Lumpy Custard - Pt 1 - From Peaks...

Heads Up:  This post may not be as up-beat as previous ones, and may contain trigger warnings...


Oh me, oh my...Stop The World and Let Me Off... please? For 5 Minutes...?


I wonder how many of us would welcome that chance, if it was a real thing? And how many of us would actually get back on after that 5 minutes?


It's been a while since I touched base with y'all. There is Life that Needs to be Lived, and all that jazz. But sometimes that Life can reeeaaallly Suck the Kumara - y'know what I mean? It can leave an oil slick that Danny Zuko and the T-Birds would be proud of - one that not only sends you face-first into the closest cactus collection, but also leaves a stain as wide as the Sahara Desert.


Since our last catch-up,

• I started working as a support worker in Mental Health Residential Services - which comes with its own challenges
• I got older - duh
• I had major surgery that didn't go quite as smoothly as it could have, at the time
• I've done my best to support someone extremely close to me as they battled to come back from not one but two pretty big MH crises, approximately 6 months apart
• ... but my crowning glory would have to be damaging not one but both ankles at once and ending up on crutches for several weeks

Out of all of these, I think the toughest one to deal with would have to be the MH crises.


My Loved One (MLO) struggled with extremely low mood and suicidal thoughts towards the end of 2018 - to the point where they self-harmed in front of me.


WOAH.


Thankfully, superficial wounds only, but still enough to add another 3 dozen grey hairs to the collection in one foul swoop.


Support Worker mode kicks in. I contact the local MH Crisis Team - but that in itself is a story for another time; utilise some tools to help MLO head back toward the right track; encourage and support them to access the help that is needed, in the form of counselling; and call on a select few close friends and family for support.


Fast-forward to the last week of March 2019. Same Loved One. Low mood for a few weeks. Admits they have been having The Thoughts again for a few days, and verbalises what they've been thinking of doing. So now it's down tools, rearrange life for the next few days, and turn into The Shadow again.


Now, you may be thinking something along the lines of "hey - you're a MH support worker, you know how to deal with this sort of schtick", yeah?


Yes. Yes I can. And I have - but not with someone so close to me to this extent. I even attended a day-long Suicide Prevention workshop in 2018. But this is one of those times, that I feel more like a plumber who can't fix my own pipes. Sometimes in life, you just gotta bite the bullet and ask for help. And in this instance, our knight in shining armour came in the form of a very dear friend and Awesome Dude who took time out of a busy schedule to come and chill out over a cuppa and provide absolutely awesome - and practical - support. For more than two hours. This AD shared the wisdom gleaned over the years from their own life encounters with the Black Dog. Happily, MLO has responded well, and has made significant steps in the right direction.  One of the main techniques MLO found so useful is the White Wolf/Black Wolf.  And we're extremely pleased that the White Wolf is well fed. 

Yours Truly, however, has had yet another first-hand encounter with the physical, emotional and mental impact of being up-close-and-person in this kind of situation.

Nausea. Low mood. Teary-slash-quietly-bawling at the drop of a hat. Head feeling like it doesn't belong to me. And sleep? What's that?  But the REALLY fun part... let's add into the mix The Big Change... you know, girls, the one that comes complete with temperature changes, etc...?

This time around, I took a couple of days off work to take some time to get myself sorted. I came to the conclusion that the job I was in at the time was one of my major stressors, and one of the clients was just so good at pushing everyone's buttons - one out of the box, this one. So after talking things over with WookieeMan, it was decided to say bye-bye to my work in that role after a little more than 2 years.  When I ended up in ED with chest pains and reeeaaallly hig blood pressure twice within a few days, however - I brought my finishing date forward by two weeks.  I heard through the grapevine that the on-site supervisor at the time was less than happy about that, but my priorities had changed, and health and well-being were more important.

That was in June 2019.

Back into the Tardis and jump forward to now - March 2020.

I started my new job in the call centre for a security firm in October.  Getting paid to talk on the phone... yup, I can do that!  Between then and now, things were settled and life was getting back into cruise control.

Notice that W-word in there?

About two weeks before Christmas, two weather bombs a week apart revealed that our bedroom roof could no longer sustain torrential downpours. So it was time to move out of the bedroom and into the lounge, while the room was dried out via insurance, then move back in for a week or two before repairs were carried out; this time, we moved all our bedroom furniture into the MIL's lounge, and we slept in her spare room. All was going swimmingly; the room had a lovely new colour scheme, and new carpet was put in. All we needed was the electrician to hook all the switches back up, and it would be time to regain some semblance of normality.

Or would it...?