Friday 10 February 2017

Big Steps Taken?

Life bumbles on, it's passing me by very quickly at the moment but I guess I'm not really paying it much attention to be honest.

A school run here, a club run there, a date run today (for daughter not me)

I'm just ferrying my daughter about and that's about as far as I am getting. I am avoiding going to the shops, or the petrol station, the telephone is definitely poisonous and I've even  avoided the chemist despite needing to fill a prescription! I even had to ask a dear friend to pay a bill for me over the telephone this week, as I just couldn't face the social interaction needed.

Last night my daughter came towards me holding her phone out towards me whilst uttering the most terrifying words...

"can you speak to Max's mum?"

Well you would have thought she had approached me with a grenade in her hand, pin pulled,  if you'd seen my reaction. I barked at her to take it away from me just as if it was going to kill me. Her poor face was plastered with confusion and I made up some rubbish about needing to know what it was I was meant to be discussing with this other Mother before I speaking to her, but it was lame and she knew my reaction wasn't normal. (whatever normal is?!)


Undeterred though she tried again this morning but thankfully I managed to sway the conversation towards that of a text message exchange which thankfully sufficed in the end.

It leaves me feeling that inevitable pang of failure, that useless bundle of nerves that I often feel must equate to my sum total. She asked me before I took her to her club this evening,

"why are you so tired?"

and yet again I found myself having to find a reasonable explanation for the fact I am feeling dog tired, again, washed out, again, and all from doing very little.

I wanted to say,

  • Well the day started with you asking me to speak on the phone which burnt through 20% of my energy,
  • I had to wash and put on clean clothes that was another 15% gone.
  • Driving to town, then having to book your bowling session and paying for it before speaking to your beau that used up another 20%.
  • Then the hour's dog walk along the beach used up another 10%,
  • The dash to the toilet in the local theatre was another 5% as there were people in there staring at me thinking I was a weirdo (least that's what my head said at the time).
  • Then there was the taxi service home, cooking that stew for dinner and
  • This club run now, there's another 20% gone ...

which leaves me I think with 10% brain function for your pick up,  seeing the other parents in three hours time plus any conversations that you hope to have with me this evening!!

However I made up yet another lame excuse about the sea air sapping my strength and that it must be all the fresh air that's exhausted me! Luckily she agreed beach walks were tiring and there I was off the hook!

Anxiety is like having naff batteries fitted, they don't recharge well at night, whatever charge they do take on dissipates quickly and when you need explosive energy bursts they don't give you the strength you want!
The demons roaming about my head spend their lives poisoning those few remaining active brain cells against me whilst every external stimuli proves utterly exhausting. The demons whisper their putrid mantras along my synapses, you're useless a parent,  you're a pointless a person, you're fat and ugly, in fact anything and everything negative that they can conjure up to attack me with.

Anxiety uses my own brain against me, I'm literally turning on myself from the inside outwards. Beating myself up with never ending self loathing and despair. The voice in my head knows all my insecurities and uses them against me and it is so loud that it drowns out all the other voices to the point that it is the only one I can hear.

The tiredness envelopes me like that black cloud you so often see drawn so evocatively to demonstrate depression and anxiety.

The darkness clings to me like a strand of the sticky catchweed plant from the meadow.

The darkness permeates my clothes like the smoke from a bonfire,

the darkness is so tangible I feel like trying to shake it off like a dog does water.


And what is that despicable discomfort I feel when I am in public?

It's like I've messed myself and the entire world is staring straight at me, seeing my embarrassment, watching me walk with my legs a metre apart, smelling my shame.

They're laughing, pointing at me and I just wish I could fold myself in on myself and disappear.

That feeling of unease that the worst thing ever is about to happen or that it already did.  The willpower it takes not to run away is ridiculous.

I'm definitely not to be trusted around people, I either cry or shout at them and truly there doesn't seem to be a middle ground! I say harsh things, I snap, I'm flippant and cutting... I have no filter at all and even when I'm angry I am still on the verge of crying.

I freak out even when there is no reason to but I just cannot seem to stop myself because my emotions are running riot.

The lunatics are running my asylum so to speak!

All in all anxiety is currently ravaging me and I find myself being stormy, weepy and down right unreasonable with a predisposition for being utterly spiteful!

A lovely twitter friend suggested tonight that I should give myself credit for what I have achieved today as opposed to beating myself up over the uselessness I feel and see in the mirror.

He said I should concentrate on the big steps taken ... mmm ...






sorry it's not working!!


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