My Story 35 is titled ‘The End Part 1,’ I did that because my life since the accident has pretty much done the full circle, telling you my story from what happened after my accident, to the present day and everything in between, and so really it should be the end, but it’s not. And I say that as I want to continue writing about how I have been affected since the day of the accident and how it plays its part in my life today.
And I want to start this post where I finished off in my last post on my story number 36, because it was pretty much all about what we can do to help ourselves when we feel anxious, low, or generally just down and not right.
I don’t work Mondays, but as I start to write this, I woke up this morning feeling a bit low, and if anything that is as bad as it gets for me these days, let’s hope I don’t speak too soon? However, I had a bit of a strange dream last night; I dreamt my wife and I had been arguing about what I had done to her, best described in ‘My Story 3.’ But the argument was understandably heated, something we don’t do, we rarely say a cross word to each other, let alone argue! But this was bad; she rightly said some nasty things to me because of my actions. I give as good as I get, and so I said some nasty things back about what she had done, which she did because I wasn’t there, something that wasn’t and can’t ever be her fault, but in the dream, we argued, and it wasn’t nice.
When I woke up, I felt bad because of this. Would some people say at this point something like ‘give your head a wobble, and get on with things?’ I used to think that about people who suffered mentally, how times have changed over the last ‘nearly’ eight years or so!
Either way, I feel bad about what happened in real life, not so much the dream, people did things and made choices based on decisions I made in my life, decisions I got wrong, decisions I have to live with, but decisions that play on my mind, and however hard I try to divert them, which I often do. They will always be there; nothing can change that; it’s a heavy burden.
Anyway, things needed to be done, I don’t know how many of you have watched ‘The Undoing’ on Sky Atlantic, and it is one of the best mini-drama series I have watched for some time, quite gripping.
I talk diversions and the way I felt I had to find something to do. Fortunately, I also needed to do some work for a local charity that I have been helping out recently, scanning documents into alphabetical order, and so my diversions were set for me. I had my scanner, laptop and TV all set up and off I went, working whilst watching the drama, and very soon I was in a different world, a million miles away from my bad dream and bad decisions.
I finished work, as did the programme, I delivered the hard and e-copy folders, went to my physio appointment, got a couple of sausage and bacon rolls from the local bakers and came home to tuck in with a cup of coffee to wash them down, and all was good – for a little while. But soon my mind started to wander again, and I wasn’t long before I knew I needed to do something else, sitting about wasn’t going to work for me, not today. I had planned to go out on my bike, but with the weather not being so good I didn’t think I’d get out.
I decided the weather wasn’t going to win, and so I got my gear on, the bike out, and off I went. Being in my mid-fifties and only just starting to cycle again, I’m not the fastest or fittest and never will be. So it was a case of pushing myself, in that previous post, I mentioned how sore legs soon takes your mind off any mental health issues as you are concentrating on what you are doing, and it is the case. And so ten miles and a warm shower later, I was feeling quite refreshed, but also feeling a little satisfied at my physical exploits because I did push myself.
One of the things I couldn’t help but think about when I was out on my bike was getting home so that I could write; it’s about all I wanted to do really. And so here I am, after finishing and posting my blog about euthanasia, something I do have strong opinions on, and I hope you can respect my views on this subject? I also have to watch a short training video as I am doing something tomorrow that I’ve not done for some time, and I want to get it right.
But I know that letting things eat away at your mind can make it a bad day for you, and that is why I will always say that diversions and distractions are important. You might be fed up with reading this in my posts if you’ve ever read any? Still, I need to repeat it, because I believe it is one of the biggest aspects of help and advice I feel I can give to people, who may suffer and have problems with anxiety and other mental health issues.
We can’t let the problem eat away inside our heads, if we do then the condition wins, and we lose, and we can’t let that happen, so we need to keep busy, and we can do that relatively easily, as can physical exercise, which is important to help our minds.
I recently bought a bike, but as long as we have a pair of trainers, we can go jogging, we can do Facebook exercise classes for free, and join in many other online exercises, and we can make up our own, to keep us busy. We need to make sure we are both, active and fit, because busy and fit helps with a healthy mind, and the exertion itself also helps.
I once said I probably wouldn’t apologise for my writing, but ask you to understand that we all have opinions and I have mine too. Still, I will apologise if you find me repeating myself when it comes to diversions and distractions, but that is how important I think it is.
I’m sorry again, but I have also said before that I am lucky in life and I know I am. For all the hurt and pain I have caused, I know I am fortunate to have what I have, that is from my working week being three days, and still earning a decent wage (nothing fantastic I can assure you) but I am lucky in all aspects of life.
If I were to list all the things that are important to us in one column, and there were two additional columns to the right titled ‘good and bad’ and no in-betweens, all my subjects would be ticked against the good column, and there are no bad ones along the way, (maybe except for health, and that is my head)! And I know I am lucky to say that because not a lot of people could tick the good boxes against everything they have in life.
But therein itself is an exercise, how about listing everything important to you. These could cover a wide range, some people may list five, and some may list twenty-five, but list everything and then add two columns and tick the boxes.
Let’s start with a house or home? You could then break these down into sub-sections such as:
Décor
Location
Neighbours
Size
Garden
You may want to add other sub-titles, it’s up to you. Maybe then whichever boxes are ticked as ‘bad’ that is what you need to concentrate on changing, after all, if the tick is good there is usually no need to change it. Is it an exercise worth doing, or is it easy for me to say this because all my ticks are good except for my head?
But then you add whatever subjects you want. Relationships, work/job/career, car, holidays, finances, friends, family and so on. There is probably more; admittedly, it’s not something I have to give too much thought to, I am fortunate. But concentrate on changing the bad ones, and if you can change them, it can surely help.
But maybe at times we just put up with what we have as we feel there is no way out, but there often is if we try hard enough and want to achieve something. But maybe until they are all there written down in front of us in black and white, we don’t see it so clearly.
I suppose a concern might be where we would start if there were too many bad ticks, well I guess we start with the easier things and make small changes first, but there has to be a starting place, but give it a go, unless we try we won’t know. Either way, if changes need to made with your lifestyle, I hope you get what you are after in life.
Stay safe, and thank you for reading.