A memory I can still taste, a future yet to unfold #nhbpm #9

I remember sitting on a bus, at the back, downstairs, I was 15 or 16.  I was day dreaming about my future. It was 1983.  I had spiky hair and baggy trousers and pointy shoes. I wore my Dad's old jumper, cut down, an old man's jacket from a charity shop, lots of eyeliner and I was clutching my acid dyed, pink denim bag from Chelsea Girl that I loved. It was the days before mobile phones so I was just looking out the window. Going through town, Glasgow city centre. It was raining outside.

I think I'd just go some preliminary exam results or something. Or maybe a teacher had just said something nice about me being clever. Something had happened, I don't remember what, but it must have opened a door in my mind to the future and it suddenly looked really rosy. The thing I remember the most is the feeling I had. A feeling of excited anticipation, like the night before Christmas.  I was thinking to myself, "I'm going to do really well in all my exams, I'm going to go to university and then I'm going to get a good job and then I'm going to be really successful and then I'm going to be a freelance consultant and not have to work full time but people will come to me for advice and it's going to be great." Where on earth did I get the idea from, at 16, that I would end up a freelance consultant??  My Dad was sometimes freelance, otherwise I don't think I'd have even had the vocabulary. I liked the idea of not being tied down.

I wasn't dreaming of babies or a husband or a beautiful house. None of that entered my mind. For some reason I was dreaming about what I was going to do. And I just had this rush of certainty that I could do a lot and it was all going to go really well - and I felt incredibly happy.

Fast forward to now. Bizarrely I have indeed become a freelance consultant and I did have that glittering career, kind of, that I'd dreamed of. I did some interesting stuff at any rate, before I got ill. I guess I envisaged becoming more senior than I actually managed to do when I was employed. (Hell when I was eleven I thought I might have a shot at being prime minister one day - I had  HIGH hopes!) I do think that the illness kind of cut me off a bit in what might have been my prime. I know I was getting ill for a long time before it reached crisis point and I had to, for a short time, "give it all up". I believe now with hindsight that it was affecting me more than I realised for a long time before I was ever diagnosed and I do feel a bit aggrieved that perhaps it may have held me back a bit.

But hey ho, here I am.  As the John Lennon song goes:

"Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." 

I did some of that stuff I dreamed of and somehow, where I've ended up is where I was aiming for all along, despite many unexpected predicaments, distractions and deviations that arose along the way. I always longed to live by the sea and now I do. My freelance career is very new but it is going well. My health,  having totally collapsed, seems to be slowly but fairly steadily coming back. Total bonus I have an adorable husband too, I never expected that!

Life so far has been nothing if not interesting and it continues to be so. I love that little memory. Thinking back to the naive yet supremely confident little thing that I was at that moment, makes me smile.

Who knows what the future holds now. I intend for my health to get better and better and I intend to bring more opportunities in to my life where I can express myself and make a difference for others. Ooh, my mind just went off on a tangent there, thinking of possibilities and I've got a little bit of that feeling again!

This is my latest post for WEGO Health's Health Blog Post Month #nhbpm, using prompt  #9: Tell a descriptive story about a memory

The truth comes calling at 3am

Wide awake and wondering why I can’t sleep and then it comes to me, I’m seething! I’m outraged. I’m pissed off. I’m seriously upset.

Ah. That’ll be why I was thinking earlier that I absolutely and urgently had to have some new jeans and why I’ve been trying to work out where I can get £2,500, to pay for cosmetic dentistry (when I have absolutely no money coming in at the moment so it’s a ridiculous and impossible idea,  beyond frivolous and self indulgent).

It’s displacement thinking isn’t it. My brain has been trying to resist the fact that I am unhappy by distracting me with thoughts of “things” that it’s trying to convince me will make me happy. Lucky I don’t have squillions of pounds to squander, this is the same distorted thought process that ultimately leads some unhappy rich people down a path where they end up becoming totally demented and going overboard on plastic surgery (don’t worry, I like my nose!).

(If the above logic isn’t working for you check out this great blog post, on recognising our deepest needs and not trying to fulfil them through consumption.  I read it earlier and it was like someone had put the lights on for me! )

I got some wonderful news earlier today. An appeal I’d set up when I was working has now ended and an ex colleague kindly emailed me the results. I was thrilled, it has been a big success and it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for me.  Hurrah!

So that was a revelation, realising how pleased I was. Honestly I was totally delighted.  And I was quite surprised that I was so enthusiastic. I’ve been telling myself how happy I am not to be doing that job any more (which I truly am) and I’ve been hinting to myself and others that when I am finally well enough to start pursuing paid employment again that I quite like the idea of doing something completely different, maybe something more creative and “softer.”  So I feel that perhaps I learned something about myself, by recognising what a serious buzz I get when something big that I’ve visualised and created comes to fruition.  

Then, I couldn’t help it, I started to feel pissed off that this wonderful career of mine, as was, is now off the table, as it were. That I can’t do that kind of thing right now, that perhaps I won’t be able to again. And that people who were my peers are over taking me at a rate of noughts in terms of career progression. I feel like I’m on the hard shoulder, being left behind!

