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COVID19

I think our lives will forever be known in terms of "before" and "after" COVID19. This pandemic has created fear, panic and uncertainty and cities have shut down all over the world in an effort to stop the spread of the virus and "flatten the curve".

Covid19 is an ugly scar across everyone's 2020. I pray Jesus's healing and protection over everyone I love and hold dear and I pray that in 6 months from now, we'll all start returning to 'normal' life - or at least be on our way towards it.

Life as it is right now is just so scary. So strange. So isolating and so fear-filled.

I will write another blog comparing the loss of lives to Mental Illness with the lives lost to Covid19 and the HUGE DIFFERENCE in which the entire world responded to them both, because that's something that really gets my goat. Suicide is a pandemic, too. The whole world didn't stop when we lost MILLIONS through that - and still are!!! Makes me so angry!!!

Anyway.

One rant at a time, JD. One rant at a time.

Today I am writing to you at my FATTEST EVER WEIGHT in my entire life. The heaviest I've ever been prior to today was 81kgs. I was only that weight for probably a month as just seeing that I'd gotten that big scared me enough to changing it and within a month of strict diet and daily gym sessions along with weekly personal training, I was able to lose 6kgs and get down to a slightly healthier weight.

At my short stature of only 152cms, I'm supposed to weigh between 50-55kgs. MAX. In my mid-to-late 20's, I shot up in weight (I was sooo unhappy in those earlier years living Gavin then my life did a complete 180 and I got married to Jonathan and immediately moved to the UK) to 67kilos.

I look back on that 'weight gain' now and absolutely LONG for it.

For goodness sakes, JD. You've let yourself go and now you're HUGE, girl.

I now - right at this very moment - weigh 85KILOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm so ashamed of myself and in these times when others are struggling with having to be on their own and away from society, I am thankful for the mercies not being seen by everyone provides.

I AM HUGE.

I AM SO FAT and it's adversely affecting my health. I can't breathe. I can't do anything even remotely physical for more than a few minutes without my chest feeling tight and my breathing coming out in desperate rasps. I can't even walk for more than about 15 minutes. My whole body starts to shut down. I literally have to STOP walking and just catch my breath - and it's affecting my eye sight because I get these periods of blindness (I'm not kidding you) when I do anything that remotely gets my heart pumping.

I would like to think I've got anaemia and that low iron is the cause of this physical struggle - but I think I'm literally JUST TOO FAT and it's hard on my entire body carting myself around.

I'm also incredibly unhappy.

One of my favourite people in the world, Becci - said to me the other day "you've not blogged for a while so that's good news" and we both laughed.

And bless, Becci's right - I only seem to blog when I'm unhappy. When I'm happy - I'm too busy enjoying it to sit still in front of my laptop. Haha.

But this year has legit been the hardest years I've ever had to face. I didn't think anything could beat how incredibly hard the end of 2009 was for me, but 2020 is putting that year of pain to shame. If 2020 was competing to be the WORST year of my life against 2009, it's winning. By MILES.

At least in 2009, I was fit. I was weighing in at a lovely 52kgs and was living my BEST life for the first part of that year. Seeing Matt was when it all fell apart because having sex for the first time ever changed my life and I couldn't stay married to someone who wouldn't touch me. In ONE YEAR, I had my heart broken, got divorced, and travelled between the UK and Australia over 4 times. I moved house. I moved COUNTRY. I lost my job. I gained another. I lost my home in Prescot, then got my VERY OWN FANCY APARTMENT in the city. I experienced the worst times of my life (flat on my back in the Trauma ward Alun now works in for 2 weeks with so many broken and bruised limbs from the quad biking accident, the agony of divorce from Jonathan, the crippling depression I now refer to as "the great sadness" because the sheer force of it was stunning and damn near killed me over the course of 5 months) and the BEST time of my life at the same time - I've NEVER looked that damn sexy in my entire life. Being 32 was more like getting a 2nd chance at being 16 again and I loved every happy moment of that and savoured it so that even now, all I have to do is close my eyes and I can be right there - on the bow of Pete and Lyn's boat, on the peach tiles of my very own apartment, singing at the top of my lungs with Gracie, Caris, Jess and Sonya in Kings Park, sharing beers and pizza while the footy was on (a lot of that was lost on me) with Tracey, Samantha and Penny, dating a boy every day of the week for months on end and LOVING every date...feeling invincible...honestly the BEST time of my life before depression hit...then plummeted down to the WORST time.

And now I'm here again.
At the Worst times.
Damn it.

