Tag Archives: mental health

Sunday Ramblings: Jumping Back In

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As I start writing this blog, it is 6pm on Sunday, 2 November, and it is dark outside. I hate this time of year. I honestly think I might have a touch of that SAD [Seasonal Affective Disorder], since I’ve been sluggish all weekend. Perhaps I’m just tired. It’s been two weeks since I got the pain injection into the shambles I call my hip. And while I’m not quite back walking full time yet, there have been some marked changes in my life. This afternoon, I took a painkiller for the first time in two weeks. Not because my hip was at me, but because I had a headache above my eyes, possibly from too much screentime. This afternoon, I cooked a delicious (if I say so myself!) steak dinner, complete with roasties and veg, and cleaned up afterwards. In fact, I’ve done a lot of cooking, with or without assistance, these last two weeks.

On Thursday, I went to a local disability meeting, with a group with whom I was heavily involved in prior to Covid. Everyone was shocked to see me. I think that they thought I was dead!

I’ve also managed at least half an hour on the exercise bike every day since last Sunday. I find that it’s taking me less time to cycle the same distance. And, if you’re reading this, this is the third blog I’ve written in the space of two weeks. I could get used to this level of productivity – it feels fantastic!

I need to hold onto this buzz I’m feeling, because I’m not able to go back in time. The truth is, whether I like it or not, I’ve lost so much time because of pain and exhaustion. When I finished the Disability Studies course in 2019, my plan was to do the “Train the Trainer” course, which (I think, but am open to correction on this) would enable me to give my own courses. Not only could I deliver Creative Writing Courses, but Disability Equality Training as well. Earn money, get a paycheck!

Or I’d like to do another oral history project, something like Conversations about Activism and Change. I typed out every word of those audio recordings, before editing them down. Damien Walshe and Des Kenny taught me useful lessons as I compiled and edited that collection, lessons that I’d love to apply elsewhere. Maybe I could do a collection of voices of up-and-coming activists? Without the heavy mantel of fatigue, my brain is swirling with ideas.

There are probably a number of reasons why I am reevaluating things at this moment. One is that I turned the big four-oh last year, and my original plan was to have my novel finished by then. Ironically, the first line of this, as yet, unfinished draft is “There are milestones one is meant to have reached by the time they turn forty.” This was me setting a deadline for myself, one that I’ve now missed. I would like to complete Rachel’s story, as I think many would relate to her internal (and external) struggles. She’s a hot mess, and often I want to strangle and hug her in equal measure!

Alison will turn fourteen in February. God willing, she will be going to college, an apprenticeship or a job when she’s finished the Leaving Cert, and as a stay-at-home mum, I suddenly find myself at a loose end. Where once I filled my days playing Lego, setting up Sylvanian houses or doing elaborate art projects, I now find all the time I once spent one-to-one with her spreading out in front of me like an overflowing lake. Don’t get me wrong – I’m still needed. For example, I was awake until one this morning applying tea-stains to her costume for the upcoming Addams Family Musical, as she is playing an ancestor. Apart from these moments, she’d much rather hang out with friends than her mum, which is a normal part of her push for independence. But I don’t really know what to do with myself.

I’m still available for proofreading work, but anecdotal evidence suggests that my opportunities in this area are fast diminishing in favour of AI. This is part of the reason why I didn’t feel motivated to complete that editing course that I started two years ago. If I think too deeply about it all, I start panicking. There’s nothing quite as sobering as scrolling through jobs.ie, and seeing that I am qualified for nothing relevant, nor have I the skills for local jobs. Waitressing, working on the shop floor, even factory work all seem beyond my realm of possibility. Of course, I apply anyway, because you never know. Dear reader, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a job club. I have, and it was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life. I did this online career quiz and the top result was “Interpreter”. When the facilitator asked why I was laughing, I said “I can’t be an interpreter. I need one!” Awkwardness rippled around the room as my fellow jobseekers couldn’t decipher whether I was serious or messing.

So that’s where I am now, wondering what I should do next. All offers and suggestions welcome. In the meantime, I’ll be attacking my novel yet again while drinking the tears I’ve sobbed because of it.

Tuesday Thoughts: Hip Hip Hooray!

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It was during the first Covid lockdown in 2020 when I, like everyone else in the country, decided that I would step up my fitness regime. I started using the treadmill every day, and I ordered the most beautiful looking mountain tricycle from trikes.ie. As time passed, I felt frustrated that I didn’t seem to be getting any fitter. The more I walked and cycled, the more pain I was experiencing in my right leg. Admittedly, I didn’t think much of it at the time. I just put it down to not having cycled properly in years, maybe being a bit rusty. Then in September 2020, I fell backwards while crushing some plastic bottles under my foot for the recycle bin.

