How are Things?

Tag: mental health

  • Friday 25th July 2025

    It’s Friday. I made it. I got through the interviews, and the meetings, and the work, and taking care of my son, and now it is Friday. Today, my son went to spend two weeks with his father, and I will get to sleep.

    His father lives with his parents, and has since we broke up, which was in 2021. He exploded our lives with viciousness and resentment; he had in fact been doing that for years, but had never pointed it at my son. It was an ordeal for me that had been going on for the best part of a decade.

    But then he did it to my son.

    My son. He was his father, but he was/is my son. I took care of him, I fed him, I worked from 5am during Covid so I could take of him, I dealt with all the schools. I was the parent. My then husband was also in the house.

    When he did that to my son he screamed at him, yelled at him, then walked out of the room as calm as a swiss knife returned to its slot, leaving a terrified child and myself in freeze/fawn mode, but aware that something was very wrong.

    I am not going to talk about that tonight.

    It is years later. He still lives with his parents, a situation I approve of as at least I know there are two other sane people in the house. I will speak to him every night on the phone. It’s alright. It’s all alright.

    He will be out of the house for two weeks. I will work, work out, and get to cry a lot. I will get to think about myself for a bit, and just… rest. The music can change tempo, be slower, kinder, more reflective.

    You know you have lived a life not many would chose when the idea of being alone is so utterly restful and kind, so peaceful!

    Peace, just peace.

    Good night all.

  • Tuesday 15th July 2025

    Yesterday, for all the briefness in my entry, was an important day. I gathered as many people as possible to decide the best way to deal with the coming year. It was a collective group action, about building consensus and about sharing information as a group. It was work, diligence and about being as professional as possible in a public forum. The skill attached to it was gathering the reigns of those in the room, and moving their opinions towards my vision for the future. And I did, for at least the majority of the event. My agenda items were carried out and I’m in charge of doing so.

    Not surprisingly, today I was tired. I was up, but not functioning for quite some time. I did all the things I usually do, but slowly, and most likely with little flair. However, today moved from the external, to the internal. The company I work with provides a coaching service, where you can reach out to a more senior member of staff in a different unit. Today was the first day I was to meet him.

    The movement towards his office was far too cinematic, in that I moved from my office, down to the concourse, towards his building, up in the elevator to the top floor, and then into the winding corridors that led to his office. When I knocked, he opened it after a moment and said my name with a question mark. I smiled, nodded, and met his eyes, and he held the gaze a little longer than normal. I felt that he used the tactic to gain space over his visitors, and moved my own gaze away.

    The plan is that the first session lasts at least an hour. The discussion is not to be a counselling session, but it is very often like that in terms of topic. It is not meant to be about technical skills, but rather the psychology behind the work, behind the person.

    His office is busy, with many mementoes and souvenirs of a busy life. I see such things as the birthright of the smart and the rich, and look upon them as privilege. Those not credited with intelligence are not given such rights, but have to be happy with impersonal space – a bitter thought, probably not my only one. He himself is a short, neat man, with wiry strength, and an ethnicity going back millennia.

    The conversation would have deserved a setting to Philip Glass; there was harmony, but not sentimentality. We quickly found ourselves discussing profound matters, and the conversation reached a depth I had not really emotionally prepared for. In short-

    I believe I am not a good person and I have no right to work there.

    And in that vulnerability is all my wasted potential and fear, making me blind and leading to defenses rather than merely working, and working well.

    We both acknowledged that the conversation had uncovered a lot rather quickly. Myself, my stomach was one tight bundle. We wrapped it up after an hour, and I took a lunchbreak to think, to breathe.

    The afternoon saw me have a cup of tea with a person who is heading away from our unit. She is heading to another country where she can rent an apartment for a fraction of what she can get here. I wish her well, and admire her for seeking a good life for herself. We all want that, of course we do.

  • Sunday 13th July 2025

    This morning, I awoke. In more ways than one.

    I was married for 13 years, and the divorce took four years to work its way out. That was June 2024, in a ritual in a court that was an anti-marriage. Do you not take this man? I do not. Is the marriage retrievable? Like a precious passenger that fell off a raft on a fast-moving river, with no chance to grab or collect it, or even mourn it being gone- No, it was not. Then it was over and I was travelling home on public transport, my voice and face as mute as other passengers, both sad and free and happy and released all at the same time.

    Then other things came that summer. No chance to rest or retrieve, just keep moving.

    It is really not until the return of Spring that I felt I could breathe out. Music and art, the record of others’ joy, no longer disgusted me. My fears lessened. My panic lessened. My heart became to calm. And now, I find my own music grows at times. My rhythm can contain more than one beat, and my soul isn’t so icy.

    The hot night begat a hot morning. Various thumps and whimpers from neighbors spoke of their desires being met, and I found myself actually understanding, even identifying, for the first time for years.

    And yes, I mean years.

    I’m no one’s idea of attractiveness. And I certainly am deeply uninterested in inviting anyone into my life. But this is another sign of healing quietly making itself known to me, when I feared it was not possible to ever return.

    I’ve just ensured that this blog will always be anonymous, it seems. I hope to write again tomorrow.