I'm struggling to survive this depression, you guys. I tried to kill myself on Christmas eve and tried again 6 weeks after that. This is NOT a good year because really, I should be dead. You shouldn't be able to read these words. I shouldn't feel my MacBook keys under my fingertips. I shouldn't feel my fingertips at all. I should be wasting away in a wooden box right now. I tried TWICE and it's not even mid April yet.

That's how bad this year has been depression-wise for me.

Also, things with Alun and are in a really weird place. We love each other, that is true and that is without question...but we speak to each other harshly now. We're overly critical of each other. We now nit-pick when we used to be each other's greatest support. We tear each other down when we used to be each other's source of comfort and hope.

Alun and I have never fought or argued this much in all our 10 years together. It's literally as if we suddenly started speaking a different language each and neither of us can understand what the other is saying. We just get angry with each other. ALL THE TIME. I really want to talk about this. I want to talk about what's going on with us - about why we're snapping at each other. Why are we attacking each other when we've always stuck together? Why are we on opposing sides when we used to be an inseparable team? I've tried and Alun literally shuts his ears to it. He will talk loudly over me "Just let it go, Janet - leave it alone"

But I can't leave it alone!!!

Is this not URGENT enough that we need to talk about it? And solve it?

Our Marriage is literally falling apart and you don't want to talk about it???

Fix it, somehow? Together?

Alun HATES the idea of discussing it and wants to just 'move forward'.

But Alun...I nearly died TWICE this year. How is this something you're okay with brushing under the carpet? Aren't I important enough to you to want to figure out the cause so that together, we can get rid of it???

Why is it okay for you to call me "dickhead" all the time now? How is it okay that we've almost ended our marriage so many times in such a short space of time? How is it okay to JUST IGNORE that we've slept in separate rooms/beds/sofas all year long and not together as we used to???

HOW IS THIS OK?!?

This breaks my heart.

My mental health is at its very worst. I'm scared all the time but more than that, I'm NUMB. I've not experienced this before. I feel the fear, anxiety and overwhelming sadness, but at the very same time, I can't feel ANYTHING and this is a fresh new hell that depression has decided to dish up. I don't sleep any more because I can't FEEL. I can't feel tired. I can't feel sleepy. I can't get comfortable in bed because my entire body feels the way it did in the Trauma Ward in 2009 - as if it's covered in blood, breaks and bruises so that even the slightest movement in bed feels like 3 people are kicking me with boots on. Everything HURTS so much, you guys. But the physical pain seems at the same time as if it's happening to someone else. My mind both knows what's happening (terrible darkness in my mind and terrible pain in the whole of my body) but REJECTS the very notion of it at the same time. It's an awful way to be because every minute of every day, I'm just existing. I'm barely breathing because I'm so DAMN FAT and I feel such a distance from MY OWN BODY and MIND that I can't even begin to tell you how ALONE it makes me feel from everyone else I love! Especially Alun.

How the bloody hell do I solve this?!?

This depression is one I have to survive through. It's one that takes EVERYTHING I'VE GOT just to get from minute to minute.

My day with this new form of HORRIBLE DEPRESSION is like this:

Depression wakes me up. It pries open my dry, cracked eyes and it demands attention.

I AM HERE.

I don't even try anymore to ignore it because ignoring it makes it worse. I wake up now usually on my back and it feels like depression is a BEING that's sat on my chest. A heavy boulder that's on me from the moment I wake.

So I hate waking up now.

I wake up. I lay there and I feel it in the pit of my stomach - the darkness. It rolls about in there and it makes its way slowly up my body until it gets to my eyes. It squeezes (and oh man is this painful), wanting to make tears come out because of the weight of depression I now carry. But I can't cry. It doesn't allow me to feel. So instead, a great NUMBNESS overtakes me.

NUMB, I get up.

I brush my teeth. Everything happens at slow motion now. As if I've been convicted of a crime and my punishment is that every moment of monotony lasts weeks now. I feel every brush stroke on my teeth. Scrunch, swipe, crunch, rinse. Repeat.

I get dressed.

EVERYTHING IS TOO DAMN SMALL for me.

Dressing is awful as my underwear is tight and very uncomfortable. Then leggings. WHY DID I CHOOSE THE TIGHTEST GARMENTS TO FEEL THE MOST COMFORTABLE IN??? Why don't floaty, floral dresses do it for me? WHYYYY?

But leggings it must be. So I pull them on. I feel the scratch of the cheap Kmart fabric on my lumpy, horrible skin. It feels like rakes against hot coal.

I feel it again. THE HEAVINESS OF THIS DEPRESSION. It makes my arms feel as if they weigh a tonne and moving them is so hard nowadays. Moving my legs is worse and don't even get me started on the rest of my body.

