Oh boy, and it’s October just like that. And it’s World Mental Health Day today. So Happy WMHD to you, and I hope you can find a little time today to breathe and do something nice for yourself.
I’m not doing much for this year’s WMHD, normally I’d pick a topic to write up for the day, but I’ve hardly touched my blog this year. Many reasons for that, one of which is that I have been focusing on writing my book. Yes, that book that I have mentioned a couple of times before about being the Sibling of a Special Needs/Mentally Ill person. Well, technically, I’ve completed it. I sat my ass down and was super-focused and finished all 400+ pages (a thesis, almost!) last year.
This year was for me to review, edit, get it polished before reaching out to publishers. But I’ve had a couple of roadblocks thrown my way so far.
You came in like a cannonball.
What am I saying? Roadblocks sound minor, no? Nope, not roadblocks, then. More like moon-sized cannonballs thrown in my face.
If you’ve read my previous posts, I had that neurological/ophthalmological emergency that heralded the start of 2024. The one where I had to be emergency hospitalised for steroid IV drip treatment (or lose my vision) and a spinal tap (yikes!) and numerous blood tests and follow-ups in the months after. With no conclusion on the cause. X-files, as I said in my previous post.
Which got me thinking, if the doctors can’t identify a cause, then it’s got to be…you know what I’m about to say…the stress. Yes, the stress of being the well sibling, the glass child, the invisible child, whatever you want to call it, basically, the impact of growing up with mental illness in the family.
If the chronic stress was starting to impact the vision in my left eye, oh hell no way am I going to let it affect my other eye! So off I went to revisit my dear old psychologist. Who attempted EMDR therapy this time. Not my cup of tea, though. And I realised why. It’s because I was recalling, re-processing, scribing and therapising myself anyway while working on my book! So, I already had all the answers to all the questions. Maybe I just wanted to chat with her to see if I was missing anything but looks like, nada.
I only got back to the book in April because of all these appointments (plus a couple of holidays) and the fact that my high brain pressure which the neurologist discovered when he did the lumbar puncture was giving me a lot of…pressure. I just couldn’t bring myself to get back to that heavy content in my book. My brain would start suffocating. I needed to chill. Recover.
So I did, then started slaving again in April, took a pause in July when we went to drink a lot of wine in Margaret River for a week, thinking I’ll jump straight back in upon my return and then…BOOM.
Tick, Tick, BOOM!
My mom’s heart attack. Again. In July. She had one last July as well, had a few stents in and needed more in November last year. But this time, doctors said her best option was to crack her ribs open, hold her heart in their hands and do a bypass surgery. What? This 75-year-old diabetic and renal failure patient who is only alive because of her nightly dialysis and who is already so weak? I just couldn’t imagine how she was going to recover from such a MAJOR surgery. Major even for a young person, what more for her?
Stenting again, they said, was going to be risky but it wouldn’t last that long; she’d be back with another heart attack in six months, they told her. The other option, do nothing and go home? Well, you may get an attack in 1 week, 1 month or 1 year, doled out the Doc. And when you get this attack, it might be a major one, you may end up having a stroke, he threw in for good measure.
With that kind of prognosis, and the anxiety of waiting for an attack to happen at home, she had no other choice than to do this, never mind the 1 in 12 chance of death during the surgery. Don’t worry, the surgery on 30th July was a success.
But as I write this post now, she is STILL in hospital. That’s over 12 weeks of never-ending post-op complications, two more “mini” heart attacks (yes, it can happen even after a bypass, it seems), painful poking and prodding, delirium, let’s throw in the bright lights and sounds of a 6-bedder room where nurses don’t exactly rush in to wipe your ass when you’ve done the deed in the diaper because they are under-staffed and you’re not stable enough to get out of the bed to use the toilet and are forced to endure the ignominy of stewing in the diarrhoea (even if they do come to change you within 10 minutes, but still!) that you’ve had for weeks thanks to the antibiotics for the many infections and the inflammation in the intestines…I could go on but I’ll stop. With all that, do I even need to mention the terribly low mood and how for a few days, she just wanted to end it all?
And through it all, how it has been for all of us supporting players? So many emotions, so much anxiety, so many things to worry about and take care of, oh, no, I don’t wish to get into this now. But you can imagine, the book took another break the past few weeks. How could I get back to something that is all about all these stressors when I was in the midst of it?!
I started the book up again a couple of weeks ago, though. It has been over 2 months, so I guess I’ve established some sort of “stability” for myself and my emotions.
So, how is my Mental Health on World Mental Health Day 2024?
Well, I cannot believe it is already October, and what a year it has been so far! I am still aiming to polish my book and have it ready before the year is up, well before December, even. And that’s why the blog has had to take a back seat, too. Many times, I thought I’d bare my soul with a blow-by-blow of my mom’s bypass and everything I was feeling and how I was practising what I preach about self-care, boundaries, mindfulness etc but… I preferred to save what energy I had for my book.
That said, it is WMHD, and if how I have coped with this “exciting” year so far without crumbling isn’t proof of how well I am doing mentally (mostly) thanks to all that therapy, lessons learned and hard work I have put in, then I don’t know what is. So congratulations to me for maintaining my balance and living by my values. I’m okay with it.
Hope you guys are managing okay, too, and have a good one, ciao!
