Toz's Journal

This time of year is difficult for a lot of people for various reasons.  I understand this.  I have studied Psychology and understand that certain events and times can spark certain feelings or memories and that certain times of year see higher suicide cases or attempts than any other.  I wish that I could admit that this is just a by-product of the time of year, but it isn't.  Of course it is magnified by it, but not the sole reason.

I have experienced depression for some 18-20 years - varying degrees of it and varying attempts at trying to cope, be it through medication or so-called therapy.  Always had a feeling though that the doctors weren't really interested or bothered to be able to offer the kind of help that I had hoped for, or maybe I hope for too much.

My biggest support circle for some 11 years or so was my mother.  It was her that I confided in the most - she knew literally everything I felt and thought.  She was such a strong loving person, my best friend and mother.  She was always there for me regardless what the situation, sometimes just the simple touch of her hand would be enough to calm me and help me share her strength.  Then in 1997  she was diagnosed with cancer of the Thyroid gland.  She needed me to be strong and to help her understand what was happening and what the terminology meant that was used by he doctors.  I did my best to be there for her and not show how much what was happening was worrying me also.  My father never spoke much about it, but he was a more silent man believing, I think, that such upsetting things shouldn't be spoken about.

The cancer spread to her uterus and one weekend Sept 23 2000 I went to see her in hospital.  She seemed so alive, she seemed like she was getting better.  Mum asked to come home with me that day but the doctor said that he felt she would be better in hospital a little longer.  So I persuaded her to stay on his advice.  The following day my sister and I were shopping and I remember clearly to this day seeing a Crow land on a fence directly in front of her car and stare in at me.  I thought nothing of it at the time, other than how amazing it was to be so close to it.  My mother was home by the time we returned with the shopping.  She was sitting in her favourite armchair and when I saw her, she was no longer my mother. She couldn't be.  My mother was that healthy smiling, intelligent, kind-eyed woman I saw less than 24hours earlier in the hospital ward.  This woman was a mere shell of that.  Her beautiful eyes, haunted and hollow.  She seemed distant and distracted.  But my sister and I carried on as if she was just unwell.  I realise now that she was dying before our eyes and I didn't see it.

She became so weak that evening that she confessed she would not be able to make it up the stairs to her bed.  I brought the pressure mattress and blankets down for her to the sofa.  I left her medication alongside her and said that if she needed me for anything at any time she was to bang the floor (the floorboards echo clearly upstairs as my room was directly above).

I woke to that banging at 7.15 the following morning.  Monday September 25 2000.  I rushed down to her and she was in great pain.  She was trying to see her tablets, but they had dropped to her lap and she couldn't find them.  I gave them to her and sat along side her rubbing her back where she said it was hurting.  She was more distant and distracted and eventually told me to go take my shower and get ready for work.  I came back to check on her and found that she had passed away within the 20 minutes I had left her and that kills me to this day.  She would never have left me and neither would I if I had realised what was happening.  My beautiful mother and friend had gone forever.

My father and I grew closer over the years after her death.  Though he never really recovered from it.  He has Emphysema and refused to stop smoking.  He was never a large man, tall and thin all his life and therefore didn't really have much to sustain him.  His appetite was always small, but was virtually non-existent over those years and no matter what I made or bought, he hardly ate any solid foods.  I had liquid food shakes sent from the GP and collected them along with his varying tablets and oxygen tanks. 

We talked a lot more in that short time since my mother passed.  Reminisced and just shared every day life together.  He had chest infections, hospital visits and stays and in December 2005 he was taken into hospital one last time with chest infection and progressed Emphysema.  I visited him as much as I could throughout the days and evenings.  My last memory of things said between us was "Happy New Year... no, you know what, lets be different... have a really shitty New Year"  it was his sense of humour to the end.  After that he was taken to Intensive Care and my sister and I spent the next 24 hours or so back and forth his bedside literally waiting for the inevitable.  He passed January 4 2006.

The next months were dealing with wills and selling the house that was my only home for some 33 years.  Suddenly it was all over and although I had my sister and her children as my remaining family, I knew I was fundementally alone.  My sister is an extrememly busy, hard-working - both in the home and her self-employment - has 5 children and a husband who is somewhat wanting in the support stakes.  I knew I wouldn't see much of her at all, and only now see her when she needs someone to babysit for her.  Doesn't mean I love her any less than I did all those years we grew up together, laughing, playing and just loving life.

 I have been unable to work for some 18months and recently lost my job because of it.  Every day I need the tv on, the puter on and every night I need the radio on.  All to make me feel less alone and to keep my mind off anything that may distress me further.  It is now a case of the slightest noise in my house (this is no home to me) sets me worrying about something going wrong; gas leaking; water pipes bursting; something breaking; electrical fires; damp etc etc.  I take as many precautions as possible  I rarely have the heating on as the sound it makes worries me.  Noises outside, like fireworks or neighbour's doors make me think that there is something wrong in my house.  Nights are the worst time and Winter even moreso... lights need to be switched on bewteen 4-5pm and I am isolated behind closed curtains for that time.

At this moment in time, I am exhausted.  I don't feel there is any way out of the way I feel.  I can't see the 'light at the end of the tunnel'.  I don't know how to start living anymore and it scares me. 

I have nowhere to turn, hence my googling for any type of help - anything to keep me occupied and busy.  I have no friends - they all left me behind when I was off sick from work.

I am desperately trying to be 'better' - I need to be better.  The thought of years more of existing like this is suffocatingly scary.  Maybe this will help, I am not sure anymore.