This is hell.

I open the fridge.

In my desperate attempt for comfort and a moment of happiness, I stuff a cake into my mouth as quickly as possible. Almost as quickly as the moment of joy the sugar rush brings, THE HEAVINESS is back and I feel NUMB. The joy is snapped away by the depression. I don't feel disappointment. I don't feel the shame I SHOULD feel because I'm eating so much rubbish. I just don't feel anything.

I then eat a bag - family sized bag - of chips.

I lay on the sofa as sitting up hurts my lower back now (great) and I feel the chips gather around my entire face and down the front of my baggy, ill-fitting jumper.

Great.

I am not just UGLY, I'm GREASY now, too.

Well done, Janet. Go you.

YOU FAT BASTARD.

I try to watch something. I FEEL NOTHING watching it. It could be a delightful animation (I usually love those) or The Lord of the Rings or a great Comedy or a wonderful RomCom...it could be nothing but a jellyfish slowly making its way through the ocean...and I STILL FEEL NOTHING.

Suddenly, the day is gone and sunset is beginning outside. I can SEE it. I JUST CAN'T FEEL IT.

Alun is home and we commence our careful dance of "don't do anything that could lead to fighting" so we stick strictly to small talk "How was your day?" "Any more Covid patients?" "Heard from your parents? Yes mine are still okay too"

OH
MY
GOD

WHY ARE WE TALKING TO EACH OTHER AS IF WE DON'T MEAN ANYTHING TO EACH OTHER???

Alun will cook dinner. He loves to cook as it's his way to blow off steam. As he rattles pots and pans about in the kitchen, he's whistling to a song on the radio and I can see the stress leave his body as his shoulders relax. His face relaxes. All the stress and strain he's carried around in hospital are leaving because he's singing and testing sauces on the end of his smallest finger the way Chefs would.

AND OH MY GOD I ENVY THAT. I want to be free of this HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE NUMBING DEPRESSION for just a moment. Just one brief moment.

We sit side by side on the sofa and we eat dinner. I compliment Alun on his cooking, he winks "Thanks, Gorg" and in that one brief moment in time...it's as if everything is okay again. Its as if we're in another year - pre-Covid19 - and pre2020...another time when Alun and I used to care deeply about each other and smile and wink at each other. I remember those times and the tinkle of Alun's 'I'm so hilarious' laugh rings in my ears like a blush-toned memory. I try to hold it. I try to keep it...but the NUMBNESS draws it away as if it's drawing my last breath.

And I'm back in the present. The time where we ARE nasty to each other.

And distant. And cold. And APART.

I can't taste the food anymore. I just shovel it in like a fat, horrible machine.

I can't feel Alun's hand as it brushes against mine when he collects our plates.

"Want anything?" he appeals from the kitchen. Alun cooked so I should do the dishes, but I don't because the HEAVINESS demands I sit where I am like a HUGE FAT SLOB.

I want to feel again, Alun.

"No thanks" I call back, surprised at the lightness in my voice.

We watch TV. Alun likes Police shows or shows about surgeries/hospitals. I "watch" with him. I don't really because I can't seem to take anything in. I wait, mostly.

I wait for time to pass.

And waiting for time to pass is AGONISING in so many ways when depression is in charge of it. Of me.

We go to bed.

Alun nods off like an exhausted 5 year old. I gaze at his long, thick lashes, settled softly on his cheeks and I marvel for about a millisecond at how handsome and sweet he is. He's so pure and innocent and sweet- especially when he's asleep.

Then the numbness is back.

DON'T FORGET I AM HERE.

Of course you are. How could I ever forget? You don't let me out of your tight grasp for anything more than a fleeting second.

I don't sleep. I watch Alun until I lose consciousness. I've found out though this new depression that going to sleep is a PRIVILEGE I used to have. I don't fall asleep. I don't feel cozy and safe. I don't get that lovely blissful "oh this is it...here I go...I'm almost asleep" feeling I used to LOVE back in the days before this horrible depression. I'm either awake and in incredible pain or I'm not there.

That's all the 'choice' I have these days. Awake and SURVIVING or passed out.

And the next day, it all happens again.

Repeat.

Repeat.

Repeat.

And every day I wait.

I wait for the day to end.

I pass out until the day begins.

AND I FUCKING HATE FEELING NOTHING.

I hate this. So much!

I feel SO ALONE in this because I'm set apart from MYSELF and that's never happened to me before.

God, help me, please. Please make this stop, I beg of you. Please make this stop.

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