Hi
I hope you are coping with and coming to terms with your loved ones illness a bit better now? I just wanted to agree with Homegirl really and Dollit...it is so easy to close up and hide away because you assume friends and relatives can't and wouldn't understand. And I guess they can't truly know what it is like in the way that ...a friend of mine's mother died and mine hasn't so I can't really know but I can imagine how awful this is and hope my empathy is good enough...it doesn't stop me from wanting to try to help even though I haven't experienced it myself. Someone with exactly the same experience will just get it won't they but as Dollit said other folk can still offer a degree of support. I have subconciously slightly distanced myself from a really good friend who happens to work within mental health in a senior role but this is not how we met. We talked about all kinds and still do but I have avoided talking with her about how I think and feel, the highs and lows, triggers, relationships, lack of sleep etc etc because I felt it might compromise her with her work or it might feel like work at home for her. I don't know what I was thinking because I am still me, my mental health is just part of me and she loves me warts n all. She sent me a text saying she wants to spend time with me and has been reading a book called Manic by Terri Chaney with me in mind. Someone could be bothered and cares enough to read around the subject to try and see things from my perspective. I feel overwhelmed and like crying. I thought I would lose my friends if they knew where I was really at. Seems I couldn't have been more wrong. There have been a couple of times and I am guessing your loved one and anyone else on here for that matter will have seen...THE LOOK ..when I was getting frustrated and agitated and upset and the phone died and I should have been meeting mary and the callbox in ikea was 999 only and etc etc etc I asked a man for directions and said I wasn't doing well....the look of 'OH my bloody God' she is mad!! Then another day the children are driving me mad playing guitar hero on fiull blast and ex husband being difficult and money stuff not adding up (how could I just forget the water rates) and so on and my stress levels are rising and I have slept for two hours only and am not feeling my best when my neighbour bangs on the door with her toddlers followed by ...The Jehovas Witness! Poor boy of 19 ish in a suit asking if I would like to discuss God because nobody seems to want to talk about him at the moment. No...well...the thing is...it's not a good time...doesn't hear it...carrys on....ok try again...I stopped believing in God when someone I loved very much, not quite seven years old, died so ...I don't really want to talk about God either...doesn't hear me...magazine...no...I don't sleep well sometimes...bipolar.....that did it...the Oh my bloody God look..byeee!
Anyone else had THE LOOK of realisation lately!?

Ella
Hi Ella
I think it is so hard to hid behind the mask of normality. Trying to juggle all he balls in the air and pretend to everybody that you are ok and wanting to scream at everybody.
I dont know what guitar hero is. Is it a song, computer game or what?
It is the hardest thing in the world, for an unselfish person, to say - Help me.
It is hard to say to the kids "STOP, TURN IT OFF, I HAVE HAD ENOUGH".
At the end of the day if you werent there they would have to cope without you in whatever way life throws at them.
I think the hardest thing is to take off the mask. Tell your ex to get lost, tell the neighbour's kid to get lost, and the neighbour and last but by no means least, tell the JWs to get lost.
At the end of the day, you are living in the real world of coping with the realities of life.
Make sure you make time for yourself. Stop letting people put on you, even your kids. I have been there, done that and wore the t-shirt.....
Dont be afraid to share your feelings - it is bottling them up that put pressure on.