I think I can.

It's been a busy and exhausting week. I'm almost too tired to write it all and also quite wary.
I am known for being happy to spill the beans, tell all, share with the world and that's true, to a point because I am very selective about what I share and what I keep very close to my heart.
This week has had me spilling stuff even I had forgotten. I have seen doctors and mental health workers and back to the Dr.
The NHS gets hammered by many people but for me, it has never been anything but incredible. I have always had the best of care exactly when I needed it, so from me, you will never hear anything but the highest praise. When I think of my experiences in the States with their insurance system which seems nothing short of barbaric and elitist, for me, there is no comparison.
My GP came in on her day off, the day before she was due to fly away on a family holiday, she called me the night before and asked me to go and see her, I had been the day before to discuss being medicated to try and get me through this awful housing situation. She said she was worried having seen me so distressed that after I had left that she wondered what to do to help, so she came into work on her day off to talk to me and ask more questions and decide what she could do. I'm afraid that I shared too much with her, I like being in control and now I'm not but having me in charge hasn't got me anywhere, I think it's time to let go and let God and anyone else who can, help.
At the beginning of the week I went for mental health evaluation, what an experience that was. It was the beginning of the end it would seem, the questions seemed to stir up all the misery I have spent so many years hiding so well.
The impending homelessness has brought every nightmare and fear so close to the surface, I feel like a pressure cooker and every day was more and more unstable, tiny triggers in every day life were setting off that DVD player in my head that is on a loop, one word, one picture, even a smell will hit the play button and memories from so many years ago would start flashing in my head. Over and over again I could recall, see, smell, feel and hear whole terrifying happenings. Each one more distinct and raw than the last and each time I was less and lee able to prevent them from overwhelming me.
The good thing is, just as with a pressure cooker, when you release just small amounts of steam at a time, the pressure lowers and calm is restored. I was so afraid that letting go of any of this rage and sadness would mean that the whole lot would come spewing out and cause a complete breakdown. There are few occasions when I like to be wrong but this time, I will cheer at that fact.
I was wrong. Sort of.
I did pass my evaluation with honours. I scored higher than the class swot without even trying! A score grade of 0-20, with 20 being the most depressed, the most severe case...I scored 23! Go me!
Anxiety levels are scored from 0-15 , again with 15 being the most anxious you can be, unless you are me that is because I scored a 17 in that test. I am the valedictorian of mental men.sa. I take a bow.
I have been the topic of many a meeting among medical professionals this week and I have been seen, talked to, talked about, called and recalled. I am now on some pretty effective meds in the hope that they will hold me together while we live this bloody housing nightmare.
I seem to want to sleep all day and be awake all night, which is annoying but better than being awake night and day trying not to let the crazy take over.
This is humbling.
I am pretty sure I can say that never again will I look at 'those people' people who shut down, give in and make the people around them utterly miserable just by being in the same room and think " get over it"
I have always been quite proud of the fact that even though I have been depressed I have managed to keep calm and carry on, stiff upper lip and chin up, marvellous me.
Compared to this past month, my depression in the past has clearly been more of a 'bit sad' because this, this gaping pit of terror is a whole new level of nothingness.
There is no 'getting over it,' no such thing as 'pulling myself together,'  forget ' grin and bare it', waking up and breathing has been an achievement. Not screaming has been a major non event.
I have done the only thing I can do, which has been nothing.
Stay in, stay quiet, sleep and don't rock the boat. I have been out to meet with Drs and do the things I couldn't not do. The most lovely of things has become apparent and it is the most surprising and fabulous thing. I have learned that I can do those things that have to be done if Sophie is with me. I can go short distances on my own if I can take the car and park right outside where I have to be, anything else needs Sophie there.

The long and short of it is this, my GP and the other Drs in the group have said that they will not sit back and let this situation continue, the stress and the fear of being homeless, the unknown future is what has triggered this breakdown. They are aware of the rats and the other issues this house has and the fact that even this is better than not having anywhere to go.
