More Notes on a Breakdown

This story starts here.

This is the story of my breakdown, in 2010...

Who could fail to be happy here?

I become obsessed with the idea of running away from my life. I want to go on holiday to Spain. At every available opportunity I get on a train or bus and spend the afternoon somewhere else. I want to move away from here and not tell anyone where I'm going. I imagine that I could go and live somewhere else, and miraculously none of my problems would follow me. If I lived somewhere else, I could be someone different. Happy. A person who doesn't need pills to be normal. A person who can talk to other people, engage in conversation, make friends, be loved.

When you're on pills to make your brain work, you don't know who you are any more. You never know if what you're thinking is you, or the pills. You don't know if your reaction to a particular event is how you would normally react, and whether this reaction is better or worse than what might have occurred, were you not dosed up with the psychotropics. You never know if your thoughts are really your thoughts, or just side effects. It's like when you spend a whole week wailing, convinced the whole world is against you, and then at the end of the week you get your period and realise it was just PMT. Only there's a danger, with the pills, that you'd never realise your reaction wasn't your own. 

I spend a lot of time staring into space, pondering this. I watch myself, as if in the third person, trying to figure out which parts are me and which are the chemicals.

I have also lost the ability to choose, to make even the most basic decisions. This started a few weeks ago, when I went to Waitrose on my lunch break to get a sandwich, and spent most of my lunch hour standing in front of the sandwich counter trying to decide which one to get. They didn't even have a very large selection of sandwiches; I just couldn't make the decision. At the time I thought it was just one of those things, but as the days and weeks edge forward I notice more and more than I can't decide on anything. If I decide to read a book, I don't know which one. If I want to watch a DVD I stare at my collection for an hour before giving up. On the rare occasions I decide I do fancy something to eat, I stand staring into the cupboard for half an hour trying to decide what to eat, before giving up and going back to the sofa, defeated and hungry. Is this a side effect from the Prozac, or a side effect from life that the Prozac hasn't managed to mask? How does one tell the difference?

On a whim, I ask my boss to give me a few days' holiday next week. He says yes, and within twenty minutes of making the decision I go online and book a short holiday in Spain. I like Spain; it is sunny and people are nice. I won't be depressed in Spain. Going to Spain will fix me. I tell a friend who works with me and she pulls a face that seems to say, You are mental. Normal people don't do this. I ignore her, and go to Spain filled with misplaced hope that this will be the thing that fixes me. And if it doesn't, I won't come home. I'll do a Reggie Perrin, lose myself. Or better yet, kill myself. Yes. If I don't feel better when I get there, I will kill myself. Somehow the thought of doing it in Spain makes it sound exotic and interesting.

Unsurprisingly, when I get to Spain I do not feel better. I get sun burn and wander aimlessly around the back streets, drinking too much beer in street cafes and buying fresh waffles and ice creams because that's what I did last time I was here, and then throwing them in the next bin I pass because I cannot eat. I lay in bed at night staring at the ceiling, thinking to myself, Come on, you're on holiday! You're meant to be relaxed, you're meant to be able to sleep! It turns out insomnia travels just as well as depression. 

I am in Spain for my 29th birthday, alone and silently panicking. The last year of my 20s, and what have I achieved? I'm single and alone, nobody loves me and nobody ever will. I'll never get married, nobody will ever want to start a family with me, I'm a burden to my family, who are all happily paired off. The only single one. Unsuccessful at everything, my life speeding away from me so fast I can't keep up.

I decide not to kill myself here. The ladies who clean the hotel rooms are so nice, I don't want them to come in and find a body. Someone from my family would have to come here to identify my body, and my sister had to fly here before, when my dad had a heart attack. It wouldn't be fair on them, and they can't afford the flights. I go home, defeated and decidedly not fixed.

The story continues here

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Prozac Nation?

This is the next part of my story of my breakdown. The first part can be found here.

This is something originally written in 2010/11...

At home, I sit and look at the Prozac. Do I want to do this? These little blue and green pills, they look so small and innocuous, but I know from past experience they can change things a lot. We've been here before, when I was 16. It wasn't a pretty story. I don't want to go down this road again, to be dependent on a pill to function, to wonder whether my feelings are real feelings, or side effects. I've read Prozac Nation; its author, Elizabeth Wurtzel, credits Prozac with saving her life. But I've also read the stories in the media about the people who have gone mad on it. This whole situation feels a lot like admitting defeat. What am I saying about myself if I start taking pills in order to make myself normal? That I'm not capable of functioning without something to steer me in the right direction? If that's the case, am I not better off dead? I feel like if I give in and take these pills, it will be tantamount to admitting I'm not capable of even a basic human existence on my own. That I can't even put one foot in front of the other and fool people any more. I don't want to be that weak and useless.

I put them in a drawer and pretend I can cope without them.

The GP and the friend are both wrong. They must be. This sort of thing happens to other people, not to me. Yeah, I've had my depressive moments, but they were when I was a moody teenager in love with the idea of teenage angst, and foolishly thinking I was a tortured soul like Richey Manic. It was more affected than real, wasn't it? I've got my head screwed on right really, haven't I? This is just a rough patch, it'll pass. I can't possibly be one of those unfortunate people who need Prozac to cope.

On the other hand though, I can't stand the thought of feeling like this any longer. The doctor has been to university for several years' training to do this job, surely she knows what she's doing? Who am I to argue with her?

