Jude's diary

[brach24]

Yassssssssss!!!! So pleased for you!!! .... and breathe...
xxx

[quantumrose]

Thank you, you two :-) xxx

I don't even know where to start!
I've been concentrating on getting help, this, as last time, is hit and miss. The NHS seem to have criteria that I never fit into- snd so I was offered CBT for trauma. I went to the appointment and even though a large part of my assessment covered my phobia of medical stuff, mu appoitment was in a dr's surgery, in a dr's office, surrounded by medical instruments etc. I freaked out and left the appointment, my councellor called me and said that she wasn't sure how much she should accomodate my fears and whether I should just use it as an opportunity. But I was frozen with fear! There's no way i could talk freely in that setting. So thats a no go.

I have gone on the waiting list at a womans charity for art therapy. I found it hugely helpful last time. And theres a postnatal art group starting in a few weeks which Im really looking forward to.

All in all Im reminded of how well you have to be to get help. That or totally and utterly unwell. There's no help in prevention of getting that bad.

I am ok. I've had a problem with anger recently which is an emotion I'm not use to feeling in full flow and I don't know how to handle it. It's got messy. I'm finding it really hard to motivate myself and my self confidence is low, really low. Like I don't like myself low. I don't even know how I did all these things before, teaching crafts etc. I guess some of this is having a baby stuff- but people do manage to keep doing things like this.....

The children are well, enjoying life, being awesome in general.

My cup is very empty and I'm so tired and low I don't know how to fill it up. Things are hard but I can see positive things if i try. It doesn't feel all bad. And that's something xxxx

[monica]

How are you QR?

You're doing all the right things in helping yourself. He nhs isn't really geared up to preventive care and often you only get access to services if you're very ill. Very frustrating as you know yourself that the support would really help you.

How's your hip? It's positive you are finding happiness in life. X

[quantumrose]

Definately in a blip. But I've also had a few positive days and i KNOW that means I'm on the road to getting better. I know this can take a long time but at least the good days are back.
This is also really hard, I want to be better NOW. I want to race along the road and be 100% but the good days make the hard times so much harder. I find myself not looking after myself because I don't have the energy to do it all the time and the contrast is too painful when I do, to when I can't and feel unwell.
I'm not have a good few days actually, I've been sad and angry and blaming myself for everything and feeling unmotivated and not looking forward to anything or seeing the point in anything.
I just feel stuck. I know thats sounds like a contradiction after what I said to start with but I feel stuck with feeling mostly bad and sometimes having a good day. I am finding happiness in life but I'm also feeling very lost and uncertain.

I feel like everyone is fed up with me. It's quite extreme actually, I sometimes think that B is so fed up that he might leave me because he can't bare me anymore. I feel like my friends are all avoiding me-even though I don't really talk about how I feel. I think it's maybe a bit paranoid but it's hard to remind myself of that when I'm thinking these things. I also feel like I've let you all down on this site too. You've helped me through PND once and now I'm asking you to do it again?!
My self confidence is awful, I feel disgusting and worthless. Isn't that a horrible thing to say about someone, including myself?

The art therapy group starts on thursday, I am looking forward to it so much. Just to get a chance to paint again. Hah!! I am looking forward to something! Thats good. Thats positive. I'll hold onto that xxx

[frogface]

That all sounds so familiar. I don't know what else to say, just wanted to say I get it. Especially about other people being fed up with me and being so angry with myself for being this way. But my smart brain knows that people outside my family are too busy worrying about themselves to actually have space to be thinking about me, much less to be fed up with me. And those who do know the difficulties know you've come out of it before, so they can see light at the end of the tunnel even when you can't. I hope you start coming upwards soon.