They are working together to try and get us housing, I have no idea if they will be able to make a difference, maybe the whole system is rigid and nothing will change how they decide who is at the top of the list, I am grateful that they are going to try.
I am worried that they are involving other parties, that my story is being shared with other groups of people that the Drs think will be able to help, I feel I have lost control over who knows what and there is nothing I can do but hope this is what we need, pray that it doesn't all get so out of control that it gets worse and not better. I can't judge at the moment what is good and what is terrifying, it all seems awful to me and so I am just having to let them make decisions for me.
I hate that.
I am so grateful that this is not all happening while I sit in a corner rocking, I am being consulted and everything is being explained to me, I just can't quite determine if it's a good thing or not, it's a leap of faith and trust that those people working for me are doing the best thing.
I said that I am praying, I'm actually not. I have prayed and I have prayed and I am sure the Lord knows what I need, I know He knows what I want and there are only so many times a person can ask for the same thing. I've handed it over to Him and am just going with the flow. The flow, is of course totally opposite of what my miracle would have been, if I had chosen the miracle it would have been a gentle stroll along a river bank, enjoying the view and the fresh air and suddenly, why look! Look at that cottage with the roses around the door, how beautiful! Oh and glory be! Our name is on the gate, it is our house! A miracle but not at all surprising to ME because I have FAITH and trust and I knew all along that MY prayers would be answered and it is not for me to question how we came upon such a perfect and idyllic home, it just is and I am grateful, come to me should you need a miracle because I know how to pray for just the right one!
Yes, that is how I would have chosen my miracle.
It would seem that my miracle is much more like walking along the raging waterside and slipping on the wet bank, falling into the rapids and screaming my way down miles of fast running waters, hitting every rock along the way with no idea if there is even a boathouse at the end for me to rest in ( if I don't drown)
My mum says this IS my miracle, that this will be better than the cottage with no reason. She says that this misery doesn't belong inside me anymore and the fact that ready or not, it is coming out, is miraculous. I'll take her word for it and believe her when she says that when we do get our home, I will be able to love it and enjoy it without any of these shadows lurking in my mind to spoil it.
I'd like that.
My H is proving to be everything I knew he could be, he never stops showing that I don't know all there is to know about him, he is a man of mystery and kindness and above all else, kindness is what I need more than anything else at the moment. He does keep calm and carry on, he is steady and patient and completely unruffled by this unravelling of his control freak of a wife. God did answer that prayer, that one where I asked for a man that was right for me, I don't regret letting Him choose for me, and it is reassuring that I can see He chose the total opposite of the kind of man I would have chosen for myself and did it so well.
I just have to keep holding on and trusting.
I think I can.

Heh, this was in the 'drafts' section....many a true word said in draft.

It is, let me tell you, entirely possible to get on your own nerves.

Ah, yes, I remember it well.

I can remember, way back when I was 15, experiencing my first taste of love. Not the mum and dad kind of love or the brother and sister kind of love, not that kind that was always available and taken for granted, no, I mean the real thing. The quivery bowel kind of love that is both awful and beautiful and by far, in it's newness the most exquisite kind of love.
As we get older we get cynical and wary, we meet people we think we can love and we hold back a bit and wait to see if this person will be kind to our heart, if they deserve our emotions and time. Not so when we first fling ourselves into REAL love. REAL love gets our all, it gets our heart and our mind, our every waking moment and our life long memory.
I didn't have clue about boys, I had a brother that annoyed me, poor David, all sisters and not an ally to be found. I look back now and am not surprised that he has nothing to do with us, that he warns his women about us and makes them afraid to meet us ( he has been with his partner now forever, probably 20 years, I think she quite likes us but we can't be sure because he won't come to visit if we are all en mass) I had a dad who was just dad, good old dad, kind and hard working and consistent, fiercely protective of our mum, only ever showing any signs of temper is we were brazen enough to say 'Shut up' or roll our eyes at our mum. I knew boys at school but good grief is they weren't stupid creatures. I spent more time with the boys at school than the girls because the girls were mean and I wasn't cool or popular and I was painfully shy and naive so the boys were friendly. the girls weren't, the boys weren't at all ones to make a girls heart skip a bit so I didn't understand them at all.
