Category: OCD

Weeds and Concrete – 20 weeks later

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TW: Birth trauma, nightmares, PTSD

Today has been eventful and emotional. I had my second online CBT session by text. Unfortunately, anyone that knows me knows that my brain works at 100mph and texting therapy was just making me more anxious. I would watch the minutes go down on the clock feeling like time was escaping and like I would never have enough time to fix things.

At about 10 minutes in I started crying, a lot. I felt trapped in questionnaires and like I would never get help. Luckily One of my best friends Dave called and confirmed it was time to ask for face to face support. The CBT therapist was amazing and has referred me for face to face and so the waiting begins again.

This week has been full of both love and anxiety. I’m so lucky that I have an amazing bond with our 5 month old Harper and we get to see family and do classes together throughout the week. But I also ended up in A&E with chest pains (likely anxiety) and unable to go into the hospital, because of PTSD from her birth, so instead waited outside for 2 hours.

I dream of being in a hospital every night, even if what I’m dreaming about has nothing to do with hospitals, that is always the setting. I actually wrote a blog a couple of weeks ago explaining it all that I have yet to post.

Today I just wanted to share the nightmare that I had 4 weeks ago. One that I feel sums up how I feel perfectly but in a rather abstract way. I’m not entirely sure of the reason I’m sharing. Maybe it helps to share, maybe I hope it might make others feel less alone.

I’m fine, I will be fine and I’m so happy. Anxiety and mental health just has a funny way of making this life a rollercoaster.

Somewhere in the universe…

Weeds and concrete – 20 weeks later

I have woken from a dream tonight that was uneventful and extremely significant, terrifying, and detailed at the same time. I woke at 2:30am, it is now 5:30am and after lots of Google searches on post partum haemorrhage and retained placenta I still can’t sleep because I cant shake this awful feeling of dread.

I have had a couple of nightmares recently that have lasted what feels like minutes and that have been relatively uneventful but terrifying at the same time, enough to shock me awake.

My dream was based in theatre. No one spoke about why we were there, my body felt fine and yet invaded at the same time. I knew something was going to happen, something needed to happen but I didn’t know what. I wasn’t told and I didn’t ask. I just sat and waited for them to prepare.

In a theatre room.

Outside the room was derelict weeds and concrete as far as the eye could see. No buildings. An old abandoned wasteland in the middle of an unspoken or acknowledged tragedy. It looked like what I can only describe what it must be like to return to Chernobyl in present day. It felt unbreathable outside of the dirty smeared windows that spanned the entire left side of the theatre room. Despite that we didn’t acknowledge it. It almost felt deceitful. Like I was somewhere ‘other’ not where I was supposed to be but unable to talk about it.

One of the midwives was washing her hands in the basin to the right of the head of the ‘bed’. I use the term bed loosely, it was a slab of smooth silver with mental legs and steps. We kept talking about how damaging hand washing was but how necessary it had become. Particularly in her role as a lung disease surgeon. Which of course left me wanting to hold my breath. It was spoken about as if it were something highly transmissible but something we just had to forget about and move past as we both shared the air in that small space. Covid.

I felt alone in that place because I was alone. Not only was I in a theatre without my husband or baby, I was alone in the world, the world was shut for business and life due to the pandemic. There were no friends there were no family. Come to think of it there were no doctors in that room which only furthered my anxiety about what we would do when it all went wrong. Subconsciously my mind remembered being pregnant and having a baby in a real pandemic.

I badly needed the toilet which would delay things if I left the room. The more I process it I realise I couldn’t leave the room. I was trapped there because all that existed was the room. The doors were not real, no one was coming in and no ones was leaving. I was not ever leaving. I offered to take one of the cardboard dishes and go in the corner of the room. The midwife confirmed that would be a good idea. In my actual story (not in my dream) and reality I hadn’t been allowed to leave the hospital until I had been to the toilet twice in a kidney bean dish and done at least 500ml each time. (Yes very dignified). I went multiple times before they were happy for me to go. Constantly drinking jugs of water. I actually asked if I could have 2 jugs at one point so I could just get it done and get out of there.

Had that experience in reality caused me to become trapped in my dream? That place was the only place I could exist in, outside of the unbreathable air and concrete weeds beyond the window. Yet it did not feel like a safe place to be. There was no where to run and no where to hide.

Image: Roman Robroek https://romanrobroek.nl/ weirdly, this image is almost exactly like my dream.

The room itself was clean but old. Like a scene from a theatre room decades ago. Everything was sterile and nothing was friendly or inviting. The walls were plain and empty. The tools were freshly polished and clinical. The room was empty and full at the same time. All I could see clearly was the metal bed, the metal basin on the wall and the midwives. A majority of the rest was not visually blurred but mentally. I knew there were lights and tools. But no door and no anaesthetic or drip.

Strangely, and rather, un inkeeping with the scene, the midwives appeared trust worthy. They were friendly and smiled the whole time. It was a strange dichotomy between their experience of reality and mine. Almost like there weren’t really there, just in my imagination. I was actually as I had felt all along, alone.

So much happened in that short time that seemed to last a life time and yet it was just that, short. The concept of time in my dream almost didn’t exist but as I woke it was likely less than 5 minutes; the parts I can remember.