For nearly five years, I thought that this was the moment that changed everything dramatically, for the worst. Now, it seems it may have happened long before this, and I didn’t realise it.

As a wobbly walker, I fall over so often that it’s rare that I remember it. My body sports cuts and bruises that I don’t recall acquiring, never mind how I got them. A few weeks after this fall, I realised that the pain wasn’t subsiding, and that it was going up and down my leg. Sometimes, my knee felt like it was giving way below me. Other times, it felt like a trapped nerve. That was the diagnosis the physiotherapist gave me in July 2021: that it was periformis syndrome. Being me, I googled it, and learned that it should ease within a few weeks, provided I adhered to a religious physio regime.

It didn’t ease. In fact, it got worse, and soon I was getting no more than two hours’ sleep a night. The doctor referred me to Tallaght, but the specialist there couldn’t identify the source of the problem. One doctor prodded me in the back, and because I jumped, agreed with the physio that it must be periformis syndrome and nothing could be done, unless…. It was at this stage that I heard the words “pain injection” for the first time. However, getting a steroid injection into your periformis is a risky procedure with no room for error. I didn’t care. This was the end of 2022. I was sent home and was told that they couldn’t find anything wrong.

In July 2021, I was offered the opportunity of a lifetime – I won a place on the Play It Forward Programme, an initiative headed by Skein Press, The Stinging Fly, the Arts Council, and, in my case, Independent Living Movement Ireland through a bequeathment from founding member of the original Center for Independent Living, Declan O’Keeffe. I’d never met Declan, but I felt that I owed him the decency of making the most of this opportunity. Meanwhile, the pain would not abate. I lay awake every night, trying to get comfortable and wondering where I’d gone wrong, both with my body and with my career. I had a fantastic mentor, the talented David Butler, but I just couldn’t manage to put in the work required to complete my novel. Ideally, the end product of the Play It Forward programme for me would have been a bestselling debut, but obviously this wasn’t the case.

Every day, I scolded myself for wasting such a wonderful opportunity. I didn’t make the most of it, and it is only now that I accept that this was because I couldn’t, not because of laziness. I considered emailing everyone involved in my bursary award and apoIogising for squandering their money, but I knew that emotion was clouding my judgement. Instead, I went to the doctor and told her that I was having non-stop pain and depressive thoughts. The doctor explained that sometimes mental illnesses can manifest in physical ways. I wanted to scream. 

This was January 2024. I had been in a depression spiral since September 2023. I was exhausted and paralysed by a pervasive sense of failure. I didn’t recognise myself. I withdrew from disability activism. I got some proofreading and editing jobs during this time, but not enough to earn a living. I stopped texting and calling friends, though some particular friends refused to be pushed away. The week before my daughter’s confirmation, I went to my doctor and told her that I was having dark thoughts and that I didn’t think I could carry on. She prescribed Sertraline, which I never took.

I never took it because I knew that it was the pain that was messing with my head. It was ruining my life. All I seemed to do was complain, and I was so sick of it.  As I grew more tired, I felt more useless, like I was a burden on those who loved me. I was too tired during the day to write, or to find work, or do anything other than scroll or watch nonsense on YouTube. Taskmaster became my comfort blanket. This is coming from someone who once would rather read or listen to radio or do anything other than sit and watch a TV programme.

In February 2024, still on a crusade for answers, I went to Neurology in Naas hospital, where the doctor there again gave me hope that I could get a pain injection into the periformis and made a referral to have it done.  I should point out that, at this stage, I’d only had a back x-ray, which showed up no abnormalities. We were planning on going to Australia in July 2024, and I wanted desperately to be able to enjoy it pain free. Unfortunately, that wasn’t to be, as I’ve written before. On 7 June 2024, we travelled to Tallaght and I was all ready for my injection, only to be told (a) that they couldn’t find my sciatic nerve, or any sign of damage, on the scan and (b) that they thought my pain was likely the result of a “contusion”.


i.e. That they thought it was impact pain from the fall, that I’d had four years previous.

Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me.

I really thought I was going mad. We went to Australia, and I relied heavily on painkillers and my TENS machine to get me through the trip. I couldn’t even walk around my sister’s bungalow; I needed the manual chair. I was so tired and frustrated. When we came home, I slid back into the Netflix binges, completely exhausted. Was this my life now, at the age of forty? No job, no prospects, a life overshadowed by tiredness and pain? What was the point of getting (two) university qualifications, and all those writing courses I’d done since 2014, if I couldn’t use them to build a career?

In January 2025, I rejoined Writer’s Ink, an online writers group spearheaded by bestselling author Sam Blake (Vanessa Fox O’Loughlin) and coaching guru Maria McHale, and I revisited my novel, once again fantasising about how the world needs to hear Rachel’s story. At first, things went well. I did a prompt exercise every day and before long I was discussing my would-be novel with literary agent, Simon Trewin, who seemed impressed. However, by April, I was exhausted again, struggling to get to the end of the day. Another frustrated visit to the doctor, another set of blood tests that showed everything was normal.