So when I was 15 and I suddenly got a stomach flip feeling when I saw this boy at church, I was a bit baffled, just for a moment and then I realised that this was *IT* you know, I was in LOVE.
Oh he was so grown up, 2 years older than me and he could drive, he even had a car, one of his own and I would watch from afar as he would walk into church with a huge grin and my stomach would flip and I would die a little inside because he didn't grin at me.
I can't remember ( and what a puzzle that is, you think I would have that memory imprinted on my heart for ever!) when that changed and when smiley man started to smile at me but he did and that smile was the best smile in the world. He sang, did smiley man. He sang and he played any instrument he put his mind to and he was good at it. I would listen to him sing and you know just what THAT did to my 15 year old heart. Oh please don't be still, my heart.
Somehow, we started to sing together, wherever and whenever we could, we would sing, mostly at church because they had a piano and no parents shouting at us to be quiet. Before church and after church and in the week when there wasn't church, we would sing and sometimes, smiley man would COME TO MY HOUSE!  We formed a group, as you do, and there were 3 men and 2 girls and we practised a lot. I can remember those times when we would practise and sometimes he would touch my arm and life would be worth living.
One day, he came to the house and the others weren't there so ....oh sweet joy....he took me out in his car. ME! I know, me in his car and then, he kissed me. They say you remember your first kiss and I do.
My mum, when I got home was furious, she told him that he had let her down and she would not trust him again, she told me that I had let myself down ( ouch, painful!) and that from now on, that young man would not be allowed in her house. The rule was that dating was not allowed until I was 16, he knew that, I knew that and we had blown it. Oh the angst and the weeping that followed ( me, not him, he was all grown up and nearly 18, he was a man of the world) My life was ruined of course, he would never want anything to do with me every again HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL MUM? My whole life ruined, for ever.
Except, as is the way of an 18 year old and a newly turned 16 year old, forbidden fruits are the sweetest and anyway I WAS 16 now and so she couldn't STOP ME. Except there wasn't anything to stop because apart from those few weeks of heavenly hand holding, a few lovely kisses that made me start to understand all that formerly vile birds and bees stuff, we soon learned that we were the best friends there ever could be and there didn't seem much point in going any further than that.
I remember a youth conference we went to, where I swear he sang to me, I knew he wasn't singing to his girlfriend because she was right there, near him and he was facing ME as he sang " It's only words" by the Bee Gees. He was such a smoothy that smiley man. Also, he had great arms.


So, he had girlfriends and I had boyfriends and we would tell each other how that was working for us and we'd sing. Boyfriends and girlfriends came and went and we still sang and saw each other, sometimes we wouldn't see each other for weeks and it didn't matter, suddenly there he was again or I would call him and we'd see each other and it was fine.
I met the first love for real and he met girls who kept him busy and happy and when I was 20, the first one I really loved and I broke up and I was so sad. Really sad, for real.
Smiley man was there, right there and he would come to the house where I lived as a nanny and he would sing, play the piano and he'd stay with me until fell asleep. Sometimes I got the idea that maybe he would be happy if we were more than friends but it didn't happen and he was, for real the best friend I ever had.
We wrote a song, smiley man and I, he wrote the music and I wrote the pain filled words and we even recorded 'Why must it be' in a recording studio, like actual stars.
He met someone and fell in love and even told me it was my fault for not agreeing to be his girlfriend, he would come over and tell me about her, he sang a song he wrote for her. Then she started to mind that he was my friend, bloody cheek! She started to demand that he have nothing to do with me and life got tough. Eventually she won and stupid woman got him to stay away, they married and I lost contact with him for a while, though his mum would tell me snippets and say how she liked me best. I saw him at his sisters wedding and he hadn't known I was coming, so his reaction was delightfully spontaneous and he was as happy to see me as I was to see him. I was married to the first one by then, I think, the first one didn't mind at all that smiley man and I were so thrilled to see each other after so long but I hear smiley man's unsmiling wife was not happy and he paid the price later.