A couple of days later, I give in. I come home from work crying uncontrollably. I have no idea how I passed 7 hours at a desk, I have no idea what I am going to do with regard to any single aspect of my life. Simple things are beyond me, and I'm scared to go out of my front door.

I admit defeat. I take the pill, and I cry some more. I really am that sort of person, and it breaks my heart. I had such high hopes for myself. I imagine the pill floating up to my brain and plugging some sort of gaping hole, like the Dutch boy with his finger in the dam.

Within days, I stop eating or sleeping, and lose the capacity for rational thought. My life is like wading through molasses. I hear people speaking to me, but it's as if they are in another room, another place, talking to another version of me. Nothing gets through to me. I can't tell if the Prozac is causing this, or if it's just a coincidence that I started taking it at the same time as I turned the corner into this state.

I stop trying to pretend to be normal; I was never any good at it any way.

The not eating starts as "I can't be bothered with cooking any dinner tonight" and quickly moves onto "I can't stand the thought of putting that in my mouth." It's not that I'm not hungry; I must be, I've not eaten properly for weeks now. I'm just seized by this feeling that I cannot eat. I lose more weight without trying, and this serves only to make me even less inclined to eat. I begin to keep a food diary, as a way of showing off to myself. One Tuesday, the diary reads simply, "Mini Baby Bel x 1."

At work, I speak to a nice lady from HR. The whole company is on notice for redundancy at the moment, nd I am worried that if I get signed off work again (as I am increasingly tempted to do) it will affect the likelihood of my being made redundant. I don't want to lose my job, on top of everything else. She tells me not to worry about work at all; if I need to be off work then I should go. She suggests I book a holiday or something, but advises me I should speak to my department manager first, out of courtesy, and explain that I am having problems.

The department manager is a gruff, middle-aged, old-fashioned manager. I cannot imagine having a discussion about feelings with this man. I'm horrified at the thought of having to tell him I want to go home because of such a flimsy excuse as "stress." I decide to just ask him if I can finish the day, and take the rest of the week off. I go to see him and tell him about the issues I've been having, in very general terms. No details. I ask if I can take the rest of the week as holiday, then brace myself for his response. He takes a breath and says: how about this...  my heart sinks. Here it comes.  And then he surprises me: look, I know what you're like, and if you just go you'll worry that your work is being left. Go home now, get an early night. For the rest of the week, come in when you feel like it. Check your emails, make sure your work has been handed off to other people, and go. I don't care if you're only here for two hours a day. Come in as late as you need to, make sure things are covered, and leave.

I have no idea where this has come from. This is not what I have come to expect from the man who has been running the department for the last year. I'm gobsmacked. I thank him profusely, and leave. For the next week or so, I feel like a complete fraud. I arrive for work between 9 and 10 each morning - I couldn't cope with the guilt if I rocked up any later, despite my manager telling me off if I arrive too early. I check my emails, check my normal duties are covered, and sort of hang about, wondering whether it would be ok to go home now... until my manager basically kicks me out of the office.

Leaving work early only brings on a new problem, though: there are now more hours between getting home and going to bed. The hours spread out before me like some massive, barren desert. I cannot think of how I will fill so many hours. Most people (presumably) will fill their evening with socialising (I can't do that, I can't speak to anyone), preparing a nice meal (I can't eat anything), housework (what's the point?), watching TV or movies (can't concentrate) or... what else? What do normal people do? What did I used to do? It's as if I've forgotten overnight how I like to spend my spare time. I haven't the first clue how to fill the coming hours. 

I sit on the sofa and switch on the TV; a force of habit left over from when I used to enjoy things. I flick through the channels; there is nothing I want to watch. Eventually I let it stop on some American reality show or other. I'm sure I used to watch this all the time. Didn't I enjoy this once? I don't remember. I may have seen this episode, I don't know. 

I go upstairs to my desk and switch on the computer. I wait for it to load up, and connect to the internet. I used to spend hours in here, didn't I? What did I do? How did I fill that time? I don't want to chat to anyone on Facebook. I don't want to wade through my emails. I don't want to read any news stories or articles. I don't want to check my bank account. What else is there to do online? I stare at my Facebook for a few minutes, wondering how I ever coped with these demands for my attention.

Eventually, at a loss, I leave the room and go back downstairs to the living room. The TV is still on, talking to itself with some vacuous nonsense about tans or hair or make up or weddings. Or perhaps all of those subjects. I can't stand the voices. I find the remote and flick through the channels some more. It all seems so pointless, just devoid of any meaning whatsoever. Why does anyone watch this? I switch the TV off and sit there, staring at the blank screen for a while. 

What time is it? I must have killed an hour or so by now... No, only twenty minutes. I go back to the spare room and look at the computer. I have ten Facebook notifications. They've been sitting there mocking me and my stupid inability to cope with even the simplest of things, for days now, slowly increasing in number as the days progress. I can't bring myself to do anything about it.

I go back downstairs and sit on the sofa in the silent living room. What am I doing in here? I don't want to watch the TV, there are no DVDs I want to watch. I have a book which I'm half way through, but I couldn't tell you what it's about... What else can I do with my evening?

Out of habit, I go back upstairs to check the computer. Check for what? I know I have unread emails and Facebook notifications, and I don't want to read any of them. I get to the doorway and realise I don't want to be in here.

I go back downstairs. I get to the living room, and I don't want to be in here either.

