First week of the school holidays – done.

Not going to lie.  It’s been hard.  I’m exhausted from work.  And from not sleeping (back pain).  And just from life in general to be honest.  My mother informed me a couple of days ago that she thought I was depressed.  Again.  I probably am.  I should probably go and see the GP.  Or return to the anti-depressants.  I haven’t done either of these things.  But I did send my previous counsellor a text (couldn’t face calling 🙄 ).  She hasn’t replied.  But then she’s probably on holiday too.  Am aiming to ring her tomorrow, but who knows where my brain will be at.  I also did something else today.  For Me.  I went out for a jolly with my horse, and a friend and her horse.  We went somewhere new.  And it was good.  I enjoyed it.  And it has completely lifted my mood this afternoon.  I’ve been able to actually parent in a positive and constructive way.  And my daughter has been a delight. Who’d have thunk it?!

Week 2 commences tomorrow.  I feel more prepared mentally.  Which I realise sounds ridiculous.  I mean, I am a mum.  I should know that I have to actually parent my child during the holidays. But I am also a human being who struggles with her own mental health.  Who makes mistakes.  Who has a permanent cloud of guilt surrounding her.  But this morning’s jolly has gone a little way to helping.  Long may that feeling last!

Have been reading back through this blog.

Didn’t take long.  There aren’t that many entries.  But there are common themes.  And the scary thing is, not much seems to have improved.  I’d say work/life balance is currently relatively good, certainly where my daughter is concerned.  I mean, teaching is tough.  No matter how many hours you do at school, you will always do more at home.  It is the nature of the beast, especially when you have a family.  Financially, I’m in a better place than I have been for years.  Emotionally?  Hhhmmmmm, probably not so much.  I’m a bit up and down.  Not manically up, and not depressed down.  Just a little rollercoaster like.  And a little more so than the average person I suspect.  I need to get it under control.  Am going to embrace mindfulness and meditation.  I mean, I’ve considered it in the past.  And dabbled a little.  But I need to create strategies for when shit gets too tough.  I need to remember to believe in myself.

I also need to learn to listen to the right voice (metaphorically speaking – I don’t really hear voices, honestly!).  Not that voice that tells me I’m not good enough.  At anything.  Or the voice that tells me I’m doing a shite job.  At everything.  I need to get some control back. Because, do you know what?  I’m doing okay.  I’m good at my job (for the most part!).  My daughter is (to the people that she needs to be) polite, well mannered, thoughtful, and is doing really well at school.  I need to recognise that when she screams at me that she hates me, she is just being a child.  And that she has to vent somewhere.  In my head, I am providing her with a safe place to vent.  I don’t know if there’s any sense in that, or any logic.  And I try really, really hard not to react.  But sometimes I do.  Sometimes I bite.  Sometimes I lose my shit.  And then the guilt hits.  BAM!  Bad parent alert.  Damaging my child for life I am.

Continuing with the doing okay theme, I have friends.  Kind of.  I struggle with socialising.  Which has got worse since I lived on my own.  Once I’m out, I’m fine.  But the thought of going out.  Of what to wear.  Of getting there.  Of providing myself with an escape route should I need it.  Not to mention the stress and hassle of finding someone to babysit…  And the fear of being judged.  I mean, no fucker is going to be looking twice at me for any other reason than to criticise.  And I’m not good at handling that.  Which is probably why I’m a little too reliant on internet friends.  Speaking of which, I deleted Facebook from my phone today.  Not Messenger.  Just the Facebook app.  I waste far too much time looking at shite that just makes me feel worse about myself.  There is very little on there that improves my quality of life.  Very little.  I’ll continue to look at it on my laptop, but am going to try really hard to keep it off my phone.

What else am I doing okay at…?  Um, breathing?  Probably just as well really…

A downside of being a single parent…

…is the inherent loneliness on an evening once the child is in bed.  And the subsequent reliance on internet friends.  And then the resulting paranoia when they do in fact prove to have a life themselves and are not necessarily just waiting to prop you up once again.

I count myself to be incredibly lucky.  I have been through some rough times.  Where I chose to (or felt I needed to) withdraw in person, but felt able to reach out via the internet.  And there I found a few wonderful friends.  We meet up a few times a year, and they are incredibly supportive.  And capable of giving a good arse kicking at the same time.  They don’t pander to my pity parties, but at the same time empathise and sympathise in a way that truly helps.  I’d like to think I return the favour.  I don’t know. You’d have to ask them.

But when you feel an urge to connect with someone, and there’s no one there – for whatever reason – that old friend paranoia comes a-knocking.  This age of technology, where you can see whether someone has actually read your message (or not, because by not reading it, they are clearly actively ignoring you.   In my current state of mind anyway…), is not healthy.  At least for me it’s not.  I mean, the Law of Averages says that sooner or later someone will reply.  The irony is that I adopt the same principles if I don’t want to reply to someone.  Only when I don’t want to reply, it’s because I lack the mental energy (and sometimes capacity) to compose something suitable.  Or to read the content.

