Salad and thanks

Well, I got through it and I am a hell of a lot better than I was a few weeks ago. I hunkered down, avoided alcohol (it's a depressant, innit?) and friends (generally not depressants) and stayed at home with Ralphie. We watched a lot of TV and did some snuggling, I did a lot of knitting - she did her best to eat as much wool as possible - and I tried to cook myself some healthy meals and get some early nights.

 

And slowly, it worked. Each day I got a little better until now, I'm almost back to my normal. I'm still a little bit flat, but I'm much more myself.

 

People have been unexpectedly kind. Lots and lots of people have asked after me, which I greatly appreciate. My friends have been incredibly supportive and, thankfully, didn’t take offence when I told them that I didn’t want to see them for a while. Shout-outs here particularly go to @misswhiplash, @miss_jordi, @vhatyoutalking, @ginandcrumpets and, last but certainly not least, @janiestamford who, either through the medium of text or, more recently, in the flesh, have all been brilliant.

So during my hibernation, I have embraced knitting for babies and salad.    It transpires that it's leaves that I'm not wild about but apparently salad doesn’t have to be about leaves! Who knew?! Here are a couple that I made:

I really need to expand my repertoire.

So. That’s that, for now. I managed and dealt with it and I’m a lot better than I was. It will happen again – it always does – but hopefully I’ll get a bit of respite for a while. And while I have my respite, I'm going to do my best to enjoy myself and be as happy as I can be.

Black Dog

My Black Dog has descended.  He’s something that I fight every day of my life but, perhaps twice a year, he moves himself in and I can’t, for love nor money, get rid of him. 

The world becomes a very scary and unpleasant place when he’s here.  I find myself sitting in silence and staring into space for hours on end.  When I’m not doing that, chances are I’m crying.  The sort of crying that physically hurts and feels like it will never stop.  My stomach becomes this tight ball of anxiety and anger...the anger is the worst part for me. 

I hate anything and everything – including you, probably.  I grew up in a family where anger was never expressed and it’s something that I now fear because it is such an unfamiliar emotion and I’m scared of the consequences of it bubbling over and showing its face.  I see everything as a personal slight.  Friends who are out and about having fun clearly don’t care about me at all...how dare they get on with their lives when I’m on my knees?  Everything makes me angry.

I know that I’m not being rational – clearly I’m being insane and unreasonable and unpleasant.  I know all of that.  I become this vile, bitter person.  So very bitter.

I am alienating everyone right now, including the person I probably care about most in the world.  I’m just being so bloody horrible to him and he inexplicably sticks around despite the fact that I’ve done this to him several times now. 

I’m not sure of the purpose of this post.  It’s not one that I’m sending to facebook or twitter, so it’s not one that I’m really putting out there to be read.  I think it’s probably just my way of explaining to my friends that might stumble across it, why I’m disappearing for a while and why I’m cancelling the things that we’re supposed to be doing together.  It’s my way of apologising for being like this.  Believe me, I don’t enjoy it.