All I Want for Christmas is my Sanity

I'm feeling slightly guilty.

This was meant to be a Mental Health Carnival in the style of the lovely Carol over at Dance Without Sleeping, but I can't help feel I have let her down by not promoting hard enough and by not getting many contributions.

In fact hers is the only one, not including my introductory post.  Carol's is a great post, read it here, her Christmas Crazy is something I am indeed overly familiar with.

Like Carol I too put pressure on myself and underlying depression feeds the guilt I expressed in the opening of this post; it's all magnified by the pressure I think my of us put ourselves under to be the perfect.... (you fill in the blank). And, yes and, it enables the wonderful delights of depression to Dance like Sugar Plums in our heads.

I'm pretty sure Carol wouldn't hold this against me, but I had such high hopes...

Anyway, while I'm typing this I'm not wrapping the presents I should be wrapping and my inner Elfzilla is yelling at me to write cards.

Personally I want to tell my inner ugly sister Griselda to go f'ck herself but would that really be in the spirit of Christmas?

Jolly good company

A few weeks ago I muttered the words 'I'm not enjoying Isobel that much'. I'd had a groundhog week (yes, only a week!), the sun had been shining and I was picturing happy young folk sitting by the river with a nice cold glass of Chablis in their hands wandering home when it go too cold to sit outside anymore.

And what was I doing? I was doing the the same thing I do EVERY day I was going home to pick up my little girl. I felt trapped and I was mourning my loss of freedom. (Just typing these words makes me sad all over again.)

But you know what? As soon as I'd said it and gone through all the emotion I'd been trying to deny, things got miraculously better.

I don't know if Isobel was frustrated by not being able to walk, or if we were just feeding off each other's negative emotion, but I have to say my walking and not-really-yet-talking little girl has become the best company ever.

She wanders around the house bringing me presents with a 'Ta', she cuddles, she kisses, she plays and she likes to sit beside me.

You and me girl, we are going to go far.

I can't believe I said that

Regular readers (yes all three of you) will know that often I go quiet it's because I don't have anything good to say.

It's true, this week I had a major implosion, luckily the intensity was fierce so the longevity was short.

On Wednesday I muttered some words I never thought I would hear myself say. On the train home from work, I was tired, well weary. It felt like Groundhog Day (so american but is there an English alternative?).

The sun was shining, the pubs by the river were serving jugs of Pims and I was going home, as I always do; to put my baby to bed, as I always do.

And I realised: I hadn't been enjoying my little girl that much lately and I said so. I can't believe it but yes I said the words and I meant them.

(In fact I hadn't really been enjoying anything very much - god I can be a miserable cow.)

I said those words and the flood gates opened. It was nasty, PD bore the brunt but now it's over.

I was so pleased to see my little girl the next morning, the sun still shone my neighbours rallied around making me feel loved and I went to yoga.

I'm hoping to be back on track now, so you'll be hearing more from me...