I half expected to see a deer outside the window with 2 heads or a distorted malformed face.

As I write this I am now wondering if I were dead and I can feel an actual physical pressure in my stomach as that realisation hits. My dream had me trapped in some sort of limbo, an alternate world that I could not escape. On a plane where time did not exist and neither did my material surroundings.

I balanced in a dystopian tragedy, closing in on me, protected only by the thinly veiled walls of the theatre room.

And whilst I felt like nothing was happening, I wasn’t afraid but somewhere, some part of me was terrified and screaming. I can only relate that to the calmness displayed by the medical staff in my actual reality. Whilst I was experiencing a post partum haemorrhage, they were extremely quick moving but calm at the same time. The fear atomised and filled the air we were breathing but the team were immune. Part of me wonders if that contributes to my confusion and inability to let go. Like a deceit was taking place. The rational part of me says thank goodness they were so incredible and knew exactly what to do.

That theatre room is a box. A small box of concrete in a world where nothing and no one else exists. I can see that box from the outside as though I am looking down on it from the side, hovering in that heavy unbreathable air. I am trapped in that box, on that cold table. Surrounded by the smiling faces of strangers that don’t actually exist.

I don’t think I have actually left that room in my dream. I’m still there but I’m awake. There is a part of my consciousness trapped in that room that can’t get out. (And she probably still really bloody needs the toilet). She is alone and surrounded by haze. Her only reality the metal bed, the metal basin, a handful of midwives and those dirty windows that span the entire length of the left side of the room. Looking out into the expanse of weeds and concrete.

XxXxX

Grateful for life – birth journey

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Trigger warning: traumatic birth story

I realised today how lucky I am to be alive in the time of modern medicine. I mean I’ve always known how lucky we are but it’s not until I experienced what could have been a very threatening situation that I realised just how fragile life can be.

Without modern medicine I realise I would have been one of those mums that you see die in child birth in programmes set years ago. I would have been the mum that bled out and left her baby on this earth without a mum.

I have kind of just pushed past it gratefully in my conscious mind and life. But as time goes on, I realise it’s actually hit me harder than I thought and reality sinks in at just how serious things could have been.

One of my biggest fears for child birth was of course death and I’m sure it’s the same for everyone giving birth. My other huge fear came from an episode of call the midwife. After giving birth the mother’s placenta became stuck. In an effort to get it out the midwives pulled on the cord and ended up inverting her uterus and pulling it out before pushing it back in again. Well you can imagine my horror when mine got stuck and the midwives began pulling the cord. Eventually the cord snapped off inside of me and pulling was no longer an option.

They tried to manually get it out whilst giving me gas and air but the pain was unbearable and they weren’t able to get to it. They tried multiple times and each time I screamed for them to stop.

I feel so lucky that there was a whole team on hand to take me down to theatre to get it removed. From the time of giving birth at 3:45am until theatre at around 5am I was still bleeding and my husband was starting to panic. I remember blood pouring off of the table in theatre and the team telling me not to worry. In that moment I had to put complete faith in the team of doctors and nurses, essentially fighting to stop the blood loss. I had already been talked through the process of a blood transfusion and the complications that can come with it.

As someone with OCD I was pretty certain I would need the transfusion, it would all go wrong, and I would die.

So many hours of just using gas and air for pain relief, because of my fear of an epidural, and yet I was going to now need a spinal block anyway. It felt soul destroying.

The hardest part for me was not the thought of death, but the thought of leaving my husband and new born baby alone. In those moments, all I could think of was how I had done this to him and how scared he must be.

My husbands face, whilst holding our newborn, will haunt me for the rest of my life. I don’t think I have ever seen him so scared and I hope to never again. I wanted to reach out and touch him, hold his hand, but he was too far away and the medical team around me were moving quickly. We didn’t kiss goodbye, we both knew we were too scared to. Too scared that it would be the last time, too scared we weren’t strong enough, too scared we would both start crying.

My husband told me later that he couldn’t kiss me goodbye because that would mean I wasn’t coming back. In that moment we looked at each other as I was taken away, that tiny moment of time we shared in eye contact said all we ever needed to say. It’s like we said 1000 words to each other in a millisecond. We knew what we would tell each other at the end,  we knew every word we would say if we only had the time.

I pray I never have to see that look on my husband’s face again as he held our baby in his arms, feeling so alone. All I could say to the midwifes and nurses was can someone please look after my husband he’s scared, can someone please help my husband, can someone stay with my husband. They promised they would look after him, and to their credit they did.

It’s moments like this you truly realise how your true heart feels, when you’re so close to loosing everything. My heart told me I had to stay on this earth for him, that I couldn’t bear the thought of him being alone. And not just alone but alone with a new baby, that to me is too tragic and it happens still too often.

The doctors told me this could happen to me again and that it would be a risk for our next pregnancy. It’s something that really plays on my mind now. I know I want to have more children but now I have to weigh that up with the chances of ending up back in theatre and not being as lucky next time.

I know that with the intervention of the team in theatre and with modern medicine that it’s unlikely I would have died but its still teriffying to know that I could have and would have without our modern day science.

As time goes on I think I’m still coming to terms with it. Reality is hitting me hard in the face that without going to theatre to have my placenta removed and blood loss stopped our story could have been a very different one.

