I wouldn’t choose this life again

If there is a such thing as coming back in another life, I wouldn’t choose this life again.

Sorry if this upsets anyone, but I have been holding onto this for a long time.

My lifetime has had a lot of pain and sadness. What happened in my childhood meant it gave me triggers in later life. PTSD a counsellor said I have, for the traumatic things I witnessed/experienced, in my childhood

I don’t have PTSD like some people, so when not showing signs for some time (that I am aware of) meant I thought I was lucky there myself and cured. Yes, I thought I was cured, until I was triggered again.

I know many of my readers do relate and no doubt will relate and understand this post.

I wouldn’t want any child to go through what I had and to still put up with some of the things now, all for the sake of love. It took until I burnt out and for seeing my mum revert slowly back a little. Not helping herself.
The offers are there for her. She’s holding them, but not using them.

I was happy to help and support one time. But when the person is not continuing helping themselves, then I can’t help. I won’t put my emotional energy into it no longer.
The person has to help themselves and do the work too. Something my mum once said, but failing to follow her own advice now.

A family member on my mum’s side keeps saying I should meet up for you for coffee. She said it again after she had that basic update of how me and mum are. I kept saying that would be lovely. Do let me know when. But you know what? I have been waiting for that fucking coffee and meeting up since before my mum took the overdose! It’s gone on even longer than that, because I have been hearing this since last December.
If you do that to a family member, or a friend, then please don’t. Don’t set that person up with that kind of promise, or any kind of promise you can’t keep.

But you my readers, my friends and work colleagues have helped more than anyone else. (With exception of one family member who has unexpectedly helped me in the past, on a different matter.) And I really appreciate  that. But it would be just lovely to just sit in a park, or a cafe,  for that cuppa. Even if it’s just sitting in quiet. I don’t mind quiet. I like quiet.

I would like to see a person be in my position now and do what I have done for my mum in one year. Not forgetting the anxiety, stress, worry, frustration, scared of every text that comes to your phone, until finally it getting very heated and you are feeling burnt out. Would you still do it for another year?
Then try my life of doing it that long from my teens as a carer, but understanding and worrying from 11. You will feel resentment. When you have had the counselling and understood even more how your childhood is affecting the present, you will feel more resentment and maybe anger. And the disappointment and further feeling of being alone, because someone could not keep that promise of going out for a coffee.

If you was a fly on the wall, observing just the day time hours in my flat this past month, you would have seen how difficult it is for me. This past month especially when it got more tense.

Now don’t say I can change this, because changing this would mean cutting mum off completely and I nearly have done that. But for the sake of love, I haven’t quite yet. But I do need that temporary break. It’s very early days, but I do wonder if I will end up doing it permanent, because of what went off over a few days and what hasn’t happened today, which I won’t go into here right now. But it’s early days and I shall see what happens by November.

Until then, I am facing my own battles still, to keep out of that black cloud.

I have self-referred myself, back to counselling.

As for my blood pressure, it is going down. My lower number can be a bit high at times when taking readings. Only time it’s shot up, is when I have been upset.

My asthma is only triggered by the same upset, otherwise it’s much better. I have even got rid of that blanket from underneath my pillows, when I needed to prop myself up more. I didn’t think I would ever get rid of that.

 

© Elizabeth Fisher and My Wellbeing and Learning Journey.

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5th June 2019, Trial #1 – “Working on Us” Mental Health Prompts

Beckie, over at Beckie’s Mental Mess, is starting on a new prompt series called, Working on Us.

For today’s prompts, there are two prompts which you can either just do one, or both. For details of these prompts and how to play along, please do see todays post at: https://beckiesmentalmess.blog/2019/06/05/june-5-2019-trial-1-working-on-us-mental-health-prompts/

I have decided to do just one of these prompts and so I have chosen prompt #1 – Question:

When you first found out that you had a mental illness/disorder. Explain how this new revelation regarding your health affected you?

My mental health is depression and anxiety.
Depression has been the main symptom, because anxiety came second. But anxiety over the years has proved to be an issue at times, as my depression.

I wouldn’t say it has been a new revelation for me, because I always knew it was there, or not quite right. I just never did anything about it, because as I did as a teenager, I just soildered on and as a teenager, I wouldn’t have been aware about how my own mental health was in general then, even though I seen the trials of my mum’s mental health.
I was a person who got my head down, hoping to get through each difficult day. My long standing readers will know about my childhood difficulties. But for those that are new, then click on childhood in the tags section of my blog, because explaining it here would make it a very long post.

Fast forward after divorce, my mental health went down more and I felt I wasn’t coping. I referred myself to counseling, for the rape and about that relationship in general, which mum supported me on, by coming down on the bus with me and waiting in the waiting area, while I had my counseling. The counseling helped for that time then.

Another moment in time later, which then I was in a relationship. (The relationship that never went anywhere and what turned out to be a shocking later, that I discovered by accident some years later after having nothing to do with him.) During some point in those first two years I think it was now, one night, in my own bed, which I was on my own, I had a flashback of the time I was raped in my first relationship. It felt so real. When I woken up, I found myself in the same position, so god knows if I had been crying out in my dreams. It was real enough in my dreams, but to wake up and find myself like that, made it more sickening. I was hugely triggered and traumatised all over again.
Further counseling at a rape crisis centre, with the support then of the boyfriend I was with. This counseling went into areas of conversation that was not covered in my counseling elsewhere I had the first time round on this area of my life. I can’t remember if I was on medication then. I don’t think I was. But the counseling really helped, for that time.