[quantumrose]

Thank you frogface
It's true what you say, people have their own lives to live.
Sorry you feel this too, however it is nice to know my monkey brain isn't alone, I just hope my smart brain finds a way out of this one! x

[brach24]

Hey Qr, you've not let anyone down here. It's really powerful to share your story and let us connect. I bet in "real" life there are people who would like to feel needed or would feel privileged for you to open up to them. Sharing our struggles is such a bonding thing.
I wish there was some more appropriate support for you. You've been brave enough to speak up and ask! I really hope the art therapy is the safe place you need. Xx

[quantumrose]

Thank you Brach xx

Art therapy group was awkward, as alot of group therapy is to start with I would guess. But I got some drawing done. It was like taking a cork out. I was so desperate to create something that it wasn't an emotional thing in an obvious way but it felt like such a release, in a general way. The baby didn't like being in the crech and cried so much I had to go and soothe her at one point (I can hear her from the room we're having the group in, which is a massive distraction). In all, I can't wait for the next one. And I haven't looked forward to anything this much in ages.

I am not feeling good in my head at the moment. I've got so caught up with coping strategies that they've become connected with my fear of getting worse. I do it for everyone around me, for their comfort and I do it for myself, to not feel thoroughly awful. But I can't seem to feel comfort and safety. They just totally elude me. I miss that feeling of contentment, of feeling that what I'm doing is what I SHOULD be doing, rather than always second guessing myself and feeling like I'm wrong. I struggle with resting to such an extent that I run myself into the ground, feel like I'm floating through life in a haze of coping and then when things ease off I'm straight back to normal with running myself down again. What the hell is wrong with me? I know I'm doing it. I know it's bad for everyone, myself included and yet I can't stop. My health anxiety is really bad again, every pain, every thing is googled and diagnosed as some life threatening disease. I had a sore toe (probably a bit of ingrown toenail) but I convinced myself I had toe cancer and was going to die the same way as Bob Marley. It's ok, you can laugh. Turned out, a bit of tea tree oil and the soreness went. But how can I live like this? It's a constant battle.
Yesterday was utterly awful. I spent the whole day anxious beyond the ability to speak about it and it wasn't until 7pm when I had a massive panic attack that I admitted to B how I was feeling. Again, what the hell is wrong with me? When I'm feeling at my worst I just can't speak, I can't say how I'm feeling, I just carry on in the hope that it all goes away. It scares me that I do that.
I know I need to look after myself but I feel I'm in a position now where I don't have the energy, which is perpetuating the cycle of being exhausted and anxious and then down and then right back round again to not caring for myself....
I feel so blessed to have this art therapy group. It's not a place I can be totally open though because I need to keep myself safe too.
This is just a blip. I have been feeling better on a day to day basis- maybe a whole day will go by now where I feel ok. Thats a big deal! But for the last week I've been low again, really anxious, stuttering, bad stomach aches, headaches, feeling wobbly. I'm not going to the dr's. I've had enough of that place for now and I think it would make me so much worse right now, maybe in a few weeks if I'm still not good. It feels like a threat that I impose upon myself, that if I'm not better then I have to go to the gp's and then I pretend that I'm ok and it makes me feel worse.

I haven't seen my best friend for over two weeks. She's got a new job, new home, new partner. She's busy, I miss her.

There's a lady on the school run who keeps saying "Stay positive" and "The universe is so good to me, I have so much support" and "What a beautiful day" etc etc. I'm ashamed to say she's pissing me off. I'll leave it there :-)
All I hear from myself is moan moan moan.

[frogface]

Lady on the school run can go and stick her universe up her arse, who needs that.

If the gp is scary to you can you get your partner to make the appt and you write down what you need to say, then you don't have to speak at all. But leaving it hanging over your head might be just as bad as actually going. I do the same thing, when things are the worst I just don't speak or say anything about it.

Sometimes when things start to get better the dips back down feel ten times worse because you've been feeling good.

[quantumrose]

Funny frogface, thats almost exactly what I thought about school run lady!! She's lovely though, so I felt bad. But you're right, enforced jollyness never helped anyone!