And I’m blooming well SEETHING. It’s not fair. And I know life isn’t fair and no one ever said it was and why should it be and plenty of people are worse off than me and I have lots to be thankful for and ALL OF THAT. But really I’m just cross and that’s why I can’t sleep.

I just can’t believe that there isn’t a way to get my brain working properly again. I refuse to accept that I won’t be able to think clearly and coherently in any kind of consistent fashion again, this can’t be right!!! I can’t imagine not being taken seriously in a work context ever again. How interesting, that all of this is going on at a subconscious level and it’s taken 3 hours of insomnia for it to surface and make itself clear!

One thing about brain fog is that I think when I become more aware of it, that may be a sign it is starting to clear a bit...Well you know me, I am always a looking-on-the-bright-side kind of a girl, now I’ve had my little internal rant, normal service can be resumed!

....When I finally did get to sleep last night (you don't think I'd post my insomniac thoughts in real time do you? This bit is being written in the morning), I had another one of these vivid dreams I’ve been getting for the past week or so. This time I decided to test drive a juggernaut and drove it all round the streets where I grew up in Glasgow before deciding that it was a bit tricky to handle and probably too large for my needs! So there you go – analyse that! I’m still laughing. Also I feel more energetic today but I will follow doctor’s orders and keep resting for now. Could this all be good...?

Thanks for reading. I’ve been asked to do a post about when I was first diagnosed so that’s next on my list but I just wanted to squeeze this one in. Do leave a comment if you’d like to, as long as you’re not trying to sell anything I’ll be thrilled to hear what you think of this latest post, or if it brings anything up for you.

Love and light

Lorraine

2010, a year to forget?

I finished work on 23^rd December. What a joy. It’s weird to think I won’t be going back there but mainly just a huge relief not to have to deal with the pressure of it anymore. My adorable husband has been on holiday too so we’ve been relaxing together.  Lots of telly and eating and sleeping and little gentle walks most days.  

I realised that I half expected to stop feeling unwell when I didn’t have to go to work anymore.  Well  that hasn’t happened,  I’ve been pretty tired most of the time, to be fair I’ve had the traditional Christmas chest infection which won’t have been helping. I’ve also become more aware of some weird instances of brain fog.

Brain fog is a recognised symptom of hypothyroidism, it can also be a symptom of fatigue, stress, depression, dementia, all sorts of things. I have a dear friend who’s mother got Alzheimers when she was only in her 30s but that’s extremely rare. I’m thinking my fog is a combination of my thyroid issues and the Adrenal Fatigue my new doctor says I also have.  It is a little scary though, it’s hard to judge how bad it is and I have no way of knowing whether it will get worse or better. I choose to work on the assumption it will improve, meanwhile it’s just something else to deal with.

We went out for tea and cakes with some friends and when we left I picked up my coat from the back of the chair I’d been sitting on and asked who it belonged to, like I’d never seen it before in my life! I totally didn’t recognise it at all! That was embarrassing.

Then we went to visit some cousins on Boxing Day, they’d invited us and I’d forgotten the invitation, then I half remembered it and called them to find out what we’d agreed and they reminded me, so we went. Then when we arrived they were surprised we weren’t staying overnight, because that’s what we’d discussed, only I had no recollection of the conversation! That was embarrassing too.

My cousins were clearly a bit shocked at my addled brains and made a point of saying how it wasn’t like me - to not be on the ball. So then of course I got upset, I felt a bit shocked to think my brain is functioning so much more poorly than I’d realised and that other people can really tell, more embarrassment! They’re lovely so it didn’t matter. If you can’t have a little boo with family at Christmas, when can you.  My cousin said when we left that it was good that it had happened because if it hadn’t they wouldn’t have known how much this illness is affecting me and he was all hugs and loveliness.

It made me wonder how much of a nightmare I might have been being at work.  The thing is it was such a stressful environment there that everyone was always forgetting things or getting them slightly mixed up, so when I forgot stuff I just put it down to general blur of having too much to do and too much to think about and I didn’t take it that seriously.  Maybe I was much worse there than I appreciated. No way of knowing. Well now I’m out of there, time will tell how much of the whole thing might be simply stress related.  

I don’t like to think of myself as affected by stress because my whole life I’ve had lots of stress to deal with and I’ve always been very good at handling it. I am known to be good in a crisis. I’m also very loath to let myself be labelled as someone unable to handle stress, it doesn’t ring true and I much prefer to think of myself as powerful and in control.

I like to think that my strength of will is all I need to achieve whatever I want to achieve - and up until now in life that approach has served me pretty well. This whole thyroid business is thoroughly weird and can be hard to come to terms with.

I won’t forget 2010 in a hurry though. Lots has happened, it’s all been fascinating, I’ve learned a lot and 2011 beckons just around the corner, brimful of possibilities.

I’d love to hear your experiences of being forgetful and what impact forgetfulness might have had on your life.....or what key memories or lessons from 2010 you will be carrying forward into to the new year....

Thanks so much for reading, it means the world.

Hope