It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it…

I could never have seen myself writing this piece that I am now about to embark upon. I thought I had it all covered. I thought I knew where my life would bring me. I thought I knew how I would end my days. I always knew we were different from each other. I always knew we had different thoughts, interests, views on life. I always thought that’s what made us good for each other. The yin to each other’s yang. I thought that’s what would always keep us together, what made us an impenetrable fortress, a force to be reckoned with. When I was too far off the mark he pulled me back, and I thought I was his rock, someone who would always be there for him, no matter what he did. I would always give out but love him enough to want to see him through things.

You know I never saw it coming. I never saw his deep deep discontent. I was oblivious. Lost in my own world for the last three years. Fighting my own demons. Trying to work out who I was when I lost my job, trying to find some semblance of myself somewhere deep in my archives. The chronic pain took away my laughter. I stopped going out that much. I hated using the walking stick. I began to hate everything I once cared about in my own being. I don’t know if I became self-obsessed or if it was just that I lost myself in the abyss. It’s a question I have asked myself so often lately and yet I can find no answer.

The balance between loving one’s children and hating oneself is how I feel it must be like to walk a tightrope between two multi-storey buildings. If you look down you are lost forever, so you must keep your eyes on the things that are most precious in your life. I don’t want to look down but sometimes I feel my eyes being drawn to that place, a place where there is no return.  The guilt I then feel over whelms me and makes me feel worse. Now I am trying to fight, to find that spark that I know I once had. That spark that will make my children proud of me again. That spark that will make me shine just even a fraction of the sparkle I once had.

I am not writing this piece tonight for people’s pity or indeed to capture their feelings of love. I know I am loved, there are many who have shown unbelievable love to me over the last few years and especially the last few weeks. I will never repay that love, I can only hope that in the past I displayed some elements of that kindness and that on some level I payed it forward.  I post this as I have posted other pieces as I hope in some small way to say thanks or to be of comfort to someone who while not in the same place gets some relief from knowing they are not alone. No one is ever alone when it comes to mental health. There is always someone who just needs to know they are not the only one. We brush it under the carpet so much in this country and we offer so little real help. It’s time to talk about it more and to ensure that more is done to help us all. 

Always happy for people to leave comments, good, bad or indifferent, helps me to become a better writer.

As long as there are stars above you…

Grief is a painful thing. I thought I knew what it was like to be sad, to hurt so much that you thought your heart would just shatter. I was wrong. There is a pain to grief that repeatedly brings your heart to the point of bursting and just when you think it’s going to stop it gives you a reprieve or that’s what you think it is. In truth, it’s just a chance to take a bare breath before it comes again, just like the beating of your heart but in the most sickening way I can think of. I find myself emotionless, laughing, thinking, and then from absolutely nowhere it comes and grips me with what I feel are painfully hot claws digging into the soft flesh of my heart, its only on its release that I find the tears running down my face in an uncontrollable river. Never have I wanted or needed someone to hold me so tightly that I think my bones are going to be crushed, it’s the only time that I think I will feel able to just take that real deep breath; the one that if I keep getting them over time, I will eventually get over all this savagery. Just to add value to the pain, the guilt of being the one feeling sorry for myself comes and the realisation that whatever I feel there are several who are so very close to my heart in even more pain than I can express or have a right to feel. I have tried to turn my grief into busy work, it helps to some degree but I know I have lost to some degree that zest that so often helped me get over the hump, the look of distain for me in another’s look, the closed door in my face, or the lack of thought. And yet, there is a glimmer, for in those who care about me, there is light, there is love. So many people, those who I know and see and those who I may never meet but know in other ways have kept me going, they have kept this faded light from being extinguished and I would be lost without them.

Our views on life can be changed in an instant

– in the briefest of seconds what we think we want can change, what we think is the best course of action- can change.  In that instant, time seems to stand still, then very slowly things start to move again, you hear the noise in your ears, you see the sights in your mind’s eye, you feel the whole of your stomach collapse, and then slowly you feel the build, what starts as a light aching feeling slowly gains momentum in the very pit of your stomach and you feel it build until the crescendo of your heartbreak seeps out of you like a sound from the grave, the sadness, the lost hope, the pain of loss  coming out in muffled sobs while tears stream down your face. The dam breaks and the tears flow. You gain your composure and you know you know have a task in hand. A job to do. Things to finish.