“Come back in,” the doctor said. “We need to get to the bottom of this.”

She was taking me seriously, possibly sick of my constant complaining. She brought up my files, and we went through the absolute shitshow that has been the last five years, going through the letters from the consultants, the lack of findings. Suddenly, she frowned at the screen.

“You’ve had a back x-ray. Have they ever x-rayed your hip?”

My hip? No.

“Okay, let’s do that next.”

I duly attended the  “urgent” x-ray appointment, feeling I was wasting my time. A couple of days later, my doctor’s number flashed across the screen.

“It’s your hip.” She was excited. “Significant arthritis. It’s very shallow, by all accounts. I’d say you’re looking at a replacement.”

This was the 22nd April of this year. Nearly five years of looking for answers. And although it didn’t feel like it at the time, it was possibly the best birthday present I’d ever been given. I wasn’t going mad. I wasn’t a hypochondriac. I was suffering – and I use this word deliberately – from arthritis. Five years on, I finally had an answer.

Since that phone call, my life has changed so much. I now go easier on myself, knowing that I will have good days and bad. Not only am I paying more attention to my body, I know what exercises I have to do, how to look after myself properly. In June, once the reality of what lies ahead sunk in, I went back to the doctor to discuss my long-term options.

I need to be a good mum and wife. I need to get back to work. What way should we approach this?

She arranged an urgent appointment with an orthopaedic surgeon. When the appointment came in, my husband and I were stunned.

“Surgery,” he said. “That’s where we are now, and what you’ve fought for.”

I dismissed his words with a wave of my hand. “It won’t come to that.”

My dear reader, as it turns out, it may well come to that. On 4th September 2025, I foolishly attended the appointment alone, reasoning that I would be perceived more capable and confident if I asked the questions. And I was right, but the news landed like a lead brick. After half an hour’s discussion with the surgeon, during which he went through my symptoms and x-ray in detail, he handed me a leaflet – What You Should Know About Hip Replacements.

He said that although wear and tear might be a factor, my hip has possibly always been shallow and that many people (not just wobblies) have it and only discover that they have it when it plays up in their forties. He said that he has replaced the hips of at least four CPers. Best of all, he said that he would attempt a pain injection into my hip. Not just to give me relief, but also as confirmation that the hip was the cause of my pain, before cutting me open.

“Oh God,” I said. “Don’t dangle the dream. I’ve been here before.” I explained my journey so far, but he was confident he’d be able to do it.

He was right.

On Friday 17th October, with the help of an amazing medical team, I finally received a pain injection into my hip. It was relatively straightforward: I lay still enough, and the procedure took ten minutes. I burst into tears, because I felt so proud of myself for not giving up and persisting in finding the answers. I won’t know for sure until the end of the week if it has worked, but I do feel some relief already. I’ve had four good nights’ sleep – apparently, I didn’t hear Rupert barking the other night, which feels wrong – I always am the one to hear him and let him out. Last night, I was doing a crossword puzzle in bed, and I sat with my knees up and the book resting on them. John Paul remarked that I haven’t sat like that in years. Today is Tuesday, and I feel exhausted, five years of sleepless nights catching up on me. But I’m not in pain. It feels like being on holiday from my own body.

I know I shouldn’t get too excited. After all, it’s still early days and this injection mightn’t work long-term. And if I do need a replacement, recovery will be long and arduous. But for the first time in a long time, I feel hopeful that I can get back to myself and to who I was before all of this started. 

I suppose I’m sharing this for two reasons. First, to apologise to the many people I’ve lost track of in the last five years, and to offer an explanation – not an excuse. Second, to give anyone who finds themselves in the same position some hope. I believe you. Please don’t stop looking for answers. I offer you love and light xx

Eight Things I’ve Learned About Chronic Pain

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Religious followers of this blog will know that I’ve experienced chronic pain in my sciatic area for the last five years. I noticed it after a particularly nasty fall in the back garden in 2020 but only became concerned when, six months after the fall, the pain hadn’t subsided. Since then, it’s been a rollercoaster of medical appointments, of being told it was sciatica, muscle spasms, periformis syndrome and many other things. And, of course, one medic had the gall to suggest I was imagining it, that it couldn’t possibly be as bad as I was saying (apparently, I like lying in bed every night, doing stretches at half three in the morning for the craic.)

