Patchwork Mind

My here, there and everywhere brain.

[blou-lunar]

So, I disappeared

I tend to do this a lot. 

It’s been nearly a year since I’ve written on here, my real life journal is a few weeks behind and my writing habits are f*cked. 

I am not sure what it is, why I struggle so much to just sit down and write. This is why I believe I am just not a writer anymore. But it is still in me! I do write ideas/ quotes that I think of, half poems and a rough drafts of short stories. The desire to write and create is still there but I just can’t seem to actually sit and do it. 

One of the biggest hold-backs for me is my job. That hasn’t improved at all. Although I am not singularly over-worked we are now all over-worked as our work load keeps increasing and we aren’t given enough staff to meet the ratios needed for students. 

The job is getting me down so much. It exhausts me and I am barely paid anything. I have been looking for other jobs but there isn’t much out there I can actually do. Also, I’m scared. All people talk about atm is how electric and gas is going up in April, tax may be going up, it’s getting harder and harder to even attempt to buy a house. This scares me into thinking that I need to stick with my current job because I can trust it as a steady income. I fear that if I do leave and begin a new job, I may not make it through the probation as they may have to let me go due to money issues. 

I am not okay. The way of the world plays on my mind too much and I just hate how corrupt it is. I just want to live my little life in peace. Instead life is wearing me down to the point where I barely have the energy to read, let alone write. 

I hate it i hate it i hate it i hate it 

[blou-lunar]

I’m burning out

This is a bit of a moany post so I am sorry if you stumble across it.

I am burning out. I have used up so my of my energy at work in this academic year I barely have anything left to give.

 At the start of this year, I was the only staff member in my group that was confident on the computer so I was always given all the computery jobs. This ended up becoming completely over-whelming and my work load was insanely bigger than everyone else’s in the group which made me feel a bit resentful. Luckily, new staff members have joined the group so the work is shared out a bit more now but I already used up a lot of brain power and energy trying to keep up with the workload or find the confidence to speak up about it being too much (which was sometimes harder than the crazy work load).

Obviously, this academic year there have been a few lockdowns so it has mainly been all work and no play. It’s literally been work, home, work, home for so long. I LOVE staying at home but this has been too much. It didn’t help when we were actually working from home either because it just felt like a prison. 

Now, we are all having to isolate as a precaution due to a few cases within our zone. So it’s back to doing online sessions and having to phone parents. I don’t mind speaking to the parents but I hate making phone calls, especially when I have to be the person offering the support and answers people need. 

I’m seriously running out of mental and physical energy. Although my workload has improved I can still be asked to do the bigger jobs over others and I have already developed an anxiety about being asked to do too much, so whether I actually am or not the paranoia and anticipation is now there. 

I’ve also been swapping meds over the past month or so..? The ones I was on before were way too strong and made me more agitated and paranoid and numbed nice feelings/ moments, such as laughing with my friends and not being able to feel it properly. I was weaning off those ones and have now begun my new ones but obvs because of the change in meds my body is all BLAH about it and I am very sleepy and I’d even say a bit depressed. 

The tablets I am going onto I have been on before and they worked well for me back then. They aren’t as strong and just take the edge off of my anxiety enough for me to potentially figure out a way to cope with it. I only came off them because my life got flipped upside down and I blamed the tablets but looking back it was just my life and I should have been more honest with the doctors! Doh!

Hopefully, after 6/8 weeks I should start to settle. I really hope I do because I am worried I can take much more of having to “soldier through”. 

On the plus side, I was feeling CRAP today so after I had done what I needed to do for work I did a big cleaning session for a few hours. Used the new vacuum which has defo made the floor appear cleaner and did a good moving-everything, cleaning-everywhere sort of clean. I am now going to read a book, maybe have a nap and then carry on with Grey’s Anatomy before doing a bit of yoga. 

I’m really trying to dig out the positive me and I think I’ve done okay today considering my drowning brain. I can do this, can’t I? Maybe..?

[blou-lunar]

I’m drowning...

...and I’m not even sure what in anymore

[blou-lunar]

Tuuuunes

I ended up looking for loooads of songs I used to listen to when I was a teenager today. 

The memories it brought back was of how I used to listen to these songs and imagine how much fun I could be having if my anxiety didn’t hold me back. 

I managed to actually act out some of these scenarios when I was older and drank alcohol but it was always half what it should have been and responsibilities were starting to seep into my life and distract me.

How annoying I’ve never really had the chance to be a care-free teenager. Maybe when I’m older?