I never want to fear kissing my husband goodbye again, I never want to see that very real fear in his eyes again, I never want to leave him in such a vulnerable position with our baby in his arms.

To make it all worse we’re in a pandemic so we couldn’t even have other family there to support. He just had to sit there alone for over an hour, holding our baby, wondering what his future was going to be like and if it was going to be very different from the one we imagined. I’m so grateful to the midwives that checked in on him throughout that time and who supported him.

I’m grateful to the medical team who helped dress me for theatre, washed blood from me when I was unable to move from the waist down, who held my hand, made jokes to help me smile, wrapped me in blankets to keep me warm, moved my legs for me when I couldn’t, lifted me from bed to bed, made sure I could feel no pain and treated me as though I was family.

Yes I was scared, so scared that I was going to die, but I was teriffied that I would be leaving my husband for good and that I would never hold my baby again.

I’m so grateful, grateful for human curiosity and modern medicine, grateful for health workers who really are miracle makers, grateful for every extra second since that day that I get to spend with my new little family when it could have been so very different, grateful for my husbands strength and endless love, grateful for my own strength that I really didn’t know I had.

In those moments I was absolutely teriffied I was also at my strongest. I stayed calm because I really had no choice. I asked all the right questions before signing to give consent to be taken to theatre. I processed everything that was going on around me, through the fear and pain and focused on staying earth side.

Recovery has been hard physically. During pregnancy I was diagnosed with SPD meaning my pelvis moves unevenly and twists, which is both extremely painful and restricts my movement. Having to deal with that on top of internal stitches and my insides contracting and healing has been painful and exhausting. I have had to go back to hospital because my catheter used in theatre has caused some trauma, which means even more blood loss. I have been dizzy, ‘spaced out’ and extremely tired. Add a newborn baby to the mix and sleep definitely becomes a commodity.

Mentally I have had the dreaded baby blues and spend a lot of time crying for what feels like no reason. A lot of time also crying because I miss my husband and being able to hold on to him for more than 5 minutes without having to change a nappy or feed a baby. Of course I love the nappy chages and feeding but it doesn’t take away the fact I miss just having a cuddle with my husband.

I think the birth experience has made missing him more intense because I feel like I almost left him and so I just want to hold onto him forever and never let go. The thought of him returning to work absolutely breaks my heart. I don’t ever want to be separated from him again, not taken away on a hospital bed, not for work, not taken away for even a second.

This post has gone on for a long while but it honestly helps me to conceptualise how I’m feeling and why I may be struggling so much at the moment. I think I understand more now why the baby blues have been hard for me, because I almost left my baby and husband and because I never want to leave them again.

I dont know how I’m going to make it through when he does go back to work but I also know that, just like going to theatre, I dont have a choice and that I will find the strength to get through it, even if I’m fighting through tears.

Matthew I love you and I will do all I can to never have to leave you and Harper so scared and alone again. If one day I should have to go away you know every word I would ever say to you. Just how absolutely madly in love with you I am, how you make me so so proud every day and how you’re the kindest most incredible human. Thank you for being my all and for being Harper’s daddy, we love you past the stars forever.

I purposefully removed the ’till death do us part’ from our wedding vows and changed it to ‘infinity and beyond’ because I plan to be with you and hold you in my heart forever.

To infinity and beyond my love.

XxXxX

Hide and seek – a stalkers game

WARNING: This blog paints a picture of how it can feel to be a victim of stalking. It talks about the fear of being home alone and feelings of being watched. I have given specific detail on the images I imagine and how I feel. Do not read this if you believe it could make you fear being home alone, being watched or stalked, or might trigger a bad psychological response. This could also be harmful for people with OCD and reoccurring thoughts.

Sadly I don’t think even a German Shepherd could stop me from being scared. This cutie certainly can’t!

Home alone and it’s after sun set. I’m absolutely terrified to the point I can hear my own heart beat and I feel completely sick. I can’t even explain the level of fear I have when I’m home alone and my husband is working nights.

It’s not like a subtle anxiety, or a really scary experience, it’s completely and utterly paralysing fear. At every moment I am waiting for a man to appear from behind the curtain or under the bed. I don’t fear that I might be hurt. I fear that he has nothing other than a creepy agenda to just stand and watch. The watching man.

Not long ago I was stalked for almost 2 years by a complete stranger. Eventually the police interviened and put an end to it. I have to say that they were amazing and I will forever be grateful. I had a full team pose as civilians to catch him and stop him. From time to time I still receive a call to ask if things are OK and if I’ve had any further trouble with him.

I don’t know if this experience has made this whole ‘home alone’ situation what it is today. What I do know is that my jaw is aching because I have been grinding my teeth continually since my husband left the door.

I’m in a constant battle between wanting to look behind every door, under the beds, behind the curtains and in the cupboards. I’m stuck between checking and being too terrified to check because I’m almost certain someone is there just watching.

Without a shadow of a doubt I know I can hear breathing, it isn’t mine and it isn’t the dog’s. I can hear someone clicking with their mouth in the other room and winding me up, playing mind games. A bit like my stalker did in his variety of ways. The very fact that I wrote ‘my stalker’ makes it feel like I have some kind of ownership. He’s not ‘my stalker’ he’s a person that decided to stalk someone and unfortunately that someone was me.

