The past week (following a major mental health melt down last Wednesday) has been a low as low can be kinda week!
What led me to lose control? – A hair cut (I kid you not!) though in my defence *hair hack* would be more accurate.
I can’t remember all that happened after I shot upstairs
chocking back (Don’t be bloody stupid it’s only hair) tears - and out
of respect for other mental health sufferers I’m not going to describe too explicitly what I do remember but to give you an idea...
I remember spitting “I hate you” at my mirrored self over
and over again – I remember (and I'm still haunted by) the piercing hatred in the eyes starring back at me.
I remember feeling angry, unimaginably angry, angry at me!
I don’t remember getting to the bathroom or how long I was
in there but I do remember sitting on the bathroom floor sobbing, still
incredibly angry and wanting to (but trying so hard not too) hurt myself, and
I do remember hitting the bathroom wall hard enough to make a hole in it.
The
pain in my wrist would not register until hours later.
From bathroom back to bedroom is fragmented... I don’t recall
going downstairs for cigarettes but I must have done because I don’t keep cigs and
lighter (or smoke as a rule) upstairs and I don’t recall locking the bedroom
door, but again, I must have done because it was locked when sometime later (burnt, bleeding, incredibly ashamed, but
calmer) I went to leave the room.
It all seems so irrational now - It was irrational.
The way I’m STILL letting it get to me now IS irrational….
It’s just a dodgy hair cut FGS….!
Except there’s more to it than that…! More to it than my
usual OCD related need for perfection or my (life long) lack of self-esteem!
You see if I’d felt
loved on Wednesday (hair hack day), as
loved as I felt in the first ‘butterfly tummy’ months of my relationship with
‘The Body Guard’ (That's hubby to the newbies) - as loved as I’d felt
on our wedding day when I’d held his
face in my hands in front of friends, family and God and saw everything that’s
good in me reflected in his eyes; then perhaps my post ‘hair hack’ reaction might have been less 'mad woman' and more
‘what the fu*k have you done to my hair’, followed by a few weeks of obsessive
titivating.
Until last summer I never doubted for a moment how much 'The Body Guard' loved me.
I was loved (warts and all) like I had never (with the exception of my dad who thinks the sun shines out of my arse and my nan who died when I was eleven) been loved before - special.
I was loved (Like that) right up to (and including the morning of) the day I discovered his secret email account and secret (*virtual* doesn’t make it any less unfaithful in my opinion, especially given the nature of their conversations) bit on the side!
I’m 48 years old, mentally ill (though he knew that from the start) my smile rarely reaches my eyes these days, I look like I've been dug up in the mornings and I've got more saggy bits than Bag-Puss.
She (‘Natty’) was everything I’m not – YOUNG (over half my
age) - FAT (Turn me sideways and you lose me) – Boobs up to her chin (mine breastfed
my first four kids, were tortured for 8 months by a breast pump after my fifth
(disabled and fed through a tube) child was born and then went into hiding) and her hair…!
Her beautiful, long, silky, shiny, frigging-perfect hair (mine is.Oh you get the picture.)
So you see Wednesdays melt down wasn't just about dodgy hair
(though my OCD inhabited mind does worry more than most about appearance) It was
about months and months of held in heartache, fear and incredibly low self esteem.
Months of trying to trust his "I love you" with his "I don't love you anymore" of last summer still ringing in my ears.
Months of trying to make 48 seem 28 and failing miserably.
Months of blaming
myself... I'm too old, too skinny, don’t
smile enough, too mentally ill - not sexy enough, not pretty enough, NOT GOOD
ENOUGH…!
Months of looking into the eyes of the man I love and seeing
(where I once saw special) everything I despise about myself reflected back at
me.
I’m not making excuses for my behaviour (my behaviour was
unacceptable) I’m just ‘Telling it how it is’….because it’s cathartic, because I need to and
because here in my space....I can.
‘The body guard’ is as gentle and caring as he always was, he’s
incredibly sorry, trying so hard to make us ‘Us again’ and he’s still here... It could be worse.
And me? Well the outside might
have seen better days but (If he looks with heart as apposed to nether regions) there is inner beauty.
I’m compassionate, forgiving
(clearly! O_o) and my hearts in the
right place… He could do worse!
As for dodgy hair - It will grow... At this point I need
you all to nod.
PRAYER
Thank you as always for allowing me to share
God bless you and all those you love
Kimmie x