[blou-lunar]

Unforgotten

Cassie Stuart deserved so much better </3

Traumatised by another TV show while listening to the soundtrack over and over.

This music literally takes over my whole brain. It’s so poignant and agh! Amazing </3

Unforgotten - Michael Price

[blou-lunar]

[blou-lunar]

To The Moonshine

Today, I have become physically exhausted from my mind being stuck on the same irrational loop. 

Before I left work on Friday, I sent an email to ask some questions about some new procedures that are being put into work due to Covid. Things are always changing at work due to the higher ups figuring things out along the way so it can get confusing and become a bit of an information overload. 

This email was sent 15 minutes before we were all due to go home for the weekend. Students were still in the classroom getting ready to go home so staff were half reading this email and half helping and talking to the students. 

To me, the new procedure just seemed like an over-complicated version of something we used to do before Covid and it didn’t make a lot of sense. I sent an email to my manager to just ask a few questions about the things that were confusing me. She and her manager both replied explaining things to me and also explaining that the suggestions I made were not feasible at the moment due to the Covid restrictions. 

I got my point across and then ended the conversation due to it being just one of those things we need to get on with until all this crap with Covid is over. The emails ended well with the one of the managers wishing me a good weekend. 

Then the paranoia kicked in. Who the hell do I think I am to speak above my rank? Did I come across as not wanting to do my job properly? Was I rude? Can I get fired for asking stupid questions? Have I made a fool out of myself? How am I supposed to show my face at work next week? Maybe I am not right for this job anymore? Are my managers gonna hate me now? I’m obviously not strong enough to speak my mind. I’m too weak to look after myself in this life. Maybe I should stop speaking my mind so I don’t cry for days after. But then, that is how people control and take advantage of you. Blah! Blah! Blah!!

It went on all evening in my head. I felt sick. I felt faint. I was panicking. I was overwhelmed with dread and almost believing I needed to look for a new job. Then I asked my boyfriend to look over the emails and he reassured me that they weren’t stupid/ rude/ embarrassing/ over-stepping the mark etc. But I couldn’t absorb his words at all. 

I cried myself into an awful sleep. Yesterday, we woke up early because we had things being delivered and other things to do. I was flitting between laughing at myself and crying because my life is over. On the evening, I sat there moaning like an over-tired toddler because my anxiety was driving me coo-coo. My thoughts became dark, thinking that not being here may be the only way I can deal with my life.

I went to bed and sat up over-thinking everything I said in the emails, everything I should have said, wishing I hadn’t sent the emails, blah blah. I had an awful sleep, waking up all through the night with that horrible feeling in my chest and stomach. 

I woke up today still feeling naff and with an awful headache. As I settled into the day, my anxiety seemed to be starting to subside over the email debacle and I was just left with the physical hangover from all the stress. I was a bit emotional, crying at Gilmore Girls and The Haunting of Bly Manor, but the whole doomed feeling seemed to be easing away. 

How ridiculous that sending a few questions to my manager has taken up nearly two days of energy with worry and paranoia. The thing is, I thought I was doing okay and had found a balance with balancing work/ my mental well-being/ the pandemic, but recently I’ve began to realise that maybe it’s affecting me a lot more subconsciously than I realise.

Despite my headache, I have decided to re-watch The Haunting of Bly Manor (right after finishing the last episode) and try to get on with some cross-stitching. I may end up having a nap in a bit but napping with a favourite TV show on in the background is one of the most comforting things to me. <3 

[blou-lunar]

Hill House or Bly Manor are where I like to escape to these days 🖤

[blou-lunar]

Hibernating

I have been feeling quite introverted recently and I am enjoying being on my own at the moment. 

I have been reading a lot, cross-stitching, looking after my plants and doing some yoga to help me relax. I sleep soooo much better if I do some yoga before bed, I sometimes can’t believe the difference it makes!

At the moment, I feel like all the things that have been worrying me and overwhelming me recently seem to have fallen into place and I don’t feel like I am about to die or be destroyed. It’s a very nice feeling and I am appreciating this peace of mind I am experiencing a lot!

Happy Sunday x

[blou-lunar]

Scenarios

Imagine:

“There is nothing more they can do for me. I’ve been given six months.  It just feels so unfair there’s still so much I want to do”

“Well, we are all gonna die one day. That’s something we all have to face so what makes you so special?”

Are you angry? You should be! What a horrible, dismissive, insensitive response to get from someone when you are opening up. 

Try this one:

“Well, I struggle with anxiety daily and sometimes I’m so stressed I just can’t do the simple things that I need to do”

“We all get stressed! So you’re not special there. Life’s hard, you just have to grin and bare it.”