I decide to check the window ledge in my room to make sure there’s no one hiding behind the curtain. I should explain that I don’t even think a 3 year old could fit and hide on that window ledge but I’m completely convinced that there is a man hiding there. As I check, I’m haunted by the image of a man standing in the middle of the garden just looking up at me expressionless. He’s not really there but in my mind he is, and to me that’s 100% reality.

I open the under stairs cupboard to get the dogs dental chew. I’m convinced that there’s a man curled in the corner hiding and just waiting for me to find him so that he can stare at me with an expressionless face. It’s like a constant game of hide and seek. Now I want to shut the cupboard door but I know he’ll be standing behind it as I close it. Just there watching, not actually doing anything.

I go to my bed, which is the most horrifying part. Checking the locks before bed and turning the downstairs lights out. I want to leave the hallway light on upstairs but I can’t. I can’t because then I might see the shadow of his footsteps under the door. As I sit here in my bed I can hear creaking. I know the creaking is him standing at the door just breathing. Just standing there doing nothing with his face against the door. The creaking is him in the wardrobe, under the bed, in the roof. He is everywhere and everything all at once.

I need to cry but I’m too scared to make a noise because then he’ll know I’m there and that I’m awake. He wants me to be awake because then he can frighten me by just being there.

It’s only 11:30pm. My husband left at 9pm. It’s been 2 and a half hours and I have 5 and a half left to go. Over 5 more hours of being slowly psychologically torchured by a man who’s name I’ll never know.

I hear a noise on the TV, an odd laugh, a bang, a click. I see a menacing face, an odd glare. Even the most innocent of programs can trigger a thought for me and send a wave of fear and heat through me. I can’t even distract myself to mute my fear.

What makes this most scary is that I don’t even know his agenda. He’s the ultimate psychological thriller, just pure creepyness. Because he has no agenda he has nothing to loose and that makes him even more powerful. He doesn’t fit in to social norms or believe that both the actual law or basic laws of human decency apply to him. He has nothing to loose and he fears nothing. He smiles in a jail cell because he gets pleasure from fear.

He’ll play the long game, wait in the dark for hours until I’m home alone before he comes out. I suspect he likes that he can remain so calm, and I suspect it’s for sexual gratification.

One of the most terrifying things about my real stalker is that for the longest time I didn’t know he was there. When I finally realised I remembered him being there all along. I can’t get over the fact that someone can watch and follow you for so long and yet remain hidden in the shadows for the same length of time. As soon as I noticed him the memories of him being there, all the times before hit me like a freight train. Layer upon layer began building in my mind within seconds. He had been there all along.

I remembered he was the guy that touched my leg on the train whilst pretending to be asleep months ago. I remembered all of the other times he had made physical contact with me. Then suddenly I think of all the times I don’t know about, all the things I didn’t remember and all the times I didn’t see him, but he was there.

In the weeks before police intervention, I began making records of his behaviours and when he appeared. I took pictures of him watching me. The one video I will never forget was when I secretly filmed him on a train journey whilst I pretended to be asleep. He never broke his stare once. He never stopped looking, staring expressionless, not once did he break his gaze. As a lady stood in his eye sight he lent to the side so that he could look around her to just watch.

I’ll never know his name, I’ll never know who he was, but most importantly and most haunting of all, I’ll never know why.

It’s the never knowing why he did it, that means I’ll always be watched. My images of the watching man are not of him. They’re the figure of someone else but they are born from him. The image I see are from that disgusting Luther episode of the man hiding under the bed. That’s my mind’s invention of how the watching man appears in my empty home.

When my husband is here it’s the safest place in the world. When I’m staying away from home with a friend or family member I feel safe. But whenever I am alone, in the dark, at home or away. If I’m alone the watching man will always be there.

He might not be physically real anymore but to me his affects on me are completely real. For as long as he is there I will continue to play hide and seek with him. I will continue to know that he is everywhere and everything all at once. I will continue to feel him there. Waiting, breathing, watching.

Statistics show that 700,000 women are stalked each year. Victims do not tend to report to the police until the 100th incident – which is similar to my own experiences.

If you or someone you know needs help you can call the National Stalking Helpline on 0808 802 0300

I found them very helpful as well as the Suzy Lamplugh Trust http://www.suzylamplugh.org/

If you have ever been stalked or you care for someone that has been, know that it can take time for the effects to surface and that sometimes they make no sense. If you need support then make sure you reach out.

Only 4 hours left till I’m not home alone anymore.

XxXxX

What lasts forever?

I never know whether to put a warning at the start of some of these posts when they explore certain topics that may upset people. If you’re not in the right place to read about lack of control, lost relationships or the unknown then maybe this one isn’t for you. Or maybe it will help you to see that you’re not alone in your thinking and that there are others who understand.

I’ve had so many people come and go from my life, the strongest of relationships fade, to the point that I kind of feel that any relationship I have might not exist in 2, 5, 10 years. That’s not because I don’t want them to, but if the universe has taught me anything it’s that very few things are forever.

It can be a scary place to be. It’s quite worrying to think that my entire support network could be completely different or gone over the years. It’s quite an empty feeling to have. Knowing that your only guaranteed constant in your life is yourself. When something bad or upsetting happens I always think ‘I’m so glad I have X to help me through’ or ‘all that matters is that I have Y by my side’. But the scariest thought comes when my brain tells me ‘what makes you think they’re yours to keep’.