My birthday was in April, and to celebrate I was gifted an unexpected diagnosis. After years of plaguing her, my doctor, who believed me from day one, ordered a hip x-ray. Now, I wasn’t expecting anything to come of it, but three days later, she phoned me to say that there was significant wear and tear in my right hip, and that the results could pinpoint exactly what’s causing the pain. At first, I was stunned, and a little annoyed with myself. Had I done this to myself? Since then, I’ve spoken to so many people who have arthritis too, and the majority of them struggle to articulate just how debilitating this pain can be.

Having Cerebral Palsy is not a big deal, because I’ve never not had it. However, as I get older, I find that I have aches and niggles I’ve never had before. Adapting to having CP comes naturally, as there’s never been a time when I didn’t have it, but chronic pain, although it’s kind of connected to the CP, has been a bit more of a learning curve. Here’s what I’ve learned about having this new CP (although a Google search told me some of the same things, I’m more into learning the hard way).

  1. Chronic Pain is not your fault:

    Admittedly, I naturally walk with my leg turned in, but despite appearances, I do try to walk as straight as I can. It took me a long time to acknowledge and recognise that chronic pain is not a punishment, and that being hard on myself was not going to change it. Sometimes you can do everything right and still end up in pain. This leads me to my second point…

  2. Physical pain can lead to crappy mental health:

    Being in pain is exhausting. I’ve finally succumbed to taking pain medication at night so that I can sleep, but on days where I’m in pain and tired from a poor night’s sleep, the world becomes a dark place. Even the simplest tasks become laborious and time-consuming. Your brain lies to you, telling you that you are useless, a burden. This can lead to feelings of failure and inadequacy. Therefore –

  3. Pain management must come first in your priorities:

    It doesn’t matter how busy you think you are. If you skip the physio, neglect to slap on the TENS machine or push through without the medication, chances are you won’t be able to do what you need to do anyway. In order to be your best self, you need to take control over your pain management. Eat well, drink your water, and rest when you need to.

  4. Pacing is not a dirty word:

    I continually fight this one. After all, we live in a society where “being busy” is seen as a badge of honour. I tend to get overexcited when I have a pain-free day, and I run around the house like a lunatic, scrubbing bathrooms and hoovering only to be left in agony for days after. I think what you’re supposed to do is prioritise tasks and do them at your own pace, with plenty of rest in between. I’ll keep working on it!

  5. Pain can be lonely:

    Most of us don’t want to be seen to constantly complain. As a result, I often find myself withdrawing from activities and meetings that I once enjoyed. I don’t like telling the same story, over and over. Sometimes, I don’t have the energy to be social, and I end up watching Netflix in binges when I could be meeting people out of the house, and this only heightens my inner shame and sense of failure. However, it’s also important to remember –

  6. You are not alone:

    When I eventually found the courage to talk about the impact that being in pain was having on my physical and mental health, I was surprised to hear that so many of my friends were also wrestling with pain, and as long as I don’t fall into a pit of self-pity, I can support and be supported by those who love me most. Many people experience chronic pain, with diagnoses like fibromyalgia. Sometimes people are not believed, but this experience does not make your pain any less real. Thousands of people are in the same boat – take some comfort in this.

  7. A bad day does not mean a bad life:

    I’m having a bad day today; I cannot shake the tiredness and this is slowing me down. It’s frustrating, especially since, in my mind at least, I have nothing to be tired about; no job to go to (hoping that will change soon), no toddlers, and not nearly as much writing being done as I’d like. However, I must admit that I have good days too, especially those spent with family and friends, and that overall, I’ve achieved a lot. Parenting a teenager is not for the faint hearted!

  8. Wheelchairs and walking aids have no moral value:

    Over the years, I’ve heard people saying that they want to be able to walk without aids. My thing is that I’d like to walk more with my rollator, as I did before my hip started giving me trouble. Some days I manage, and some days I can barely stand. My pain and energy levels vary. What doesn’t vary are my duties as wife, mother, and writer. I do get some invaluable help, but overall, meals still need cooked, laundry done, dogs walked. My wheelchair enables me to carry out these duties. I am not lazy; in fact, I am trying to stay as independent as possible.

    Phew! If you made it this far, thank you. I only hope that it helps someone who needs it, whether you’re experiencing chronic pain yourself, or a loved one is. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to stretch and pray for a good night’s sleep afterwards.

Sunday Reflection: In Preparation for 2025

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In almost every way, I’m afraid 2024 has been a bit of a letdown. Like a lot of writers, I sat down a few days ago to do an evaluation of my year and disappointingly, in terms of productivity, this has been the year that I’ve done the least writing since I started writing ten years ago. I feel like I let myself down – a whole twelve months without much to show for it. My year began with a trip to the doctor’s office in mid-January, crippled with the most paralysing bout of depression I have ever experienced. She asked me some uncomfortable questions, which made me realise how bad things had gotten, and filled me with indescribable shame. 