How about now, are you angry? You should be! That’s another horrible, dismissive, insensitive thing to say to someone who is opening up.

The impact of mental health difficulties may not be as severe as a terminal illness but the same, crappy attitude is being displayed in both scenarios. 

The difference is, the first scenario would probably trigger outrage from other people whereas the second one would just be accepted. 

Yes - everyone struggles at some point in life but, when you live with mental health struggles on a daily basis, it is not the same! 

People accept how difficult a physical illness can be but people tend to over-look how devastating a mental illness can be. Do not dismiss it, It hurts people more than you know.

[blou-lunar]

Different Boats

I am getting a bit tired of hearing people say “we are in the same boat at the moment”. If I try and talk about how much worse my anxiety is in all of this, that is all I get and it feels so dismissive. 

I understand that people who may not normally struggle with mental health issues are starting to struggle mentally due to the lockdown/pandemic, but we are not in the same boat. 

What those people may be struggling with now is how I live my life without a pandemic. They are in the boat I live my whole life in. But now, thanks to virus, there is no room for me on that boat anymore and I am in an even worse one. 

There is a huge part of me that hates speaking like this because,to me, it can sound petty and like I want to make my life sound terrible for attention but I am just telling the truth. People who live with mental health issues are struggling more now. We are not in the same place and please don’t dismiss us by saying that we are because it hurts us. 

I feel for ANYONE who is struggling at the moment because it can feel so desperate and over-whelming but you can’t dismiss how my regular anxiety has gone crazy just because you have started to struggle in these current circumstances.

For you, when the pandemic ends you will probably go back to normal and the troubles you are now facing will fade away. I won’t. I will just go back to living my usual life, stuck in the boat that you were able to leave behind. 

[blou-lunar]

Fringing Hell

I woke up today and had to face the mess of a fringe that I decided to hack at at one’ o’ clock in the morning. My full fringe was growing out and reached to below my eyes. My plan was to grow it out a decent amount so that I could have it restyled the way I wanted. There was also too much hair in my fringe and I was convinced it took up half of my head so I needed to work on that also. 

I was messing around yesterday with what sections of my hair needed to be left to grow out and what sections could still be in my fringe, clipping back the bits I wanted to grow out and feeling happy I had worked towards solving my half-my-head-being-a-fringe problem. 

Then I made the brilliant decision to get my pretty scissors and cut my full fringe back into my hair; at one in the morning! Fool. I’ve done this before and regretted it but I never learn!

It isn’t too bad. It’s a bit of a mess but fringes grow out quick don’t they? So it should be fixable in a couple of months...? Also, because I am growing out some of the hair that was in my fringe, I have a short, blunt fringe and then sudden long chunks of hair at the sides. It looks great. I will be needing a lot of hair grips to get my through this!

I am grateful that my biggest worry today is just my hair. That’s a pretty good day isn’t it?

Happy Sunday x

[blou-lunar]

Planties

Sooo, in about September, I started to get more and more into plants and now I am completely obsessed with turning my flat into a forest. I’ve always liked plants but have never really been able to invest in any due to living in either a tiiiny one roomed flat (as in a front room converted into a tiny flat) or living in a friends spare bedroom and not having a lot of space, except for a few cacti.

But now I live in a proper grown up flat I have space that I can fill with all the pretty plants on my wish list :D I’m on a budget so I’m only able to buy anew plant every one or two months but it is still exciting! I am a bit of a nature lover and when life is being a bit mean I always wish I was a pixie who lived away from society in a forest.

Anyhoo, recently I have been struggling to feel motivated to do things that make me happy and have wasted so much time procrastinating that I decided to try something new and make a moss terrarium out of an old candle jar. 

I dragged my boyfriend out for a walk so I could be gross and pick moss off the concrete and then I spent AGES melting the leftover candle wax out of the jar, which smells amazing so I have kept it to make some tealights. 

It’s nothing amazing but I am quite happy with how it turned out and I am currently trying to hunt down some tiny decorations to put inside it. It was definably nice to have something to focus on and so therapeutic! I need to make a note to do things like this more often.

[blou-lunar]

A Busy Background

I feel like this is a bit cheesy to do but I feel a bit of background needs to be explained. I feel like I am starting this blog quite late into my life as I'm 28 but I just don't think I was build for the modern world.

I've had anxiety since I was at least a teenager. I remember being paranoid as a child and believing I was going to be kidnapped if I walked anywhere alone, so I could have been struggling with it then too. At school, I stopped talking for a year and a half because I was so insecure and anxious about who I was. None of the teachers every confronted me about it or asked if I was okay. I really wasn't.

