Move over black dawg

This is a long one and I by no means expect anyone to read it all the way through. But I need to write it.

This morning I woke up scared of life. Scared of pain, scared of illness, scared of wasting another day. Scared of not knowing why I keep feeling unwell but more scared of knowing. And scared of getting up, scared of food, and scared of planning anything.

In my mind I visualise days and months as blocks and the hours of the day as boxes - boxes that need filling with things. I knew when I woke up that today was a new day full of lots of lovely hour boxes stretching ahead of me, of opportunities and some not unpleasant things to do; things I could do in the order I chose and - to a point - at the times I chose. I also knew that the earlier I got up, the longer my day would be - and in theory that meant the more I would get done, the more satisfied I could be, the more organised I could feel.

But in practice and in my experience this so often hasn't been the case that it makes me afraid of doing anything. Yesterday I had started the day feeling confident, energetic, driven. I was keen to achieve a lot. But by late morning a headache started to nag at my right temple and by lunchtime I was feeling woozy. I tried to eat, drink and pain-killer pop my way out of it. Bananas, herbal tea, rice cakes, paracetamol, even raw broccoli. Had I eaten the wrong foods? Or not enough food? Was I ill? After much sighing and head-rubbing I had no choice but to to lie down. I fell instantly asleep (I wish I could do that at night!). Twenty minutes later I got up to try to start again but I found that although the headache had eased I still felt woozy and wrong. I felt pressure as if something somewhere was squeezing on my circulation. I said to Richard It was like something was sitting on my chest.

This sort of day happens far too often and I'd say a good nine out of ten or more of my days feel like an underachievement. Every day this week I have had either a headache and/or stomach ache and/or lower back and hip pain. Every day I have been stopped or slowed down and ended the day feeling dissatisfied and fed up.

This combination of being repeatedly struck with health niggles, of having to ditch plans, and always doing less than I say I will makes me dislike myself some days.
Today was one of those days. I doesn't help that it began with me too frightened to even start it.

Some days it is okay to feel emotional, to have a cry, to think about sad things. It's healthy. When I know what it is I am feeling emotional about I can gauge whether I think it is rational or not. But this general non-specific black dog feeling is not okay I don't like it and I'm trying very hard to fight it.

I did my usual things to help: slow start, no bullying myself, no missing breakfast, some yoga stretches, a bit of flute-playing, listening to the radio, trying to stay in the moment and not worry about "what's next?", thinking about the people on the radio who were talking about their own lives, a very sensible lunch with mackerel and avocado... but already I was screaming at myself in my head that I was a failure and I had wasted half of the day.

I took myself off to the (home) office and tried to get on with some work, but I was slow, lethargic, foggy and really really REALLY cross with myself. I put on a playlist I have called "Cheer up!" but it just made me irritable. The black dog feeling, when it comes, is all powerful and all consuming.

The spreadsheets spread in front of me, unfinished from the last time I had opened them. I wanted to hit the me that had left such a mess to be dealt with later. I started to tap figures into boxes and the music played on regardless.

At some point I realised I was singing. I'd been singing along to Nina Simone, James Taylor, Oasis, The Libertines, Frankie Valli, Blondie... without thinking about it. The pain in my stomach that I'd had for 6 hours was duller and I didn't hate myself anymore.

The black dog was fading.

When you're not in this situation you forget how impossible it is. So I wrote the first half of this earlier when I felt like a damp squib.

Things that made me feel desperate earlier have now faded. I am happy to be who I am again and knew I would.

It's been a horrible few days but things are getting better.

Until next time.

I thought writing this might help me through "next time"