I withdrew from everything. I stopped texting friends. Stopped trying to achieve any hint of literary genius. My editing course, which I started a year ago, remains only halfway completed in a cloud somewhere on the net, which is so unlike me – I’ve always flown through my writing related courses. And poor Rachel has been wantonly abandoned in favour of mindless Netflix binges (namely, Taskmaster binges), which is definitely out of character for me – I don’t watch telly really; I didn’t even watch much of it when we were in lockdown, opting instead to try writing flash pieces and to work on the compilation of Conversations about Activism and Change. I’ve lost my confidence, not that I was abundant in it to begin with. 

While I became overly comfortable in my cocoon of fog and self-hatred, a whole year of promise and opportunity passed by. Listen, you must admit that it’s not difficult to become disheartened by the state of the world around us.  I would strongly advise against binge-watching Reeling in the Years for the years 2010-2019, especially if you still have any hope for the future of humanity. Plus, the last few Covid-riddled years have not been easy on anyone, and I’m sure I’m not alone in becoming comfortable in my own company. It was too much time to think, to reflect on all the wrong turns I took, little bothreens that led to dead ends, the many mistakes I’ve made along the way.  

Staying in your head for too long isn’t good for anyone, especially since it’s now universally acknowledged that our toughest critics are the people who look back at us in the mirror. Also, through listening to various podcasts, Mel Robbins being one of my favourites, I’ve come to recognise that my own thoughts about myself are not necessarily true, and that we are hardwired to be risk-averse, because our brains are designed to protect us, a thought regularly echoed by one of my writing mentors, Maria McHale. This way of living, apparently, is not conducive to the creation of art. Indulging in art is risky, because it necessitates opening your soul and using the most personal of experiences to create something that other humans can relate to. 

I cannot waste another year frozen in time, watching any prospect of a writing career sliding down the toilet, and so I am renewing my commitment to keep writing, no matter how demotivated I feel, or how shit I think my words are. Apparently, not everything a writer produces will be dripping with brilliance – who knew? When I started out ten years ago, I thought that churning out novels would be effortless, once I got the hang of it, of course. Enid Blyton could bash out two “jolly good” novels a year, so surely I, too, was capable of it too? Turns out, it’s not that straightforward. Enid Blyton didn’t have to wrestle with the distractions of the Internet – possibly the worst enemy of the would-be prolific writer.  

Also, just because teenagers are more physically independent doesn’t mean that you are redundant, whether you are the taxi-driver or the clothes-washer. And my daughter has no interest in divulging anything that’s going on in her life, until it’s nigh on ten o’clock at night and my eyes are getting heavy – then absolutely everything comes out (and I must admit, I secretly love it!) Being a parent will always come first, but right now I’m relearning what my role is. On one hand, I have more time to write (and more time means less excuses –  theoretically I should be able to blog every day); on the other hand, I spend my time ensuring that all sports gear is washed and dried ready for impromptu matches, and keeping an eye on those cursed WhatsApp group chats. I have so much respect for people with more than one kid, who need to be in two places at once. 

I wanted to post this, firstly as a promise to myself to get more words on the page, regardless of how lousy I think they are, and secondly, as an attempt at solidarity to anyone who’s coming to the end of an equally unproductive year, especially if you, too, have had your plans scuppered by mental ill-health. I see you, and I want you to know that we are worth more than our productivity, that achievement is relative, and even making tiny steps beats doing nothing at all.  

Finally, a warm thank you to those who refused to leave my side this year – you know who you are – especially my rocks,  my husband and daughter. I am so lucky and I love you all x 

Thursday Thoughts: All in My Head

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(written 21 October 2024)

I’m sitting at my computer this morning, while my two dogs snore loudly on their bed beneath my black desk, the one I got last year in JYSK and assembled with the help of then eleven year old Alison. This is what every working day should look like for a writer: Microsoft Word open on the screen, the cursor blinking impatiently as it waits for you to input the masterpiece you are weaving in your head. It’s been almost ten years since I decided to throw any prospect of future employability away and instead pursue some vague ambition to become a writer. 

Most days, I enjoy it. Above everything else, as I have mentioned several times before, writing has often been the only thing keeping my fragile mental health from shattering into bits. If you, dear reader, have any perception of what this feels like, then you can also imagine how frightening it is when you feel yourself being pulled down that dark road of nothingness, and the thing that you normally rely on to pull you out – a string of words – refuses to materialise. Not only were the words not appearing, my will to sit in front of a screen while I bubbled with frustration was also fading quickly.

I’ve been wrestling with mental health issues for years, along with approximately twenty-five percent of the population. Over the last few months, I’ve recognised a pattern which sets the darkness in motion. First of all, I become tired, just like any ordinary person becomes tired. When I’m tired – and I’d wager I’m not alone in this – even the simplest things become overwhelming. There’s an extra load of laundry I hadn’t planned on tackling today. Alison’s bedroom may look clean, but if I open the wardrobe and drawers, I’ll have to deal with the crap in there. None of these things are life and death, as long as you’re in the right state of mind. 