Unfortunately, I feel the stigma of having mental health issues a lot. This is mainly from how people have treated me and my mental health issues throughout my life. I've heard "you're only acting like that for attention", "you're just going on pity trips because you want people to feel sorry for you", "life's hard, you just need to grin and bare it", "but there's nothing wrong with your life so why are you sad?" and the BEST one: "everyone gets stressed, what makes you so special?" In some ways, I don't blame people for what they have said to me. Sometimes it was other teenagers I was at school with but nearly always it was a lack of understanding how mental health affects people. But still, the words above have stuck in my head and it affects how I deal with my mental health to this day.

My main issue is with anxiety. I am anxious everyday of my life, some days it is just quiet enough not to notice it. I like those days. Another issue that stems from my anxiety is paranoia, in the sense that something awful is about to happen or if I say one bad thing it will be revealed and my life will fall apart. 

When my anxiety is bad and it makes me ill, the depression sets in. I'm not sure if I struggle with depression on a daily basis because I do seem to only notice anxiety. But when my anxiety exhausts me, I defiantly struggle with depression then. From what I am aware of, I have anxiety. That is my diagnosis; although I do feel that even GPs could be quite dismissive of my experiences, passing them off as phases when they really weren't. This is a daily occurrence. I don't care what anyone says; you are not in my head, you do not live this. You don't know what I go through on a daily basis. Sometimes being able to get out of bed and go and do my weekly food shop is a huge achievement. 

I began a diary when I was about 14/15 but all I wrote about were the good things that happened. I still think that is an important thing to do - it's defiantly better to think about the positives than the negatives - but it means understanding my mental health issues was unwittingly pushed aside and I don’t think I’ve grown as much as I could have if I had given it more attention. But that's okay, isn't it? I am still learning. 

I'm gonna try my best not to look backwards. This blog is about noting down my experiences now, but sometimes you can't ignore what you've been through; sometimes what you've been through plays a part in the now. I just want to write what I go through somewhere where it may be glanced over so it is not completely ignored, you know? I spend so much of my life trying to stay positive and put on a happy front that I get lost in all that and don't understand who I am or what I need. Maybe this blog will help? If not, at least I am not completely invisible - only slightly.

[blou-lunar]

A long time coming

I always think about what people will say about me when I die. Is that weird? I think more about that than what people think of me while I am alive. Sometimes when I am doing something or trying to create something, I have this dialogue in my head of an anonymous voice talking about the things I used to do and the things I cared about. I need to focus more on being in the present moment I think. 

Right now. I am in my living room with an incense stick burning. It smells amazing. I have wasted most of today playing Pokemon Sword on the switch and now I am feeling guilty about that. My boyfriend tried to explain to me that if I am enjoying it then it isn’t a waste of time, but then I always moan that I don’t read enough or write enough so the time feels wasted to me. 

There is not enough time in a day anymore. I think with how accessible we always are and how rushed modern life seems to be there just isn’t enough time to be a human being anymore. You are just expected to robotically work as many hours as possible so you can pay your overly-expensive rent and council tax and not have much time or money to do the things that make you happy. For me this seems to mean that I have to choose between relaxing and unwinding by playing a computer game for a while or reading/ writing and feeling productive. 

Maybe I am just making excuses for me being too lazy to make the effort I need to but my job does drain me and sometimes my brain is just too numb to focus on anything. When you live with anxiety too work is very good at triggering that so you spend too much time over-thinking every tiny thing that happens in the day. 

I don’t know why I am moaning about this now as it’s half term. I think my return-to-work day, next Tuesday, is triggering some anxiety and dread and therefore making me realise how hard it is to be an adult who has to work to pay for all the things life demands of you. I mean. it’s not that bad; I’m doing okay, it’s just responsibility is heavy isn’t it?

I am a babbler so I’m sorry if you’re reading this thinking “Get to the point”. There really isn’t a point atm. I’m just writing what I think and how I feel. That’s why I have created this blog. I’m just gonna jot down things that happen and possibly mention how it affects me and my mental health, as that is something I struggle with on a daily basis. Even when I am well, my anxiety is still looming, it’s just not as intense and over-whelming. People forget that. They seem to think if you’re smiling again then the anxiety must have passed. I get a bit tired of having to explain that all the time so I just don’t. 

If you live with anxiety, it lingers. Even on the good days, it’s there in the background. I tend to choose to hide it quite a lot so patchwork mind is me trying not to hide anymore.