It's christmas eve, a time when everyone should be feeling merry and excited about what's in store for them the next day. Meanwhile I'm still bluer that ever.
I can smell the turkey that's been cooked a day early. At first it made me feel christmassy but then I remember it's not christmas yet and I won't wake up to the smell of fresh turkey tomorrow instead it will be cold. They've also bought tinned carrots. I don't want to appear snobbish or ungrateful it just doesn't feel like a real christmas dinner to me. Everything my family have is fresh. I won't get to see my family in person tomorrow either, only via webcam and I doubt they'll be missing me too much. Probably far too caught up in spoiling my sister rotten as always.
I can't get off my mind how much money i've not got left in my bank account and the feeling it'll take me a long time to recover if I ever do. Slowly i'm loosing all of my savings. I say mine but really it's just money i've been gifted by people. I'm somehow incapable of saving money. It just drains out of my account like it's a sieve. It's not that I don't try to stop it or that i'm frivelous with it, it's just that finances aren't my strong point. I've never been good at maths and this kind of thing scares the shit out of me.
OH and I are supposed to be looking for a new abode, something i'd dearly love but I just know that it will be my finances that put a spanner in the works. He has loads saved I don't even have a 3 digit sum to my name at the moment.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Christmas Blues
I just checked my bank balance. I'm -£300 on my current account and my credit card lots equally grey. What's worse is my saving wouldn't even make a dint on it. It's not as if i'm in debt as such. Just more a lack of money at this moment in time. I've not been paid yet this month. I thought I would have been paid early given it being christmas but there's no sign of it yet.
It's not just the money that's getting me down though (although it's kind of the icing on the cake) it's just the season in itself. You can see by my previous post i've not been very cheery at the moment. I'd hoped it would have cleared a little by now given the festive season but then i'd forgotten how morose the holidays make me feel. Usually it doesn't kick in until Christmas is actually underway and almost over owing to the cramped surroundings I find myself in with family having taking over my room and me sleeping on a floor somewhere with nowhere to go and be alone and recollect myself. That's been a real problem in the last few years.
My Gran was involved in an RTA in 2001 and ever since then she's been declining in health her memory and mobility in particular. I've watched gradually as every little piece of the 'old' Gran has disappeared. The one that told me stories of her in the war, sang in choirs, visited people and knew everything there was to know about them, baked cakes, remembered where I was and what I was doing. Every Christmas since then it's gotten harder and harder for me to be around her. I feel like I can't even have a conversation with her anymore. I have to talk slower and louder because she can't hear (I know that's a common thing with older people), every 5 minutes she asks me questions which i've already told her the answer to 3 or 4 times and she doesn't remember i've told her the answer. She can't remember where i'm living, she thinks that i'm just visiting my OH and not living with him (one small blessing is she remembers who he is). She also can't remember that i'm no longer on my PGCE and training to be a teacher which breaks my heart as she used to be a teacher and was so pleased that I was going to be one. It also makes me low because I have to explain the agonising truth (that I got stressed/depressed) as to why I left every single time she asks.
My Gran went into a home about a month ago now. She wasn't feeding or washing herself properly and got sick and had two stints in hospital so this year Christmas will be very different for her and for us. My parents are having her over for Christmas dinner. I think they're picking her up Christmas eve and she's going home boxing day with my uncle, not that he's happy about it. Sometimes I think he just wants to get rid of her that he thinks she's a burden or maybe he expects more of her I don't know but it hurts when he says or does things that are negative.
My Christmas is going to be even more different than that this year. It will be my first Christmas not spent with my family. Instead OH and I are going to spend it with his family. I'm sure it will be nice but it won't be the same as mine. There won't be hot freshly cooked turkey for lunch (they cook it the day before); they give their presents out over christmas day, boxing day and new years day instead of just on christmas day which my family do (which is sort of nice as you spread the christmas out a bit). I probably won't go to church like I would do with my family and i'll have to wait till the 27th or possibly 28th to give out my gifts to my family.
All this has left me feeling lonely and out of sorts. It doesn't feel like Christmas at all. I'm not sure i'll even enjoy it. I just get the feeling that this year i'll just melt into the background with no one noticing i'm even here. My parents are supposed to be linking up the webcam on Christmas day so we can have a video chat but they'll probably forget. These days I feel like i'm not even on their list of priorities. I phone up and I can't even get a conversation out off them they're too busy talking to people in the room with them, usually my sister who is obviously their favourite. I find out that they've been places or done things that I would have loved to have done had they thought to invite me but they don't.
