Hiding Away

I had a fairly busy “exboozehound” week last week and like most things in my world this brings contradictions in my noggin, the week was positive cus I was doing positive things and the week was negative cus those positive things are never gunna be good enough, I’m changing nothing and all that changing nothing is making me tired. When I get tired dancing with the demons is more often than not only gunna end with one winner and that’s the demons. So after a busy week comes the weekend that you tell yourself that you need to relax and recharge the batteries, makes sense right?

Not always….

Sometimes “relax and recharge the batteries” is exactly what you plan to do and Monday comes around and you feel refreshed for that rest. Unfortunately sometimes saying to yourself “I’m gunna relax and recharge the batteries” is you lying to yourself. What it really means is “I’m gunna hide away cus I just can’t be arsed with a life that has no joy in it” or “I’m gunna hide away cus isolation is safe”. I’m searching for more words but sometimes there aren’t words to describe it sometimes you just know you haven’t got the fight left, that was how I felt Friday evening and I knew the weekend was gunna be a disaster, it was. I didn’t leave the house Saturday and I only left the house on Sunday to have a McDonald’s. Leaving the house to have a McDonald’s is me forcing myself to go somewhere for a period of time surrounded by other people which is something I use as a panen99. It helped a bit but I felt very uncomfortable, but feeling uncomfortable and doing it anyway I see as a positive.

When I woke up Monday I wasn’t well and just gave into it and went back to bed and stayed there pretty much all day, although this allowed me to step away from the stress and pain of depression and the demons I was very disappointed with myself and if I’m honest I still am disappointed today (Wednesday) but I know I will put this disappointment behind me soon, I have to, I have to accept the last few days in order to move forward.

Tuesday morning was very painful, I originally woke up about 8:30am and knew straight away I was gunna struggle to get up, I had an appointment with my psychologist at 15:00 I started convincing myself I wasn’t gunna be able to handle this so would need to cancel that appointment and then I was thinking about cancelling my dentist appointment for the next day my demons were setting me up to take a huge fall into a place that would be very hard to return from and they were very convincing. Eventually I got up about 11am and spent the next hour pacing backwards and forwards, looking out the window thinking “I can’t go out there”, sitting on the stairs crying, stressing about only having 2 roll ups left and not being able to calm myself down enough to roll anymore, thinking about borrowing a box of my Dads cigarettes even though he had picked me up some rolling tobacco the day before and how pathetic it would make me feel not being able to do a simple task like doing a few roll ups. I knew I’d gotta have a shower if I was gunna go out to my psychologist appointment, worrying that I might fall over in the shower cus then panicking and poor breathing had made me lightheaded. Realising that cus I’d been in bed all day yesterday I hadn’t had anything to eat so I needed to get something to eat before the afternoon appointment. I’ve tried to write down as many of the ridiculous things that were causing me pain to give you an insight into the nonsensical world of my noggin in panic & anxiety mode….

Finally I calmed myself down enough to make another cup of tea and sit down to do some roll ups, sounds pathetic but each roll up was hard work keeping my concentration centred on this simple task, sad but very true. Then my phone rang, it was my Mom and pretty much as soon as I answered it I started crying, a 42 year old man who was now crying down the phone to his Mom. I can’t really remember what we spoke about but I know I said “I don’t want to keep going through this pain, sometimes it just gets too much”. Speaking and crying about it with my Mom really calmed me down and gave me the fight and strength I needed. After the phone call I sat back down and drank my tea whilst rolling a few more roll ups and then had my shower. Once I was dressed and ready I had to go out at that point before I had chance to go backwards again.

By about 13:00 I was in Halesowen tucking into a sandwich while watching the world go by, as talked about in my last post “Demons” I was proud I had done my first “little thing” I was still uncomfortable but I was uncomfortable and doing it anyway. After my sandwich I made my way to Spoons to have a cup of tea and start writing this post. My noggin was still very cloudy so it was hard going to begin with but I wanted to start the post whilst the pain was still raw, I wanted to get across that no matter how bad I was a couple of hours ago I’d managed to move forward quite away in a very short period of time. If I can turn the “little things” into a more liveable less painful day then you can too. I’d started to wish I had made an effort on Monday rather than hiding away but I have to stop thinking about that cus it’s done, it’s gone, it can’t be changed now, it was a day I either chose not to fight or just couldn’t fight I could spend loads of time analysing which it was but it would be a waste of energy, best to concentrate my effort on now than trying to answer a question that probably has no answer.

Sometimes I feel using words like fight & strength seem a bit dramatic and I would imagine those with no understanding of mental illness would mock these words, but how else can you describe it, you do need strength and fight to win against the internal mental and physical battle that mental illness throws at you.Watch movie online The Transporter Refueled (2015)

Whatever mental illness throws at you you can find the strength to fight back, maybe not immediately but you will find the strength if you take the time and effort to look for it.

“enjoy the good and ride out the bad”

Keep going 😉

Jon aka exboozehound
@exboozehound
www.exboozehound.co.uk

Oh and don’t forget my Thingymajig (memoir/book)

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