The beginning of the end that became a pause...

OK.
I'm ready to start to share my last 2 years.  There are bits that I can't share, because I don't want to have to employ a solicitor to defend me if I do, but you'll get the idea.

So, over the next few weeks, I intend to unpick the downs, very deep downs and the ups of my life, that began in reality a little before October 15 2018.

I can't guarantee that the story is going to be told in a linear fashion, because, really, when did I ever do anything in a logical way? However, it will get pieced together, patchwork style and hopefully, it will be a clear reminder to myself of how far I have come.

SO...here goes.

On 15th October 2018, I broke down, utterly and completely, in the office that was my sanctuary in my workplace at the time. I'd tentatively reached out to a colleague, skirted round it with questions that I had hoped would 'land' without me having to say the words out loud.  Fortunately, that colleague was smart and completely understood what I was doing.

For a few weeks prior to reaching out, I had been experiencing utterly terrifying lucid daydreams and nightmares about hurting myself.  I had reached a point where I was convinced that the people around me would be better off without me - my family, my friends, my colleagues - I felt that I was of no use to anyone and I was completely lost.

My sense of confusion at how I was feeling was compounded by the rational voice in my head, screaming at me to get a grip, to look around me and see that I was loved and valued, and that the dialogue that I could hear, constantly nagging away that I wasn't good enough, was absolute rubbish.  

BUT

When you are in that place, rational thought is not what leads the mind.

Years of health issues (well documented in this here journal - go back as far as 2010 and the start of that whole thing is there, and my decline is openly shared for the years up to 2018), the death of two colleagues, the loss of my grandparents, the end of an era in my workplace and then the subsequent decline into chaos and disorder...so much else, but the reality was that there was a lot of "major life events" that I had not processed properly or come to a proper place of acceptance about.  However, I thought I was coping.  I denied that I was stressed - I was just busy, working hard, 70 hour weeks was what was needed to do my job.  I ignored the obvious warning signs - even down to something as simple as keeping my daily journal here, where I had such a wonderful community of compatriots around me - and I thundered towards a high speed crash into an immovable object.  It was only going to take one trigger...

It came, in the form of a meeting, with someone who did not know me, knew nothing about me as a person, as a teacher or anything else.  That person sat across from me and told me that a particular situation, that I had been utterly powerless to do anything about, was my fault "You are complicit in this situation".  I fought back and challenged, set that person straight and they ultimately adjusted their point of view.  

The seeds had been sown though.  2 of them.  

The first was the rapid decline into wanting to end everything.

The second was the slightly slower breaking down of my career by stealth, at the hands of others, and I was powerless to stop it.

Genuinely, I'm not being melodramatic.

25 year career ended quickly, but that's a different part of the tale, for later.

That situation, in October, the trigger, the shot and the gaping wound it left was the beginning of the end.

What's most important though, is that it wasn't the end; it was a pause; a semi-colon in one of the sentences that forms just a small part of the story of who I am and what I can be.

I still have regular battles with the voices of saboteurs in my head, but I see them now - creeping towards me, sneaky and stealthy - and Im strong enough to push them back.  It's been a long road.  

Over the next few months, I'll share some of that road that I have travelled.  It is a story of hope and positivity in the end.

Much love
Sarah