I suffer from anxiety and depression, like many others, and I feel it differently to them, just like they feel it differently to me. The same general feelings are there, but it's how we feel about them on the inside that is different because we are all different, and the reasons for our anxiety and depression are different.
What happened to my fellow sufferers to trigger it did not happen to me, the act itself could of been the same, but the way we feel about it is not the same. No one can say to me they know how I feel, just as I can't say it to them. The same with anything else, like when my husband died, you can offer sympathy you might even be able to relate, but we all know that you could not possibly know how I felt. Your feelings are not my feelings, and again there is the same general feelings, loss, hurt, despair, but mine are not the same as yours.
For me it's a build up, gradually over the years, married to a man who mentally abused me, and manipulated me into believing that I wasn't good enough, that I could never leave as no one would want me. Getting up each day and looking after the kids while going to work and smiling and laughing was a disguise, an excellent disguise as no one knew. Sure they knew he drank, but they also knew he didn't physically abuse me so how could I be suffering. I'm stubborn, just ask anyone who does know me LOL, and I did not speak up because this relationship was what I wanted, but in reality it wasn't but I felt to powerless to say anything. I've always presented as a strong minded woman who knew what she wanted, so how could I be so weak and ask for help, how could I let anyone see what was happening. I couldn't, so I didn't. I stayed quiet. What gave me the strength to leave was the kids. Staying for the kids is the worst reason for staying in a marriage or relationship ever, the absolute worst. And yet that was one of the reasons I stayed in the first place. But seeing how they were being affected, and the final fight when he told me to get out but leave the kids as he drunkenly leaned over me with a raised fist, was enough for me. I was lucky, I had a wonderful friend who took us in no questions asked.
Finding somewhere to live close to work and daycare, as I had no car, was an absolute must. I even had to get a furnished place as I had nothing. Just when I was starting to get it together the early morning phone calls started, always with some song playing and him trying to drunkenly woo me back. I'd stare at the closed door to the girls room and remain strong, I wasn't going anywhere. Waking up at 2 in the morning as he revved his car outside the flat, or the 3 am visit when he threw a rock through my bedroom window, led to me jumping at shadows. 1 night my brother was babysitting for me so I could go out to the local club, I came walking home and saw his car parked just down the road from my flat. I couldn't move, I stood there shaking, all the pleasure of a rare night out gone in an instant. I hid behind a tree, not sure what to do, when a passing headlight picked out the phone booth, I ducked in and called the police.
Fortune smiled on me in the form or a former school mate, who just happened to pick up the call. He moved my ex along quickly, followed him home so he wouldn't have an accident and he could be sure he didn't come back. I found out once I got home that he had tried to get into the flat but my brother stood firm and wouldn't let him in. I don't imagine he would of hurt the girls, not physically at least, but to find their father standing there yelling and swearing while drunk would not of been a mental image anyone would want.
With everything going on I still had to get up and go to work. One morning I dropped the girls off at daycare and just walked. I walked and walked, no idea where, just kept walking. About 3 hrs after I was supposed to start work, my boss drove up, I had finally stopped walking and was sitting in a bus stop. We talked, I cried, she cried, but I just couldn't do it anymore, I needed to quit my job. A job that I loved, but I was not dealing with life and I needed to be able to do that.
It took me a while before I could trust a man again, oh sure I trusted my brothers, and dad, and my male friends, but you know what I mean, no one was coming into my life. I was introduced to Don by my ex sister and brother in law LOL. Yep she was my exes sister and I was living with them and their 2 boys. They thought that Don would be perfect for me, I was skeptical LOL. What pushed me over was my youngests reaction, she would not let men near her, even her uncle who lived with us, but she liked Don. We moved in together, his sister and her family immigrated and we had Dale. Life was good. He was what I had been waiting for my whole life. But of course, life is cruel. We hadn't been married a year when he died of a heart attack. If it hadn't been for the kids I don't know what would of happened to me. They were what kept me going yet again.
Life hasn't been easy, raising kids alone never is, but it was the way it had to be.
You may or may not know that I work in a call centre at home. It's awesome, I don't have to get up and get dressed with make up and all. And it helps hide me, yep I'm admitting it. It hides me. I can smile and chat over the phone, but the second the call ends the smile disappears. I get told constantly how cheerful I am by callers and those who listen to the recorded calls, but that's the outside me, not the inside me. If I'm having a bad day the inside me is screaming or crying. But I've learnt to hide it well, after all I hid it from my kids for years because I didn't want them to feel they couldn't rely on Mum or that there was anything wrong. They didn't need to grow up in the shadow of Mum's problems. Now they are adults they know most of it. I don't sleep well, haven't for years. I've never had counselling because I'm tougher than that (yeh right). It's more that I'm too damn stubborn to admit to a weakness, but it's not a weakness, I just have to remember that.
I don't want you all to think that every day I walk around with voices screaming and crying in my head LOL, cause that's not it at all. I can tell when I'm going to start going down hill, there's nothing I can do about it, but I can tell, I can recognise the signs. I'll sit and stare at nothing, while a voice in my head tries to examine every little step I've taken over the years and what I could of done to change it. I recognise that this all happened and I can't change it, and that I would of made the same decisions I made then, but I tell myself I could of changed it, that I was weak.
Some days I can hear someone shouting up the road and my whole stomach seizes up and I start to feel sick, other days I'm walking up the drive way to listen in LOL. I don't get out of the house enough, I know that, but it's my safe zone, it's hard to leave.
So there you have it folks, my anxiety in a nut shell. Okay there is alot more to it than that, but I needed to get this down and get it out there. My way of dealing with it, I guess. I used to write poems, still do on occasion, but I handle depression and anxiety by getting it written down, I also vent alot on the pc lol.
Catch yas
Cathy
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