'The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.' John Vance Cheney

"Of pain you could wish only one thing: that it should stop. Nothing in the world was so bad as physical pain. In the face of pain there are no heroes."

George Orwell 1984






I'm posting again on this platform for a few reasons. 
I find writing stuff down to be very therapeutic. Almost as if by excising it from inside my head is in some way removing it from it's little crevice in there for forever and I therefore don't have to think about it any more. 

I also think that awareness is key. I've written many times about my experiences with depression and anxiety. I've had people say it is attention seeking. They're probably right, but not in the way they think. The more attention and awareness around these debilitating illnesses the better as far as I'm concerned. For too long they have been simply swept under the carpet, or whispered behind doors. 
I have been depressed. I have MDD, Major Depressive Disorder. I didn't choose to have it. My brain is wired differently and I need some help dealing with that. My brain doesn't react to life situations the way others brains do. It leads to frustration, I doubt myself. This can lead to anxiety. Anxiety makes you worry about everything and everyone. It turns your inner dialogue into a voice you don't recognise, tells you things like you're not good enough and makes you have panic attacks. The most inane and pointless question I have ever been asked while having severe anxiety has to be; What are you anxious about though?
Easier to ask what I'm not anxious about mate. I've got a huge big knot of worry and concern that grows bigger and busier by the minute, telling me I'm stupid for getting anxious, that people are fed up with me, that they really don't like me, that I haven't a clue about what I'm doing and that I need to feel 'safe' and I don't and and and.........

Grief. Grief means love. Yes indeed it does. In the summer of 2018 I watched the most important man in my life waste away and die. He was the bravest, strongest person I have ever known, and I sat with him and told him it was ok to go. He gently slipped away a couple of hours later and I lost my hero, my best friend and my dad. My world has been blown to pieces. Least of all because we lost my lovely mum in 2008. There's a certain feeling when both your parents are dead . that no one can really understand until they are in the middle ofd it. There's a finality. The mantle passes, whether you want it to or not, and the family traditions are your duty from now on.
I am not dealing with my grief very well. It comes at me in waves. I literally feel it from my toes, encasing my whole body in the most intense, nauseating manner that I have never experienced before. It reaches my chest and my head, where my head is refusing to have anything to do with it, so it goes back down through my body and a lid is put on it once more. One of these days it's going to hit me with a bang and I'm dreading it. 

For those that don't know, I am also battling against Chronic vestibular migraine, Fibromyalgia, arthritis, Chronic fatigue syndrome, stage 4 kidney disease and anaemia. 
Fibro is a disease of the nervous system, meaning extreme muscular pain throughout the body. It is a very new disease misunderstood by old school doctors and can take years to diagnose. I am in pain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Medication can take the edge off, but it rarely works. So you just cope with it as best you can. Most days my pain is a 7/10.
Stress, anxiety, worry all exacerbate the symptoms. So put together my grief, my MDD, my anxiety, add in the fact I'm trying to keep a business going in these difficult times and the fact I'm grieving the loss of both my parents(as I've been told, I've never grieved properly for my mum), the fact that I too am a mum and worry about my children constantly even though they are adults now and you have some kind of an idea about where I'm at right now.
I'm also trying to accept being disabled. I'm grieving for the person I was. The person I thought I'd be right now. The person I "should" be. The mum I should be. The sister I should be. The me I should be.
I am in the middle of a massive flare up right now. The symptoms of my illness are magnified and become unbearable and unmanageable.

This is what I looked like yesterday. I felt a million times worse. The pain was unbearable. I couldn't get out of bed. I felt like I had been hit by a high speed train. It is an awful awful thing to have and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. 
I'm not one to "give in" though and that's not always a good thing. There's a lot to be said for resting when you need it. 
Today I got up, put on the war paint, and went out for a ramble. I had compression socks on. Ankle supports, Elbow supports, I slept with compression gloves on. I had easy access clothes on. I had taken enough pain killers to knock out an elephant, but I got out. People always see the finished product, the "me" that has done all of the above after the effect. They don't see the struggle to put it all together. they don't see the help I need to get there from my daughter. So they see me, and think "she looks well, what's she on about?" or they think "I thought she was ill" or, and this is a particular bug bear "are you better?"
The fact is, I won't get better. I have this for life. That's a cast iron fact. I may have better days than others, I may feel brighter, but I won't get better.
There is a huge amount I can do to help cope with the pain, but it won't go away completely. 
Yesterday my pain was 15/10. The unpredictability of this disease means today the pain is down to 9/10. Certain medication worsens my kidney disease which I don't want. Certain medication is addictive, which I don't want either.

So that's all the doom and gloom out of the way. I do manage to have good times. I try to be mindful, to meditate, to take each day and each situation as it comes. I have a good family, and a lot of love from them. I have a pug who I adore and brings so much joy and laughter into my life. 
I have a spiritualism about me, believing in nature and all things witchy, taken with a pinch of salt of course. It's a true saying, my dad taught me everything except how to live without him. I feel it every day.

My reasons for writing this now are all of the above, plus I think sometimes people see updates and wonder about the background to them. So this will help clarify and give an idea of where I'm at. Yes it's personal, but if it helps just one person out there to realise they're not alone then it's worth it. It's one thing being on your own, a totally different thing being alone. No one deserves that. We all need a shoulder to cry on, a healthy outlet for our emotions, and if this blog resonates then it might give some comfort.We need to be more caring, more empathic and more understanding. 
Just because someone might look ok, you don't know what it took to get them there. So don't judge. 

SharonAnne