So it figures that I should cut my internet friends some slack really doesn’t it?  I mean, no one should have to be on call 24/7.  Especially to randoms via the internet…  Everyone is fighting a battle that no one else knows about.  I need to find peace and contentment within myself.  Hhhmmmmm.  That might be tricky in practice!

In the absence of anywhere else…

…to offload my shit, here I am again.  Sorry.  Last post was in August 2015.  I clearly felt I didn’t have the need to blog.  Or maybe I didn’t want to?  I can’t remember.  Maybe life was so depressing that writing about how depressing it was made me feel guilty for whinging about my life when others have it so much worse, which then in turn made me more depressed.  Who knows?  Not me that’s for sure.

So, what’s new?  Changed schools in January 2016.  HLTA post.  Every day but more money and not as much work as teaching.  Did that for two terms.  Got opportunity to teach as part of a job share at same school, so have been doing that since September.  It’s been a fantastic year.  I can honestly say, it’s been the best teaching year I’ve had since I qualified – which was some time ago!  The team I’m working with are a lot of fun.  And the kids have really made progress.  Clearly, it was all too good to be true as I was informed 10 days ago that I wouldn’t be required as a teacher but could return to my HLTA post, because the teacher that was off on maternity leave wanted to return part time, and the school had filled her original post with a full time teacher…  Not going to lie.  It stung.  I was upset. Very upset.  I still am upset, but now I’m upset with a point to prove.  Which makes me more focused and a little bit dangerous – this year’s maths results will be bloody brilliant.

Le job news coincided with a friend passing away.  He’d been fighting cancer since his diagnosis back in 2014.  And he’d fought hard.  He was one of the best people I’ve ever been lucky enough to meet.  He really was.  My daughter adored him.  I adored him.  His wife, who is also a good friend, is understandably in pieces.  Lost without him.  She has many friends, but most have shrunk away in that “I don’t know how to help now” fog that occurs after a funeral.  But, you don’t have to help.  You just have to be there.  To make time.  To have conversations.  If I’m brutally honest, I think it’s provided me with a distraction from the shite that is currently work.  And the shite that is currently my personal life (that may well be a whole other post to be honest).   And all the other shite that’s jumbled up in the eleventy billion thoughts whizzing round in my head.

I want to feel better.  I don’t want to feel down.  Or depressed.  Or shite.  I want to feel normal.  Even happy?  I’m not even sure I’m capable of that.  Every time I think I am, something happens and I get knocked back down again.  I guess the difference between depressed people and normal people is the way they deal with that knock down?  I mean, how DO people deal with knock downs?  Do you pretend it’s not happening?  I mean, I’ve tried to look for the bright side re the job.  I can list the bright side points: less to no work in the evenings, no responsibilities, less stress, potentially more sleep.  But the flip of that?  HLTA role is isolating – you’re not part of a team, and work very much on your own.  Feeling isolated isn’t fun at the best of times – even less so when you’re prone to bouts of depression.  Pays less.  Which will add to the overall stress of life in general – again, this year I have literally just got my finances sorted.  Sigh.  And, your opinions/thoughts carry less weight, even if they are valid.  Which shouldn’t matter I know, but for some reason it does.  I guess it’s because you don’t feel as if you contribute to the overall picture.

See?  It’s whinge city here.  Pity party for one.  Feel free to close the window or go someplace else.  Because there’s more…  A month or so ago, I hurt my back.  I hurt it because I decided to go running after not done so for about 4 months.  What I had neglected to take into consideration was the amount of weight I have put on.  Which has made my chest considerably larger (you have my permission to laugh…).  Anyhow, this losing combination basically fucked my back up.  It’s nowhere near as bad as it was, but I have this constant ache whenever I am sitting or standing.  And, thanks to the eleventy billion thoughts whizzing around my head, I have a real issue with food at the moment.  As in I seem to have lost control of my eating.  Which is a real problem, especially when you can’t exercise.  So, the weight has continued to pile on.

This is not helping with the general feeling of shiteness.  I literally hate myself.  I hate my thoughts.  I hate my body.  I hate my apparent lack of control.  I’m not overly keen on the way my life is panning out at the moment, but I lack the imagination to change it.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve been in a far worse place than this.  Where the only things I could watch on telly had to involve violence and murder and hatred.  I’m currently watching Buffy.  Which I love.  Utterly love.  The Walking Dead is another favourite too – but actually I guess both of those veer towards the Dark Side don’t they?  Hhmmm, perhaps I’m not where I thought I was?!

Well, that was a barrel of laughs wasn’t it?  Sorry if I’ve made anyone’s Sunday evening a little bit rubbish.  There are some good bits.  My relationship with my daughter has continued to flourish.  It’s a little bit like a rollercoaster, but there are more good bits than there used to be.  Which has made the angst of previous job decisions worthwhile.  Has this been cathartic?  A little bit I think.  But there’s so much more…

It’ll have to wait.