As a next of kin you have to keep it together, you have to give what you have to your loved one with all your heart for what little time they have left. This was me last month, but it has or will be every one of us in this room at some stage of our lives. Last month I went to the hospital to see how my aunt was doing. When I arrived she was ill, very ill. She had gone from being unwell to ill in the space of a few short days. In the space of a few hours the full picture began to emerge and I realised that things were not good at all. It’s hard to take in the information but I have realised a few aspects can make this difficult task easier for family to hear and for clinicians to say.

My first encounter was with the nursing staff when I arrived on the ward. I asked for a staff member to check my aunt’s oxygen when I arrived and two members of staff came to talk to me and assist. The nurse in charge was calm, and in control, factual and things in the ward were calm and organised. The doctor arrived I assume he was the SHO and explained that there were some concerns, he did an examination and following that explained what his concerns were and the proposed course of action. He was pleasant, calm, reassuring, spoke clearly, emphasised his concerns and proceeded with the required action. He was kind.  I started to realise the situation was one of concern. I left to return home knowing that I should expect a phone call from the staff later that day.

Aisling rang me that evening; again she was calm, knowledgeable, reassuring, spoke clearly and with purpose. I knew this was one of those phone calls you hope you won’t receive, it’s the starting point. Aisling said she would get the doctor to ring me when the results of the tests being done were back. She was kind, empathised with me and heard my sadness. When Patrick rang I knew things were progressively getting worse. He took his time, was calm, clearly explained everything, never rushed, time was given for me to take it all in. I felt his empathy, I sensed his kindness. I asked him a simple question, if it was your family would you come in to say goodbye. He said yes, if it was mine I would. It was that simple. It was that hard.

It’s all over now; she has moved on. I don’t even know how I feel. Guilty I didn’t do more, upset that I never told her how much I loved her when she was alive, broken that I can’t bring her back, that she is lost to me forever. She never really came back from Saturday, I don’t know what happened to her, and I don’t understand why she died, not really. I know the clinical reasons in the last week but not the why so fast, the how she went from talking last Sunday to gone in a week. Did I neglect her, not spend enough time with her in the last few years.  I will never know, all I can do now is try to do my best by her and remember her with fondness.

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted

From Aesop’s Tales - The Lion and the Mouse (one of my absolute favourite books as a child)

What does it cost to be kind? It’s something as parents we probably says to our children when they are fighting with their siblings or in our mind when we see people do something we see as mean and hurtful. Today as I watched a short clip about compassion I asked myself was I kind, was I a kind person, did I do kind things, did I ever put myself out to do a random act of kindness, not something simple but something that took some of my time, or thought or action. Something that I could look back on and say to myself - well that made a difference. For years I have done things of a voluntary nature. I have organised lots of clothes for charities, I have fund-raised in some small way for charities and maybe I have done a few things that could be counted as kind. But while searching inside myself I thought about all the things that I have done that are really unkind, things like giving out about people behind their back, idle gossip that seemed funny at the time, being rude, saying things to my children and husband that really are unforgivable. It’s funny when you look back over your life and you start to think about the things you did and somethings just stay in your memory, for me it was an instance on a plane, and even now 16 years later I think how unkind I was.

While heavily pregnant and on a medium length flight, my seat was at the back of the plane. A woman sat in the seat in front of me and the seat moved into the lowered position. Now I could have leaned forward and said “would you mind putting your seat forward, but no, I was in a bad mood and I didn’t want to be on the flight and so I pushed the seat forward. The seat slipped back again, at this stage I was getting annoyed, even more so when the lady didn’t push her seat up despite being asked by the air hostess. Again I pushed the seat forward feeling even more annoyed. Eventually, as though she felt my annoyance this little face peered around the seat at me. It was a little old woman, a nun no less and she very gently said “Could you please tell me how to fix the seat; I can seem to get it to stay forward". I told her what to do but my God if a hole could have developed and swallowed me, it would only have eased my shame a tiny bit. I felt so utterly unkind, not because she was a nun but because of her kindness to me in the manner she asked for help.

