One Foot in Front of the Other

I'm sitting, alone, in a coffee shop in a food shop, just watching the world go by and processing things.  Once upon a time my anxiety would have prevented me from doing this,  so the fact I drove here - alone - am sitting - alone - is a huge achievement.  I know all things are a journey.

Between you and I I've been somewhat of a crazy obsessed lady lately, it's all been internalised but I've been...target fixated for want of a better phrase.  I lost a baby a few months ago and as you would expect it's been a defining moment for me.  It was a planned pregnancy but neither L and I expected to fall so quickly, so it wasn't really a surprise when I handed him the test and burst into tears.  I could say a dozen things about timings, fears and muted joy but none of that matters, not really, not now.

I can be really good at hiding from the truth and despite learning that this is never possible (Freud had to be right about something) I still do it.  I have this deep inner self-doubt, this childish thing of running away when things get too emotionally intense and I panic.  A voice in my head tells me 'I can't do this, I don't love you enough for this' and then I spiral out of control as panic, fear and self-doubt vie for dominance.  Three snakes twinning themselves about my heart, my head and my confidence.

The moment that test turned positive I told myself I didn't want the baby.  I was going to be a terrible mother, I already had a bad relationship with my body and body image, I was going to suffer with postnatal depression, I wasn't going to cope, I wasn't going to bond with it, and it was going to drastically change mine and L's relationship.  Between that and getting a new job, in which I was going to have to tell my boss more or less as soon as the ink was dry on my contract, that I was pregnant, I felt some sense of relief when I lost it.  At least I thought I did.

I don't know where I am on the losing the baby-getting pregnant again thing.  I just know that I've become obsessed with buying pregnancy tests, checking when I might be fertile, putting our sex life under the microscope, checking if I were to fall now when my due date would be, buying new clothes and checking that I can get some maternity wear out of them, and feeling frustrated that I have an irregular cycle (suspected PCOS).  This is the point in which I would usually inject a bit of humour, like telling myself I need a hobby, to defuse the situation and take some of the intense emotions out of it.  But I'm coming empty.

Taking my unhinged hormones out of the equation I really don't know where I am on... all of this.  I just know that I need to keep putting one foot in front of the other and eventually, eventually, I will arrive at wherever I am meant to be.

Anger

Everything makes me angry at the moment, literally everything.

I've screamed at an old woman driving because she lacked the awareness to see I was waiting on a pedestrian crossing to cross the road.  She didn't hear me so apparently she's deaf as well as blind.

I honked my car horn at a couple driving - first they pulled out on me causing me to have to break sharply, then later on down the road they indicated and pulled in last minute but didn't pull in properly so caused me to have to swerve round them.  Apparently Kellogs are giving out licences in their boxes of bran flakes.

Unhelpful and insensitive words of wisdom.  3 separate people have said, "You'll just have to keep trying" like we're talking about reaching the next level on a game or solving a mathematical sum.  Not to sit on the fence here but that advice is about as comforting and useful as titts on a fish.

People telling me what it's okay to feel - EVERYTHING I feel is OKAY to feel but thanks for the validation.

People judging me on how I am or am not dealing with this, everyone is entitled to their opinion just as I'm entitled to say you can stick your judgement where the sun don't shine.

The new series of Girls...utter vomit inducing drivel.  The characters' incessant narcissistic whining is, I hope, complete fiction, surely no one in reality can be that egotistical.

Fighting the company the military have outsourced housing to over getting our pet dander infested and piss stained carpets changed. It seems we have very different understanding of what an "acceptable standard" is, theirs is scraping the bottom of the hygiene barrel and mine is not having to take two antihistamines a day in addition to apologising to every guest we have.

Not being a able to move on and have closure. I'm still bleeding and no one can tell me how long this is going to last, psychologically this is a torturous reminder of the fact I carried my baby for four weeks while it had already died. My womb was a birth grave.

DeMOCKracy

I don't usually wade in on politics, or anything for that matter, as I think everyone is entitled to their opinion and it's not in my nature to attempt to persuade others to my way of thinking.  That said, I do have an opinion on what's unfolding on social media about our EU referendum and so in my own quiet way I'm going to take it apart so I can process it.

I cannot believe the hateful, bullying and belittling things that are being said about voters who chose to leave or remain.  The whole point of democracy is that EVERYONE is permitted a voice and the freedom to choose, anything less than that is tyranny and a dictatorship.  Everyone has the right to an opinion but no one has the right to bully, insult, shame, or name call because some one else has a different opinion.  And that goes for everyone whether you voted to leave or remain.  Voting to leave no more makes you a racist or insane or a bigot than voting to remain makes you a tree hugging hipster or a working class free-loader or a delusional twat.  Such horrible vitriol saddens me.  I am staggered by the amount of intelligent adults who have taken to mocking, deriding and insulting others.  When was it decided that it was okay to put the mock in democracy in capital letters and to focus on that?