As for writing a novel, well. You might as well say go and climb Everest, because neither seem possible when the black dog comes and licks your hand.

I know in part that the chronic pain I now live with contributed to this round of misery. It’s been four years, and yet I’m struggling to accept that what my mind wants to do and what my decripit body is able for is not in alignment. Lowering my standards isn’t in my lexicon, and that creates problems daily. Often, I go to bed frustrated because that load of laundry lies unfolded in the dryer, or because there’s toothpaste cementing on the side of the washbasin. I am a writer, but I’m also a stay-at-home mum and wife. If my husband can manage his job and bring in a wage, then why can’t I manage mine?

Then, of course, it occurred to me that the above narrative is not helping my mental state, and that the only way out is to be kind to myself. This is in direct opposition to everything I’ve trained myself to do over the years. Tough times? Push through it. Want results? Work harder. After a spell, the messages become nastier. What made you think you could write a book? What’s the point in applying for work, when your last full-time job was ten years ago? Imagine this on repeat all day, like a soundtrack on Spotify; sometimes the order shuffles a bit, but the core messages are invariably the same:  You are going nowhere. You have wasted your life.

Before the summer, while packing to go to Australia for a month, I just said enough. I had just turned forty. I’ve no novel, no marvellous collection of short stories, and not enough work coming in to justify my role as proofreader. But why do I rely on these titles to give me my sense of self-worth? I came in here into my office and took out Conversations about Activism and Change, which may be the closest to a published book I’ll ever achieve. And while it isn’t perfect, I now leave it on my desk as a reminder that I am capable of conceiving and completing a project. I can handle the monotony of transcripts and editing, and editing, and more editing. Now, I can be proud that the book has made a contribution to Irish disability history. A book that came from a throwaway comment to a friend about yearning to record the people’s history of the movement.

At the moment, it often feels as though I’m watching my own life from the outside, like a boring silent film, but I have started to chisel away at the glass and hopefully soon it will shatter completely. I’m impatient by nature, but now I’m coming to accept that I can’t just bounce back into the life that I drifted away from this time last year and expect to pick up from where I left off. That said, my friends have all been incredibly patient and understanding and have helped me in rejoining society, physically and mentally. I also know I need to be kind to myself. Losing so many friends in the space of a few months has hit hard, and I need to readjust to loving them in a different way to what I might like. But I am getting there, and it seems that writing might be the key.to unlocking my life, after all.

Silent Footsteps

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I’ve been trying to get out  of the house more lately. It’s good for my mood and my mental health. Luckily, Tullamore town park is only around the corner from us so on Friday evening, Alison and I walked down, as we often do. I had read in the paper that there was to be a gathering that evening for families who had lost loved ones to suicide, and that those affected had been invited to bring a pair of shoes with them to represent those who had died so tragically. Thinking it’d be a tiny affair (Tullamore is no city) we bought a pair of runners to represent my childhood neighbour Paul and another childhood friend, Frank. When we arrived at the park, I was taken aback by the depressingly sizable crowd in front of us. I had explained to Alison that we were honouring those who had died.

“Like my nannies?” she’d asked. (She loves hearing about her nannies).

“Er, not exactly,” I replied.  What the hell was I doing, bringing a child to this event? “We’re remembering people who died because they were just tired of life. There’s sickness of the body, and sickness of the mind. Sometimes your mind gets so sick that it believes it can’t get better… and sometimes it kills people.”

I reflected upon my pathetic explanation. Don’t explanations like mine only serve to perpetuate the problem, that we have become so ashamed to vocalise our feelings that sometimes we just… don’t? We don’t want to be a burden, so we spend day after day alone, saying nothing to anybody. We worry that we won’t be believed. Or we keep quiet because we know Mrs So-and-so is going through their own shit and she has it way worse. Whoever coined the phrase “first-world problems” should be shot.

As I listened to the prayers, my eye wandered to the line of shoes in front of me. The line was so long that I couldn’t see the end of it. That frightened me. These shoes belonged to people in our town – ordinary people with ordinary lives – who were living with a massive gap in their lives. Suddenly, I became overwhelmed with an emotion that almost suffocated me. It was sadness, mixed with pain and self-hatred. Suddenly I realised why I had subconsciously wanted to be there, even though I wasn’t representing an immediate family member.

I was representing… me.