This might seem trivial in the great scheme of things but it really bothers me. It bothers me because I took the easy option, I didn’t try the kind option first and then if needed be more assertive, no I went straight to unkind all because I didn’t have the guts to say something, to put myself out there and see what happens, because in truth I was not brave, I was a coward and I hid the way cowards do behind anger, bad feeling and unkindness. Reading more in compassion has these days made me really think about things. It doesn’t always stop me from being unkind, that is something I need to work on a lot harder. I do know that over the course of our lives we will get the chance to be kind but we can make those opportunities more frequent by putting ourselves out there, taking a chance on someone or something and by doing random acts of kindness not to make ourselves feel good but for the good of others, with no hype or glory. I leave you with this thought not mine but that’s ok too.

“Kindness and compassion comes in many forms. It comes from different people in all walks of life. It knows no bounds. It has no limits. Because a good heart sees no barriers. “ ( I couldn’t see who wrote this) 

How do In know if I am a good parent?

The other day I read an article I think in the Irish Times about how we know if we are a good parent. It’s something I have asked myself nearly every day of my life as a parent. My own self-doubt about my parenting abilities comes most definitely from the fact that as a teenager I was prone to periods of depression. It was something I couldn’t even put a name to as a teenager and even into my young adulthood. There were numerous periods of time where I was lost in my own world of a deep seated sadness; which I couldn’t escape. When I first gave birth I had so many expectations of motherhood, being a good mother, being perfect.  The expectations of perfection I had set for myself were rudely awakened when despite my best efforts I failed to be able to breast feed my child. There was no way I was going to give in this this imperfection, I kept at it attempt after attempt. A member of the healthcare team came to the room on about the third day and said that my son was not getting enough food from me and they were going to have to give me a bottle. I couldn’t let them do this as this was me accepting that I was imperfect, that in truth I had somehow failed as a mother. It took for Shay to come in and make me hand over our son before I would let them feed him. Even after this I kept going with the feeding myself, driving myself into further and deeper depression. Eventually, while at home the district nurse called and realised that there was something wrong. Again, I resisted, I couldn’t accept that I was a failure. What ensued were years of feeling depressed, years of self-doubt and years of believing I just wasn’t good enough. There was a real need in me to prove I could keep a good job going while being a good mother.  I have genuinely struggled with the doubt of whether I am a good parent or not so this article really hit a cord for me. For the past 15 years I have sought to be a good parent as I have long accepted that I cannot be the perfect parent. I have tried to have open conversations about my depression and depression in general with my children. I have sought to ensure that they were confident, articulate, honest and value themselves; values that I believe are important in this day and age. Every day I look at my children and delight in their abilities, their confidence, their seeming ability to try new things and conquer their fears. Sometimes when I see this I think that I am doing a decent job parenting, but the reality is that you really don’t know if you are a good parent or not. Children have a way of making you feel special but they also have a way of making you feel bad. Tonight as I write this I have a child who is struggling, a child that despite my best efforts I can’t seem to help, a child who I know will grow despite this struggle. I just wish I could be a better parent and help them, guide them and let them know that no matter what happens your parents are the ones who will always love you the most and while we might not always agree, it is the parents that love you that are prepared to take the risk that you might think less of them so that in the end you can have a better life. 

The dreaded "H" word and I am not talking about Hilary!

For the last few weeks I have simply been unable to write, even as I sit here and type I am wondering what in God’s name is going on that I can’t think long enough about any subject so that I can manage even the slightest of views. Has my life become so mundane, grey and boring that there is nothing to write about? But that couldn’t be further from the truth so much is happening I can barely keep on top of things, there simply isn’t enough of me to go around all the things I have to do, and that’s saying something. I have however, come to the conclusion that I need to prioritise what I do with my time. All too often I am easily led off on a path that really has no benefit in the long run, now don’t get me wrong many of these paths are with friends and I couldn’t live without them but sometimes I find myself doing “nothings”. Sitting endlessly watching the latest posts on Facebook; mindless, mumbling's about nothing, well nothing of any real interest to all the things I have yet to do. So it seems I must try to establish some priority areas, the problem is these “priority” areas aren’t really that much fun, in fact several of them are mind numbing and several are well to put it mildly “just too boring for words” like housework!