Do they do this out of fear? Fear of the unknown and uncertainty? Possibly, I couldn't say and wouldn't presume to say it was so.  As a person who openly admits to suffering with anxiety about these things I can say I've learnt one very important lesson about coping with it: it all comes down to choice.  Moving forward we all have a choice to make about our behaviour and how we cope, we can choose to give into our fears, to allow the voice of uncertainty to stoke our worries and watch the fallout.  Or we could choose to move forward in a positive fashion, to look at our options and have confidence in our ability to cope with whatever comes.

I honestly don't know where we go from here or how this decision is going to impact me and the ones I love, what I do know for certainty in the face of this uncertainty is that I am not going to stop loving my family, friends and neighbours, nor will I stop embracing change and diversity.

Dark Insidious Doubt

L is frustrated and dare I say it, angry with me.

What for?... My poor organisation skills and my lack of forward planning.

In my defence and it's no real defence at all but I've always been a last minute person, not because I'm one of those types who only does their best work under pressure, but because I'm in denial.

I live in a world where I'm an ostrich and if I just bury my head whatever I'm worried about, procrastinating about, delaying doing - will magically go away or someone else will deal with it for me.

I haven't always been like this, I'm not going to rehash over old issues but suffice to say a combination of events some four years ago up ended me on my backside and robed me of my confidence in myself.  

Now dark insidious doubt is my constant companion and I'm crippled by indecision at every turn.

It's not an excuse, it's an explanation however unacceptable L finds it.

There's no point denying I don't do myself any favours by NOT preparing for things in advance, yet...self doubt always sways me to denial, procrastination and fear.

Dark insidious doubt always wins over my good intentions to prepare and organise myself better.

How do I explain that?

In Memory of Ann Clare Smisek

Dear Ann,

Wow. I am utterly stunned that you are gone. I can't believe that I am never going to see you again, it all feels...surreal, like a bad dream that if I just shake myself or tell myself to wake up I can free myself from it. I wish it were so. I feel at a total loss, like the rug has been pulled out from underneath me. I'm struggling to understand what your absence means to me and so many others.

There is an ache in the centre of my chest knowing I am never going to see your smiling face again, or hear the infectious sound of your laughter, or feel awed by the wealth of your knowledge and the extent of your kindness. You have always been my fountain of knowledge, the one person I knew who I could turn to for academic guidance and help with my research - your assistance with my Masters dissertation was invaluable, without you I wouldn't have known where to start.

I have never known a woman as kind, generous, forgiving, self-sacrificing and as amazing as you. I feel honoured and privileged to have known you and to have been so warmly accepted in to your intimate circle of family and friends. When I think of you I remember you playfully flicking water at us from the birdbath in your garden, I remember your mouthwatering mashed patoto, I remember you taking Luke and I to the Hollywood Bowl to experience the Tchaikovsky Spectacular with Fireworks in August (which was awesome), I remember you hosting my birthday dinner, I remember the generous wedding gift Dick and yourself gave Luke and I...when I think of you happy memories clamour for attention and I smile.

The loss of you has touched me deeply and I grieve for the space in my life that you once filled. The world is already a much darker, colder and unfriendly place without you in it.

Ann, you have been and will always be loved, envied, regarded as intensely inspiring and you will be sorely missed. Thank you for the love, laughter and happiness that you gave me in the time that I knew you. To know you is to love you and I miss you already.

May you rest in peace Ann Clare Smisek and know we will do the best that we can to be there for those that will miss you most - your loving family.

Love you, love me.

Natasha

Square One

I'm not having a good time of it at the moment. Today, along with yesterday, the day before that, the day before that, the day before that, the day...you see where I am going with this I have been very tearful.

Worse still yesterday I was in a perfect RAGE. I wanted to smash things, to kick things, to punch things, to destroy just about anything I could get my hands on. I didn't though. I went round a friends house and sobbed in her arms for about 10 minutes. A good cry is meant to make you feel better but it didn't, I don't feel any better than I did yesterday.

What started me off? Everything and nothing and the usual.

I know I need to get to the bottom of what is making me feel so stressed, tearful, anxious, withdrawn, vulnerable and overwhelmed...but I'm afraid of what I might find if I do.

So that leaves me right where I started, square one.