Coughs and Sneezes . . .

I hate being ill, I really do. I get so bored with myself. I started off with the sneezes last week and put it down to a touch of hay fever. Then on Friday night started coughing after I went to sleep. I seem to have a night time cough, which wakes me up and then im really tired through being woken up. I’m not really coughing during the daytime when I’m up and about. Its given me a husky voice, which I don’t mind and I don’t really feel ill. Just this pesky dry cough of a nighttimes. Maybe I can get a hunky doctor to do a home visit and rub my chest!.

So these past few days I’ve just taken it easy, rested up and got bored with myself. To occupy myself I have been working on my Family Tree. Have I already told you about that? I already have quite a bit of information from a family friend whose mum was adopted by my great grandmothers sister. I’ve put all the information I have on http://www.genesreunited.com/ and have added to it, and am planning to do research and continue to add to it. Well I’ve found a relative over the weekend. My granddad and his brother became estranged after their mother died, I don’t know the full story just family gossip. After my granddad died in 1988 we wondered what had happened to his brother to let him know, but we were unable to find him. Well I’ve now made contact with his son, who is alive and well and living in Kent. His dad died in 2002. He would be my dads cousin, and my second cousin. I’ve been able to give him lots of info on my side of the family as I have more information than he does at present. Researching and finding out things about my family is fascinating and I’ve not found any skeletons as yet!

Last week my brother phoned me and asked if I remembered a person called S T from when I was in my late teens. I did! He met her at his sons cricket match and when he told her his full name she asked if he was related to me. He probably wanted to deny it but didn’t lol. So now I’ve given him permission to give her my contact details next time he sees her, as her son plays cricket for the same team as my nephew. So hopefully we can be in contact soon and catch up.

Its been a week for reunions as I also met up with my mate C, who I have known for over 20 years. I knew him when he was married to his first wife. There were five of us who went around together at that time, with others joining us , but the five of us were constant. Two guys, one was C and the other A, and three girls, C’s wife A, and another A and me. Confused? You will be lol. Anyway A and A got married and now have a lovely family, C and A divorced and C remarried a lovely lady and they also have a family. So hence don’t see much of them. But C and I managed to meet up and spend some time together. Was lots of stories about things we had done and places we had been to , and people we had known.

Some people we meet and they just spend moments in our lives and others we meet and make friends for life with. And some go out of our lives but come back again. Makes life interesting doesn’t it?

Now where’s my honey and lemon.

Keep well.

x x x

Silent World - Depression

Now I'm through the worst of it, I can look back and see with relief that I was always going to be alright, always going to be a survivor. My friends and family gave me huge amounts of support and listened to my ramblings and watched my tears. To them I will always be grateful for letting me go through what I needed to go through. I believe it was a process I needed to do.

Even though I had support around me in the midst of my worst moments of depression I always felt so alone. Not wanting to bother anyone, that my problems were my own, and didn't want to intrude on anyone else's life. I lived in a silent world. Here's what I wrote just after Christmas, my worst time. I stayed undressed, unwashed for three whole days. I slept a lot and wrote my feelings down.

I live in a silent world. Oh I hear the tap dripping, the clock ticking away, I hear my phone ring and I hear peoples voices on the TV and out on the street. I hear cars as they drive through the rain puddles, I hear my neighbours slam their front door and run down the stair well. Yet I live in a silent world. An emotional silent world.

I do connect with those my life touches, but only to a point. The point I feel safe with. They never know the full extent of my silence. I make sure of that. To me the silence is deafening, unbearable, almost too unbearable to live with.

Yet I do live, I do want to live, but am doing so just day by day. Trying desperately not to show the real me, how awful I feel. I put on my 'happy-I'm-OK-really-face'. And most believe me, but some do not, but they let me be me, the way I am at the moment. On the outside I am just me, going through my daily routines, or not if I don't feel like it. Making arrangements and plans for the not too distant future. I cant cope with too far ahead, it panics me. I don't know how I'm going to cope to get there.

I feel so lost in this silent world. I just wish I could break through and make some kind of sound, so I feel I'm back in control of my life again.

Thankfully it was soon after this lowest point in my life so far that my grief counselling began. I have been able to use my sessions well, opening up, emotionally, letting the inner me breath again. I'm now finding my path again in life.