Well friends. I’ve been quiet in the online space.
But my head is another situation entirely! It has not been quiet in there at all. It has been noisy and worried and burdened and troubled and overwhelmed.
Sometimes that internal turmoil spills out into my outside life – but it’s not always how you expect.
Anxiety has sat with me all my life (I’m pretty sure). I like to think about it as a kind of grey crazy cloud. Sometimes it hangs around. Sometimes it sits on my head. Or in my chest. And sometimes it’s far away up in the sky – so far away you can hardly even see it anymore.
I like it when anxiety is far away up in the sky. That’s when I feel light, and positive, and able to live and be productive and do all the things I dream about without anything stopping me. When I’m upstoppable, I really am unstoppable.
But lately, a little tumble weed of circumstances got going in my life that bought my grey crazy cloud of anxiety right down onto my head and into my heart. Firstly it was little things. Lee’s work life being demanding (which had absolutely nothing to do with me, but did effect our home life a little bit). Then a family member completed suicide unexpectedly. Then my son got crazily sick out of the blue and we spent a few nights in hospital with staff buzzing around with words like “lasting neurological damage” and not many promises being made that “he’s ok”. Even now, those assurances are not yet provided by Doctors, even though he seems back to his usual 5 year old self.
And so I got home from the hospital and you would think this is when you’d take a deep breath and let the cloud rise off your head and out of your heart – home is a safe place after all – but no. This is when the crazy cloud really got space to get going. And instead of people seeing that on the outside – the grey cloud actually makes people see less of the real me.
I stopped replying to messages on my phone. I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything. I couldn’t find the will to get out of bed in the morning, even though 3 children necessitate that. Every day felt like I was dragging not just a fuzzy grey crazy cloud around with me in my heart and on my head, but a lead weight around behind me. You know when I really realised how bad it was (a quick tip – I wasn’t either of the times I had panic attacks!).
It was in the supermarket.
What is with families eating all the food all the time?! And you just have to keep going back there because you need bread again. Or you need milk. Again. And because of the grey cloud and the lead weight I couldn’t organise myself to know more than a few hours in advance what we actually needed for anything. So I was at the supermarket nearly every day. And they ask “How are you?” or “How’s your day going” – and guess what I said: “Not great”. Or “I’m ok”.
You see – I’m not one for fake answers. Never have been. Some people are really put off by that and others love it. But I just can't fake a “Great thanks!” when I’m not great.
And I noticed. I had said I wasn’t good at the Supermarket for 2 weeks. Wowsers. That’s a lot of time. And I wasn’t sleeping. And, oh, I did have a few panic attacks. So I thought, it’s time to go to the Doctor.
Unfortunately I now live in the country and have no new GP yet. It took me 2 days (and a lot of encouragement from 2 particular friends who I managed to still be talking to) to make the appointment. It’s 3 weeks away. I could have seen another preferred GP in August. I even told the receptionist that it was about my mental health and that I wasn’t sure I could wait that long. Still, that’s what I’ve got. It seems unless you are in crisis, it’s pretty hard to see someone quality anytime soon.
I now no longer wonder why or how so many people die from mental health related causes – particularly in regional or rural areas.
The thing about mental health is – you don’t want to speak to a dickhead about it. You don’t want to get the wrong Doctor. And you don’t want to get fobbed off or medicated up or told to toughen up about it. You want the right Doctor. I thought about driving back to Adelaide to see my old Doctor. At least she knows me and I could usually get an appointment within a week. But I know I need to find a new one here eventually anyway.
With all the people around me lately completing suicide and the community struggling with the grief that is left after that happens, I just wanted to say these few things –
It’s ok to not be ok.
We need to speak up when we’re not ok.
(I know it’s hard. Say it anyway.)
It’s OK to ask for help. Even if it’s 3 weeks in coming.
And community: It’s really important to ask hard questions of each other.
Notice when someone isn’t responding to text messages like usual. Is consistently saying they’re not ok, their day is going bad or things are tough. When they seem low or off or hard to connect with. That’s our cue community to step up: to reach out: to make sure that people aren’t left isolated and alone with a crazy black or grey cloud sitting on their head or heart.
I’m a therapist and I know how to therapize myself with all the strategies under the sun – to work through my anxiety and recover from trauma – but I still need people who say: “Are you ok Anna?”; “How can we help?”.
I don’t want to see another person lost. I’m sick of people slipping through the cracks of health care systems that take 3 weeks to get an appointment. We need to save each other. We need to save ourselves. We need to give ourselves permission to be broken and needy. We need to give ourselves permission to be human and incapable of carrying heavy emotional loads. And when we are there – broken and needy and unable to bear the weight of the crazy grey cloud – we need people to notice; to sit with us; to listen; to bring the meals and love our kids and give us the break we need to just breath and sit in the grey cloud until it lifts.
Because that cloud does lift. Eventually. While we are being loved back to health by people in our community – maybe our GPs, or psychologists, or counsellors, or our friends and family. Even our kids and pets and their hugs and affection.
If you’re sitting under a black or grey cloud right now, or it’s sitting on you – it’s ok to not be ok. Say something to someone – even the checkout operator. Ring the Doctors. Make the appointment. Ask for help. Your community will miss you if you’re gone – and we don’t want to lose anyone else!