My Lego Wall of Thoughts and Feelings



My blog is late this week and actually I was thinking of not even writing it.

I have been brutally honest on my blog. It has been very therapeutic for me to think through and explain how or what I am thinking and feeling; especially as the two might not be the same!. I also hope that my honest has at times been shocking but also helpful in breaking down some of the stigma surrounding mental health. It is fine to be honest about myself – I fully give my consent – but how can I be honest about others? In past editions of my blog I have tried to give a vague impression of the situation but with my current life that would not come close to doing it justice; and that contradicts the point of this blog. I don’t want to write because I have to, but because I enjoy it and hopefully you enjoy it, or at least find it interesting. So how can I explain how I feel and why I am thinking the things I do when these things are not my life and not my story?

I don’t know. It winds me up. It’s only a small Lego brick in a wall of my life.

Originally I planned for this post to be about my bedroom which over a long weekend with help from friends and family I have renovated; new carpets, new bed, new storage, new lights and a new paint job. I am really proud of it. 

It was a lot of work but having a tidier house can only help with a healthier mind. However, on Sunday as I stood in a carpet shop I found out my best friend’s mother had passed away after a long and bitter fight with breast cancer. Just days before my big sis Claire has raised hundreds of pounds for Cancer Research UK by getting caked in mud on a fun run and her donation page is still open if you have any spare change. Helen was an amazing woman with a brilliant sense of humour, something that kept everyone going through her many stages of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. For the past few months her condition had steadily failed until she moved into a hospice and then a care home. Rather selfishly, I had chosen not to see her recently, instead wanting to remember her from parties and drama club events and not the figure in the bed. She passed away peacefully with her family around her. Part of me is so glad for her, to be free from the pain of that bitter battle but also that her family are released and, while in the short term I know it must hurt, but they can now have closure and rebuild their lives. I will miss her and maybe as I slowly realise she is gone, it is magnifying the effects of those ‘lego bricks’ I mentioned. 


I can’t tell you the details of my lego bricks but they all interlock into big issues that are making me very angry and sad. Even though I should now have tools such as mindfulness to combat this, I want to be angry and sad. Again, if I could explain to you each brick and how they fit you would hopefully agree that it is so unfair and I have every right to want to scream and smash and shout. Everything exploding, back in my face despite all my effort becuase its never ever good enough. There is always more!
Yet, here I am, just trying to keep myself to myself feeling angry and hurt yet trying to be supportive for that family and my friends. Once again, I feel that I can and should suffer because that is better than anyone else hurting. I know it’s wrong but it feels like what I deserve and the noble thing to do. A chunk of this wall is to do with work – as I have said before I have reports from the Occupational Health and an NHS psychologist. I have been getting legal advice from MIND as despite being open here and in meetings, I do not think overall conditions are better. In fact, with staff leaving I can already tell they are worse – or is that the magnification of Helen’s death?

I had suicidal thoughts at work today.

But why bother being upset? Why be angry? I’ll just hurt you. So I just swallow it into my black hole. I don’t know.
Should I fight? I don’t want to.
I don’t belong here.
 






A photo posted by Matthew E Streuli (@matthewstreuli) on





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