I go to the kitchen and find a bottle of some dodgy green liqueur at the back of a cupboard. I find a shot glass - I'm not some sort of uncivilised drunkard, after all - and take them into the living room with me. I pour myself a shot and look a it. I don't normally drink. This bottle has been in my cupboard for six months or more. The liquid is sticky and smells of bananas. I drink it quickly, down in one. It doesn't taste bad, not like it used to. I feel it burning its way down to my empty stomach, spreading out in the cavity and heating me from the inside. I still don't want to watch the TV; I still don't want to be in this room.

I wander back upstairs to the spare room, with no idea what I intend to do when I get there. Where else can I go? My bedroom has nothing but a messy pile of un-ironed clothes and a lot of dust. The bathroom has nothing to occupy my attention; I've already had a shower and washed my hair today. 

I start to head back down the stairs. It occurs to me that down there, there is only the living room - which we've already established I don't want to be in - and the kitchen, which has only dirty plates and cups from my failed attempts at eating. I give up and sit on the stairs. Bottle in hand, I begin to cry. I have no idea how I will fill the rest of my evening. I pour myself another shot. And another, and another. Soon, half the bottle is gone. It occurs to me that I don't feel drunk. I have no food in my stomach to soak up the alcohol I don't usually touch. I should be drunk. Even that part of me is broken. I can't even get drunk any more. I am still crying, sitting on the stairs, wondering what to do.

I can hear my neighbours through the wall, going on with their normal Wednesday evening. How do they know what to do? Did someone tell them? How are they able to just fill all of this time, all these hours? There are three of them, which probably helps. They can put their heads together and come up with ideas. I rock myself back and forth, trying not to cry too loudly in case they hear me, praying for something, anything, to help me.

Eventually the clock crawls towards 9pm. This is a reasonable time to head to bed. I breathe a sigh of relief; I know what to do at bed time, I don't need to make any decisions, or think. I put on my pyjamas, wash my face, clean my teeth and get into bed. Usually at bed time I read a book. I know this because I've done it since I was very small. There is always a stack of half-finished books next to my bed. I pick up the top one, and begin reading. After twenty minutes, I realise I've been reading the same sentence, in the middle of the page, over and over again. I have no idea what came before it, what caused me to stop at that point. I try again. Concentrate. Stay with it. You can do this, you love to read. It happens again and I give up. I put the book on the floor and switch the light out. I lie down and eventually fall asleep.

As if by clockwork, I wake up at 3am. I look at the clock and groan. I have no idea what it is about 3am, but I am growing to hate it. I lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Why can't i sleep? I can't stand another 60 plus years of this. I have no idea how people cope with this. 

I become completely entranced by normal people. People who sleep all night, get up, go to work, come home, and cope with their lives. Some of them even enjoy their lives. I want to grab them by the shoulders and beg them to tell me their secret, what it is I'm missing. At the moment my life, my existence, seems more like a prison sentence to be endured, than anything to be enjoyed.

One morning at 4am when I've been trying to go back to sleep for what feels like an age, I switch the light on and begin to rummage through all the old prescriptions I have lying about the house. I have a box of co-codamol from when I had bruised ribs a few years ago; they always made me sleepy. I have some old antidepressants that didn't work the last time I went mental. I have some antihistamines that used to send me into some sort of drugged haze. And there is some Valium left over from having a tooth pulled at the dentist. There are others too. I pile the boxes and jars on the table. Is there enough here to kill me? I'm not sure. Right now, I just want to go to sleep. So I take two of the co-codamol and an antihistamine. And then one of the other antihistamines, the ones my doctor actually gave me to help me sleep. 

Eventually I pass out, and then I'm late and groggy for work in the morning. My boss pulls that face again. I've seen it a lot lately, it seems to be reserved just for me and it says You are worrying me, and I do not like it. I tell a little white lie: the doctor prescribed me sleeping pills. Over the next couple of days my work colleagues learn not to try and start a conversation for an hour or so, because the sleeping pills won't have worn off yet. On one day in particular, I turn up with a large coffee, sit down at my desk and stay there, head lolling back and forth, not even drinking the coffee, for two hours until my manager sends me home.

I begin to take increasingly risky cocktails of drugs at 3am. I try to avoid taking pills before I go to sleep; I am ever hopeful that this will be the night I finally manage to sleep through. But when I wake in the middle of the night, in a fit of desperation, I take one or more of every pill I have available to me. I've a friend who is bipolar and doesn't take his medication, so he lets me have some. It seems that there's nothing left to do but wait until the day my quest for an uninterrupted night's sleep results in my taking too many pills. I observe this in the same way one might casually think, if I leave that tap running the sink will overflow... oh well...

The story continues here

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This is What a Breakdown Looks Like

This is something I wrote in 2010, when I had a nervous breakdown and went slightly crazy for a few months.
I've posted bits and bobs of this in various places before, so apologies if you've read any or all of this already.

April 2010

Summer seems to be coming early this year; it's bright and warm in April. I love the sun, it always seems to make things better. Except this year, it doesn't seem to be working.

