Insomnia

I woke with a start at 4am yesterday morning, cold sweat dampening my vest top. 

I have no clear memory what I was dreaming about but when I came to I felt uncomfortable and unsettled. It took me a while to fall back to sleep and when I did I was easily woken by traffic or my night owl housemate walking around. 

There's nothing particular that's occupying my mind, in fact I've been in an unusually good mood all week, despite still fighting off a cold. 

I managed to run home from work on Monday when the temperature took a nose dive into arctic proportions. I'm eating much better, with prepared lunches and minimal snacking - the effort to have breakfast could be better but baby steps. I gave it my all at my running club this week and look forward to a longer run in Regent's Park this weekend.   

I have to confess though, I am restless. I can feel it. I can barely concentrate on one task, always itching to be on to the next, except the tasks that I should be doing to get ME ahead. 

It's been two weeks since my last coaching session and I haven't even confirmed my months goals. I have them writing down and made a start on them but I've not shared them. THAT to me shows me that my head's not in the game. 

So I guess, until my mind realises that 4am is NOT the best time to start processing life, I'll have to up my coffee intake during the day so I stay awake and push myself harder when running after work in an effort to exhaust and force a good nights sleep on it. 

Zzzzzz 

Dealing with Depression

Often I forget that I’m prone to really bad days until I’m in one. Then they loom over you like a dark cloud, threatening to drown you.

I frequently speak of feeling lost in my posts and really, that’s the only way I can describe it.

It’s like I suddenly forget where I was going, or what I am meant to be doing with myself. I feel very heavy in my body, tired, emotional and withdrawn from my own life. The temptation to just escape becomes quite prominent, and nothing else matters. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to cease existing I just want to press pause on the world for a little while.

Christmas is in 23 days, but besides looking forward to the morning lie-ins and sitting around in my jogging bottoms all day, I’m not that bothered. I just don’t want to be here!

The thing about depression is that you just don’t know why you feel the way you do, you can’t explain in detail to those who love you exactly what you’re feeling and you definitely have no idea what would make you feel ‘better’. You’re just in a black hole.

I feel like this now, although I don’t think I’m quite at the bottom of this hole perhaps just slipping down the side, struggling to find something to hold on to.

I need some help, and I’ll get it because I know that I shouldn’t suffer in silence. I’m not alone feeling like this, others feel it too, although when you’re in the dark you do feel like you’re the only one there.

If I could offer advice to anyone who relates to this:

• TALK to someone. You don’t have to use the term depressed, just have a conversation with someone you trust about where your thoughts take you and how they make you feel.
• Don’t ignore it. We are amazingly robust creatures but sometimes our emotions can overwhelm us and acknowledging that you sometimes can handle them on your own doesn’t make you weak.
• Take time out. Spend time with people who make you happy but also do something for yourself and if that’s a day in bed watching Disney movies NOT wallowing, fully enjoying the moment, then that’s a step closer to the surface. 

A Year On: In Between The Lines

You receive a text from a boy.

It's not asking a question, in fact it's more of a statement, so you don't need to reply. It's complimentary and you're flattered, but despite what he's said his actions are contradictory.

What message do you go with?

Further to my Shut That Door post, I'm starting to feel a lot of resentment towards the men in my life that seem to want me to wait for when the timing is good and ready for THEM.

It's like that song by Loose Ends 'Hanging On A String' whose lyrics are:

I've waited oh so long for you to come to me

What did I do wrong? It's all a mystery to me

Baby I feel it too, What am I supposed to do?

Maybe I've just changed, Or could I be wrong for you?

You, you've got me hangin' on a string now

I'm not your plaything x2

You never told me you were waiting, contemplating

With my heart, my love x2

Do you mean to say that after all this time

I've waited like a fool, now who's been changin' you?

And that's my biggest fear.

Someone said to me recently that perhaps I'm attracting men at a crossroads because I'm at a crossroads. At a fork in the road. 

I think it's probably best for me to cut myself off. 

Down in the dumps

I'm feeling lost; like I've hit a wall.

I started listening to an audio tape called 'Abundance of Life' and after 4 minutes I'd already zoned out. It's as if I've run out of energy. I just want to go home and sleep.

It's that countdown. In 16 days I'll turn the ripe old age of 31 and I feel sad, like my life has taken a couple of steps backwards.

I don't even know that I'm slipping into the unknown until I'm there, scratching at the walls at the bottom of the pit. It's a dark and lonely place to be. I know that this will all end but I'm not sure how long it will last, so I sit in this gloominess trying to wait it out, which is dangerous.

I've been here before. It manifests itself as tiredness, then I fall unwell a lot and before I know it I'm crying myself to sleep at night.

I feel trapped; like a hamster on a wheel, going round and round.

*sigh*

And right now, I have no energy to do anything about it.

To ebb and flow

Mixed feelings, bubbling to the surface

Like trapped air underwater

Desperate for release

A way of expression, time to expose thoughts

Analyse and review, 

Trapped, scared and panicked

What's holding me back? 

