It’s so hard to say ‘help’

I feel dreadful.

Okay, I know I’ve felt dreadful for the past six weeks or so. I felt dreadful when I went into hospital and I’ve felt dreadful since I came out. But today I’m feeling really, really dreadful.

I went to the post office earlier to send a parcel – and I won’t even go into how hard it was to make that small, simple trip – and my eyes drifted to the shelf of first aid supplies and medications inside the door, to the packets of paracetamol neatly lined up there, calling to me.

I considered it for a moment, a moment too long, before I got myself together and left, drove straight home before my thoughts got out of control.

I stopped myself, but I knew in that moment that I need help.

But help is so hard to ask for.

The obvious people to call are the CAT team. But their phone is going to voicemail. They’re not due to visit today; in fact, I don’t know when – or even if – they’re next visiting at all. At yesterday’s visit they said they’d ask the doctor to see me and would phone to tell me when that would happen, but no one has called.

I can’t reach out to friends again. I already feel like the hugest burden on them all. I’m doing the opposite of what I should be doing and trying to put them off speaking to me, seeing me, because I just see myself as this big problem in their lives, a dead weight, taking everything and giving nothing.

I’m shooting myself in the foot because I know that just having someone to listen and be with me would help me cope with these scary, out of control feelings, but I can’t keep doing this to them.

The same applies to Ian. He needs to be able to live his life, go to work, play table tennis and football, without me always being on his mind.

So now I’m sitting here and I don’t know what to do or where to turn next. I’ll try the CAT team again. But in a couple of hours I have to get the kids from school, take them swimming, pretend to be okay, pretend that I’m not fighting the feelings that tell me to surrender, give in, see things through this time.

I need help, I know. But it’s so hard to admit it.