It’s almost been five years since I had deep, suicidal thoughts. Five years since I took a handful of pills, despising my own cowardice when I couldn’t bring myself to take enough to kill myself. Five years since the night when I told my husband I didn’t love him and wouldn’t he be better off without me and didn’t Ali deserve better. Five years since I bashed and cut every inch of myself in a bout of self-hatred so inexplicable that I can’t explain it accurately now that I am calm. In my eyes, I had failed. I was a crap parent, and shite at my job. I felt constantly tired, even though “I only had one child”.  Some people couldn’t even have children and here I was acting like an unbelievable knob, ungrateful for what I had. All I had wanted was to be dead.

And sitting there, looking at the shoes, part of the reason why suddenly occurred to me. We have distanced ourselves from each other. The cost of living is ridiculous, so in an average household both partners must work, often ludicrous hours. Where is the time to have a meaningless natter with your neighbours? And speaking of neighbours, we don’t know our neighbours anymore (stupid housing crisis). We keep ourselves to ourselves. My parents bought a house back in the ‘eighties and that was our forever home, but people can’t do that anymore. And we knew most of our neighbours; in fact, all of us kids had best friends who were also our neighbours. People are not able to put down roots: not those in houses where the rents are constantly climbing, and certainly not those in hostels or hotel rooms.

I began thinking: if things are so bad (and make no mistake – we are beyond crisis point here) then why are we too proud to reach out to each other? Why are we wasting time trying to  pretend we have the perfect lives on social media when we need to be talking more, empathising more, encouraging each other more? When will we learn that the perfect life we aspire to has been airbrushed into existence, and that happiness is more important than perfection? And why, in spite of the “It’s ok to be not oks” and “mental health is real healths” are we still not taking it seriously?

I resolve to take mental health more seriously because those empty shoes frighten me. So let’s go for coffee. Come over for dinner, or chocolate – or both. If you ever need to chat, I will not judge. I will listen as best as I can.

Don’t assume that what you left unsaid will be heard. Trust me, people will be glad you said it.

It’s those unsaid words that haunt us the most in the silence.

 

 

Say Nothing (Poem)

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(To mark World Mental Health Day, 10/10/2018. Apologies for the corniness – I bashed it out over lunch)

I have this voice inside my head
That often drags me down,
And nothing I can say to it can make the bastard drown.
It tells me that I’m ugly, useless, a waste of space
And worst of all that I’m alone in everything I face.

See, people have bigger problems:
Some people don’t have homes –
Others burdened by their mortgages
Or living on their own.
Some are trapped by violent partners
Others will have no tea.
I live a life of privilege that
This isn’t happening to me.

I couldn’t tell my friends or family –
I couldn’t bear the shame
Of having that stigma of ‘attention seeker’
Attached to my name.
They’ll think that I’m a nutcase
or that I need to take some pills.
I might be told ‘snap out of it’
Or that I’m not really ill.

And so I will say nothing,
Until one day when I wake
I decide that I’ve had as much
Torture as I can take.
What started as a grey cloud
Has turned into a storm
And I can see no way out…

Or maybe… just maybe…
A chink of light will shine through,
When I pluck up the courage
To turn and say to you:
‘I really don’t feel like myself,
I don’t think I’m okay.
I just need you to hold my hand.
I don’t know what else to do or say.’

Because, you see, I could say nothing
And no-one would’ve said
That there’s a bomb about to explode
Inside my messed up head.
The agony is tangible, it eats me up inside.
But I know you cannot help me if I proceed to hide.

And so, I must say something
If only so you know
That if you ever, ever feel the same
I need you to tell me so.
Because silence is a killer,
And pride keeps us apart –
And though the sentiments of this poem seem ‘corny’,
I mean them with all my heart.

One last thought, and then I’ll say goodbye:
There’s often more to things than meets the eye:
Smiles don’t always mean joy, laughter can hide sorrow,
So check in on those you love – don’t leave it til tomorrow.

Ok to be not ok?

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I was looking at my diary this evening trying to work out a writing plan for the next few months. I’d be ashamed to put a figure on how many blogs I aim to write a month versus the amount I actually have written. As I was going through my diary I saw that I’d written beside May 1: Mental Health Awareness Month. I had obviously planned to write something incredibly inspiring when I made this note, but as you can see when you scroll through my blogs for May, it didn’t happen. I couldn’t bring myself to write it, because doing so would’ve made me a hypocrite.

The truth is that on May 1, I was struggling to get out of bed, and I wish I could tell you why.

It wasn’t due to stress: sure, I was busy with the novel and other stuff but it wasn’t particularly taxing. Everything was great: JP was himself, and Ali her bubbly self and writing was going well. Yet since the end of January I had been feeling shit for no apparent reason. I started to feel fearful; I’d been here before and overcame it with the assumption that it would never happen again. That if I ever felt down again that I would speak out and get help before it got overwhelmingly bad.

