It’s Ok to Not be Ok.

Remember that time I wrote about grief and how it affected me. And how I cried in awkward places around London. Well I’m back and I’m writing again. Yes. I’m going to try and be honest about being a 31-year-old, less than perfect girl, or rather woman and how although I strive to be a good person a lot of the times I hugely get it wrong and I make A LOT of mistakes. I’m head strong but nervous, I don’t suffer fools but can be swayed by charm and a cute smile and I beat myself up about pretty much everything. I love my job and I’m good at it, but I question whether I’m good enough at it and I go over everything again and again. It’s exhausting sometimes.

I’m a strong independent woman but sometimes I get bloody sad and you know what I’m sick of pretending I’m ok with everything. Because I’m not. My world can piss me off sometimes and 80% of time I’m pretty good at hiding it and getting on with it. Everybody has their own issues going on and I know that, so I don’t like to go on about my ‘stuff’. But in the last few months a mixture of bad health and a boy with floppy hair and a cute smile and I guess life has turned me into a little broken Bronagh and I’ve had a little break down. I’ve broken down in a coffee shop in Wales with my lovely pal after a lovely weekend in Wales because I didn’t want to go back to London and I was sick of feeling miserable. I cried my eyes out on a Friday night in a very busy Liverpool Street Station. I sat sobbing my eyes out because I let said floppy haired boy hurt me…again. And I cried over him, about being sick, about being fed up and I mean I sobbed. I had snot running down my face and I couldn’t stop. But on both crying sessions I realised that sometimes things just get on top of you and eventually you just combust and it’s ok to let it out. It’s healthy, what’s not healthy I’ve realised is to keep pretending all is fine. So after sobbing I took myself off to my friend’s house and told her all about it and admitted it. Admitted that I was sad, down and a bit depressed and I did feel better. I knew I had to do something about it so I did and I am.

I’m told it’s ok to not be ok so with that in mind I decided I’m going to start writing again. It was mental health week when I decided I was going to do it, but it’s taken me until now to have the courage to do it. And, it’s hard. I don’t want to be judged and I don’t want anyone to think I’m stupid. But you know what, I don’t care. Well I do care but, the more people that can open up before it gets too much the better it is right.

In two weeks I’ll turn 32 and it’s scaring me a little. I thought turning 30 would do that. But, I was ok about the big 30. It’s the big 32 that’s making me freak out. I thought by 32 I’d have it all sorted. But I haven’t. I haven’t at all. In fact, I’m in a rut. There I’ve said it. I’m hugely fed up and it’s annoying as hell. I’m in a rut because my health is in this weird place where it hasn’t a clue what’s going on and subsequently it is affecting my mental health and everything else along the way.

Things have been building up for me and getting on top of me for a while now. Around January this year I started having these weird vision issues. Feeling sick and having blurry vision, having palpations and my head would go fuzzy and I’d feel like I might faint or be sick. It would happen in the morning and on the way to work, sometimes it would happen in the afternoon. I’d feel disgusting and tired and my head would be pounding with pain.

After a few of these episodes I took myself off to the GP and after an examination she thought she saw something behind my eyes. Which isn’t something you really want to hear. I mean you do think the worst when you hear that. But off to the hospital for an MRI I went, where I was told I had a small mass on my pituitary gland. Apparently, it’s quite normal but it needed exploring as my headaches and vision issues would suggest it might be doing something to cause this.

A few months of continued headaches and vision issues, a referral to endocrinology unit and eventually 4months later I was seen by a consultant. Several blood tests and chat about my symptoms later I was told he’d be in touch. That was on the 22nd of June. I first started getting headaches in December. As you can imagine I was a bit annoyed and not in great form, but I was working, and I was trying to just get on with it. I was trying to ignore it if honest.

Around June time I was making documentaries and I was on the road constantly. Even though the subject matter was difficult I liked it. If I stopped I felt worse so it was better to keep working and I was getting used to the strobey vision. I tried not to complain about it and just get on with it. Sometimes I’d be ok and sometimes I wouldn’t, but I didn’t want to have to deal with it or think about it, so I just popped tablets and worked through it.