Thank goodness for puppies 💕

I want to write something comforting about how as individuals we need to be OK with the unknown and trust in time. I want to write that the relationships that mean the most to us will always be there. But today OCD isn’t allowing me to. It’s telling me that no matter what I do, at some point it’s going to be just me on my own and that any relationship I ever make, no matter how deep it feels to me, really might not be that deep or meaningful to others. OCD makes me feel unstable with no solid platform or level of control.

I have incredible friendships with close friends that would give me the world and I could never explain to them what they mean to me. It’s just pretty shit that OCD has this way of convincing me that eventually I’ll be alone and left again by different people over the years. I remind myself of all the people who also come into my life in recent years and the new relationships that I create but that just leaves me wondering who will ever really know who I am? If all my relationship end up being transient and ever changing.

Fear of being alone isn’t just an OCD thing or necessarily a mental health thing. But OCD does make it more real for me. It doesn’t become an ‘if’ it becomes a ‘when’. And even if I know in my heart of hearts that my closest relationships are here to stay my brain does weird stuff that tells me to not be so ridiculous, of course I’ll eventually be alone. I feel pretty selfish saying that.

It takes me back to the day I brought my wedding dress. The second I put my card in the machine my brain said ‘what are you doing? Why are you doing all of this? You’ll be dead before then anyway. You’re not going to be alive in a year. Why are you bothering with any of this?’

It actually felt ridiculous to buy a dress I would never wear. The thought and feeling was so real to me that I almost told the sales person that I was being ridiculous because I was going to die soon. And in my mind that felt like a completely reasonable thing to say. I found it really hard to enter my pin in to that machine at the same time as being absolutely sure that I wouldn’t be here to wear my dress anyway. Not because I didn’t want to be here, but because I just genuinely believed I didn’t have a choice and that nothing lasts forever including me.

If you’re friends with someone that has OCD or poor mental health, know that they probably deeply care about you even if they are annoyingly always concerned that it’s all going to end soon.

If you’re friends with me then thank you. Thank you for dealing with my randomness, my sometimes anxious behaviour and my often fickleness. Sometimes there is method in the ‘madness’ or in this case, a reason.

If you’re in my life and you’re here to stay then thank you for being my rock, because as with any day living with poor mental health, I need you now more than ever and I appreciate you for everything you do for me. I’m so lucky to have an amazing husband and so many amazing friends that mean the world.

No matter how close or far from me you may be, I know you’re there and that to me is huge.

‘mad’ as always

XxXxX

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. ðŸ’š

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Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. 💚

So many of us are affected or know people that are affected by suicide. Sometimes we hear people refer to suicide as ‘selfish’ or people complain about ‘inconvenience’ when it means their trains don’t run. Just remember that someone was ill enough to end their own life and that’s a pretty awful place to be in. It is not selfish and it is not an inconvenience. Nobody wants to be ill and nobody ever wants to feel that it’s their only way out.

Usually people share posts and ask others to do the same. ‘share or post this so that others know you’re there’. They encourage you to reach out and ask how others are doing. But we often forget to ask ourselves how we are too. So today, on World Suicide Prevention Day, reach out to others and encourage others to do the same. But don’t forget to reach out to yourself also because it’s not selfish to make sure that you’re OK too 💚

A Circle of Worthless

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Find your Rainbow 🌈

So looking through my drafts it says I wrote this on the 2nd January 2017, almost 2 years ago.

It’s always good to look back sometimes to see how far we’ve come. I can honestly say I feel differently now in a good way. Don’t get me wrong, I still do have days where I feel this way, but certainly not on a daily basis like I did back then. I’ve also been helped by the most incredible woman who has taught me that feedback is a gift and that you don’t always have to accept it. Now I see feedback as an opportunity rather than fear it – more on that another time.

I thought it was worth a post anyway, to show that even when you feel like this you can still turn it around so that you don’t have to. Sometimes you just have to learn to find the rainbow in the rain.

XxX

Sometimes I feel totally worthless, like I bring no benefit whatsoever to this earth or to what I do. Sometimes receiving ‘constructive’ feedback, to me I just hear ‘you’re so stupid’ ‘how thick can you be’ ‘I may as well have done it myself’ ‘what’s the point in you being here’ ‘you’re like a child’ ‘do you have no initiative’ ‘do I really have to explain this to you again’.What’s the solution? I honestly don’t know. Can people perhaps sugar coat their feedback more? Possibly. But would that really make a huge difference? When all is said and done I will still be receiving feedback on something I need to improve upon.

I seem to lack the ability to defend myself sometimes, even if I’m right, not wanting to appear ‘defensive’. So I take the blame myself, perhaps I didn’t position that right, maybe I should have explained better, no honestly it’s completely my fault, I probably am just totally useless. Further reinforcing my belief that they think I’m useless.

I often wonder what happens once that door is closed behind me. Do those I work or interact with roll their eyes like ‘she’s just not getting it’ ‘spoon feeding her again’ ‘argh she’s so exhausting’ ‘she’s so lazy’.

