1066 All Stars

* When I first started blog writing, I made a conscious decision to write unfiltered. However I felt, good, bad or indifferent, that is what would end up on the page. It was a way of exploring my truest, inner most thoughts and feelings, to get them out, examine them and understand them.

Looking back at some of these posts, I am almost tempted to be embarrassed. The strength of feeling on display is occasionally uncomfortable. But they are an important record of where I was at that moment in time in my ongoing recovery from mental illness.

* Against that backdrop, last week I wrote two blog entries, one in my parenting series and one standalone piece. For the first time, I have since gone back and deleted them without retaining any record of the text.

Why? What has changed?

In principle, nothing. I still intend to write honestly and to share my blogs with others in the hope that being open with my experience of mental illness will give someone else who is struggling some comfort that they are not alone and that what they are going through is normal.

Most of my blog writing is underpinned by a desire to understand and change course. These entries though strayed from that concept. They were written whilst in a low mood based on a specific set of triggers. Instead of using the blogs as a means to challenge these thoughts, I dwelt on them, the blogs becoming a negative feeding frenzy. They did nothing to address the underlying symptoms, there was no balance or critical reasoning, only the guilt at having written them prompting me to challenge the thoughts and behaviours that led me to write them in the first place.

I retain some semblance of guilt in deleting them though, almost as if I am hiding the feelings of the moment. But that is preferable to the ongoing anxiety of knowing they remain published.

* This weekend brought a family day at Chessington. I was reminded earlier in the week that a similar trip the year before brought with it feelings of anxiety as I struggled with not knowing where to go, who to see, what to do.

There were no such advance feelings this year, instead I looked forward to it as a day of activity with the kids. However calmness soon gave way to anxiety and regret.

We left the house far later than planned, immediately putting me mentally on the back foot. We were able to collect free drinks bottles from the restaurant but that was on the opposite side of the park from the car park. I therefore made the decision that we would not go on any rides until drinks were collected, thinking we would tick that box and then have the day free.

Instead, I became agitated as the kids dragged their feet, wanting to stop, look and take everything in. With an hour gone, we had collected our drinks but achieved little else. I began to feel like the day would be a failure.

It is a microcosm of the types of pressures that swirl round my head on a daily basis. Judgement mixed with procrastination causing me anxiety. When I recognised the feelings and actually stopped to observe life in the moment, I saw that the kids were enjoying themselves pottering around. They had no agenda, they would take each event as it came. I was projecting my own thoughts and expectations onto them, trying to enforce what I thought they should be doing for fun.

I leave the day with a semblance of regret but also with a sense of achievement at having identified and corrected a behaviour as well as a determination that next time I shall embrace mindfulness and simply live in the moment.

* This weekend also marks the 2 year anniversary of my redundancy. I was aware of the impending date but other than that it did not intrude on my thoughts. 12 years in the same job was a significant part in the story of my life but it very much feels like a chapter that has ended.

* Just over a year ago I self published the first of three books. I was immensely proud of myself at the time but looking back, I have a sense of acute embarrassment. Who really wants to read my blogs, let alone pay for them? It seems like a folly in many ways.

Of course if someone wants to pay for it, that is their choice. I haven’t coerced them, they have presumably read the blurb and thought it sounded interesting. But the thought persists all the same.