I have always felt as if I didn't quite belong. Never quite accepted, never quite popular, never quite cool enough, not pretty or clever or slutty enough to fit in with any particular group. At school I felt inferior to everyone around me, like an impostor. My friends were all way more intelligent and beautiful than I was. I tried to be like them, but it never quite worked. When I left I didn't maintain contact with most of them, and those I did still see never seemed particularly thrilled by my presence. People left school and went off to universities in far flung places, and I stayed put. I would find out after the fact that people I thought were my friends had come home for Christmas or Easter or all summer and met up, had parties, got blind drunk, and had a fantastic time; but they'd not called me, I'd not been included. It hurt me every time, but I had never really expected them to call any way; I had never been one of them. 

I'd always felt an outsider, but that never made it any easier. It was never through choice, I just didn't know how to cross that line, to be inside the circle instead of outside looking in. That feeling of being an outsider is getting gradually worse though, more pronounced, as if I am further and further removed from the people around me. And I'm starting to care less and less about it...

I go to work. I sit at my desk and stare blankly at the computer screen, waiting for 11 o'clock when the sandwich man sets up shop downstairs. At 11 o'clock I go downstairs to the break room and buy a can of Coke and a Kit Kat. I go back to my desk to wait for lunch time. I drink most of the Coke and force down two fingers of the Kit Kat. This takes me two hours. the rest of it sits on my desk, going stale in the air conditioned office. 

At lunch time I walk into town. Most people use their lunch hour for eating, but I'm not really into the eating thing right now, and any way I have started to enjoy the feeling of emptiness. It's some sort of physical answer to the way my brain has been feeling for months now. I wander around aimlessly for an hour, waiting for it to be time to go back to work. When an hour is almost up, I had back to work and sit at my desk, staring blankly at the computer screen, waiting for it to be home time. 

I walk home slowly, because I know what comes next. I walk up the path to my house with a sense of sinking defeat. When I get in, I wait for it to be bed time. I sit on the sofa and stare at whatever happens to be playing on TV. I go to bed, sometimes sleep, and mostly wait for it to be time to get up again. When I am up I wait for it to be time to go to work and begin the cycle all over again. It's like Groundhog Day, except there's no Groundhog. And no Bill Murray. And no hint of a laugh.

I am alone.

I go days and days without speaking to anyone other than in meetings at work, or coffee shop assistants. I begin to fear the weekends with the sort of dread usually reserved for root canal surgery. My phone doesn't ring; nobody wants to spend time with me on the weekend so I'm just alone with my thoughts. My thoughts are not very nice these days.

I think I must have some sort of poison inside of me that people can sense, and it makes them steer clear. I've lost count of the number of boyfriends I've had who have just upped and left without even bothering to make an excuse or let me down gently; they sense that poison, and they're off.

I don't want to be like this, I want to fit in. But I don't know how.

My manager starts taking me into meeting rooms and saying things like: do you really think work is the best place for you right now? ... If you want to go home early, just let me know ... Perhaps you should go back to your doctor ... It won't affect your sickness record if you're signed off work again ... Other people have noticed your weight loss and are concerned. I respond that no, I don't want to go home. There is nothing wrong with me; I have no broken bones or bleeding wounds, to go home sick is a ridiculous idea. I soldier on, making everyone feel uncomfortable, and feeling a fraud whenever I capitulate and leave work early.

Eventually, after several suggestions from my manager, I go to the doctor and am signed off work for a week with stress. I feel like an idiot, being signed off work with something as frivolous and 21st Century as stress. I go to the gym, and one of the ladies there tells me, be kind to yourself. And this is what I try to do: lay in the garden and read a book, go to the gym, go swimming.

When my week is over, I go back to work. The manager takes me into a meeting room and asks if I really feel I'm ready to come back. What am I supposed to say to that? I tell him I'm fine, work is the best place for me, it'll take my mind off my problems, I'll be okay if I can just get my head down and carry on. He tells me that if I need to leave early for any reason then just to say so. I scoff; why would I need to leave early? There was no good reason for me to be off in the first place; I only accepted the sick note because it was offered and I fancied a bit of a skive in the sunshine. I'm fine. Aren't I?

A couple of weeks later, I am decidedly not fine. I am not sleeping, I feel sick all the time, my IBS is playing up terribly after years of being fine. I'm miserable, I worry about everything, all of the time, and I can't concentrate. I'm fairly sure the shortness of breath I've had lately is actually panic attacks.

I have a half-year review with my boss. He tells me there is nothing wrong with my work, and I disagree. I tell him I feel like I'm just coming in and waiting for home time, I don't actually contribute anything and feel like a fraud. He says nobody has noticed that I am any different, though he did notice a change a few days ago. He is very nice about it. He is worried about me. He says if I feel like I can't come into work then it's fine but I just need to let him know so that he doesn't worry.

I come out of the meeting and email a friend. We've been emailing back and forth all day; she's probably the only actual real life person I talk to honestly about stuff. To the untrained eye, she may seem a bit hard and unsympathetic, but really she's the only one who doesn't pander to my attention seeking. You know, the sort of person who will listen to you moan about how absolutely terrible everything is, and the world will surely end, and then pats you on the back and says "never mind, you'll be okay!" She tells me, "truthfully, I've never known anyone to be as "not right" as you are today. Please go home." So I do. When this girl thinks there is something wrong, there is something wrong.

I don't know how to fix this or make it go away. My boss seems to be the person most concerned for my wellbeing, and he has said to me more than once that he thinks I need to do something quickly, before I have some sort of proper breakdown. He says he doesn't think work is the best place for me to be. What sort of person has to have this sort of conversation with their boss, because there is nobody else they can burden with it? There must be something so badly wrong with me as a person, and I am unable to figure out how to fix it or change it. I don't even know where to begin. And I'm not sure I have the energy either. I'm lost. And I get the distinct impression nobody out there wants to find me, either.