I think i'm just going to have to grit my teeth, put on my false smile and pretend as usual that everything is o.k with me and hopefully no one will notice that my world is slowly falling apart again and that barring some miracle i'll have committed suicide by next Christmas.
It's not just the money that's getting me down though (although it's kind of the icing on the cake) it's just the season in itself. You can see by my previous post i've not been very cheery at the moment. I'd hoped it would have cleared a little by now given the festive season but then i'd forgotten how morose the holidays make me feel. Usually it doesn't kick in until Christmas is actually underway and almost over owing to the cramped surroundings I find myself in with family having taking over my room and me sleeping on a floor somewhere with nowhere to go and be alone and recollect myself. That's been a real problem in the last few years.
My Gran was involved in an RTA in 2001 and ever since then she's been declining in health her memory and mobility in particular. I've watched gradually as every little piece of the 'old' Gran has disappeared. The one that told me stories of her in the war, sang in choirs, visited people and knew everything there was to know about them, baked cakes, remembered where I was and what I was doing. Every Christmas since then it's gotten harder and harder for me to be around her. I feel like I can't even have a conversation with her anymore. I have to talk slower and louder because she can't hear (I know that's a common thing with older people), every 5 minutes she asks me questions which i've already told her the answer to 3 or 4 times and she doesn't remember i've told her the answer. She can't remember where i'm living, she thinks that i'm just visiting my OH and not living with him (one small blessing is she remembers who he is). She also can't remember that i'm no longer on my PGCE and training to be a teacher which breaks my heart as she used to be a teacher and was so pleased that I was going to be one. It also makes me low because I have to explain the agonising truth (that I got stressed/depressed) as to why I left every single time she asks.
My Gran went into a home about a month ago now. She wasn't feeding or washing herself properly and got sick and had two stints in hospital so this year Christmas will be very different for her and for us. My parents are having her over for Christmas dinner. I think they're picking her up Christmas eve and she's going home boxing day with my uncle, not that he's happy about it. Sometimes I think he just wants to get rid of her that he thinks she's a burden or maybe he expects more of her I don't know but it hurts when he says or does things that are negative.
My Christmas is going to be even more different than that this year. It will be my first Christmas not spent with my family. Instead OH and I are going to spend it with his family. I'm sure it will be nice but it won't be the same as mine. There won't be hot freshly cooked turkey for lunch (they cook it the day before); they give their presents out over christmas day, boxing day and new years day instead of just on christmas day which my family do (which is sort of nice as you spread the christmas out a bit). I probably won't go to church like I would do with my family and i'll have to wait till the 27th or possibly 28th to give out my gifts to my family.
All this has left me feeling lonely and out of sorts. It doesn't feel like Christmas at all. I'm not sure i'll even enjoy it. I just get the feeling that this year i'll just melt into the background with no one noticing i'm even here. My parents are supposed to be linking up the webcam on Christmas day so we can have a video chat but they'll probably forget. These days I feel like i'm not even on their list of priorities. I phone up and I can't even get a conversation out off them they're too busy talking to people in the room with them, usually my sister who is obviously their favourite. I find out that they've been places or done things that I would have loved to have done had they thought to invite me but they don't.
I think i'm just going to have to grit my teeth, put on my false smile and pretend as usual that everything is o.k with me and hopefully no one will notice that my world is slowly falling apart again and that barring some miracle i'll have committed suicide by next Christmas.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Back to Black
Feeling totally shit today. OH is away on a training course in London till Thursday night so i'm on my own.