Keeping my eyes closed and holding my breath

Unmarked paths stretch out ahead

The horizon, a blurry line

No destination

No time frame

Just a quiet drive to move on,
To move forward,

To hold tight,
To take a deep, deep breath

Drifting

I'm staring up at blue skies, 

Body swaying 

In time with the water I'm floating on 

Weightless 

Clouds float past

Fluffy pockets of air

Making patterns above my head

Mindless

The current delivers me, finally, to land

I settle down, a firm bed made in warm sand

And here I'll remain, for a while, to mend 

So I'm staring up at blue skies, 

My body surrounded

The water lapping at my toes

Careless

Down the rabbit hole I go

Of course there would be more of me scraping my knees along the gravel before I would finally pick my a** up from the bottom of the pit and start to climb towards the light…

However, I'm not sure if I have actually hit rock bottom yet. Yes, I belittle myself by begging and crying in public - not both at the same time thank goodness, perhaps I still have a little more to go down the rabbit hole before this ends? But I'm still as befuddled towards the reasonings as the day my world was turned upside down.

My sister says it's something to be proud of, the fact that I am fighting for something I believe in. I am amazed - at my capacity to make myself so vulnerable and still keep going back for more. I DO believe in this - in love! It's not the fairytale ending Disney led us to believe growing up folks.

Ever wonder why the story ends when the girl and guy gets together? Because shit gets messy! Values are questioned, wants and needs are examined, then your boyfriend decides that you are not as important to him as possible life experiences… he's not actually said this I'm presuming reasons because I cannot get straight forward answers…

So what do I do? I send him another email asking him to change his mind. You may read this and think "God, that's so pathetic", it is and I woke up this morning feeling like I sold my soul but at least I went down'n'out fighting - HARDCORE.

Anyway, I've not heard anything back which is probably a good thing. The longer he can stay away from me and I not hear from him, the better all round. The hardest part is knowing that I've made myself about as vulnerable as can be - completely exposed - and I'm effectively being rejected BUT I shall rise from the ashes like a phoenix, just hopefully not as destructive as Dr Jean Grey.

I joked that I'm half tempted to just show up on his doorstep. Imagine it, he arrives home after a late session with a client, tired, and I'm sitting there, completely rain sodden, big doe eyes, ready to plead. Now in the movies this would work.

I'm not afraid to say I still love him. He was my family, my lover, my past and my future, he held my heart, soul, mind and body, he was my joker, my challenger, my best friend. And  I just cannot manage to make it through the day without thinking of him, how he's doing, if he's happy, if he has someone to talk to.

Everyday, even after a particularly hard one, I wake up with hope. I don't know why because I've only ever received negative results in this situation, but the positivity keeps bubbling to the surface briefly.

Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.

D is for desperate (break-up mind dump)

I've not done one of these for a while, for which I'm grateful; but it becomes necessary when your mind is a whirlwind of questions, theories on what happened, and possible solutions.

This is what I'm working with:
1) He's not 100% sure he wants to have children with me
2) He feels I'm holding back on my career because I'm waiting for the marriage and the children
3) He's believes I deserve to be loved 100%
4) He has love FOR me… feels protective of me and cares about me
5) He feels SAD about everything

But I bet he doesn't wake up in the middle of the night paralysed with sadness about his dreams having been swept away, that a group of amazing people have just been removed from his life, that past happiness is now in doubt of ever being real, and the sad realisation that his ability as a partner has been under question for over a year…

I am deluding myself into believing that he's going through some 'stuff' that has absolutely nothing to do with me but he just feels that he needs to do this to sort it all out... it's so much easier to believe that over 'he's just not that into you'.

I feel empty. I bet he doesn't feel that either.

How can this be happening when it all seemed so perfect. We laughed, we talked, we planned, we shared, I loved…

The crazy thing is that if he took my hand this evening and told me that he's not sure he's doing the right thing and asked if we could work it out - I wouldn't hesitate. As far as I'm concerned there is something wrong in his head because this decision he's made, it's completely out of character. And then I question, how well do I really know him?

I thought I had found that grown up love. I thought we made each other happy.

I made him an offer last week. "Go! Go and experience that life you are craving on your own. Find that part of yourself you feel is missing, then come back to me because we are not finished." He acknowledged it but never agreed or disagreed to it.

In limbo I must float I guess because asking him anything else just makes me feel desperate, and though I feel it I don't want to show him. The person I am right now (the person he has made me) is not the person he fell in love with, if he ever loved me.

Inside a bubble

Something happened. Something, that I can't really explain, happened to me this weekend and now my world is in a state of change. 

Things I thought were solid are not as stable as I believed, and my emotions are all over the place.

I switch between a completely rational mental state to an almost coma like paralysis. I can't breathe, I feel fidgety and unstable. I can be laughing at something one minute and be struggling to breathe through my sobs the next.

I am in limbo. 

Something happened. Something, that I can't really explain, happened to me this weekend and now my world is in a state of change.