Perhaps I'm not just being a drama queen; perhaps I've not just read too much Plath; perhaps I need to sort my shit out here. So I go back to the doctor and I tell her I think I need some help or something. It's a weird appointment where I sit in the chair and pick at my fingernails and fail to make eye contact and then cry any way. She gives me a leaflet for a counselling service. You call up and make an appointment for a screening interview, where they assess how mental you are, and then you're either booked in for counselling or sent on your merry way with some leaflets.

We've been here before. I'm not enthralled at the suggestion, but I don't want to seem ungrateful so I take the leaflet and try to smile. I don't want this nice lady to think she hasn't solved my problem in the 10-minute allotted time slot. 

Then she does a questionnaire with me where you answer questions about how you've felt for the past two weeks. Apparently there is a scale from 1-27. I score a 21. She tells me this means I am severely depressed, and so I leave the surgery with a leaflet in one hand, and a prescription for Prozac in the other. 

Then I go back to work and have a panic attack and get sent home.

To be continued...

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The One Where I Have a Fabulous Idea

Between sickness bugs and teething and colds and more sickness, S has been fairly poorly and clingy lately. She's wanted to spend a lot of time either watching TV with me, or playing with me, or reading with me - or doing anything really, so long as it involved sitting on my lap, usually holding one or both of my hands.

Sometimes climbing on my lap is also required

Today, as I sat on the play mats demonstrating the noise benefits of a toy drum for the umpteenth time, I thought to myself, "wow, I have a million things to be doing... there must be something I can get done while I sit here on the mats..." 

And then, in a stroke of genius, I thought, "Yes! That's it!! I'll sit here and think of all the things you can do while your child is playing on your lap, and then I'll write a fabulous blog post about how to be super productive."

So I set myself to thinking. You could... or... well... uh...

And that's when the real stroke of genius hit me. My gorgeous daughter is 13 months old. Those 13 months have already gone far too quickly; in the blink of an eye she will be 13 years old, and the times of her wanting to sit on my lap and hold my hands will be long gone. Perhaps the most productive use of my time is just to sit here and play with her, while I can. Perhaps I should just be a bit more... zen about the whole thing, and sit and enjoy the moment.

And so I abandoned all thought of housework and blog posts, and gave in to banging the toy drum and blowing raspberries. Which is why this blog post is rather short.

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Pollyanna Ain't Got Shit On Me!

According to the source texts I am currently studying for an essay, expressing gratitude can boost our moods.

I could do with a bit of a mood boost at the moment, so I thought it might be useful to list the things I am grateful for:

• I have the world's most beautiful, happy, perfect child. I know you think yours is cute, but mine is the best. She is perfect in every way, and I love her like burning bush fires and chewing gum stuck in my hair. Every time I look at her - even when she is delighting in throwing her breakfast all over the floor, or wiping her snotty nose over my last clean pair of trousers - I remember just how incredibly, blindingly lucky I am to have her. 

• I have some amazing friends. Usually, it's the people you really wouldn't expect much from (not because they're crap, but because they have busy lives of their own, or their own traumas to deal with) who turn up at your door with a friendly smile, a shoulder to cry on, a lift to the shops, a cake. Sometimes it's the person you assume to be only a casual acquaintance who helps you through the darkest of nights.

• I have a roof over my head - and it no longer leaks! I may live in what many deem to be the rougher estate around here, but I'm in the centre of town, my neighbours are reasonable and we have a massive park just over the road.

• After 13 months of constantly feeling that my hair is dirty, I finally have a shower over my bath! This is a Big Deal for me; I cannot tell you how much I love being able to have a shower in the mornings.

• Having a small child means that I get a certain amount of lee-way with the housework. I'm no longer a slovenly disaster area; I'm a mum. The constant mess is more or less expected. Peanut butter on every surface is a given. As long as there's no obvious mould, I can basically say goodbye to the houseproud stress I've never been too fond (or capable) of any way.

• On top of being the most awesomest, bestest, perfectest child ever, S is also fairly independent. She can usually be left to her own devices long enough for me to do the washing up or make the bed (or dick about on Facebook). She has probably learned this from necessity, but it's still something I am eternally grateful for, being as I am, alone in this parenting lark. Now all I need is for her to learn not to follow me in to the bathroom...

• Having this blog has afforded me opportunities to try out things I wouldn't normally have thought of or afforded. Like the photobook I reviewed the other day, or the child-friendly paint I have yet to use in my kitchen. I'm quite lucky, really.

• My sister is pregnant, meaning S will have a cousin 16 months younger than her - the perfect age for shenanigans! We're already planning all the fun stuff we're going to do with them as they grow up!
• S also has two older cousins, who are 2 and 4 years older than her - just right for teaching her mischief!

• I might moan about going to work, and being knackered and what have you, but actually my job is not half bad. The people I work with are a friendly bunch, and between working bloody hard, we also laugh a lot.

And yes, I am definitely procrastinating, and writing this post instead of writing an essay on happiness. What of it?

Sling Talk

Things people have said to me whilst wearing S in the sling:

• That's the best way to travel!

• She looks comfortable!

• He looks comfortable!

• You've got something on you...

• Is there something you want to get off your chest?

