Friday to Monday

Friday Afternoon

Good news; Stropster has just, literally just now, passed his driving test!! Well done Stropster ;-)   First time test at seventeen. He's bought a small car and has spent hours, plus most of his wages fixing it up but, of course, the insurance will be through the roof. However small the car or however sensible he is; he's a seventeen year old lad. He's into his second year of his mechanic's apprenticeship now, up every morning at seven am for work and making the most of the weekends. I am proud of him. I know, to most, these are normal, even minor, every day achievements, but compared to how I, or my Brothers and Sister were at 17 . . . well, he is Mr Normal-head screwed on-plans in place-smiley happy-balanced-young man! and I suppose that sort of surprises me in a very nice way.

I had a second appointment with the CBT therapist yesterday. She wants to take things very slowly. Taking at least five one hour sessions to get to know some background and mental health history before we touch the phobia. She knows that it's all intertwined; the addiction, anxiety, depression. None of these issues stand alone and she intends to be careful not to go too fast; upping my anxiety and habit. Anyway yesterday, although she intended spending the hour looking at some of my past, it didn't quite work out that way. The initial ten minute pre-session assessment of how things are this week . . . ended up taking an hour. Yes, an hour. It went something like this.

Where would you rate your anxiety from 1 to 10 this week?
Erm . . . I'm not sure. I don't think I'm anxious, I don't really know anymore.
How about your worrying, do you worry?
Erm, no, I don't think I do worry really. Do I? erm . . . let me think. Maybe I do at five am . . . for five minutes.
And so on.

Now, as most of you know, since I went to the new Dr in August when this relapse, depression, anxiety etc came on and I poured out my all, only to be contacted by Social Services the next day . . . I've been very wary how much I say. This has cost me my benefits in the last two weeks but that's another story for another day.

Well after half an hour of questioning yesterday I became very emotional and could no longer hold back the tears. I began to tell the raw truth; I said I was stuck. I am stuck. I'm as stuck as the Christmas tree that's still stuck in my window. Fucking stuck. After blurting all of this out I explained to her about the Social Services call and how it had led me to distrust "professionals" . . . Now, call me paranoid, but within the next ten minutes the questions had moved on to the likes of "Where do you go to use? which room?" . . . Erm excuse me, but what has this to do with my mental health?

As I've said before, there have been enough professionals involved in my life during my 12 year habit, be it health visitors when the babies were small, or drugs workers or even the police, to have worked out that my kids are safe, well adjusted and in no way neglected. Maybe I'm paranoid or maybe it's naturally any mother's biggest fear. Maybe handing my first born over to "The authorities" for adoption when I was fifteen and knowing how badly that affected me has left me scared, scarred. I don't know . . . But I withdrew. I began to, not exactly lie, but to be very cautious. More like I was being questioned by the police rather than a therapist, who, if we are going to make any progress, needs to know the whole truth.

So, next week I will open the session with some questions of my own . . . and hope that I can regain some trust with her. I do like her and I trust her capabilities but it's imperative that I am open. 100%.
OK, I will let you know how it goes. I so want this to go well.

When I started this Blog and wrote the header, I was sixteen months away from my 50th and hoping to make some big changes before hitting the big five-O . . . It's now eleven days away (eight days by the time I'm editing).  Still time for an eye lift, jaw tightening (jowl trim), laser whisker blasting and dental implants ;-) OK, so financially that's out of the question. Fortunately it doesn't cost anything money to improve ourselves on the inside . . . so no excuses. 

I have to go and pick up Hamper G from school now. I'll come back, prepare a bolognese sauce and whilst it simmers I'll edit. I rush my typing and make heaps of errors, so I could be a while.

Saturday Night . . .

Monday Morning . . .

Seems I was too tired to write on Saturday night.
Well things have drastically improved this weekend. The Christmas tree is down, as are all the decorations. I managed to work ten hours on Saturday; mostly cleaning out the eight hamster cages and catching up on housework. Then again on Sunday; mostly packing Christmas away and moving into 2013 Yay! And double Yay! It's snowing! We all woke up early, happy, singing and dancing and were all out of the house early to enjoy the snow on the way to school and work. Hooray for the snow!

Do you know what? I might even get as far as moving those bedrooms around this week. Might.

Hamper G's Dad is due out of prison on Thursday . . . after almost three years. There begins another story. Meantime, as always, love and thanks for being here x x


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