So this time of year is a funny time of year for me this year. And I don't know why. I managed to get the lurgy....the one that makes you feel like your throat is the throat off the strepsils add with the rotating razor blades....yes, ouchie!! Anyway everything that I had organised was cancelled Christmas week. This involved a surprise trip to the Ritz Carlton in Wicklow and my birthday night out which for once was gonna be epic as all the people I loved were free and home from far away lands. I had an epic depression filled day that was completely not like me. I couldn't shake the feelings I had that day. I was so upset. Feeling sorry for myself then feeling guilty about feeling sorry for myself when there was so much tragedy in the world. It kinda scared me if I'm honest. Was it the beginning of depression? It only lasted a day so I put it down to hormonal crappiness.
It got me thinking though about how I felt when I had my first daughter almost 10 years ago. This was back in the days when I was married and living in Navan. I loved her from the start but 6 months down the line all was defo not good in the hood! I began to feel like everything was closing in around me. Like there was no future, no past, no nothing. Just going through the motions daily to keep us both alive. It was the oddest feeling. I'd never had feelings like it. I put it down to being isolated from my family and not having many friends having moved 2 years prior to her birth. My then husband didn't get it but then he wouldn't. He had plenty of friends and worked 6 days a week. He was rarely there. It was me and my baby. Some people love this. I didn't. I felt completely cut off and completely overwhelmed at the thought of being so responsibile for her. I also felt somewhat resentful that I had been left holding the baby when it was a joint venture so to speak. Then I'd always feel guilty that I felt that she wasn't enough for me to be happy. It was a neverending cycle of feelings, feelings, feelings!! I told nobody about how I was feeling. Not even my then husband. I did eventually go to the doctor who said I had post natal depression. He prescribed me anti depressants and to my shame I didn't take them. I figured I'd "snap out of it". I did eventually but after having suffered unecessarily for a further 5 months. Silly bleedin sausauge eh :)
So I've been feeling fine until today and bam....it hit me again although not as strongly as last week. And to be honest I feel like such a zzzzzdope to even be feeling this way....as my dad would say "pull yourself together girl" but then my dad is one of those dads that unless you're bleeding out your eyes doesn't believe you're sick ha ha!! I'm trying to figure out what it is that has me feeling so helpless and resigned. Is it just the boredom of the silly season? Is it worrying about the health problems in my family? Is it worrying about my almost 10 year old and her phobia and how she's suffering daily? Is it feeling sad for my brothers girlfriend on the passing of her mother last week? Is it my cousings suicide and the effect it has had on the whole family? Is it the ending of a 30+ year friendship this year? Or is it just everything? I'm usually a bubbly person. I tend to be the one that make other people feel better. But when I'm not feeling good, I shut up shop. I don't let anybody in. So by writing this, I'm taking a gamble and letting you all in. Course it helps that i've never met most of you :) I'm nervous posting this to be honest cos I think my twitter peeps see me as a positive person but I know that feelings like this are normal and happen to most people now and then and the trick is not to let it bottle up so here I am unbottling and practising what I preach to others on twitter when they are feeling down. I wish you all a healthy New Year x
