Running alone in a haze

Dear Diary,
- and sometimes I wish you were a diary -
It's hard to keep a daily journal when you know your words could be read by anyone at any time. But for some reason it seems impossible for me to do it any other way.

I haven't updated my blipfoto journal for several days (although I have photos and will go through and put them in soon), instead I have been writing a journal in my head and thinking about what I would have written if I could have. On the days I did manage to upload photos last week I mostly kept my feelings to myself. Every day I've been thinking about what I would say if I had the confidence to write it down. But I've been afraid: afraid of what those words will look like, will say about me and what it would mean to openly admit my feelings. But more than that: many of the feelings are not permanent. And I've had too many experiences where something permanent has arisen from a temporary emotion.

Physical and emotional problems have collided in the last ten days and I've felt tired, withdrawn, frustrated, upset, trapped, and a whole host of other strong feelings. Weirdly, I didn't feel weak, I simply felt bombarded and unwell and seriously short of happy thoughts. I think I am strong, I think I am a fighter but there are some things I can't control and all I can do is battle through them. Part of my battling through things includes wanting space to clear my head. But I am so determined that sometimes I ignore the need to withdraw because I think I need to finish what I am doing first.

Today I feel a little less overwhelmed and a little less unwell, and things seem a lot easier. I insisted we went for a walk around Crow Point - which is exposed to the elements from all directions - and got totally whumped by the wind and had my face and eyeballs sandblasted. I can still feel sand in my teeth now. I walked against the unfriendly sandstorm feeling not strong but able, as if everything was suddenly a bit easier today. I hear the expression "mentally weak" often to indicate someone struggles with their mental health but I always think struggling with mental health takes enormous strength and being well actually makes things very easy.
So: I have been mentally strong for the last few days because I have fought hard and I am winning. It may not have been pleasant to watch but it took a lot of courage and energy.

Today I didn't mind been bullied by the weather, and I didn't mentally write myself a punishing and unrealistic list of things I should do in order to castigate myself for not achieving it later, instead I was lighter, I noticed a car number plate that made me laugh and I noticed how little effort being well takes. It's as if there is slightly less to contend with and less going on in the brain. I guess the simpler you can see things the happier you are.

I'm not sure exactly when it started, but about 10 days ago I woke up feeling that the day was going to be a struggle. I had that Monday feeling when usually I love Mondays. I said to a dear friend that I'd woken up feeling negative, but that was a lazy answer. I really woke up feeling frustrated with life, disappointed with the human race and worried about my family. I found myself thinking about my dad a lot and it seemed there were triggers everywhere last week to make me miss him.
It was like I was being tested. By the end of the week I was feeling quite unwell and getting pinching pains and bloating in my stomach, and by the weekend I realised I had a temperature. I was awake most of Saturday night with crazy itching in my ears and throat and so on Sunday went to chat to a pharmacist in the supermarket. I came away with an antifungal pill and think I am getting better now. It was useful because I've had these symptoms before and needed reminding which foods to stay away from.

The day before: Saturday, had been particularly awful because Mum came out to see me and I was in the middle of feeling crap. I'd also started a cleaning and tidying project and washing marathon based entirely around Gemma's room while she was away for the weekend, and on top of everything else I was feeling like an unappreciated drudge. After 2 days I realised I still needed another day to get her room tidy. And I was on wash number 10 of about 30 (yes, really...). While she was here Mum began to talk about Dad. It started off with really lovely memories of the day they first met (10th October 1966), the days following that, and little anecdotes which made her and me smile... briefly... But all too soon it was a familiar series of words and sentences and I couldn't cope. She has told me so many times in the last four years and 9 months how she can't live without Dad, she doesn't want to live without Dad, how she can't wait to die. She talks of suicide, how life and her grief are getting worse not better. She says again and again how she can see now how he was perfect for her and she wishes she could go back and be a better wife.
How many times can a daughter hear her mother say her life isn't worth living?
Once she starts it follows the same pattern, she uses the same words and talks as if I haven't heard it a thousand times. I have trouble handling all this at the best of times, but when life is already challenging me I just want her to stop. I want to be the child sometimes. For months after Dad died I listened to her on the phone every single night saying the same thing, day after day after day after day, week after week, month after month, and I tried to think up new responses, new answers, new solutions but eventually ran out of steam and also began to realise she wasn't taking in what I was saying anyway. It was a punishing time and I often drank a bottle of wine immediately after listening to her.

While she was here Richard came home from work, so he took Tess and the dog to the beach. When Mum had gone, Richard showed me a sunny photo he'd taken of Tess doing handstands in the sand. The light and the colour and the easiness of the scene after what I'd endured made me flip. I bit my knuckle hard and shouted how it should have been me taking that photo; I'd been trapped in domestic hell, I'd been stuck as a reluctant therapist, I should have been the one taking a beautiful photo of our beautiful daughter in the beautiful sunshine. I'd done nothing creative or rewarding for days and felt dead inside I yelled. I said I thought I was going to scream. Fortunately Richard saw that the simple solution was for us all to go back to the beach. So we did, and I took photos. And I felt a bit better, if still rather disturbed.
As a kind of therapy, I wanted to write on my blipfoto journal on Saturday how much I was struggling with that visit from my Mum (well, her words not the whole visit - as I remember I made a lovely pot of tea) on top of everything else, but I feared that she might find it and read it and feel guilty. I have to protect her from my feelings because she is racked with guilt and never seems to stop punishing herself for anything. She doesn't need any more guilt from me. But yesterday she went to France and she won't be reading my blipfoto (I'm not sure she knows what the URL is anyway without a link), so I feel 99% sure she won't see this.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty awful as I waited for the pill and the dietary restrictions to take effect and limited practically everything I enjoy. But I made a meal planner on Monday and shopped strictly for that, which has helped.

On our windy walk today I picked up 7 white stones and turned them over in my pocket while I thought about everything. The wind made conversation tricky anyway. I thought about the last few days and I also thought about space and light and air and wondered if perhaps we long for those things more these days because modern lives often don't allow them, or at least not enough of them We try to bring them into our homes where once our homes would have been a place for shelter, intimacy, privacy and warmth. We would have been surrounded by space and light and air once and spent much more time feeling small in a vast natural world. Maybe our surroundings are too small now and we feel too big.
I don't know. Just some thoughts on a big expanse of sand today. I do know I like feeling small though. Feeling big can make me feel insignificant because I feel an obligation to control my small surroundings. Weird, huh?
"Control" is the wrong word...

So that was my week and a bit, dear Diary. It's a weird way to write a "daily" journal but just for today it made more sense to me this way.

I'm not entirely sure what this photo looks like because I'm currently sitting in a patch of sunlight and I can't be bothered to move. Also, I took it through the car windscreen as Richard was driving. (Richard very kindly slowed down for me)