He didn't stay with his unsmiling and unkind wife and the first one left me and suddenly there he was again, in a shiny car, with flowers, with help from his mum who found out where I was and told him. It was lovely to see him but I was sad and it had been so long and I don't think I even had any joy in me to show him. We lost touch and I moved here, there and everywhere and I thought of him sometimes.
Facebook is great, isn't it? I found him a few weeks ago and he sent me the link to his blog, I gave him mine ( I'll show you mine if you show me yours, right?) and so we have been able to catch up a bit. He reads my blog and he leaves comments and yesterday he told me to write a book.
This is for you smiley man...you start singing again and I'll write a book and then I'll show you mine if you show me yours. How's that for a deal?

The best things.....

There are some things that are priceless and that come along rarely in our lifetime.
When Sophie was 10 weeks old, the first one left. What a terrible time that was. It feels as though it was more than a lifetime ago and yet every detail is so vivid, so fresh, it may as well have happened yesterday.
My pregnancy with Sophie wasn't happy, the first one was clearly already distancing himself and by the time she was born he was already deep into an affair with the woman he used to leave.
When he left, the most desperate feeling I had was that Sophie would never believe that he loved her. I remember standing in the kitchen and telling him this, that no matter what happened in the future she would never be able to believe that she meant anything to him and knowing that made me hate him.
She was the most glorious of little girls, blond hair and blue eyes, her little round face always full of mischief and it was possible to see the naughty at work in her quick little mind. She was like a whirling dervish from the second she woke up until the minute she fell asleep, she was never an early sleeper and was always afraid that she would miss something if she slept.
From the youngest age she would talk about a daddy, she never called the first one daddy, she called  him by his first name. He would say daddy and she would say ' You're not daddy, you're Kevin, just Kevin' and she would not be persuaded otherwise.
When she was 11 months old, she saw someone that I loved very much and as she looked at him her face lit up and she said "At's daddy" He didn't have children, she didn't have a daddy and in a world where sadness was dominant that was a happy moment.
There are few things I regret more than allowing that to happen, when it became obvious, when Sophie was 3 and a half, that he was never going to be her daddy, that he couldn't live with us I told him that he couldn't see her anymore. To this day she says that she had 2 dads walk away from her without a backward glance and she thinks that means she is as unlovable as it is possible to be.
What damage we can do to little people we don't think are understanding or feeling or thinking or needing.
Sophie used to talk about having a daddy and she had a list of things that he would do and she would say that when a man did those things it would mean he was her daddy. He would sleep at our house, he would eat dinner at our house, he would hold her hand when they were out and he would buy her juice.
The first one was a pig where Sophie was concerned, he was a complete and total idiot, a mean one. A selfish, thoughtless, mean pig. I have watched her as a 3 year old run after him as he held her big brothers by the hand and say " HEY! Do you know you got 3 kids? What about me? HEY! wait for ME!"  and he ignored her. I stopped her going to stay with him when she was 2 because I learned that his bitch of a girlfriend who did not want female competition of any kind had hit Sophie across the face when she didn't want her to put her shoes on and she had been typically 2 and arched her back screaming " I DO IT!". The next time he came to get the kids, I took the boys to the car, where bitch was sitting and I pushed my face right into hers and said " My daughter will never come to your house again and if I hear that you have raised a hand to any one of my children ever again, I will give you a taste of your own medicine, don't test me on this lady because you are lucky I am not ripping your hateful face off right now." Then I looked at the first one and told him to make sure she knew that I don't make idle threats.
Sophie didn't go with him again until she was 7 or 8, when the boys were with him she and I would spend time on our own and we were happy with that.