Day by day I get this impression that I’m just not good enough and I never will be. I’ll always be the one riding on the coat tails of other’s successes. And anything I do create myself will just be pointless, completely off the mark and wrong.

So why am I here? Why do you want me here? I’m continuously a burden that you have to help and that is totally and completely annoying. To top it off I bring no benefit whatsoever because anything I ever do will never be good enough.

So in the end I stop trying. I stop trying to be great. I stop trying to be my best me. And I stop trying to have a purpose. Because when I do try it’s never quite right and it’s just another example of a time where I’m wrong. So I accept that I am useless, that I am stupid, that I’m totally unqualified and that I’m totally worthless. It’s easier to produce nothing than to produce something that is totally pointless.

And then I feel isolated. Wondering what the person next to me or in front of me is thinking about me. I can’t concentrate so I stare at a blank screen reading the same line 10 times until I realise people must think I’m mad or most likely lazy ‘she’s not doing anything’ ‘waste of oxygen’ ‘here I am working my ass off and she’s just sitting there again.’

It’s funny, I’ve only felt this way for the past year. I was always so confident in myself and my work. Always ready to take on the next adventure or fight the next battle. But something changed in me in my last 2 roles. My only regular feedback was the negative kind and anything positive just, didn’t need to be said. You can only face so much negativity before you start thinking ‘what’s the point’.

It’s a vicious circle. A circle that I’m not sure I will ever escape. I’m not good enough = anything I do will be pointless = don’t do anything through fear of doing it wrong = she’s lazy = what’s the point of her she’s just a burden = I’m not good enough. And so on.

The only way I will ever get out of this circle for good is to accept that what people think of me is not who I am. Sure I can try really hard and produce something really worthwhile but it’s only a matter of time before I will fall down again. So the only way to truly escape is to accept myself as I am and to not be driven by what others think of me and place my worth on the value of what others think.

Easier said than done.

XxX

Christmas OCD happy, sad, and everything in-between

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Ok so I haven’t written in a while so this is long overdue. Sometimes it can be hard to find the right topic and other times I think of the perfect thing to say but just don’t get round to actually typing. So here I am actually typing.

With Christmas around the corner, people arguing about when the tree should actually go up and the fact that there are Christmas cards in the shop in October. I’ll be honest, as long as it makes people happy it doesn’t bother me that one person puts up a tree in October or another person December. What actually makes me sad at Christmas is happiness. All those that can’t relate right now are thinking ‘OK that’s a bit weird’. Hear me out.

It’s not the happiness of others that makes me sad, it’s my own happiness. It’s a really difficult one to explain really and I’ve spent years trying to understand it. Is it my OCD and being terrified of loosing what I have, maybe I feel I don’t deserve it when so many others struggle, maybe it’s unmet expectations of being able to be with all family members all the time, is it the break in routine and a fear that Christmas traditions won’t be kept? Or maybe it’s all of them put together.

For me, and many others I know with mental health difficulties it can be one thing or memory that brings on that emotion. I remember being about 17 maybe one evening late in December. My mum called me to say we’re going Hamleys today and to look at the Christmas lights in London (something we do together every year) this year it hadn’t been planned and my parents had decided at that moment that today was the day. They asked if I wanted them to pick me up from my boyfriend’s (now husband) house. I thought about it but answered too quickly perhaps.

I said No.

That year I missed the trip to Hamleys.

Even typing that makes me cry. Who says no to spending time with family at Christmas? Who says no to keeping a family tradition? In truth lots of people do and it doesn’t mean they don’t care about family it just means they have to skip this one event this year. Unfortunately many people like myself with OCD or other mental health difficulties will hate themselves forever. I’ve never gotten over that and I don’t think I ever will. From then on my feelings around Christmas time changed. To me it became a time of year where I let people down and don’t do enough to bring happiness. To me I broke my mum’s heart and to her she probably doesn’t even remember it and probably didn’t even mind. My mind tells me that it taught me I was capable of choosing doing something else over being with my family.

As a person who’s OCD tells them they are going to loose everything all the time and everyone is going to die, knowing that you just rejected your last trip to Hamleys with your family is like living in hell. I instantly knew I had made a mistake and spent most of the evening crying.

Top that off with the fact that emotionally I believe every Christmas is the last. And not my last. I wouldn’t be nearly as concerned if it were my last. It’s the belief that it could be my husband’s last, my mum’s last, my sisters last, etc. And because OCD tells you something WILL happen, not that it might, it means I’m already grieving for a loved one every Christmas. And how selfish is that? So many people actually ARE grieving for a loved one and here I am with mine unable to fully appreciate it – that makes me feel pretty selfish to top it all off. Sadly I can’t control my OCD or irrational thoughts because, well they’re irrational!

As I walk down the street I see people sleeping out in the cold and I wonder what I have to celebrate. How can I celebrate whilst there are people sleeping alone outside on Christmas day? Guilt. Again everything is about why I should feel bad and why I’m selfish for being happy.

It’s a difficult one to tackle because let’s be honest, feeling responsible for those less fortunate than us is not irrational and is actually very helpful in society because we should be caring for others. Unfortunately for me, coupled with everything else above, I spend an awful lot of time hating myself for any kind of happiness. When in reality I should be appreciating it.

