If you’ve been following recent posts, you will know how I have recently felt ‘on edge’ as I described it, mainly due to being abroad on holiday. But as I sit here on
Sunday afternoon, a week and two days after returning, I am no longer on edge, I am fine, and that includes a week where I have worked the first Friday in about two years, and even that doesn’t affect me, and as bad, I also have to work tomorrow, possibly the first Monday in a year and still, I am fine. But I am home, and I am in my place of security and solace and a place where I have always been safe; even although the house itself may change, it is my home!
Will it change, well only time will tell, and I have always said this is the strangest part of ‘My Story’ and how we can never tell what anxiety will do to us.
So the first Monday I have had to work in about a year, and I will see the very customer I was due to visit the morning when it debilitated me, and I went back to bed and curled up – will the same happen? No, it won’t. You can ask how I know, well I have been back to see them since, and I have been fine, so I will be fine on Monday, I know I will be, if I’m wrong, I’ll tell you.
We met a friend for a drink last night, and he introduced me to someone who works with adults who have mental health issues, and we got chatting. I mentioned my story, and she told me as someone who also suffers, she has occasional mornings where she feels the same as I did in the post above. So if you read my story, you will know that I wondered if it had been something I had dreamt that I couldn’t remember, and her reaction was that we shared exactly the same thoughts.
Is it our minds doing things to us that we don’t understand, can’t remember and don’t know. I didn’t prompt or suggest anything; she volunteered that it may have
been a dream she couldn’t remember. Because also the same as me, when it has happened, she has also gone to bed feeling just fine, and what else can happen when we sleep that triggers our condition, that we don’t know about. Well, it can surely only be a dream that we can’t remember, at least that’s how we felt about it. And again, please remember I have always said that what happens to me can surely happen to anyone, and I think this actually helps prove that point!
I struggle to understand my own mind fully; it is a minefield for sure; people will have specific triggers that brings on their mental health condition, some will have their issues there continually, some may need a bad dream to bring theirs on, we are all different, but sometimes what affects us is the same.
I got up yesterday, and I felt fine, but I still got my bike out and went out for twenty-one miles, and it was twenty-one miles of hard work; in the five weeks before yesterday, I had only cycled thirty-eight miles, when I usually do a minimum of twenty-four miles each weekend. So there hadn’t been as much cycling, and I could feel it in my legs. The worst part was when another cyclist went past me as if I was hardly moving; he was going so fast. Credit to him too, he flew past, but when I went a little faster to check his speed, he didn’t get much further away from me, and I can’t help thinking a spurt was put on to overtake me; I’ll never know!
The important thing is that it still made me feel good just for getting out and doing it; with walking, my cycling keeps me reasonably fit. I am already at 8,500 steps on this fresh, sunny Sunday morning, taking dogs for a walk and being lucky that after leaving our house, five minutes later we are in the wide-open country, maybe soon to be spoiled with a housing development, we shall see.
To me, there are other aspects of walking and cycling I enjoy. I actually enjoy saying hello to people and hopefully get a smile and a friendly hello back; admittedly, this does not always happen. People want to be left alone in their own little world; we all do some of the time, me included.
There are often times I say hello to people, whether out on my bike or walking, and I get a little grunt or groan back, and we have to accept that. More often, it is a friendly and positive response, and it is nice to see people being happy and smiling because, for me, it makes me feel better and happier knowing other people are. We can all look at all the bad things that go on in the country and the world, but there are many good things too; even someone greeting you with a smile on their face can be uplifting, at least it is for me.
I suppose the strangest greeting and not was one gentleman I came across on my
bike one morning. As he jogged and I passed him, I gave him my usual ‘good morning’ greeting, and all I got was a stare from a cold face. As always, it is up to the individual, yet when my wife and I walked the dogs later that day, we passed him again, and this time there was a returned greeting when we said our hellos. Does he not like cyclists, does he not like jogging, does he not like mornings and does he not like men on their own saying hello? We will never know, but what I do know is we all have moods, and again, there are times we will always just want to be left alone to do our own thing, in our own world.
I have mentioned to my wife that I may not want to go abroad again after the week in Fuerteventura, but then I wonder if it was the destination creating my trigger, this based on the holiday of April 2013, when I had bad anxiety in the same resort. The only way to find out is to go somewhere with no emotional connections. Our timeshare in Malta also holds some emotional ties and so probably not the best place to go either, so somewhere different, and try again. It will depend on the outcome of that holiday before we decide on future long term holiday plans.
However, I am home, the sun is shining, and life is good, so what can go wrong and what can change my frame of mind? Well, a forgotten bad dream could, that’s for sure, as that’s probably what happened in the post above, and as happens with the lady we met last night, or at least we think it does! All good and happy to being debilitated during a non-eventful sleep. How strange our life and mind can be?
Thanks for reading, and stay safe
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