Sophie was 10 when I met H, for 10 years it had been me and them and with the exception of those few times she had seen the man she called daddy, she had never seen me with any man.  I didn't meet H and immediately pack up and take my children thousands of miles away to live with him but it certainly wasn't a long, drawn out process and I was sure to tell the children what was going on and include them in what was happening but they didn't meet H until the decisions were made and we moved, lock, stock and barrel. They seemed excited but looking back, what kid wouldn't be excited at such an adventure? I was 38 and I thought it was all a huge and marvellous plan, even I didn't have a clue what we were doing, if ever there was a leap or faith, that was it. So, we arrived on November 19th and married 10 days later.
The first night we arrived, I tucked Sophie into her new bed in her new room and as I kissed her I asked her if she thought she would like this new family we had made. She looked at me, this 10 year old child and said " I don't know. I know he isn't my daddy and I am going to see if he leaves like the other ones did. I'm not calling him daddy." And she didn't and she did everything she could to see if this man would leave, every hideous and brattish act she could come up with she threw at us. Every now and then she would completely turn and be annoyingly clingy to him, he must have felt as if he couldn't breathe but just as we would think she was coming around she'd turn that hard and unforgiving face at him and she'd give him the best she had, the best attempt at making him leave that is.
  I look at pictures of her now, as she was back then and I am completely stunned that this pretty, little, innocent looking scrap of a thing caused such unbelievable discontent, with such determination and fortitude. I can admire her now, now it's all over. 12 years on.
I remember one evening after a real doozy of a battle, 4 years after we married, H stood in the kitchen, held up his hands and said " I am done"  And he was, he did not speak to her, acknowledge her or do anything else for her for 2 years, he ignored her when she spoke, he walked past her without looking sideways. Howard is infinitely patient, he does not react, he responds, he will hear and will not reply until he is quite sure what he wants his reply to be. It is both admirable and beyond irritating. He will stay calm when other people have run screaming and he will keep being patient until he isn't and then, oh dear, you've blown it. He does not forgive easily once he has reached the point of no return, in fact I think, no I am sure that I am the only person that can cross him and still be loved.
In those years I could not leave the house if they were both in it, I would have to take her with me. If I went out and she was already out I would have to make sure I was back before she was, if they were alone in the house she would goad him and try every trick in the book to make him snap and 3 times he did snap. To his credit he never hit her, he would always restrain her, she was like an alley cat and she is impressive when she fights, it was still a terrible and frightening thing to see and heartbreaking to witness because I love both these people, I understood both sides but couldn't stand on either.
The last time I saw them fight was 4 years ago, she was teasing the boys, making them scream and cry, H told her that if she had time on her hands she could wash her dishes, the ones she had dirtied the night before and left in the kitchen, she looked at him and began her usual tirade " you do them, I'm not doing them just because you tell me too, if you don't want them sitting there fucking do them yourself...." She went on and on and on and then the red mist descended and all hell broke out, she walked away and he flew after her into the kitchen. Whenever this had happened before I would step in between them and then he would say I took her side and she would say I always side with him and then they would both be united in hating me, what fun.
So this time, I decided I wasn't going to storm in and end it, I would watch and see and then decide who deserved what and then I would hate them both for a change.
I saw her fighting and him restraining, he was behind her and was trying to get her through the back door and she was not going quietly, she was kicking and flinging her arms as wildly as she could, with him holding her arms as tightly to her side as he could while trying to carry her through the door. Then, somehow she bit him, she bit his hand so hard that the muscle popped through the wound...he let go and she stood in front of me as I then stood between them and she screamed that she was going to MAKE HIM LEAVE, she was going to get him sent home and make sure he didn't ever see his boys again, see if she didn't.
She left and long story short she called the doctor and showed him all the bruises she got fighting and banging her own legs against the door frame, she went to the police station and she went to see social services. I went to see her at work and I told her that if she was so afraid of coming home ( she told all the people she spoke to that she was afraid in her own home that he was so abusive that she was terrified of coming home most days) then perhaps she should not come home, that maybe it was time to find somewhere else to live where she could do all the things she chose to do that we were mean enough to stop her doing.
