Still Here!!

It's been an odd kind of few weeks, I will openly admit. I confess that I fell behind with my blogging, not because I gave up, but because I was struggling on something to write a blog about. After all, a fire is unable to burn unless there is fuel, in the same way, as there hasn't been am awful lot going on, there has not really been much to write blogs about. I didn't think my readers would enjoy hearing about the constant infections and visits to the hospital and doctors or how I am having to re-adapt to new carers and new routines.

The hardest part of having new people who come in just to take care of you is trying to explain to them what exactly you need, especially when you aren't that articulate about that in the first place. You have to almost pick apart your entire personality and lay it out on the line, which for a very private person like me, that is actually quite hard. I almost expect people to understand certain things that I don't like (such as continuous questioning, a great way to get me flustered and frustrated, especially when I am trying to do something that I need to concentrate on) to become almost obvious after a few days. My neighbour is learning slowly that I do need to sometimes be left to my own devices to figure things out, but she is also learning about how to spot my anxious habits or when I am trying my hardest to keep up the façade that I am well when clearly I am not. Sometimes I have a habit (and it's not a good one) of trying to do my own things when really I should be tucked up in bed and resting. It's not a deliberate thing, it is just a sign that before getting any help, be it from Helping Hands, Becky or my new carers, that all I had to do was focus on doing everything for myself whether I was well enough or not.

A little bit of independence can be a great thing, don't get me wrong, but you can be too independent and thus a liability on yourself. That's me at times. Earlier today, I was feeling anxious as to whether my new laptop would actually arrive at the right address (basically, Tesco confused the order and tried to send my new laptop to the old address that I sofa-surfed with my then boyfriend, they had tried taking it there twice! So I called up the suppliers and DPD and rearranged where the delivery was headed, it took a couple of hours on the phones but we managed to have it delivered to the correct address and now, here I am with a nice cup of tea, typing away) and I started to dust and meticulously clean the TV bench including my Halo Lego models, X-Box and TV itself, the result of which was a rather horrible wheeze and a lot of inhalers to get rid of it. Another of my anxious habits that has come about again is the way I used to pick at the skin near my nails and about 2 weeks ago, I managed to strip the cuticle from one of my fingers. Luckily that has grown back, as well as the skin on my hip and leg that was stripped due to eczema!

Things are settling in to a kind of normality now. I have started to get up and dressed at certain times, unless of course I am feeling like crap and I really don't want to move, and my medication is definitely getting done, whether I want it or not. I'm starting to stop being so shy and reserved about opening my curtains in the bedroom. I now let the light in, the other night, I was sat in my chair leaning back and thinking as I watched a few bats flying towards the woodlands. It was nice because I was just able to focus on just watching outside and nothing else. Recently I have been feeling a lot more calm, despite some minor episodes which I worked through my own way. My mental health hasn't changed much but since stopping Sertraline and moving on to Cipralex I have felt a bit more like the happy-go-lucky, upbeat Wendy that I did wonder where that person had gone. It's only been with the help of others that I have managed to find myself again and learned not to be so scared any more. I saw my Ex in town recently and instead of feeling scared, I just rolled past him because I thought about how stupid I was to ever let that person control my life.

I hold my head up high because I am on the right track to where I need to be and I am going to get there my own way. I want to keep going, not just to see the big milestones, but to be able to smile and look back and say "Yeah, they said I'd never get this far, but here I am." They said to me at 22 that I wouldn't make it to 25, let alone 30 and here I am, just over a month away from my 26th birthday and still going strong. OK so my health has deteriorated but we always knew it was going to. The trick is to just accept that sometimes things are going to suck, but when you feel like you're running out of rope, tie yourself a big knot and get a grip! No matter what situation you're in, you are no more, or no less better off than anyone else. Everyone has their own pile of shit to wade through, OK so it probably isn't the same pile of shit as you, but that doesn't matter, it's not a contest! I think it was said in the film Fight Club about how we are all the same and some of us need a massive dose of "Get-over-yourself" to sort their own lives out, well that was the thing I took from the film anyway!

Since starting to socialise and go out to places more often, one thing I have learned is to love the people you live around and live around those you love. You can give anyone expensive gifts and trinkets, but the most precious and lifesaving things out there are love, friendship, compassion, companionship and hope. When I was ready to throw in the towel before and give up, these things saved me and guided me to another way, I found that by hurting myself and doing those things, I was actually hurting the people I loved so much and who loved me. Worst still I would have disgraced anyone who had died from an illness and not have had the option to make their own choice in all of this. Suicide isn't painless. I have come to the conclusion that suicide is actually selfish. I've also come across some other rather interesting philosophies recently but I will save those for another time, as one or two may be a bit weird to comprehend right now!

Loves
Wendy xx