So I need to write this for me. I am hoping that I will be able to get through a lot of the other blogs I have lined up to write, and quickly, so that this one will be buried underneath them all and I can move on. I’m struggling to write it to be honest, but I think it needs to be done.
I am struggling. I am still struggling.
I am no different from other people. It’s possible for me to get ill, both physically and mentally. I have though always had a pretty rigid stance on it when it relates to myself, and that has pretty much been that ‘I don’t have time’. If there’s a problem that needs solving, then I can solve it. I get off my backside, and I move forwards. Always. No matter what. I had a lot of resilience. I would fix the problem, stave off the crisis, and move on.
The problem is that while I still apply that to myself, I am not able to do it effectively anymore. I cannot simply take grip of any potential issue, do whatever needs to be done and then run head-long into the next task anymore, because I am quite simply lacking independence and resilience right now.
I seem to have lost most of the freedoms I hold dear. I love my family of course, and making; I love playing music, and all of the hobbies I take part in, but the simple fact is that throughout my entire life, when I needed a break to realign myself, when I needed to realign my mental health and when I just needed a bit of time to myself, I would head outdoors.
My love of the outdoors is vast.
I was a sickly child, with chronic asthma and many hospital visits. I spent hours on my nebuliser at home, which would interrupt sleep, nursery/school time, and play. Asthma attacks were common, as were, if I remember, lungs deflating and more. I spent my time on steroids to keep me going. Hayfever would shut my eyes down for a couple of days. and I couldn’t run more than 20 or 30 feet. Loads of other issues, skin and such, but breathing was the main problem.
Then, my parents decided to move from the city environment we were in, out into the rural Pennines. Despite the obvious differences of ‘oh my goodness there’s cows behind the house, and we can hear the clock in the village’, it was the closest at that point I had been to living in the ‘great outdoors’.
Now it took a long time, granted, but running about more often, playing in the hay fields (and swelling up), hay baling in the summer, damning rivers and playing with newts, swimming in canal locks, reservoirs and lakes, hide and seek in ferns, building dens, sledging, abseiling, camping, climbing trees, walking for miles, cycling for tens of miles, walking dogs, adventuring up to the moors (eating wild bilberries among the heather), walking up the immense hills that come with living near places like Heptonstall, having to run cross country at school and then the yearly fun run, playing tennis and rugby, and even having jobs doing paper-rounds, milk rounds and more before school, all helped me to build up my stamina, and my ability to be outside cleared my mind. I also started playing the drums at that point – and yes sometimes even carrying a full drum kit up into a field to play before the farmer chased us out, literally with a pitchfork.
My childhood was not pretty either. Like it really wasn’t; so I used to use the escape of being out all the time to find peace, and that has stuck. We’d sneak back in for some snacks, and try and get back out before we were seen. In fact I may never have done all the technical things I do now if it were not for constantly fixing my bike myself so I could go out more. My brother likely still believes all was peachy, but we accept the reality with which we are presented, I guess.
Being outside allowed me to recharge in such a way that I could tackle problems head on, think with clarity, and at least try to keep my head above water, so to speak. I fell so deeply in love with the outdoors, that I have always considered it to be a distinct part of me.
From childhood it carried on. I went up to Fort William with school to climb Ben Nevis, I climbed Scafell Pike with my Dad, and then Snowdon. I carried on cycling, became a mechanic (and worked outside), a more prolific drummer, and we eventually moved to Wales to have access to even more outdoors. In one single place here, there’s mountains, beaches, rivers, the sea, forests, trails and so much more. To date, I have ‘climbed’ Snowdon more than 40 times, and I’ve never been up on the train. I adore it. I even tried to get my private pilots licence.
I’d gone from being a sickly child, to a strong, fit, healthy and resilient adult. It allowed me to weather some pretty nasty storms in life. When I came out to my mother (whom I’d always idolised), she basically set me up to fall by disowning me, alienated me from my extended family, and tried to bribe me to not be who I am, via eviction for me and my children. Nice! When I refused and moved, she went on the attack. It was sustained over many years, and was hard to deal with, but I did deal with it. It also revealed a lot about my childhood. My ex also did the same a few years later. Attack after attack, after attack – even to the point where she joined forces with my mother. Odd given the hate they had for one another.
It was difficult to navigate, but I dealt with it because I was resilient. Not really even financially (often going without meals and clothes to survive), but mentally. I could stand my ground, protect my young and bat away the advances, even while crying.
There are mitigating factors of course to all this doom and gloom. I am alive after all, and I have a couple of wonderful children, who light up my day, every single day. I have some incredible friends, and I have a plethora of hobbies and skills I can focus on, but the outdoors has always been my haven. I was even strong enough to conquer some of my childhood ‘demons’.
My childhood was replete with father figures you see. I met my birth father when I was ‘old enough’ at 18, but it turned out it was only because of a threat of an Aunty introducing us. Otherwise my mother would likely have kept the power of keeping him secret, just like she has the rest of my biological ancestry. She thinks it’s funny, and it gives her power over me still. I still don’t know, who my biological grandfather is for instance, or any further back than that – other than the DNA tests I have done going back to Scandinavia, I have no idea on that side.
From this meeting though (he was a really nice guy), I also met a wonderful Gran, three sisters and another brother. That was incredible and weirdly they all supported me though my coming out. Unlike my mother.