That was the beginning of her 19 months on the streets, living with people so evil and low that she became unrecognisable to me. I can't look at pictures of her from that time because she doesn't look like her at all. She had been taking drugs for a while and was so often drunk we didn't know what to do with her, she was lost and of course now, well now I can see what she needed. It is pretty much impossible though to love someone so hell bent on not being loved. I think only a saint could do that, I'm not a saint by the way.
3 years ago she came back, she  asked to back a few times before that, she would turn up at the house, usually late at night and worse for wear,skinny and dirty and always hungry and she would ask if she could stay here, I would ask her if she was still doing all those things that we couldn't allow in this house and she would say yes and I would have to tell her that she couldn't stay here.
One night, at 1am she came home and she curled up in a ball on the floor and she cried and said that she couldn't live this way anymore and please could she come home. I asked her if she meant it and she said yes, I asked her if she would so whatever I asked her to do and she said yes. I told her she would have to see a doctor and get help and while she was in this house she would have to do what we asked her to do and live the way we expected her to live and she said she would.
We let her bring a mattress down and sleep in the dining room, under the table. She had to get up each morning and put the mattress away and she kept her clothes outside in the workshop. This was not her home yet, she could stay here and be safe as long as she did what we asked and she said yes.
A month later, when she had been doing as we asked, when she had seen a doctor and was clean and sober, we let her bring her clothes in and keep the mattress downstairs. 2 months after that when she was still drug free, was still coming home when we asked and was still kind to the boys and respectful to us, H told her that if she got a job and was willing to pay £50 towards her keep each week, she could live here, she could make the dining room into a bedroom and she could call this home.
She went out that day and got a job and she hasn't looked back. The day she started work, H went out and bought her a keyring and had a key cut for her.
We bought her a bed and a TV, she spent her first wage on pretty girlie things for her room and 3 years on she still loves her room. A few days after her room was finished, she came downstairs after a bath, in her pyjamas and she said " I don't think you can know how this feels, to have a bath, put my pyjamas on and be able to sit here without anybody leering at me, to know I can go into my own room whenever I like and be safe and sleep in a bed, all night" I am so happy she is here and she is safe and that she knows that the choice she made to be safe, to walk away from that dark and miserable life she had stumbled into. When she was little and she was so fiesty, so full of fight and independance so many people would tell me that I should somehow break that in her, stop her fighting over everything and demanding that she be in charge, she be in control and every time I would say that to do that, to break this spirit she had would be a mistake, I said over and over again that one day, she would need that fight, she would need to be exactly what she was, strong and able to turn against the tide of what every one else was doing and do what she had to do.
I was right, I like being right.
 Not many people, so addicted to both the drugs and the life that comes with tha, are able to decide to stop, give up, walk away and do it. In one try, cold turkey. She did it, this strong willed, loud mouthed, in your face and what are you going to do about it? girl of mine. She did it and she hasn't looked back.
 I heard, 2 years after she made that decision that one of her old dealers offered her cociane in a night club and she pinned him by his throat against a wall and told him that if he ever spoke to her again or came near her with his filth she would rip his face off. I think that was when I believed she would never go back to that old life of hers.
 There began a very slow and completely incredible change, one so unbelievable that I am still a little wary of believing it.
Sophie is hopeless with money, as fast as she is paid she spends it, then she has 4 weeks to wait until she gets paid again and she asks and asks to borrow money and I say no because she will have to pay it back and then when she is paid it will all be gone again..etc etc etc and I began to see that she was still getting money from somewhere and discovered that H was lending it to her, when I wasn't looking.
A few months ago she said " I'm going to call H, Pops ( she did actually call him H, not his full name)   H is OK but it isn't very 'dad' like so I'll call him pops, which she did. 3 or 4 weeks ago she started to refer to him as dad but still not call him dad to his face.  2 weeks ago she said to me " I want to ask pops if he will adopt me and actually be my dad, do you think he would?" She is 22, how touching and beyond glorious is it that she wants him to actually adopt her and really be her dad? I told him what she had said and his reply was so typically H " Oh, that is so sweet, she still can't have my diet coke, also, I think I shall rename her Margaret." I think I have heard her call him dad when he isn't in the room, if she is calling him, I am sure that any day she will be able to say it to his face and he will love it, as he loves her. She got online the other day and saw that he hadn't logged out of Facebook, she wrote on his status " I never thought I would have a daughter but I have now and she is the best one I could have asked for" He saw it later and wrote "That was Sophie but I'll second that"
Be still my heart.
