Anxiety

Haven’t posted for a while as we’ve been on holiday in Cornwall, plus I haven’t been feeling quite the ticket.

Cornwall was lovely, as always. I mean, the weather let us down a bit as always, but the company was great. Family and close friends, including six childless 20-somethings who thought that Logie was a scream, and didn’t mind spending whole half hours pinging the back of the door spring ‘BOING’, or pouring water from an egg cup to an icecream tub to a measuring jug (in the requisite squat position).

He paddled in the sea, tried to steal various spades and ate about six meals a day – at his normal mealtimes and ours, which always fell in between.

He slept in our room, so I often had that 5am Hobson’s choice. You wake, with a need to wee of about 50%. If you get up and go to the loo, you are 75% likely to wake him. He is then 90% likely not to go back to sleep. The chances of you returning to sleep, whilst needing this wee, are about 25%. But you give it a go. For twenty minutes you have a really good stab at convincing yourself you don’t need to go that much, actually you almost drifted off just then, and if you lie in this particular position the pressure on your bladder honestly isn’t that bad.

Then you get up and go to the loo.

Sometimes you manage to make it back to bed without him opening his eyes, but then you lie there, listening suspiciously to his every breath. You know he is listening to you too, waiting for further proof that it is getting up time. You lie aggressively still, furiously urging yourself to go back to frigging sleep.

Then your husband whispers that he needs a wee too, and all is lost. But at least it’s not all your fault now. Maybe adult nappies are the answer.

Logie has just learnt to say pees, as it happens, and dack u, which represents something of a breakthrough. However, the former is more of an indignant command, and the latter usually comes through a mouthful of biscuit, with his back to you as he’s already walking away. And there is no sign of sorry.

His gorgeous godmother Jules, one of the aforementioned 20-somethings, was especially funny at this age with these words. When asked, upon demanding something, what the magic word was, she would reply “Now!”.

 Despite all this loveliness, my nerves have been a bit worn down and my old friend anxiety has popped in for a bit. There are specific reasons for it – which is a good thing, as often there aren’t, and presumably once they’ve abated it will go away. But I’ve had to fess up to having crossed a line in the mental health stakes, so I steeled myself for a visit to the psych place.

It is very hard to be positive about the experience. But I shall try. I did eventually get to see a doctor the same day, which is a big improvement on their previous record. And he did prescribe me a pill. And it helped tremendously. And those are the things that matter the most.

But the hours I was there were pretty soul destroying. First of all, I saw the duty nurse. He looked like the sort of man who tries to sell you a dodgy sim card in the market. The experience of explaining my symptoms was a bit like ordering a takeaway from someone with not brilliant English. He asked me questions, I answered them, he relayed them back to me slightly wrong every time, without any hint he understood any of the words I was using or what I was really talking about.

I cried a bit. He didn’t seem to notice. He asked if I’d thought about harming my son, and whether I was hearing any voices. I tried not to mind – these are routine questions that they have to ask. Never mind that they make you feel even more appalled that you have arrived at this point.

 Later, as we went down a corridor to the doctor, we passed the social room. It contained some fat, sweaty, glazed over people in tatty armchairs. It was humid, and a small fan turned pointlessly in the corner. They had a resigned air about them, as if they knew that this was the pits, but it was all they had.

I used to be fat and when I was depressed I used to find it very hard to wash my hair. I didn’t really want to talk to people. So I don’t consider myself any better, or feel anything but sympathy for them. But dear god, don’t let me be like them again.

As it happens, I’ve been feeling a bit better since this visit. And I thought it would help to write it down. So let’s hope that things continue to pick up. Pees.