• Isn't she heavy like that?

• Nawwwww!

• You're not still carrying her, are you?

• I wish I could go about like that.

• I bet that's difficult isn't it?

• Doesn't your back hurt?

• Don't you have a buggy?

• There's a baby on you.

You get extra points if you come up with something amusing... or at least something I've not heard a million times before!

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If you've enjoyed this post you may also enjoy:
Things NOT to Say to Me

Review: Vistaprint Photobooks

I was fortunate enough to be asked to review a photobook from Vistaprint.

I've made photobooks before as wedding gifts for friends, but never made one for myself. As S's first birthday has just passed, I thought it might be nice to make a book of her first year.

The site itself is fairly easy to use. You can choose from several different shapes and sizes of book, and how you design your book.

I downloaded the photobook editor, which is a program you can keep on your desktop, and use to create your photobook stage by stage. So if you're like me, and you have a year's worth of photos to wade through, re-size, position, caption, fiddle about with, etc - you can save it and go to bed, then come back the next day and carry on.

I have to say, I've never used an editor before that had so many options. You can set backgrounds, set sizes, add captions...

... arrange the photos however you like them, crop or resize them, cut them out into different shapes, add frames over them...

Basically, it's like having a scrap book, some photos, glue, scissors and a marker pen, except the end result is a lot more professional. You can add more pages, move the pages around within the book, and design the front and back cover however you see fit. You can even write on the spine!

When you've finally finished with your design, you can decide on things like the paper quality and binding. I chose to have my book lay flat at the spine so that the pages lay flat when opened:

Of course, all these little bits and bobs cost more - my book would have been somewhere around the region of £95 in the end - but I do think it's value for money. My book has over 100 pages of beautiful, glossy pages. The print quality is excellent and the book will last a long time.

Once you've finalised your order, the software takes you back to the website to place the order and make payment. Of course, if you weren't creating such a mammoth task as me, you could have done the entire project online!

My only problem with this entire process is that once you come to payment, they try to sell you lots of other things. Vistaprint specialises in printing business cards and other paraphernalia for businesses; so when you're trying to pay for your photobook, they're saying to you "look, you can have your business logo printed on a keyring!" This goes on for about 3 pages, but it is easy to just opt out of it all.

When I placed my order carriage was very reasonable considering the size of the book I'd just ordered. The site said to allow 14 days for delivery, but the finished product turned up a week later.

I was out when the postie tried to deliver my book, so I went to the sorting office the next day to collect it on my lunch break. When I got back to work I couldn't wait to get it out an inspect it - and obviously, because S is so gorgeous, everyone at work wanted to see a million photos of her too. General consensus was that it's a very well-produced book. A couple of people even said they're thinking they might use the site to make a book for themselves.

Disclaimer: I received my photobook free in return for this post, but that was not dependent on a good review. The views in this post are my own.

Other products I have reviewed lately:
Popbands
Aggie MacKenzie Cleaning Products
i-Pic Photo Frame

Picnic at Nana's!

S and I had a lovely picnic in Nana's garden last Bank Holiday Monday!

This is our entry into the Tots 100 Curious George competition!

Wordless Wednesday: Ted

The S my S is named after, gave her a teddy for her first birthday.

She loves him.

Kisses for Ted!

Here are some previous Wordless Wednesday posts:
Kangaroo Care
Peekaboo!
S at a year

The Steep Learning Curve

S has been at nursery for a month now, and already she's learning things...

• She's learned to eat off a plate/from a bowl without giving in to the urge to turn it over and launch her food across the room.

• She can now turn individual pages in a book, and will sit and read through her books, one page at a time.

• She can now take several steps unaided - has started doing it without me holding my arms out... or even watching her (that she knows of)

• She can, on occasion, take a drink from her cup without immediately spitting it all down her front.

• She will now let an adult wipe her nose, rather than covering her face with her hands and opting instead to wipe the snot on the nearest available leg.

• She points to things. A lot.

• She says "Hi" and "Bye" a lot more than she did before, and waves at every available opportunity.

• When she is eating, she has learned to put her hand to her mouth to push errant bits of food in, rather than just moving her head to try and catch what was trying to escape.

• She has learned to eat all sorts of new and exciting foods she wouldn't have had at home.

• She's learned to go to sleep without me, and sleep for a reasonable amount of time, on a regular basis. In fact, I think she now sleeps better at nursery than at home.

• She says "ta" when you give her something

• She appears to have learned that when I leave her, I'm coming back.

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SPAG without the Bol

I hate to admit it, but I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to spelling, punctuation and grammar.

If you can't tell the difference between "your" and "you're," 

If you post on Facebook that you are "on route" somewhere 

If you constantly use txt spk 

If you don't know that an apostrophe denotes ownership or a missing letter, and think it just goes between a word and the S at the end of it 

If your sentences never feature commas 

If you randomly use colons and semi-colons mid sentence for no apparent reason 

If you don't know the difference between "there," "their" and "they're" 

If you use ie when you mean eg or nb 

If you put Random Capitals at the starts of words that do not require capitals

If you use "too" when you mean "to" and vice versa

If your sentences run over several lines because you've forgotten where the full stop button is 

If you hyphenate words-that-should-not-be-hyphenated 

If you say things like "2am in the morning" or "3pm in the afternoon" 

If you say "seen as" instead of  "seeing as" 

If you write "loose" when you mean "lose"

... you can pretty much guarantee I don't read your Facebook updates/Twitter feeds/blog posts past the second mistake.

