe my eyes and concentrate on getting the meal ready for us all. Of course I did go to the doctors and was given tablets that made me sleep heavily. so after one usage, I put them away, and I never ever found them again.. my subconscious had hidden them away.. We lived in that house for another two years, but they were lost for good..
So I had to cope without them.
Each day was a blur of tiredness and sadness, I could not shake this feeling of gloom that I felt surrounded me, It was only my friend Carol that told Sean that I was in a very bad place emotionally and was crying all day when he was at work. Of course , there was nothing he could do but wait with me until the feeling lifted and I could face the day without fear. Having five children and the last two being 18 months apart, of course it was quite a lot to handle and cope with---.
I did do it, and no one of the children has ever mentioned how they thought, when I was going through those rough moments.
I am talking about this, because it is a real event that happens to many people and it dogs their whole life. I am so fortunate that the black dog visits me rarely now. I think at the time with all my hormones flashing all over the place, it could have contributed to the terrible feelings I had.
There was another time before I got married, when my brother and my parents and myself had returned from France to live in England, and we had no home to come back to.
I had got a job quickly enough and so had my brother, and my parents, but for a while we lived in rented places, once having to share a house with two other men. I remember looking at the people on the Tube when I was travelling back and forth to work.. thinking that they all had homes to go to and how awful it was to be actually homeless, although we did have rooms to rent..
Rooms which incidentally were so cold in the winter that we had to keep all our clothes on under the bedclothes! It wasn't a long time like this, but I do remember feeling despair..
Despite my medical condition which has resulted from two awful operations on my spine, I have not plummeted to the depths that I felt then for which I am so grateful... Yes I get fed up, but tomorrow is always another day..
This evening I have just put the phone down after talking to a very dear friend who is finally home after many months in hospital having a nervous break down. This person has tried to be so strong for so long despite the way that life had treated her.
She was married for over 25 years when her husband decided to start a campaign of hate against her, and made her two sons follow his nastiness. For five years they lived in the same house, not speaking to her.. totally ignoring her, and then when he found another partner, he moved out and their sons went with him.
They were in their early teens, so its hard to say why, but it left her all alone and destroyed. Luckily she did have faith which helped her survive those awful days, but finally it all catches up with you, and she is now recovering from a second nervous breakdown.. speaking to her on the phone, she is slow to answer, all her vitality knocked out of her, and I know that the drugs must be useful, but it is so pitiful to hear her speak.
I cannot imagine why life has dealt her this blow, but all she can do is take each day like us all, one day at a time
The strangest thing is that trying to take one day at a time, is much harder than you think.... its easily said.. but your brain is programmed over the years, to anticipate actions that might happen and for which you have to have a knowledge of how to deal with it, that each day you have various tasks to perform, but if you do try and take it one at a time, then some days you might do nothing but look at the sky, despite all the other duties you might have to do..Baby blues do go, even if it does take a while and life looks so hard.. but like the man once said...
who? I don't know...- something like -----
in ten years time, or even one, today will have passed and all the trouble in it, will have gone too,
and no one but you might care..