I don't actually think going to the gp will help anyway. They've offered me CBT which I can't go to because of timing and childcare and I don't feel ready to think about medication. So really, what more can they do?

I think the best thing I can do is find support elsewhere. The gp really is a stick I beat myself with, I've spent alot of time there recently with the breast lump fiasco so I'm totally over the place for now! If I need to go, I will, thank you for advice. It's a good idea to not go alone :-) xx

[monica]

I think you know all the theory QR but most people struggle to put what they need to do into practice. You've got 3 kids to run after its hard to take time out to relax when baby is crying, you've got to do school run etc. I think life is hard with 3x los physically - I have no doubt the exhaustion makes all the physical stuff more apparent and feeds the anxiety .

It's great you're doing the art therapy I am sure doing something you enjoy and is just for you will give you that much needed boost.

Keep talking x

[brach24]

Big hugs and deep breaths xx glad art therapy has begun and feels positive.
I remember trying to do group therapy while listening to our babies cry on the other side of a thin wall. It's mega hard to stay centred!!
Your mention of your friend not being around has stuck with me - I'm sure that's really not helped this week!!
I honestly believe that if you needed the gp and they could help you'd grab your fear by the balls and March yourself over there. You are and have been such a fighter.
I really hope you begin to have more good days soon. The bad days sound hugely exhausting. Esp if you're hiding it all from everyone. Hope you start to feel physically better soon too xx

[monica]

How are you QR? X

[quantumrose]

I had a good few days at the end of last week and the weekend :-) Unfortunately, today has been so bad. I am feeling like this is me. Forever. In pain and depressed and horrible to be around. I just keep thinking if I could just change the way I think, like the books say, then I'll be all better. But even if the words change, the feelings remain and I end up feeling like a massive failure for not hoiking myself out of the hole. I'm back to reading PND symptoms online, just so I don't feel like so much of a freak. I feel lonely and let down and ungrateful and like I expect too much of everyone. I feel utterly snowed under with housework and like I am the only one who does any, despite my repeatedly asking for help. I've decided to put my mums art and craft group on hold for a few months, maybe longer. I can't do it and it's becoming massively stressful. I think I need to actually accept that I need to really reel in what I've got to do and concentrate on getting better. Like last time, carrying on as noraml doesn't work. But I feel lazy and like a bad friend and partner and mother. Just bad. I think I'm just a negative person because it's such a struggle to be positive and happy. Maybe this is just me now? Maybe I am a bad person and a negative idiot who can't get herself better?
I can't take anti-depressants because I couldn't take the going backwards and forwards to the dr's and I really worry about side effects and I just feel so alone in all these decisions anyway that I wouldn't even know where to start.
I'm so utterly bored and desparing of being like this and I feel like everyone else is too. Maybe I'm being paranoid but it feels like my friends are avoiding me. I must be awful to be around anyway, I don't even want to be around myself anymore. This just hurts too much. I've got a beautiful baby, amazing children, a loving husband, a home....I just have no right to feel like this!!!!!
And of course, with most of how I feel about myself, my rational brain knows that I would never, ever feel or say these things about even my worst enemy. So what does that make me? A lost cause maybe.
I'm sorry, I'm on such a downer. I've been in quite alot of pain and got triggered really badly by a film I saw at the cinema. I've got to be so careful what I watch at the moment. I find if I am triggered it sets off a few days of being very sensitive to it.
I am trying, I will try harder. I need a big blanket to live under for a while.
Got art therapy tomorrow, I'm looking forward to it.

Thinking of you all xxxxxx

[quantumrose]

P.S My hips and back and foot (bloody hell) are pretty bad at the moment. Physio and osteopath think it's all childbirth/pregnancy related. It's going to take time, more than I can bear...
It's a bit like mental health recovery! I'm almost pain free for a week and then I'll be in pain for a week. Each time the good days get better but the bad days seem worse in contrast. Onwards and upwards xxx