And I judge you.

Time to Sort The Diet...

Do you ever think perhaps the universe is trying to tell you something?

First my friend Simon Anderson invited me to join in a free week of his fitness bootcamp. I'd heard great things, and seen amazing photos, so I jumped at the chance... and then realised there was a diet element to it too, and I had to give up all sorts of dietary crutches like Coke and sugar and bread. I did it for a week, and felt very... clean. When the week was up I thought, "well, one little can of Coke wouldn't hurt..." and fell off the wagon, just like that.

Then I noticed Amy at Curls & Coffee was doing a sugar detox. She was Instagramming her meals and I asked a million questions: "what's that?" "how'd you make that?" She also seemed to be really loving it, feeling happy and healthy.

Then I went back to work. Each day I go in and sit at a desk, and I eat my way through whatever I can get my hands on - my nice, healthy home-made salad, but also Coke, crisps, chocolate, cake, biscuits. I've put on weight in the last couple of weeks, and I know full well I'm eating out of boredom (or something else) rather than hunger. I know this needs to stop. I'm exhausted, and the amount of crap I'm eating is making that a lot worse, as well as contributing to my mood being the lowest it's been in a year. This needs to stop.

My body doesn't look *too* bad... but it feels awful!

This week a PR company contacted me, asking if I'd like to try the Patrick Holford Low GL diet. We had a brief chat, and they're sending me some books about it, a cookery book etc, and I'm to report back to them periodically about how I'm getting on. I'm fairly sure Patrick Holford does not suggest eating 3 bars of chocolate per day, even if they are on 3 for £1.20 in Tesco. May need to knock that on the head!

And finally, last night a lady I met at the bootcamp came round. She is training in systematic kinesiology, and I offered myself up as a case study - having no clue what that entailed. It's one of those things where the person tells you what they're going to do, and you go "oh right, yeah" and in your head you're thinking "hmmm yeah right" But blow me if it didn't seem to actually work. She was able to tell that I drink a lot of caffeine, that I don't get enough water, that I don't eat fried foods... and she made my hip stop hurting for the first time in months. Not to mention my complete lack of back pain when I got up this morning! It was embarrassing to have her figure out just how much crap I must be eating, that every part of my body was quietly suffering for it.

So it seems that perhaps it is time I sorted my shit out, diet-wise... Watch this space... 

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Wordless Wednesday: Kangaroo Care

Today is Kangaroo Care Awareness Day.

To celebrate, here are some photos of my beautiful girl enjoying some kangaroo care...

Previous Wordless Wednesdays:

S at a year

What I Used to Look Like

I Love You...

Things NOT to Say to Me

Being a single mother, in the situation I am in, I seem to hear the same lines over and over again. Here is a list of the ones I'd really rather you didn't allow to escape from your pie-holes. (yes, I am a grumpy bitch; what of it?)

This is how I feel, 90% of the time.

• "I don't know how you do it"/"I couldn't do it." Oh right, so if you were left alone with a small baby to care for you'd... what? Give up? Sell the baby?  It's a matter of having no choice but to cope. We all just get on with what life throws at us.

• "Where's her dad?" Not bloody here, obviously.

• "I'm almost a single mum; my partner works long hours/is only about at weekends/doesn't change many nappies." No.You. Are. Not. Even if you have the worst, most useless partner in the world, you still have someone to hold the baby while you go to the loo, or someone to stay with the baby while you run to the shop to top up the gas card.

• "You're so brave!" Yes, and I fought a lion on the way to work this morning. I'm a single mother, not an idiot. Don't talk down to me.

• You're so strong!" see above, and kindly knob off.

• "Good for you for going back to work!" No, good for you - now you don't have to feel bad about being friends with benefit scum. And also: see above. Don't talk down to me.

• "Surely you get some time to yourself though?" Yes, when I go to the toilet at work, and 2 hours when S goes to bed, if the noise from outside/next door doesn't wake her. Those two hours are spent cleaning up after the day, preparing for the next day, attempting to catch up on the washing, and studying. And often sitting on the sofa staring into space, wondering how the chuffing hell to get through tomorrow.

• "I'm sure you have someone you can leave her with though!" Yes, I do. For a couple of hours, here and there. When that person doesn't have a better offer, which, as the weather gets better and the novelty of looking after my child wears off, they invariably do.

• "You get lots of benefits though; me and my partner don't get any help!" Well boo-hoo for you. I don't get any help with sleepless nights, nappy changing, shopping, meal times, bath times, teething, colds, nursery drop-off and pick-up, going out without my child, eating a meal that hasn't gone cold, getting the buggy up and down the stairs to my flat, telling my neighbours to STFU when my child is trying to sleep, popping to the shop to get the one thing I missed off the shopping trip I dragged us both around earlier, peeing and bathing without an audience. There are often days where I speak to nobody but my child and shop assistants. Should I continue?

• "Oh, you must be so tired..." Thank you so much for reminding me. Really, it's so helpful when you stand there and state the bleeding obvious. In other news, water is wet and the Earth is round. Now shut up.

• "I know just how you feel." Just fuck off.

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You may also enjoy Sling Talk

Lonely and Miserable or Just Tired?

The last week or so has been really tough.

I went  back to work.
S started nursery.
S is cutting at least 2 teeth.
S has had The Neverending Snotfest cold.
I have had a cold.
S has had trouble sleeping.

