I’m still around!

I haven’t posted anything for a while. It’s taken some time to work out why. Then once I did, it took a bit longer to start the steps needed to resolve the issue.

I was a member of a Facebook support group. I still am a member of other support groups, but I say was a member as I finally followed through on my decision to leave this one particular group. I won’t name it, because it’s a great group and some truly wonderful people are members of it.

Some months ago, I had an interaction which triggered an anxiety attack. All because I linked this blog in response to someone’s question. Now the situation was resolved and the response that triggered my anxiety was removed and I did get an apology. But anxiety is an arsehole and its good friend depression likes to follow it around like the Big Black Dog metaphor it is known as. I tried snoozing the group for 30 days.

At the end of that 30 days, I’m pretty sure no-one had noticed I had been gone. Within a couple of days a post appeared where someone linked a blog and nothing was said. I felt hurt, as though I had been singled out and made an example of. I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case, but that’s how it felt. So I snoozed the group again.

The next time the 30 days were up, the first several posts were people venting. I’m ok with people venting and a support group is EXACTLY the place to be doing it. But some of the stories made me cry. I really feel for people who have no support at home or who have a dangerous home-life in one way or another. While it made me even more grateful for my Knight – I realised I wasn’t strong enough emotionally to handle their pain right then.

I can’t specifically remember what happened to make me snooze the group for the third and fourth times. But when that last 30 days was up a few days ago, I didn’t snooze it again. I read some posts, participated in a couple of fun things, but just didn’t feel like I was in a safe place to actually help anyone or express myself. So this morning, I left. If anyone reading is a member of that group, please understand that this is within myself and I don’t blame anyone there.

Around the same time as that initial interaction, I had to have a growth surgically removed. It turned out to be benign and I recovered relatively well from the surgery, but extra stress never helps anyone, and especially not when you have a FibroTroll hanging around.

AND then, I had a stall at a market (my mother helps me run a little hand-crafting business) and didn’t sell a damn thing. It was incredibly disheartening to spend a large amount of time and energy to hold a market stall and end up with negative money.

So the Black Dog made himself comfortable. And I stopped doing the things that help. I stopped mediating, I hardly did any yoga, I stopped writing. I can’t even tell you what I did for most of May or June, I can’t remember achieving a single thing.

But my psychologist Julie (http://psychologyconsultants.com.au/) helped me get back on track. And slowly but surely, I’m getting back on top of things.

But the big catalyst for starting to write here again was a letter from my cousin. This particular cousin lives in Denmark and he is one of the handful of cousins that I’ve met more than once! I first met him when I was 15, and again in my mid-20’s in Australia, then once in Denmark when the Knight and I were on our honeymoon, and then again 2 years ago in Oz again. It’s funny to find that even though you’ve grown up almost literally on opposite sides of the globe (New Zealand is the antipodal point of Denmark – so pretty damn close!), that you can just simply get along with, and have the same humour and interests as a cousin you’ve hardly met. I know he’s reading this, because he said so in his letter. So Hi! And thank-you for your kind words. they mean more than you could possibly have imagined.

I realised that if my cousin on the opposite side of the world was reading my blog and found it interesting and inspiring, then probably someone else out there might also find it of benefit. So I sat down and started to write. And I was reminded of something that Jen from Healthy Moving said once:

“Failure is not falling down, but staying down.” 

So I haven’t failed at writing my blog. I simply had an unscheduled break, and I’m back at it now.

Author: Sonja

One woman’s journey as she comes to terms with living with Fibromyalgia. Living with her knight in tarnished armour, with a small flock of chickens, and pair of Tawny Frogmouths and a homicidal Butcher Bird in the backyard. View all posts by Sonja