A mental health epiphany…

I think a very important friend of mine is upset with me and I’m in danger of losing her.

It made me start obsessing in my head. Which is why at 1am, even though I’ve been exhausted all day, I’m here, typing this. Thoughts are trying to unravel themselves. And I realised I am controlled by three things that I generally don’t talk about. I don’t really even talk about them with Hubby, although I have. To a degree. Plus he knows me better than I know myself.

I try not to talk to myself about them either. They are traits that I don’t want to reconcile to myself. They are not the person I want to be , after all, I’m a strong, independent, opinionated , modern woman right? Also I don’t know if my reactions are ‘common’ or just plain ‘mental’.

They are mental behaviour manifestations that are irrational and have an irrational control over me. I pretend they haven’t and I make a million other excuses in my head instead. But the fact is these three irrational reactions are having an impact on my life and its only just (and I mean, as-I-am-typing-just) dawned/dawning on me.

Way back when before LW, I had what I can only describe as a ‘breakdown’. After which I became almost phobic about a ringing phone. I’d have a panic attack on occasion. I stopped, except for work, using a phone to make calls. I’d put off making calls to family and friends. Fortunately most of this is hidden thanks to social media and email. All these years later I still have this irrational reaction to phones. I answer reluctantly because home is also my business so the phone has to be answered, but sometimes I simply don’t. And I very rarely phone someone. I plan to often. Then I put it off, or distract myself. I make excuses for why I haven’t in my head and generally I don’t. I rarely phone my parents. I almost never phone a friend. And sometimes I don’t phone even if I should because of work related matters. The result is I let people down. My parents. An elderly neighbour. This particular friend.

Shortly after moving to LW I had a second ‘breakdown’. When we moved here it was with the knowledge we could have an easy (albeit lengthy) journey to see family and friends. Since this second breakdown I have an irrational attitude to driving. And for long journeys I don’t even like being driven. I particularly dislike driving alone. The result is I often don’t go to places I want to go. But because I don’t admit this weakness, I make up all sorts of other scenarios in my head for why I can’t do the journey. Often I trick myself into pretending that I’m going to do the journey even though my brain is already also coming up with the excuses why I’m not going to. The result is it’s not until the last-minute that I admit I’m not going.

Quite often these battles in my head result in my being extremely tired and the result generally is I couldn’t drive even if I did want to. On the build up to that second ‘breakdown’ I was having regular panic attacks, poor Hubby had no idea. I was suffering from anxiety and that anxiety would manifest itself in me being instantly overwhelmed with tiredness the minute I got in a car. To the point of having to pull over and cat-nap. It got to the stage where to go to work I had to allow double the time. I’d get in the car and nearly be asleep by the time I was off the drive. I’d get out of the village and pull over. I’d get onto the Epynt and fight to stay awake playing loud music and shouting in an attempt to do so. Opening the windows wide, thumping my leg. It was a frightening journey. I nearly came off the road on several occasions. I’d get off the Epynt and have to stop for a 15 minute cat-nap and a coffee. The journey home was the same. Sometimes I’d have to stop and be sick. Often I’d get home with a migraine.

Even now if a journey is time critical I won’t sleep the night before. I often get car sick, even when I’m the driver!

Also , quite often I don’t like to leave the house. I also don’t really like being away from home. So sometimes I’ve planned to go out with all good intention. Then on the day or even days before , I start having battles in my head thinking up plausible sounding reasons why I can’t go. At the same time, in my same head (!) I have arguments ensuring that I definitely am going and why I should. Usually the not going wins. Often right up until the last-minute I am battling in my head to make myself go and I simply can’t do it. Sometimes its something as simple as popping into the village for a coffee or beer. Sometimes its a party. Sometimes its my friends further away. Occasionally its work. Never mind family who live in Essex and Surrey. Or going on holiday. The result is I let people down.

It’s a funny thing the mind. We’re all complex creatures. We all battle at times with the quirks and idiosyncracies in our personalities. I suspect many of us have personality traits and behaviours we dislike within ourselves . Or ones we struggle to recognise as part of our makeup.

People who know me may well be surprised about what I’ve written Of course people only see me when I’m not controlled by these things! Plus, because I don’t like them and don’t want to be that person, I try not to acknowledge them. And even though I know they exist and I recognise them from time to time, it is only now, as I type that I have had the realisation of how they are affecting my life.

When I’m not dealing with these irrational traits I’m my usual outgoing, slightly off whack self. Even when I’m dealing with them, in fact, I can also be my usual outspoken, gregarious self via social media; I can still be my at peace by myself in my studio, garden, or cwtched up on the sofa. When I’m in these places those traits become irrelevant.

So it dawned on me, as it does from time to time, that we all only ever know some parts of the people we know. We only know what they are prepared to reveal. We never know what’s deep inside their heads. We all have our hangups and self doubts. We all interpret our surroundings in our own personal way. That’s how misunderstandings occur. Even in the closest relationships we don’t know everything. How can we? Sometimes we don’t even know ourselves.

I always promised myself that this blog would be the warts and all version of me. I wanted everyone to realise that just because the others look like they’ve got their shit together, it doesn’t mean that in reality they haven’t got the same self doubts, fears, and oddities as everyone else. What people might well be real but it most likely is not the whole story. If like me, you do not always know the whole story of yourself then how can you assume to know the whole of anyone else.. We are creatures of many facets. We are all ordinarily extraordinary.