A rare occurrence.

With the weather being nice last weekend, and S being a screaming, snotty, clingy mess, I couldn't bear the thought of staying in the house all day. So I took her to my mum's for the day, thinking that might give me a bit of a break. What it actually did was make things worse. S went into meltdown when it looked as if I might leave her side, and nobody else could console her. When I went to the toilet, I had to take her with me and even then she screamed when I sat her on the floor next to me.

As long as she was close to me (as close as possible, preferably with one hand on my boobs at all times), she was perfectly happy . The only problem was, I really just wanted some time out to relax.

At one point I was desperate for the loo, so I got my sister and brother in law to come and sit with S on the blanket we were playing on while I literally ran into the house. S screamed as if the world were ending. When I came back out it took me 10 minutes to calm her back down. In hindsight it was probably predictable that my mother spent the entire time at the other end of the garden saying "oh you're so mean, you ran away from her! Poor S, she's so upset because you were so horrid to her!" In the end I had to tell her to shut the ***** up because she wasn't helping. 

This is the extent of the support I have received from my family whilst returning to work and doing my best to deal with leaving S at nursery, her teething and having a cold. 

Ok then, fine, I'll just get on with it on my own, same as I have for the last 13 months, for my traumatic pregnancy, for my entire life.

Yesterday I was so tired I spent the whole day walking around with a lump in my throat as if I was about to cry. This wasn't helped by S falling off a swing at the park, and my feeling like the world's worst mother for it. She was fine; I was most definitely not. This was followed by a ridiculous evening of alternating wailing and wanting to play, and no sleep until 11pm. By that point I was about ready to just get up and walk out of the house.

Having gone to sleep so late, S slept pretty well and didn't wake up until 8am, meaning I had some time by myself this morning to sort some things and have a bath. It was only about an hour, but it made enough of a difference. 

I've had some sleep and a bath, and I've tidied up some mess upstairs. Things are looking a lot better this morning. I might be in this alone, but I've survived the last 13 months so there's no reason I can't continue.

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Wordless Wednesday - More Peekaboo!

Went to get S from an afternoon nap last week and this is what I found... 

Peekaboo is such a favourite game, she'll even play it on her own!

Single Mother Working Out Ahoy!

A few weeks ago, a local fitness trainer had a free week of his "Get Out Get Fit" bootcamp. He's done them before, but always in the evenings, and I couldn't get to them. When I heard he was running sessions in the day this time around, I jumped at the chance to join in! For that week, I cut out most sugar, all wheat, most carbs, and all Coca Cola and chocolate - a massive step for me.

I also worked my arse off at his bootcamps, and felt fantastic for it!

Then the week ended. I resolved to try and stick to most of the diet tips I'd been given, and to try and keep up with the exercise. It didn't last long, and in the last couple of weeks I'm fairly sure I've eaten more than my body weight in chocolate and crap. The early half of this week, I felt awful.

So I've decided to do something about it. May will be Single Mother Ahoy Workout Month.

It starts with this:

You can't see it very clearly, but it's the 1-2-3 Body Blitz Fitness challenge. On Day 1 (1st May) you do 1 press up, 2 Burpees and 3 Squats. Then you increase the number of each exercise by 1, 2, and 3 respectively each day. So today I did 3 press ups, 6 Burpees and 9 Squats. By the end of the month you're doing 31 press ups, 62 Burpees and 93 Squats... which will be interesting.

Besides this, I'm doing HIIT workouts, which I love mainly because they're so short so even if you hate the exercise you're doing (like burpees) you're only doing them for a short time so you can just grin and bear it.

My diet is a tough one to master, because I have a ridiculously sweet tooth, and drink a lot of Coke. There's no point in my saying I'm not going to eat any crap for the next month, because I'll fail horribly and then give up. I'm going to cut back though, and make more of a conscious effort to plan meals ahead of time, so that I'm not caught out. And I'm going to stop eating the things I know make me feel crappy. Bread, pasta, the usual suspects.

Depending on the response I get to this post, I may or may not blog about it weekly throughout May. We all know I'll be going on about it on Facebook and Twitter any way. And there will definitely be a post at the end of the month to show my progress - that way I won't be tempted to chicken out half way through, or to suddenly sit down and eat a couple of pairs of cakes, which is what usually happens.

Anyone care to join me?

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Cheeky Harry!

This week, S and I received a book from Cheeky Harry and Friends.

The book was a free gift, and they didn't expect a review - but we both love it, and after recent discussions about the sexist nature of childrens' toys I was really impressed by this book.

Look at this:

Cheeky Harry is a boy, and he's dancing. In a tutu.

And this:

He's wearing pink goggles, and a pink rubber ring!

These are only small details in a child's board book, but I believe they are important. All too often, boys are depicted wearing only blue, and doing "boyish" activities (building with blocks, playing football, etc). To see a male character in a childrens' book wearing pink, and dancing in a tutu, is pretty amazing as far as I'm concerned. It's so refreshing to see a book where the main character is just doing fun stuff, without it being specifically boys'  stuff or girls' stuff.

S loves this book, I think because the pages are thick and easy to turn without my help. The pictures are brightly coloured, so she can enjoy turning the pages and "reading" it without my help - but it's all the more fun when I join in!

Wordless Wednesday: Peekaboo!

A bit of light relief between courses.

This is her favourite game!