I'm alone and I'm really feeling it. I know that he'll be back in a few days but I doubt the feeling will disappear. It's not just a feeling of being on my own momentarily, it's a lifetime of lonleness. It's been there for a long long time way before I was with the OH. It's the feeling I get in the pit of my stomach when I watch normal people happy and smiley and chattering away to each other, like a lunchtimes, while I sit there in silence having tried to join in and make them smile like others do and all I seem to get in conversation is niceties. "How are you?" "Fine, you?" "fine" *silence*. It's the feeling I get when the OH's father shouts at me for opening the dishwasher door when it was on accidently. It's the fear that whatever I say or do will somehow be ridiculed or won't be good enough. The knowing that somehow i'm not meant to be happy, that my life is meant to be full of gloom. The certainty that when I want someone to notice how down I am and that I need a hug, to just be held and them not care or need to know why will never happen. For example this evening my dad texted to say my gran's phone is now up and working at her rest home. I texted back saying o.k i'll try and ring her tomorrow and asked him how he was. Then said that my tooth was aching again (I had bad toothache a few weeks back which turned out to be an infection and it needs to come out but as i'm woosy I need to be sedated which needs the proper person so I have to wait). I'd hoped that he'd text back with some sympathy. All I actually got was "O.k. - off to the gym tonight". Nan rang too but she hung up pretty quick as she said I was listening. What was actually happening was I was trying my hardest not to cry so she wouldn't ask why.
That's where the other feeling comes in it's the knowledge that when I'd rather just slip into the dark ether and not be noticed everyone wants to know what's wrong and why i'm so upset. Which is the real grind because the words "i'm depressed" or "everything" don't cut it. Somehow you're not allowed to feel so earth shatteringly down that nothing feels good. "I'm depressed" seems to be code for oh dear we're feeling a little hormonal today or feeling a little sad. If only. I spent years trying to convince my parents that I was depressed. I'm absolutely sure that teenage girls do not cry themselves to sleep nearly every night or dream of ways they can kill themselves because they didn't get an answer right in maths that day. They don't break down in tears when a family friend's daughther and parents talk to their family about how said daughter is having counselling for their depression. How many times did I have to pleed with them that I was depressed before they would acknowledge it. The answer is I still am. Even after i'd had my breakdown in 2008 my mother still refused/refuses to believe that I was depressed as a teenager. I know for a fact that I was. I know I still am now even if they think i'm not.
Today I have no idea why I am depressed. Just that I am and it feels like nothing will cure it. Some may say it's because of my tooth. It may well be but I somehow don't think that is the sum total of the reasons.
I quite often wonder what the point of me being on this earth is because quite obviously I am just a burden to it's fellow occupants. I feel like I don't deserve to be alive. The hardest thing is keeping up the pretense to everyone else that i'm o.k. so they won't worry. What do you tell your nearest and dearest when they ask you if you're o.k or even worse are you happy? How the hell am I meant to answer that? How can you tell the people you love that there are some days where no matter how many people you have surrounding you, you feel completely alone or that some days you wish that you weren't here anymore. That happiness is just a fleeting glint or that you're both not happy and happy at the same time because if you say you're not then they assume you don't like or love them anymore and there is some great crisis or they're causing your pain but if you say you're happy then they can either quite obviously see you're not or they just tell you to stop sulking and snap out of the mood then. I desperately want to rid myself of this horrible black dog but I just don't know how. I'd go back to the doctor but I just get the feeling that they'd put me on drugs which I know won't work and I don't want to be on them. The counselling didn't work I just felt ridiculed and belittled by them like I was some silly little girl. I'm worried too if I go back to the doctor that somehow i'll be forced to tell work and that'll be my career over before it's even had chance to get started and that after failing the PGCE that'll be another job I can't do that came close to what I wanted to do. I just feel like what's the point in trying anymore. It's gotten me very little good stuff and mostly heartache.
I'm alone and I'm really feeling it. I know that he'll be back in a few days but I doubt the feeling will disappear. It's not just a feeling of being on my own momentarily, it's a lifetime of lonleness. It's been there for a long long time way before I was with the OH. It's the feeling I get in the pit of my stomach when I watch normal people happy and smiley and chattering away to each other, like a lunchtimes, while I sit there in silence having tried to join in and make them smile like others do and all I seem to get in conversation is niceties. "How are you?" "Fine, you?" "fine" *silence*. It's the feeling I get when the OH's father shouts at me for opening the dishwasher door when it was on accidently. It's the fear that whatever I say or do will somehow be ridiculed or won't be good enough. The knowing that somehow i'm not meant to be happy, that my life is meant to be full of gloom. The certainty that when I want someone to notice how down I am and that I need a hug, to just be held and them not care or need to know why will never happen. For example this evening my dad texted to say my gran's phone is now up and working at her rest home. I texted back saying o.k i'll try and ring her tomorrow and asked him how he was. Then said that my tooth was aching again (I had bad toothache a few weeks back which turned out to be an infection and it needs to come out but as i'm woosy I need to be sedated which needs the proper person so I have to wait). I'd hoped that he'd text back with some sympathy. All I actually got was "O.k. - off to the gym tonight". Nan rang too but she hung up pretty quick as she said I was listening. What was actually happening was I was trying my hardest not to cry so she wouldn't ask why.