It seems in life in general the happier I am or the better things become, the more terrified and ill I become inside, because now I have more to loose. The more in love I am the harder it will be when I fall, the better my relationship are with friends and family the more crushed I will be when that person’s gone. So what do you do? Hug less? Try to see things more rationally and less emotionally? All easier said than done and neither of them very healthy.

So I ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’ I build every relationship, try to maintain every tradition and convince others to understand why it’s so important to put the time in, to make the effort, attend the family traditions because one day they will all be gone and all we’ll have left are our memories. Pretty awful outlook to have on Christmas I know. So this year, if you’re like me, try to be a bit more forgiving of yourself. Do the things you’ve always done, and spend time with the people you need to. But remember your life, love and relationships are not defined by that one moment, that one evening or even present. They’re defined by the small things, the Monday morning ‘how are you’ text and the Friday afternoon coffee, the ‘ill he right there’ when you’re needed. That’s what people remember and that’s what matters.

Buy breakfast for the person sleeping outside and give to those that need it most. Just remember that you do deserve some happiness. I’ll be honest I’m still working on taking my own advice but I’m sure I’ll get there.

For those friends and family that don’t experience Christmas the same way and that don’t suffer with mental health. Know that when I get upset that you don’t want to keep the tradition this year, or your too busy to come to Hamleys or to have Christmas dinner. When I get upset and probably come across as pushy and mean it’s because it means something more to me.

It means more to me than I could ever explain and more than you could ever understand.

XxXxX

Should you expect the world?

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My husband throughout his life has always prepared for failure. If he doesn’t get his hopes up then he won’t be so disappointed if he doesn’t get it. We couldn’t be more different on this front. When I prepare, I prepare for success. I literally pour my heart and soul in. If I’m unsuccessful yes it can be devastating but after lots of practice you learn to move on quickly to the next venture. I have failed in job applications, exams, friendships, love and life in general. But I have succeeded more times than I have lost.

In the words of Thomas Edison there really is no such thing as failure, only learning how not to do something. If you ‘fail’ 100 times you have really just learnt 100 ways not to do something.

My husband may have less disappointment in his life, but that can mean his victories aren’t quite as emotional. They are tarnished by anti disappointment methods. He reduces the suspense whereas I build mine up so that when I do finally succeed it’s a huge accomplishment.

So what is the right approach? There is no magical formula to protect ourself from disappointment or learning how not to do something. But I truly do believe that without knowing sadness you cannot experience true happiness. You have to accept the peaks and troughs. Protecting yourself all the time is denying yourself the right to actually live.

So I set my expectations high. My expectations of myself and of others. Yes this means I have further to fall but, when my hopes and dreams do come through, they’re pretty darn amazing.

Not everyone can live up to your hopes or expectations. So you do have to learn to let things go and to forgive, as I mentioned above, to a new venture. It can mean that I’m judged for expecting the best from people but that doesn’t make me a bad person or mean that I should be demoralised until my expectations are lowered.

One of my favourite quotes of all time comes from the film ‘Did you hear about the Morgan’s’. When trying to overcome divorce, our resident sex in the city gal, Sarah Jessica Parker, says that perhaps she needs to scale back her expectations, to not expect anything from him and for him to not expect from her to; make the marriage work. Just as she is about to accept a fate of low expectations and therefore a life without those highs and joys, a wise man (Sam Elliot one of my faves!) tells her:

‘you should expect everything from each other!’.


This quote really resonates with me. I am so passionate about making the people I love feel special and happy that I literally expect the world from myself to them. Of course I’m not perfect and I can royally screw up sometimes and also I can’t keep everyone ecstatically happy all of the time because there is only one of me. I also have arguments like other people and disagreements which detract from happiness from time to time. But the point is, my intention is there. Where I can and where I have the opportunity to make the people I love feel amazing I do.

In giving the world, do I expect it in return? Yes I do. Know that I don’t give the world to receive it, but as I am always preparing for the best and for success, I naturally expect and see the good in people. Unfortunately not everyone shares my passion. And as I mentioned about falling a long way before… If your expectations are high then your pain from the loss is even higher.

There are some things that you can’t just quickly move on from. My husband tells me that I should just stop expecting such high results and stop giving them so that I can’t get hurt. Just accept that’s the way it is and move on. You don’t have to give the world to them and they don’t to you. The problem is, I will never stop trying to give the world because it makes me happy to see others happy. It makes me happy to make someone smile, to create a happy tear, to give motivation, to empower, to push people to achieve, to push people to be the best they can be.

Not everyone wants the world from you. Some people would just rather a continent or a small island and they don’t want to give you the world. Sadly for me it’s all or nothing. I wish I could just give a piece of myself, to just be around from time to time and smile where necessary. But that’s not who I am and that’s who I will never be. Because the in between genuinely makes me miserable and depressed. Either you’re with me in my life through our individual ups and downs or you’re not. I was also not created just for the downs when you decide you want me, or for you to ride on the back of my ups. This is a mutual swapping of the earth here. 

Handing out planets on the corner.

XxX

Are you OK? Then I’m OK

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Working in a learning environment I often use and teach a number of different psychology models. It’s always interesting to see how they work in practice and indeed if they work at all. I have seen people really succeed with them, change their careers and their lives. I’ve also seen them fall flat on their face with poor application and even with good application.