But by July I was exhausted, I was doing long hours and I was knackered, so my headaches started getting worse and worse. By the end of July my contract had finished, I took a week off and thought that would help. I was due to start a new job which I was really keen on when my head decided that it didn’t want me to do that and the headaches and migraines just continued to get worse. I decided it would be better to turn down the job, take some time off and chase the consultant and try to get my head sorted. Eventually my consultant began to see me and week after week I was in seeing if this drug was helping or that drug was helping. I was confused, he seemed to be confused and it was getting tedious. Was it the mass? Was it high prolactin? Was it a bleed on the mass? Was it a bleed on the brain? All these things my consultant said it could be, but he didn’t really know as nothing seemed to be working so he gave up and sent me on to the neurology department.

When I finally got to see a neurologist, I really thought she’d be able to help and I was pining all my hopes on her for help.  When I finally saw her, she didn’t really have much time for me. ‘It’s simply migraines, try not to drink chardonnay and try these tablets, up the dose until something works and be on your way.’ In a state of shock, I left rather disillusioned with the lovely NHS. Luckily, I was provided with a lovely nurse who helped me out and seemed to have more time and knew more than anyone I’d seen before. I began doing what the neurologist said. The first set of drugs left me like a zombie. I was walking around half asleep. I was told to try another set of drugs but after a few weeks they weren’t doing anything so onto the next set of drugs which left me feeling like there was a drill in my head. Finally losing a bit of my mind I found the Migraine Clinic in London. Here they took their time going through my symptoms. They generally seemed to care and didn’t seem to just want to put me on drugs and send me on my way. They recommended other things like CBT and acupuncture and mostly they just listened. It turns out I most likely have chronic migraines which can sometimes develop because of years of insomnia. Which I suffer from. But I have to stick with the tablets and keep upping my dose until something clicks and so far nothing has. But I have to just try and keep the faith and hope that something finally works.

So, I’m not having the best time really. My head is fuzzy and I’m exhausted and when you’re sick of course you’re going to be down. So I took myself off to the GP and told them what was going on and that I didn’t want to be depressed but I suspected I might be and I’d rather get it sorted and I instantly felt better and like I was in control and I was doing something about it.

But while all of this was going on I stupidly let myself fall for someone I really should not have. I let someone with nice hair and a cute smile and some charm get the better of me. When I got sick over the summer he somehow managed to manifest his way into my world, but he really wasn’t available for me to have in my world. Yet he persisted, and he wanted to hang out with me and he wanted to chat to me every day. Obviously, my red hair, migraines and resting bitch face were just the distraction he needed in his life.

We began to see each other. We were messaging every single day.  I’d wake up and there would be a message from him. We would chat on the phone every evening. He cared, and I needed someone to care. We’d hang out, and he’d shower me with attention and this went on for months. But it was wrong, and I was immensely stupid and needy. I admit it. I was sick, and he showed me some attention and I liked it.

I’m usually a very nice, sensible person but when the chips are down I can make mistakes and I bloody did. Four months of being sucked in again and again and the best of it is now I’m the one riddled with guilt about it. He seems fine. I cut the cord because I had to, but I fell hook line and sinker for him and that kills me. I avoided seeing my friends because I knew I was in a crap situation, but I wasn’t ready to give him up yet. I just got so bogged down in our stupid little thing, I don’t even know what to call it and now I’m trying to get over it and it’s sad and pathetic because I convinced myself he was lovely when he clearly wasn’t/isn’t.

Which brings me to today. I’m now trying to sort my shit out. He’s in my head annoying me and I’m full of guilt and angst about it and I feel terrible and horrible and my head hurts pretty much constantly anyway without having him there taking up my thoughts. I’m hugely disappointed in myself and I’m really ready to be over him and to be well again.

So, I’m sad, sad I let him in, sad I let it go on and sad I’m such a weak stupid woman. I’m ruminating over everything and beating myself up about it all.

But what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger right? Mistakes are only stupid if you don’t learn from them, so I guess I’m trying to dig myself out of the rut and move on. With the help of talking about it and writing about it the rut can only get smaller right?