She has waited 22 years, he has waited 12, I didn't know I was waiting at all, until I saw what was happening.
The best things don't come easy they tell us, I'll second that. Oh but they are so worth waiting for.

Phew. that's a relief!

I thought I ought to let you know, should you all be fretting about my mental health, that things are not as bad as they could be. I had to run to Asda to get a few bits and pieces and I did not go in my T shirt with dinner on it, I also put a bra and shoes on. The day I feel hopeless enough to go as I am, in slippers, no  bra and dribbly T shirt you won't know about it because I shall have asked someone heartless to shoot me.
I'm plodding, which is good enough for now, I keep having moments of glorious hope filled excitement followed by the slumping of slumps, bringing to mind the twee song we sang in a Panto one year, " Look at the bright side, feeling good is the right way to go, so keep your chin up and brighten your soul, keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole!" Isn't that lovely?
I ate the doughnut and got stuck in the hole so bugger that for a game of soldiers.
Actually, I'm almost afraid to say in case I jinx it, I used to sing, all the time. Anywhere and everywhere I sang. In church and at weddings, in plays and in concerts, I sang and I was good at it ( though I say so myself, Blogs are not the place for humility, one ought to be able to blow your own trumpet and say it as it is on your own blog) So imagine my dismay when 5 years ago, right about the time my dad died, I lost the ability to sing. I would try and I could neither hear what was coming out from my mouth or control it. If I put my fingers in my ears I could hear but good grief, that noise was nothing to do with me, surely?
I tried not to worry and I would forget I couldn't sing anymore until I opened my mouth to sing along to some lovely tune or other and .....nothing, nothing but the odd completely out of tune warble. As time passed I became more and more sad about it and more and more puzzled because I have never heard of anyone who could sing becoming totally tone deaf before. Have you? What was happening to me. I mentioned it one day, after about a year, when I was sure I didn't have some painless throat malady or other and my doctor told me that it was almost certainly psychosomatic. I have spend so long not speaking about all the things that have made me so sad that my throat has quite literally shut itself down and now will not allow me to release even happy things.
How sad is that? It's terribly sad and also it makes me angry.
So here we are, 5 years on and I find that sometimes, I can sing. Oh it's such a splendid thing when it happens. The last 2 weeks I have even been able to sing in church which was, I'll be honest, the very worst place for me to try and sing, church has me all knotted up and dead inside, it is so dear to me, so important, so spiritual and EMOTIONAL that I find the only way I can get through it is to not listen, not think and wait until I can stand up and leave, breathing a sigh of relief that I managed another week of not letting go of all this emotion I have scrunched up and locked inside me.
I wonder, when this latest phase of twitch inducing stress if over, if I shall sit in a corner of my new home and stare at the lovely walls and rock for a week or 3. I can imagine I will blubber and stumble over my words and perhaps become a gardener and talk to my plants and tell them how crazy I used to be, back in the day and they won't believe me because I shall be so kind to them.
When you read or hear about depression it is so often described as being locked in a dark and miserable place and that's so true, except it isn't all of you that is locked in, only the inside. The outside can fool people and can appear completely normal and functioning and all the time you are smiling and telling people how fine you are, thank you. The inside is screaming " I'M NOT FINE! Can't you see? Why can't you SEE?" And you can watch other people being happy and having fun, all the time wondering how that feels. It gets old quite quickly.
So, the song is coming back and that is a very, very good thing indeed. I like to concentrate on the good things.
Singing and still wearing a bra when I go shopping, nothing to worry about here at all, Carry on.