Friday 11 May 2007

I find it difficult...

to write about my feelings. I find it hard to express my emotions when there has been so much turmoil of late. One of the beautiful things about blogging is that sometimes someone expresses feelings that you recognise, but couldn't articulate yourself.
Reading your own experiences through the eyes of another creates a connection, recognition and understanding between people who share what can be at times very trying circumstances.
I have, in the past, had problems with letting myself go on this site, allowing misery or sheer exhaustion to invade a space that I have nurtured and tended as if it were one of the flowers I photograph.
This is a healing space. But sometimes it is a hurting space as well.
The thing is, I'm isolated by my ill health and surrounded by people in good health. The pressure to keep up appearances has lessened since the break-up of my relationship. But I still have to be strong for my son. And I still find myself putting on an act on the rare occasions that I am out and about, or have a visitor here.
Oh alas, alack, poor me.
But I can't apologise for feeling the exhaustion and demoralisation that I currently feel. So yes, this is a bit of a miserable post.
I allow it because of the utterly inept and criminally neglectful officialdom I've had to deal with over the past few weeks (and three years) in vain attempts to make progress with health and social services.
My case is 'complex', my needs are 'complicated'. What part of 'struggling, please help' do these cretins not understand?
I try, I flag, I give up. I try harder, I get worried the energy is being diverted from where it really needs to go - my own healing and my son's wellbeing, which are essentially one and the same thing. I give up courting the cretins and do the best I can.
I allow this post because so many of my friends still don't 'get it' or have forgotten in recent months to keep trying to get it because they are 'busy' or just can't handle the fact that I'm now a single disabled mother. Too much reality. Too hard to confront. But let's call a spade a spade.
I allow it because it makes me realise I need to reach out, I need to reach out now but I also probably need to get a friend over for a cup of tea, no matter how exhausted I am. A friend, not a support worker or a home visit from an OT.
Then, perhaps I won't feel quite so miserable. And I may even talk about my feelings. But that would involve crying, quite a lot. And I'm so exhausted I'm scared to cry too much.
How do you allow feelings to happen when your feelings feel so much bigger than you can cope with?
This post came about because Lady Bracknell's editor writes what I can't express here

Next day: I wondered if I should remove this post, as it's so in your face miserable. Then I noticed I'd used the word cretins, twice. The post stays if only to apologise for this unconscious but nevertheless dreadful choice of expression. The irony of potentially offending whilst ranting about my own experience of disablism isn't lost on me. I have made a note to self not to post late at night when overtired and feeling bleak. Bleak is ok sometimes, just not bleak beyond reason.

8 comments:

Never That Easy said...

It's hard to know just how much to say... even on your own blog. I have the fear that if I keep talking about how bad things are, I will drive away the few 'normal' friends/readers I have. That they'll think I've become a "disability blog" (Gasp!) and stop reading. But, it's a part of my life, so they'll either have to deal... or go.

I'm sorry that the people around you are just.not.getting.it. I'm sorry that you can't find the support you need - and deserve - in real life. I hope you know that you are not alone... not here, anyways. And that I'm thinking of you, and would listen, should you decide that a good cry is exactly what you need.

Be as well as possible - try to use your spoons as best you can.

seahorse said...

Thanks for reading and responding. Gosh what a state I was in last night. It does pass, and I agree that there's only so much venting that can be done on your blog, but sometimes it just has to be expressed.
I will find support, I just need to tell some close friends I could do with a call or visit sometimes. It's that simple. But with a long term condition support comes in peaks and troughs.

Nickerjac said...

I don't think you should be afraid to be miserable on your blog if that is how you feel and although it may be a cliche its what makes your blog human, if you had to pretend here that everything was ok as you seem to feel you have to in life what would be the point of blogging?
Hugs x

Lady Bracknell said...

Forgive me. I was too tired to respond to your comment on my "crips and normies" post last night, and I didn't want to fob you off with something glib.

I have now replied.

S. said...

I understand the worry about how to use the blog space to express black moods. You write it because it's how you feel and then it's out there for all to see, and you don't feel that way, at least for awhile.

For me, it's also that writing the blog is a way of escaping my black moods, so I err on the side of leaving them out for my own benefit, as well as my imagined readers'.

seahorse said...

nickerjac: thanks. I'm hitting a low at present and finding it quite hard, so yes, why pretend everything is fine?

LB: Thank you, I have responded over at Bracknell Towers.

S: Yes, I also try to use this space as an escape, and perhaps it's better that way. Confused? Me? Never :-)

soulful sepulcher said...

I too, have struggled with writing about life as it really is on my own blog. I've come to a conclusion, that I need to somehow read my own words and know "things will be okay"--often I don't add a post, because it reveals the darkness that I long to be removed from my life. I totally get what everyone means by keeping the blogs sort of benign that way. I find myself posting something depressing to read, and then add a photo or a quote next to take the "edge off" of my own writings, as a relief.
I think blogs are a good escape, and that reading other's having hard times actually encourages me that I'm not alone.
Thanks for sharing here.

seahorse said...

Thanks Stephany, know what you mean about taking the edge off writings, almost as an 'alright now' or apology, or here an affirmation of beauty. Now off on blogiday? Bloliday? Well, whatever, a few days away from this screen.