Saturday 21 March 2015

Turning Grey Skies Blue...

Twelve months ago today I sat in a curled up ball of tears on the floor and wrote a post to try to explain how much I was struggling with life. It wasn't a post about saving money or having a fun day out with my children, to be honest with you it was a post that had no real place on this blog. I wrote it anyway and the reaction that followed and the support I got from friends old and new, both near and far, got me through that day, that week and quite probably the next year.

I wrote about how i'd started to struggle with the little things, how I felt like I couldn't cope. I didn't write about everything though, I didn't reveal just how low I was feeling, how I thought my husband and my children would be better off without me. I didn't share that i'd been hurting myself  or how bad things had really got.

I don't think I would have been able to type those words into the keyboard as even as I do so now the memories of how I felt are almost too hard to bare.

These last twelve months have been the most difficult of my life so far, the pain and despair, the feeling like I just had to stop breathing, cease to exist, it didn't just go away.

I has some counselling, something that I've always been very cynical about. The first few sessions I spent in tears and came out feeling worse, but as they went on I started to look forward to the small white room with the cheap beige desk, the ceiling with the cracks and imperfections I had etched in my mind from staring at it searching for answers to questions I was too afraid to ask.

Talking helped.

Realising that I couldn't always get everything right. That success didn't necessarily mean happiness and that my husband and my children would be better off with me happy.

I looked at the things that were getting on top of me and realised I needed to make changes. I reduced my hours at work, I learnt to say no to opportunities if I knew I was taking on too much and slowly some of the clouds in my head started to shift and little patches of blue sky started to shine though.

These last twelve months have been a challenge but overcoming those darkest of days also gave me the courage to overcome other fears and do some fabulous things. In May I spoke at a blogging conference, in July I took part in Race for Life, In September (as well as turning 30) I danced on stage in front of hundreds of people and cameras.

I've come to accept that there are things in life that I will always struggle with but with the support of amazing friends (who know who they are) and family I won't be struggling alone.

We have some exciting plans for the next few years and I look forward to sharing them with you as we go along...

Exactly a year after pouring my heart out on here I can confirm that my grey skies are slowly and steadily turning blue...






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