Closed for Maintenance: Mental Health

I’m sorry I’ve been silent.
Things have been…. strange.

My usual form of therapy – getting stuff down in writing – hasn’t been working, and so the blog has lain dormant. I considered calling it a day.

It’s a tough time at the moment, for everyone. Rightly or wrongly, our humans rights have been curtailed, and consequently, everything is HARD. We are feeling the perpetual threat of an invisible killer and the fear of passing it on to the vulnerable, balancing that with the need to work to pay the bills and to stop any children we might have from going totally out of their minds.

I have always had a complex brain. The “trips” I have been on in my life have been varied, interesting and sometimes just weird. I worry. I verbalise. I over-think. There is not much I haven’t imagined doing.

But ordinarily, I rationalize, too.I get it out, and I work through it. I have felt lucky (or is it smug?) to be strong in that way, and have never fully understood the lows some people feel at times.

Suffice to say, I now understand. For reasons that are too many to list, I have known what it’s like for life to feel bleak – and above all, to feel that those around me might have been better off if I just disappeared. It’s quite some admission. But there it is.

This blog post is not really an update, so much as an apology for my absence. In a time when I needed my writing therapy, I have not felt up to it. But I can guarantee, my usual light-hearted take on life’s little troubles has been absent and my posts would not have made fun reading.

With the help of my family and friends, I am starting to feel a bit better. Family is everything, and whilst I have let them down, they have supported me.

Amazing, really. I am truly grateful.

I now owe it to them to try to be me again. Whoever that is. And accept that sometimes, things happen in life that we cannot really understand or foresee.

I console myself with the fact that I haven’t murdered anyone. So at least my conscience is clear on that score.

Now FUCK OFF COVID, so we can have the usual distractions that prevent us dwelling on the shit. Simple things, like coffee at a friend’s house, tea with your mum, a night at the cinema, a party, or a full-on rave. Or just a picnic in the woods with grandparents and the dogs.

We literally cannot wait.

And in the mean time, maybe I’ll try to continue with the blog for a little while longer. The Four Little Seymours no longer live on a building site, nor in a shed. They are all growing up far too fast. And whilst our lives might not be quite so interesting to read about any more, hopefully we will be able to look back on this time and remember that it wasn’t all bad. There is a vaccine, and the future is waiting.

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