I haven’t really shared any of my tough days for a very long time… Truth be told, it’s actually been a while since I had any tough days, but during my 4 weeks off therapy, I’ve slowly felt the emotions building back up.
To start with, I kept it all to myself, thinking it was a blip. I carried on working and living the home life, thinking it would all blow over, but it didn’t, and today was the first time in a long time that emotionally I was broken.
I had reached burnout and had nothing more to give.
I knew it was coming as I’d recently had to go to the doctors for rib and lung pain, tightening of the chest, the inability to walk even 10 footsteps without having a pounding heart and struggling to breathe, and the fact I’d wake up in the middle of the night feeling like something incredibly heavy was sat on my chest and neck.
I originally thought it was pneumonia, but my gp said she couldn’t hear anything when she listened to my chest.
So I have to now have a chest x-ray, an ECG and a bunch of blood tests.
Realistically that should have been a sign for me to stop. But I didn’t. I just kept pushing myself instead of listening to my body.
And this is now the state I’m in.
On top of the illness and stress, I had therapy again this morning, the first one in 4 weeks, and it was insanely tough. At the time, it didn’t feel like it… We laughed, I cried, I laughed as I cried (all of which is standard for us), we spoke about the things that I’d managed to do and what the process will be once I’m at the end of this block of sessions. Which was an important topic for me, because obviously other issues that still need to be worked on and I was worried that once I’d reached my 20th session, that would be it.
When I first started seeing my therapist, I had severe anxiety and severe depression, which had started to sprout into anxiety-based rage, OCD and hoarding, which all needed attention, but they all have different techniques, so we can only focus on one issue at a time. And because I was so trapped in this anxiety induced bubble, that was the most important issue that needed our immediate attention.
And working on that directly has been amazing, as regular visitors to my social media profiles will have seen.
I’ve managed to do things that I’ve not been able to do for 10-20 years, so the therapy and personal steps that I’ve been taking have been working.
But I’m still depressed. I’ve been clinically depressed since I was 13, so this is obviously a deep-rooted issue, which was just made more intense from the IVF, and pre / post natal depression….
And these are the feelings that have been slowly building back up.
Thankfully, my therapist said that although my sessions with her would finish, I would just be put back on the waiting list and I can access the service again each time to work on individual issues. Which was a bloody relief 😂
We covered a lot of things in today’s session which were causing me emotional pain and damage, and the second I got home I just collapsed in floods of tears and I’ve just cried all day.
Today was one of those days where I just couldn’t manage everything and it was all just too overwhelming…. The release of all these emotions during my appointment, the stress of having to book these hospital appointments, the guilt over not listening to my body’s signs like I normally do, and the guilt that I just had nothing left to give to the people who needed me.
So, reluctantly, I have to stop and recharge. I recharge my phone every day, so why shouldn’t I recharge my own batteries?
I had loads of work stuff planned for this weekend, like crystal shopping for clients, preparing items for our shop, 1-2-1 appointments and phone calls with existing clients, on top of obviously Boe and family time, but it’s all being rescheduled….between now and my hospital appointments my time will literally be just my time. Time for me, time for Boe and time for my husband. Because all 3 of us have been affected by this so we need a massive reconnect.
Thankfully I have an amazing bunch of customers who have completely understood the need for this break, and I’m sure everyone else will too… And if not, well, I can’t be that important to them, can I 🤔😉
I’ll update you in time, it won’t be long – everyone who knows me knows that nowt keeps me down for long 😉
Enjoy your world,
Kate xxx