#Lovember the 20th. Family part 5.

It seemed churlish to include only four members of a family of five in my Lovember project. So here's the fifth: Rachel.

Rachel is a big, long-legged, 5' 9" strong and competent-looking 44 year-old who suffers from catastrophic anxiety. It dominates her life and her movements and her social life (what social life?!?!). On top of that she battles the physical symptoms of anxiety such as digestive problems and headaches, palpitations and tremors. Anxiety has also taken its toll on her appearance and metabolism, and often her face can appear quite puffy and she finds it difficult to shift weight around her middle.

Despite all this Rachel is as daft as a brush and has a naughty sense of humour. She's a bit of a disorganised dreamer and can often be heard muttering to herself "What are you doing, you silly bugger?" as she potters around the house and garden.
She loves the simple things in life and mostly finds life quite fab. She loves music and when she was younger achieved grade 8 on the piano and flute and used to sing a lot. She also taught piano on and off when she was younger and loved working with learners of all ages. She doesn't play piano much these days because she feels too rusty.

She enjoys walking around the coast and countryside in her home in North Devon with her husband, Richard and Dylan the dog. She likes to play the flute and write and has recently discovered a deeply rewarding peace from gardening. She struggles with the guilt that anxiety causes her and can often be heard calling herself a "silly cow". She regularly denies herself her greatest pleasures because she feels she doesn't deserve them, so although writing and music give her an enormous boost she can avoid both for many weeks.

Rachel discovered photography 2 years ago and has committed to taking and recording a photo every day - however bad she feels and however bad the photo. Like everything else (writing, playing music, cooking, gardening...) she doesn't do it properly, she threw away the rule book and just does what she feels.

Rachel mentally and emotionally puts her family first and hopes they realise it. Sometimes she doesn't always meet the social expectations of a mother and this makes her feel uncomfortable and inadequate. But she is a really nesty, homey, family-oriented person and likes to make home a place where her family feel safe and free and hopes very much that this helps.

She finds it difficult to say positive things about herself and often finds it difficult to love herself, so she's just asked her daughters if there's any chance they can think of anything positive. The eldest says Rachel (Mum) is very interested in the world and likes to know what's going on, and she is open-minded and doesn't like to form fixed opinions about things until she knows more about them. Rachel was pleased she said that. The youngest said Rachel (Mummy) has a big bum. Yeah. *

Despite being big and long Rachel often feels small and rubbish and needs to love herself more.

I hope this helps.

Thanks, Rachel.

You're welcome.


*Later...
Tess has managed to extend her big bum comment to "you have a nice nose" and Gemma has added "you cook well."
Joel has come home and says "You make nice meals and you wash my clothes." Not sure if that's actually an order rather than a compliment...
And Richard says "You're sensitive."