The one who was around when I needed him though, through my childhood and teens (which is no fault of the others at all), was my Dad, Mathew. Gosh, I attribute so much of my childhood and learning to him (guess who sat up and drew engine diagrams with me while I was sat on my nebuliser trying to breathe and giving me physio at night), and so when he was suddenly not there anymore, it never sat well with me. My mum said the things she needed to, to keep us on side, and I hated him as a result. But as I grew older, and having had experience of my mother at her most vicious, logic suggested that maybe it wasn’t him after all and I tried to find him. I have been in contact with him again for years now, and he’s every bit as wonderful as I remember him. He has a lovely wife and son too. My children call him Grandad.
The last demon I needed to conquer was another father figure, but someone I was viscerally scared of. Someone made out to be the ultimate bogeyman by my mother. Someone I was told had injured and neglected me, and even at one point pushed me off of a cliff in Yorkshire. She even wrote a ‘book’ about it. Once meeting Dad again, it became clear through chats with him, that John might not be who I had been led to believe either. So I contacted him. I did it with shaking fingers as I wrote because he was quite literally the big scary monster under the bed and had always been since we’d moved away from him at about age 6.
Meeting him was difficult just because I had been taught to perceive him a certain way. He came down to our home in Wales, and we talked. A lot. He showed me photos and talked about events that I had partial recollection of, but which had been tainted by misinformation. When he talked about the cliff incident, he named the correct one immediately and gave me an account that I was actually able to remember. I fell, and I was never pushed. While I remember falling, driving to the hospital, and being there, it was shrouded with nonsense. That happened over, and over again, incident after incident as we talked. Now for the first time I was learning and remembering real memories that fit, rather than the ones that had been suggested to me, and that I had taken to be real, but that somehow never quite sat right. Once I saw emails from mum to him, it became very clear.
I’ll write more about it all later, but bogeyman slayed, we now have a great relationship. My children like him and we speak regularly (it’s a sad shame my brother is too sMothered to meet him). Weirdly too, these two demonised men also accepted my coming out, along with my sisters and Gran, yet my mother is incapable of such empathy.
Alas – it was my mental resilience and fortitude that allowed me to do these things, and it was the outdoors that gave me that resilience. Batting away hate, and finding your own answers to huge issues like this takes a lot of strength, and I was able to cope with all that by knowing I could personally tackle any single issue that cropped up. It wouldn’t matter, who or what, because I’d just take it on.
Now though, I am in a mess, or at least I feel like I am – even despite all the wonderful people and things in my life, and even having dealt with all these problems (like connections remade, coming out etc). For me, all of that outside space is restricted to where I can manage to wheel my wheelchair, and that distance is getting less and less each day. I cannot access mountains, I cannot access beaches, mud, rocks etc, and I cannot access forests unless I have someone with me at all times (my daughter is the most wonderful carer). The only thing I have been able to do recently though, is access the sea, which is ironically something I have never really done (despite wanting to).
I spent a little bit of time with a disability charity over the past year (which I also wrote about), and they took me and my daughter out onto the water surrounding North Wales, and for the first time in a long, long time – I felt free again. I felt like I was properly outdoors, and I took to sailing very quickly. Alas their sessions are few and far between because I need to wait for high tide to get down onto the pontoon in the wheelchair.
So I am less and less outside. I’m in my early 40s. I am losing strength (and I was strong). I am losing the ability to be independent more and more each day. I am thus resting more and more because if I do not, I cannot do anything at all, and I am spending more and more time looking out at the world through a variety of screens and watching my friends and family live their lives. I am constantly in pain (everywhere), and I have lost my apetite to even eat properly. Despite my seemingly being prolific with photos and videos, I actually just take lots when I manage to get out. I still have loads to post because I have just not had the energy or willpower to post them.
This has ultimately led to anxiety attacks. I have had quite a few issues lately where I have broken down and sobbed about things I should have been able to rationally deal with and dispense with. It came as quite a surprise. I did not feel resilient.
It’s not good. It’s not good at all.
So I need to try and get out of it. I don’t really know fully how yet, given that the only place I can realistically access now is the sea. I did think about an electric wheelchair/scooter for land adventures, but they are either heavy, terribly designed (and won’t get off-road anyway), or they cost the best part of 10k. I did buy a beautiful tricycle with the hopes of putting a wheelchair type seat on it and an electric motor, but this is fizzling away at the moment, like a lot of the projects I keep trying to fulfill, but struggle to complete.
What am I to do? Accept it? Not likely; but I do feel lost.
I am going to have to redefine what being me means. I feel terribly guilty for my daughter spending so much of her time caring for me and not being out having fun, but I am powerless against it. I literally need help. They both worry constantly. Maybe the solution includes them having fun while helping me? I just don’t know.
Giving up is not in my character, but I need to rebuild mental resilience to recover effectively. Typically too, my struggles with lung issues are being compounded with asthma coming back again with a vengeance. So I need to breathe fresh air, in open spaces, with the chance to do some light exercise.
If I don’t sort this out soon, then I might not be able to pull myself back. I’m getting weaker in every way imaginable. I injure myself frequently, often trying to move about. Including knocking myself out. If I can just build myself up so I can push my wheelchair properly on my own, then maybe I’ll feel better. That will improve mental strength and then I can continue to battle the world. In all honesty, It would be nice if medical people would just help me fix my lungs, because the ability to breathe would allow me to exercise more, and then perhaps I could recover more fully. But I’ll take whatever I can get.
If you have read this, I really am sorry. You’ll never get this time back, however it did help me mentally to write it. It’s a tiny bit of focus I guess. I think people should demystify mental health struggles anyway, so this can only be good, but it feels weird to write and to admit that it applies to me.
Onwards is inevitable, but I feel lost, so who knows where I’ll end up. I will almost certainly write more blogs about exactly not this issue and I’ll try and pretend that it’s not lurking in the shadows a mere step or two behind me. But it is.
We’ll see.
Peace,
Emma