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.

Which would be quite cool, if it were so.

So, here's the deal.
I think.
Well it's the deal for today, tomorrow? Who knows.
I went to my Dr yesterday, I have been putting that off for weeks, if not months, it is certainly a long time since I last went because, as I told her when she asked why I have not been to see her " Oh, well, because what can you do?"
Because what can she do? I suppose that she can possibly find some drugs to alleviate the symptoms of whatever ails me, the indigestion for instance. I say indigestion as though it is some mildly troublesome belching after a meal, when in fact it is a 24 hour horrendous pain that renders me incapable of doing much but complain. I drink gaviscon as if it is water and I chomp on tums as if I have an addiction. When I wake up I can feel my stomach is so full of acid I can only stumble downstairs huddled over with a vice like grip on my stomach. Many nights I wake up gasping as I breathe in only to inhale the acid that has travelled up my gullet...that is most probably almost amusing to witness as I shoot out of bed trying to catch my breath.
That was the main reason for going to see my Dr yesterday, it is ridiculous to try and pretend that this is perfectly OK to live with. I know, though it makes no difference, that this is my bodies reaction to 'eating my worries' in the destructive habit of eating myself calm I have, as well as made myself fatter than at any other time in my life, actually damaged the inside as well as the outside of my body. I have to stop.
She suggested increasing my anti depressants, which I refused because medicating me isn't any more helpful than eating myself calm, all it does is mask what I am avoiding. I wish I knew what I was avoiding, if We could discover that then maybe it would be easier to heal myself.
She suggested counselling again and although I admit that it was incredibly helpful last time I'm not convinced it can help me now.....my last councillor was great and I felt that she really knew me, could see who I really way inside and still listened to me, still showed me I was worth knowing, even though she knew what my darkest secrets were. Until I saw her outside, in the street, twice and she ignored me, she looked right at me, both times and then she turned away. I wasn't expecting her to hug me or shout Hallelujah to my name but she could have said "Hello" or even, you know, smiled. She didn't and in turning away, both times ( the first time I convinced myself that she hadn't seen me, the second time, I knew she had seen me and she had chosen not to acknowledge me) and so I never went to see her again. I told the Dr I was better and didn't need counselling anymore.
I just wrote that as if I was aware of what I did all along and for heavens sake, until I started writing this blog today I had absolutely NO IDEA that this is what I had felt or done. I knew that when she didn't acknowledge me I was cut to the quick, I knew that it mattered but I thought I had convinced myself that it was some kind of 'therapist' thing to keep relationships somehow professional and 'in the office' but really, how could a simple Hello have hurt? ( did she think that I would throw myself at her feet and tell her what was worrying me right then outside the Ivor Dewdney pasty shop? Perhaps she did, who knows.) All I know is that when she did that, when she looked at me and then looked away, twice, in my mind she proved the first one right when he told me that should anyone ever know the real me, they would walk away, they would never be able to stay anywhere near me because I am so rotten inside that it would be impossible to have anything to do with me when the real me shows it's ugly face.
If I were a psychiatrist I would tell me that my whole eating myself ugly thing is a defence mechanism, I would explain that by doing this, by eating until I cannot even look at myself in a mirror I am making myself inapproachable to start with. 'Look at me, ugly huh? don't even try to like me because I AM BAD! Turn away right now and save yourself ( And me) Some heartache '
I sat next to the first one at Jordan's wedding, I spoke to him and I found myself trying really hard to remember ever being close to him. I looked at his face with his squinty eyes and I tried to remember ever loving him. I marvelled at how calm I was on the outside, how sociable and polite, how easily I hugged him and spoke to him about our children ( mine, MY children) and how simply I deflected talking to him about Sophie when he asked, how I smiled and said how busy she is and how she never has her phone turned on and how it isn't anything personal that she doesn't call him. I did that because he is so stupid, he is not worth wasting good conversation on, he doesn't deserve explanations or any chance to right his wrongs. What I wanted to do was laugh in his stupid face and tell him she doesn't hate him she doesn't even think about him, she feels nothing but contempt and she calls him only when she wants something because that's all he's good for, maybe £20 when it's her birthday, the rest she gets from me...but it's OK, I won't ever let her see the real me in case she can't stand to be near me because what then? Then she'd have NOWHERE to turn would she?
Arsehalf, it'd take two of him to make an arse(w)hole. HALF! ( made myself cry through the tears then, I told Jenn and Julie the arsehalf thing when they were here and we laughed saying we would simply shout HALF at anyone that was getting on our nerves and no-one would ever know why we were saying it. I've let the cat out of the bag on that one, sorry about that, if I've ever yelled HALF at you, you probably deserved it and why are you reading my blog? Go away immediately.So, the chances are the whole burning acid in the stomach thing is my body eating away at itself, which really, wouldn't that be cool if it didn't hurt? How fabulous would it be if you hated yourself so much that your body ate itself away until you were a skinny little lovable thing?
Am I saying that if I were thin I would be more lovable? *gasp* yes, I think I am.
I am definitely saying that about only myself, me, Helen. I love myself much more when I am thin, I hate myself to the point of loathing when I am fat, I feel I am just as I deserve to be when I am fat. I'm not saying that's how it should be, just that it is how it is.
I am back at the point where enough is enough and I am ready to try again to be kind to myself. I have made myself physically ill this time and the older I get the more worrying that is.
Here's to liking myself again and being kind to myself, here we again.