Stopping to take stock

Part of the reason (I think) that I’m feeling so low at the moment is that I keep contrasting the way things are at the moment with how they were this time, last year. I can’t put my finger on when this downward spiral started, but it was sometime during the autumn term. Twelve months ago, give or take a week or so, we were holidaying in France and I felt great. Better than I had in years.

It’s a bit different now.

I feel like I’ve been in this pit for such a long time. I keep thinking that maybe tomorrow will be the day that I wake up and the trend begins to reverse. I’ve had occasions, over the past 10 months or so (10 months… it feels like it was yesterday that it was six months, or even two…) when the journey upwards has lasted a few weeks and I have dared to hope that I was seeing the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. But it’s always been followed by me slipping backwards again.

Am I further on than I was at the beginning of the year? Yes and no. Every day is still a struggle. The lows are terrifying, really truly scary. Much deeper than they were at the start of this process. My finger hovers over the self-destruct button all too often. I am not proud of it. I have moments where I seriously wonder how I’m going to get through the day. What does it actually mean to have a breakdown, I wonder? How bad does it have to get before someone lets me check out of this world for a few weeks? The nurse who patched me up last week said that if things got that desperate, I could go to A&E and ask to be admitted. Part of me thinks that would actually be better, if it meant I could come back fixed, or at least with a plan for getting fixed.

But.

I am further on than I was, I know. Because despite how lost and alone and frightened I feel a lot of the time, I have flashes where I can laugh, enjoy, smile, live in the moment.

Last night was one of those times. I took Tom into London to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I’d had a dreadful night’s sleep the night before (confession: I have stopped my new tablets, as I felt they were making me even more mental, and as a result, I have stopped sleeping again). I had been working all day. I was exhausted and stressed and tearful and when Ian got home, I almost begged him to take Tom instead.

He said I should go, and he was right.

Being in Covent Garden, re-energised me. I love London, feed off its vitality. I get some weird sense of importance from not being a tourist, from knowing my way round. I loved sharing that with Tom.

I watched his face while he sat, transfixed, watching the street theatre. Remembered how I felt on my first trips to London when I was a child.

We had a mother-son dinner date. It felt good to share some time with him on his own.

I felt him need me. Instead of railing against me as he so often does, complaining that I favour his sister, accusing me of treating him like a slave by asking him to put his clothes in the laundry basket, he was all little and insecure in the big bad city, insisting that I hold his hand at all times.

I had the honour of taking him to see his first West End show. Seeing his awe at the sheer size of the theatre, as seen from the cheap seats at the top of the balcony. His bemusement at how the set moved around all by itself, as if by magic. Best of all, the literal jaw-dropping moment when (despite the fact that he *knows* the story) he saw Charlie unwrap his bar of chocolate and discover the golden ticket.

I needed last night. I needed to feel like a good mummy – a mummy who could arrange a lovely night out for her son. I needed to feel like a responsible mummy – a mummy who could take her child out in London and get him home in one piece.

It’s given me confidence. Tomorrow, I’m taking the children to the beach. We’ll paddle in the sea, skim stones, go to visit the lifeboat station for Tom. That’s a massive deal.

I know I am not better. I know this is one of the ups among the downs. But I also know that I have to enjoy these ups when I get them. And I hope and pray that they’ll become more frequent, last longer, start joining together until I am up more than down, until I beat this illness.