It crept up on me quietly this time, out of nowhere. I was fine one week and not okay the next. I felt frustrated as I scrolled down through my Facebook feed, seeing the clichéd ‘It’s ok to be not okay’ and ‘needing help is not a sign of weakness’. Well, perhaps this was true for other people, I thought, but it didn’t apply to me. I had no reason to be down – I had a great family, great home, and I had lots of work coming in. And yet I was going to bed every night, tears falling from my eyes.

The truth is I felt like a failure. I felt empty. My novel might never be written. I don’t know how to go about finding another job. I still feel guilty about leaving my job behind three years ago, a job that I always felt that I was never any good at. These thoughts twirled around my head as I lay down each night. I had let my mum down, my daughter down and myself down. Some people see me as a role model, whereas I think I am a bit of a fraud.

Things finally came to a head on the 17th May. It was National Walk to School Day and I had walked Ali to school alongside other parents, a perfectly normal thing to do. But I didn’t feel normal at all. I left Ali at the school door and whizzed home, the tears stinging my eyes. I was sick of it, of feeling so crap. So I did something I’d never done before – I rang the doctor to make an appointment. There was an appointment that evening, and I took it. The minute I hung up, I felt sick. What was I going to say? What if the doctor thought I was crazy and had to go on antidepressants? What if she reiterated my feelings that there were people worse than I was, that I was being melodramatic? Also, the thought of handing over money just to have a chat with a doctor seemed like a massive waste.

As I sat in the waiting room, I felt like a fool. Across the room, there was a little baby in a carrycot screaming in pain. I don’t need to be here wasting time, I thought, picking up my handbag. But in true dramatic style, the doctor called my name at that very moment.

‘Sarah Fitzgerald.’

I followed her to the room. ‘Did you get your driving licence sorted?’ she asked, looking at the screen. I laughed.

‘Just this morning, believe it or not.’ (The rigmarole to get a licence these days is ridiculous).

‘So what can I do for you?’

‘Well, I don’t want to be wasting your time,’ I said, apologetically, ‘but the truth is I just don’t feel myself. I mean, emotionally.’

She stared at the screen. ‘How long has this been going on?’

‘Ah, on and off, since the end of January.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s an awfully long time,’ she said. ‘Do you know what triggered it?’

I shrugged. ‘No idea. Just a general sense of failure I guess.’ I was starting to sound like an idiot, and was clutching my handbag, ready to run.

‘Okay. And did you suffer from postnatal depression? Or do you think you have it now?’

‘I had it for two-and-a-half years.’ She frowned.

‘There’s no record of that here.’

‘I didn’t report it at the time. Too scared.’

‘Right, and are you managing? Housework, meals, looking after Alison?’

‘Oh, absolutely. It’s not affecting my work at all, at home or otherwise. I just feel flat.’

‘And what do you do in your down time?’

She’s funny, I thought. ‘Not much. I try to work as much as possible. I work freelance, so if I don’t work, I don’t get paid. I like to stay active, and disability activism is so important to me. And I’m looking for another job. Love being busy.’

‘Hmmm, you don’t think maybe you’re too busy?’

I scoffed. ‘It’s not like I have a full-time job or anything!’

As I listened to my own answers, I could hear what the doctor heard, at last. Firstly, that just because I didn’t have a nine-to-five job didn’t mean that I wasn’t working, or that the work that I do wasn’t valuable. Secondly, my self-worth is so wrapped up in what I produce in terms of my parenting and my writing that having not finished my novel had become like the end of the world to me. Thirdly, that downtime is important. This is the one I struggle with the most. I always feel like I should be doing something: writing, playing with Ali, cleaning, exercising. To me, sitting watching TV or reading is wasting time.

And then the doctor said the one thing I absolutely hate to hear:

‘You need to keep your expectations in line with what you can physically achieve.’

I stiffened. ‘I don’t think my disability is relevant, to be honest.’

The doctor laughed. ‘Well, it is. And also, you’re human. Take more rest. And talk more.’ She scribbled down the number of a counsellor on a post-it, which is still lurking somewhere in the bottom of my handbag.

I came out of the doctor’s feeling emotional. I had expected to be told that I was silly, that I had nothing to feel down about, that I should buck up and  cop on. And she didn’t say that at all. She had validated how I was feeling and acknowledged that it was real.

I’m not writing this for attention. I didn’t even want to publish this to be honest. I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, or feel that I’m not able to work because I am (Keep work coming please – I like to eat). I was going to leave it languishing on my laptop. Then I thought of all the recent suicides, both local and celebrity, and reckoned that if I could help just one person reading this, then it would be worth sharing.

Sometimes, despite the clichés, it doesn’t feel right to be not okay.

But it’s not right to suffer in silence either. And I can’t be the only one who’s sick of it.

So let’s not do it anymore.

So if any of you guys want to share your stories please do. Even if it’s so I don’t feel like such a pariah