One of my favourites, that applies to us all, is transactional analysis. The notion that we all have the ability to respond in the parent, adult, child ego states. I don’t pretend to be an expert on this, but anyone who picks up a book on it can begin to develop a good understanding.

I was often told by my CBT therapist that I drove a lot of my life and emotions on the ‘you’re OK, I’m OK’ basis. (The child) my ability to be OK in myself rested solely on whether everyone else was OK with me. If they were not OK or were unhappy with something it would fill me with self doubt and total devaluation. Always wanting to make sure that people were and are happy with me.

‘Do not engage’ was something she would say often. You do not have to take someone else’s emotions on. Particularly when they are unnecessary and unhelpful. 

If you buy someone a gift and they do not accept it then that gift still belongs to you. If someone directs their anger at you or hurtful behaviours then you do not have to take that on, it will remain with them. 

So I’ve been learning how to respond as the ‘adult’, staying factual, not being personal and focusing on the issue at hand. It can be difficult and even harder when someone is being the ‘parent’ and you respond in the way that feels natural as the ‘child’. And sometimes you will slip.

A major hurdle is being able to remain the ‘adult’ when you are continually being pushed to be the ‘child’. I have experienced a lot of ‘parents’ in my life. Telling me which behaviours and beliefs of mine are wrong or right. Leaving me on the defensive and unable to actually assess whether what they say is right. It’s quite liberating when you step back into that ‘adult’ space. Realising that just because someone says X does not mean they are right. 

If someone refuses to be an ‘adult’ with you to resolve conflict you may eventually be led to leave the situation as it is. With no real resolution. You can continue on as the ‘adult’ with the notion of ‘do not engage’ in your mind. But doesn’t that mean that the issue is never truly resolved? And if you have an emotional connection with that person then it’s torn and never really healed. Sure it would have affect in a work environment. ‘It’s not personal, it’s business’. Does it really work in personal relationships though? We are humans with emotional memories and it’s not possible to swipe that memory clean by simply not talking about it. 

Taking the ‘I’m OK’ approach and the ‘do not engage’ approach may not actually solve anything. Instead you may be forced to continue your life as ‘normal’ knowing things won’t actually be the same. Your expectations of those relationships have dropped and so has your emotional attachment with them.

You can admit your own faults to find an amicable solution but if others are unwilling to move on their position and recognise their faults and hurtful behaviours, then we’re just playing the ‘parent’ blame game. And the ‘child’ ‘poor me’ card.

Just because that other person or people are now ‘OK’ to move on that doesn’t mean that you’re ‘OK’. You may be forced to pretend you are ‘OK’ and act as the ‘adult’. But in truth you will never be OK with that relationship again and things will never feel the same again. Because, as I said, we’re humans. And some hurtful things can’t be unsaid or forgotten.

Sometimes it’s OK to give the world and sometimes it’s OK to expect it.

XxX

That Fri-Yay feeling

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What do you think about the whole ‘Fri-Yay feeling’? Unless you work in a role that isn’t weekday specific, such as emergency services or retail, we’ve all pretty much had that Fri-Yay feeling. A feeling that brings us all together, a common emotion we can all share in ‘thank goodness that week is over’.

I always think it’s quite sad though that we’re often wishing our life away. I can’t wait for ‘the weekend’ ‘for a few days off’ ‘for a break’. But doesn’t that essentially mean that we’re only actually allowing ourselves to live 2 days out of 7. Of course we have our ups and downs in the week, happy and sad moments, but if we’re always only ever looking forward and waiting for what’s coming then are we ever really in the present? 

They say the people most satisfied with life on their death bed are those that have lived in the present the most. Those that feel they have absorbed and learnt from as many days as possible. Like now, you’re reading this but that means you’re not currently in the present. Your mind is focused on reading instead of what’s going on around you. Who are you with? What can you smell? Is it warm? Cold? What sounds can you hear, quiet and loud? What can you taste? What can you feel? 

People with anxiety are often taught these mindfulness exercises. Living in the present rather than dwelling on the past or worrying about the future. I like the saying ‘the past is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present!’ (Yes I did copy that from Kung Fu Panda). But it’s very true. No one knows if tomorrow will ever come for any of us and the past no longer exists. The only time that currently exists is now, and now, and now. We are always moving forward, never back and we are never guaranteed the next second.

What would you do if this was your last minute to live? Would you say ‘I can’t wait for Friday?’ Or would you make the most of every second you have right now? I’m not telling you to be extreme here like my OCD makes me when it comes to there being no tomorrow. What I am saying is to live in the present just a little bit more. 

What can you do today to make yourself happy TODAY of course remember the possible repercussions on tomorrow and the lessons you learnt from yesterday, but use that knowledge to make today better.

We will always be looking forward to that Fri-Yay feeling. That’s just human nature. But in the mean time, remember not to wish the present and your life away. After reading this look up and think about what is going on around you, get involved in the conversations, jump in the puddles, dance in the street. The only person that will be sad they didn’t is you. 

What is Friday actually going to do for you today?

The present, right now, really is a gift.

Living in the now

XxX

Ps. I know not everyday is fun and actually some are pretty awful, especially where our loved ones are unwell. And that’s why it’s so important to use the present more in the ordinary days so that our difficult days are more manageable.