Housework is my arch nemesis; I can’t stand it, I despise cleaning the house, it very rarely if ever fills me with a sense of delight, a sense of achievement or even a modicum of anything other than boredom and dread. On reflection over the years with my mother on the topic of housework her advice is a very sensible start with just one room, pick a room, any room and give it a good clean from corner to corner. I listen to her advice and have on occasion really taken it to heart and tried to give one room a very comprehensive “going over” well in my mind. In reality the truth is a little bit more well let’s just say grey.  I start with a flourish and I pick a room, I walk in, I challenge myself to get to it, I spend about 15 minutes thinking about where to start and what makes sense. I pick as many of the big things I can to start and then I just get bored, so bored I can’t stick the room. So bored I convince myself I need coffee and maybe a biscuit to keep my energy levels, so I take a break. Now this is where it all starts to go pear shaped, because as I am on a break and feeling tired, I decide to text or tweet or go on Facebook or look up something of extreme importance on the net. When I eventually convince myself to go back to the room, motivation is at an all-time low, I peer into the room and see the utter chaos, everything that needs to be sorted is all over the place, there are no homes for this stuff, it’s a mess of clutter, its calling me, it suffocating me, I can’t breathe, I have to escape… and so I return to the bliss of something else that is important for me to look up on the computer, another text to send or a tweet to compose. I convince myself that these are all highly worthy causes and the “room” needs to wait. I will never have a tidy house, I’m not sure I even know what that truly looks like, but I am going to blame the man or should I say priest whose name I was given. He really put a hex on me where housework is concerned, he told Mammy that our house was not untidy just lived in, and that people weren’t coming to see the house they were coming to see us. Our house just like my parents’ house is  one built on friendship and an open door, so if you call here you will always get tea but I may have to move a couple of boxes of this and that to find you space at the table. 

When the essence of you goes...

Its official, I have lost my va va voom, my chutzpah or that which made me quirky, confident and funny. Love me or hate me at least I evoked a reaction. I sat down this evening having declined the offer to go out with friends and realised that it’s gone. It upped and vanished and I never really saw it go. Yeah, I knew that something wasn’t really the same, that there was something slightly amiss, but I didn’t pay enough attention and now I realise it could be too late to get it back.

Before I got my hip replaced I went through a relatively bad phase. Extreme chronic pain wore me down, I stopped going out as much for a number of reasons and I started to let things slip. I had myself convinced that after the surgery things would be better. I would have less pain, be less cranky, more patient, an all-round better person. What happened or should I say what I let happen was nothing short of a disaster. I couldn’t get over the feelings of dependency that I experienced after the surgery. I allowed myself to be a patient, but as usual I wasn’t going for any short term approach I was in this for the long haul and now well after a year I am still dependent on my family to get me through the day.

I am still in chronic pain and looking at getting my other hip replaced but its only now that I realise how much I allowed my negative thoughts about needing help to affect me. Instead of seeing it as a temporary situation I let it take control of me, to dominate my thoughts to take over my life. Every day I look around my house which is really in a state and I think where will I start, then I think hmm well that could be too much of a task to do so I won’t even start it. This self-talk continues in my head until I convince myself to do the bare minimum and have myself convinced that I will be in dire pain by the end of it. This is a situation that only I can stop and one that I feel I need to change today, tomorrow and for many days from now.

Now at this point you might be thinking that I have forgotten the whole point of this post but fear not I’m getting to it. You see by being so completely dependent I stopped looking after myself, I let myself gain even worse eating habits, I am sitting more, doing less and generally putting on weight – lots of it and yes I know it, I feel it, I seriously don’t like it. I have more excuses now real ones as to why I can’t do anything about it but who am I kidding? Well I am not kidding the people in this house that’s for sure. By putting on weight I stopped wearing my clothes, I stopped with my make up something I adore; I stopped even caring about my hair. I let my va va voom walk right out the door bring all my designer bags, the best of my make-up and the essence of me with it. Now maybe I can’t get the chutzpah back (I hear some of you saying “Thank God”) but I can certainly claim back some of what made me me. So tomorrow, no seriously tomorrow I am slowly possibly very slowly claw back my essence, my laughter, my dreams and all the things I like small or big, the things as I say that make a difference. So if you see me with an emotionless face, tell me to cop on. I would rather be laughing or crying but the one thing I can’t stand is nothing, empty vessels, droning conversation, or not caring. I don’t mind quietness if fact I welcome periods of contemplation but just don’t let me get boring.