Then in another area of my life, (before the above flashback) while still in this relationship, had issues with neighbours, while in a council property. The stress of it all brought me to a new time low. I lost a lot of weight with it. At this point, I was on antidepressants and I was scared to take them I remember. But the doctor reassured me of my concerns. My then boyfriend, supported me in that appointment, in case there were things that needed repeating later, with things being a blur and numb. I wasn’t long in getting a private property and this is how I ended up in private properties ever since. I can’t remember how long I was on antidepressants, as some of that time is now a blur.

The last time I was on antidepressants, were at a time I blogged about here. That was when my old workplace broke me that much, that I could take no more. I was depressed and I was having lots of panic attacks. God knows how I still managed to keep going to work. I was that messed up, I really shouldn’t have been there. But I kept doing my shifts and doing what I automatically seem to do as a child.
I also had counseling, which towards the end delved in my childhood. I was having triggers when going into this area and because NHS counseling only lasts so long and because of the nature from childhood, it had to be treaded carefully. This counsellor said because if what I seen as a child and the other things in regards with what dad was like, that I likely to have PTSD. To hear this being said to me shocked me, even though it made sense.

I was on antidepressants longer than the doctor would have liked. This was because I did not want to start weaning off then when I was having driving lessons. Then when I did not do anymore, because I couldn’t deal with it any further, plus I had a double-death in the family; my cousin and her husband.
Then, as you know, followed by discovering the true horrors of the ex-boyfriend and finding out what he truly was by accident in a Google search not related to him, there was no way I could think of reducing my antidepressants. So antidepressants were reduced some months later, even though it was still a difficult time.

Present day, I can still feel lows at times. But I am feeling particularly low since my first day in new job. But I remain medication free, since I last came off them, as mentioned above.

I take each day as it comes. With the now stresses I have had since living here, that you know about and being more of a carer for my mum than I ever been, lists are becoming more my friend, because since February, I am finding myself more forgetful then ever before. I have used a diary for years, but a list is in addition to my diary.
If I have a lot to think about in a day, then a list is created and placed on my coffee table. I will also take the list with me, if required.

I hope this post gives an idea, as it has been very hard to write this one. Not because of the topic, as this is now easy with the counseling and support I have had over the years. It’s just a bit grey in areas, as I forget things and I found just writing this post, in how best to get my words down. So feeling brain tired, is probably the best way to put it.

Thank you for reading, if you got to the end of this post.

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Blog post share: “I am not offended,” by The Daily Annagram

In this post I share a blog post that I have not long started following. Her blog post is called, “I Am Not Offended” by The Daily Annagram.
While you there reading this post, which comes with a trigger warning, as it raises violence and assault, I recommend you read other blog posts from this wonderful blogger too and follow.

This post was written because of something she read, which if you visit this post, you will find out more. The particular words that have sparked this post; “mistakes,” which I can totally relate to and understand and so this post is powerfully written. As this blogger has said and I agree and I have put this short here, when someone assaults, rapes, hits someone, or threaten, you cannot say they were “mistakes.”

Blog post share: “It isn’t just #metoo”

Having once been in a relationship where a man once thought he could have sex when he wanted, learning mum had experienced similar experiences to me after that experience I had in that relationship and discovering another ex has abused a child 10 years earlier, when I learnt last he was jailed, which questions what was I during that time? I feel I need to share this blog post I discovered today.
This blog post will take you to a blog called, “Her Patchwork Heart” and it comes with trigger warnings, as the post discusses sexual assault many times. As hard as it is to read and hear about stories like this, it is important that we hear, because when we have been abused some way, we are scared to talk about it because we wonder if we will be believed. We can also be told it was our fault or to be quiet. But being quiet about it does lots of harm, on top of harm and damage already caused from being abused.
Victims are no longer going to stand in being quiet and are now speaking up. We won’t be made to be quiet or shut up! We might be moving forward in the right direction in speaking up about this, but someone out there may be still going through something similar and feeling the same; scared, not believed, told to be quiet. It needs to stop and people need to realise that you don’t own your partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, just because you go out with them, or are married to them. It does not give you the right to abuse.

Her Patchwork Heart

TW: sexual assault is mentioned many times in this post, so please keep yourself safe while reading.

Today, while on a date, I was told that perhaps my “timid” demeanor and my soft voice are the reasons I have had so many “odd” encounters with men, whereby they think it is okay to ambush me with kisses on the mouth or brazenly graze my breasts or slip a hand up my dress. I was told that this makes me seem like “easy prey”, like I’m the type of person that would stay quiet. And, you know what? I am. I am that quiet woman, conditioned to stay silent. When I was little and was coaxed into playing doctor under the bed it wasn’t him that got into trouble, it was me. I was made to feel bad and dirty. When grownups tricked me into touching their “private parts” I was…

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When time doesn’t heal all wounds

A blog post share.

#Speak

After you go through something painful, people love to give you advice. And one of the most common pieces of advice is the infamous expression “just give it time.” With time, the hurt and suffering you are experiencing will gradually decrease until one day it’s gone for good. And yes, I know this phrase may hold true for various situations. But when it comes to recovering from an abusive relationship, it’s a different matter entirely.

An abusive relationship strips away everything you thought you knew about human nature and the world. With abuse, you experience someone you love transform into a monster before your eyes – they degrade you, hurt you, put you down, threaten you, over and over and over again. Experiencing this kind of trauma leaves a very real and very profound mark on a person. It makes you question your previous beliefs that people are genuinely good…

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Protected: Childhood retreat

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