That's where the other feeling comes in it's the knowledge that when I'd rather just slip into the dark ether and not be noticed everyone wants to know what's wrong and why i'm so upset. Which is the real grind because the words "i'm depressed" or "everything" don't cut it. Somehow you're not allowed to feel so earth shatteringly down that nothing feels good. "I'm depressed" seems to be code for oh dear we're feeling a little hormonal today or feeling a little sad. If only. I spent years trying to convince my parents that I was depressed. I'm absolutely sure that teenage girls do not cry themselves to sleep nearly every night or dream of ways they can kill themselves because they didn't get an answer right in maths that day. They don't break down in tears when a family friend's daughther and parents talk to their family about how said daughter is having counselling for their depression. How many times did I have to pleed with them that I was depressed before they would acknowledge it. The answer is I still am. Even after i'd had my breakdown in 2008 my mother still refused/refuses to believe that I was depressed as a teenager. I know for a fact that I was. I know I still am now even if they think i'm not.
Today I have no idea why I am depressed. Just that I am and it feels like nothing will cure it. Some may say it's because of my tooth. It may well be but I somehow don't think that is the sum total of the reasons.
I quite often wonder what the point of me being on this earth is because quite obviously I am just a burden to it's fellow occupants. I feel like I don't deserve to be alive. The hardest thing is keeping up the pretense to everyone else that i'm o.k. so they won't worry. What do you tell your nearest and dearest when they ask you if you're o.k or even worse are you happy? How the hell am I meant to answer that? How can you tell the people you love that there are some days where no matter how many people you have surrounding you, you feel completely alone or that some days you wish that you weren't here anymore. That happiness is just a fleeting glint or that you're both not happy and happy at the same time because if you say you're not then they assume you don't like or love them anymore and there is some great crisis or they're causing your pain but if you say you're happy then they can either quite obviously see you're not or they just tell you to stop sulking and snap out of the mood then. I desperately want to rid myself of this horrible black dog but I just don't know how. I'd go back to the doctor but I just get the feeling that they'd put me on drugs which I know won't work and I don't want to be on them. The counselling didn't work I just felt ridiculed and belittled by them like I was some silly little girl. I'm worried too if I go back to the doctor that somehow i'll be forced to tell work and that'll be my career over before it's even had chance to get started and that after failing the PGCE that'll be another job I can't do that came close to what I wanted to do. I just feel like what's the point in trying anymore. It's gotten me very little good stuff and mostly heartache.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
My comment on today's postsecrets
This week's postsecrets were dedicated to college and university leavers. Frank had been to a graduation ceremony somewhere in the US and given a speech. He's opened the commenting feature on the blog for one week only so that people can write their own pearls of wisdom to graduates. Here is my offering:
It's okay to fail. Sometimes your failures can be your biggest successes.
I failed my PGCE (teaching degree in u.k) last year due to stress and depression. When I look back now at the failures I had I can see that they only really made me stronger and more determined to suceed at what mattered. Since then I've got a job working as a teaching assistant, I've moved half way across the country to be with the person I loved most in the world and who supported me through all of it... and last month he proposed! What's more I'm happier than i've ever been.
Failing made me realise that succeeding is not always reaching the goal you set out for.
It's okay to fail. Sometimes your failures can be your biggest successes.
I failed my PGCE (teaching degree in u.k) last year due to stress and depression. When I look back now at the failures I had I can see that they only really made me stronger and more determined to suceed at what mattered. Since then I've got a job working as a teaching assistant, I've moved half way across the country to be with the person I loved most in the world and who supported me through all of it... and last month he proposed! What's more I'm happier than i've ever been.
Failing made me realise that succeeding is not always reaching the goal you set out for.
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