Coming back here is slipping back in to your favourite pair of shoes after a long time walking around in uncomfortable ones. Yet the reality is, I can’t stay here and I really wish I could because it was my safe place.
Looking for Lucy – still looking in 2017, and some days I feel like I got a little closer to understanding but then something else crazy comes along!
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I’m not really sure how many people this will reach. It has been so long since I last wrote and I had intended to do a lot more updates than I have.
When I realised how long it had been I felt I should at least come here and give a sort of conclusion! Then see where we go from there.
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Since I last wrote in September there have been many changes and huge life events for my partner and I. I am currently 32, nearly 33 weeks pregnant with a little boy. It has been the most incredible blessing to get pregnant and although the pregnancy has been quite challenging for me with various physical health pains, I am still blessed with a baby that so far is growing very well (currently weighing an estimated 5lbs!!). So I really can’t wait for this September when he will hopefully make his safe arrival in to the world.
One of my biggest fears in the past was that social services would want to be heavily involved due to my past and actually it’s turned out not to be the case at all which has been amazing. I was referred to them by the mental health team but social services actually acknowledged that I was fully in to my recovery and that my past should be allowed to be my past. Of course if anything were to change, they would become involved but it’s been lovely to have that recognition of how far forward I have come. My mental health team are still involved but very loosely and are just keeping an eye after the baby is born because of course hormones can change a lot! The plan though is that if it all stays stable after the baby is born, I can be in discharged within 6 months.
Another huge thing is that my partner and I got married in May. It was a fantastic day. We chose in the end to have a small but intimate wedding and it was completely perfect for us.
Since January it really has all been go, go, go!!
Thank you so much for all your comments before and also I’m sorry if I missed any comments lately – I’ve just seen one when I logged in asking how I am and I’m very sorry I didn’t see it sooner.
Lots of love,
Lucy x
This is a difficult post to write and something I have pondered for a while because I don’t know quite how to explain what is going on fully but I’ll do my best.
Firstly, I apologise if anybody noticed that all my blog posts had been taken down and were concerned.
That is first and foremost why I am writing this blog post now and will leave it up because over the years of blogging, I have met many friends and people who check in through my blog and I don’t wish to cause anyone alarm etc. It would seem horrible to just leave and never at least try and explain why, and also to let you know I am “okay”, or at least as okay as we might expect me to be.
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I set all my blog posts to private out of a sense of fear I think. I am scared that having such a public record of my struggles on the internet could come back to haunt me.
As some may know, it is a wish of mine to start a family with my fiance and indeed we have been trying for 15 months with no success which has been incredibly painful. The decision to try for a family was not one either of us took lightly and was not a decision to aid my mental health, but one that came from us both wanting children and feeling that together we would be able to offer our child goodness.
It is now at a point where after so long trying, we will need medical help and I am terrified that with this comes a need to prove yourself even more than if you were able to conceive naturally and either way, I am terrified of social services. This blog was always anonymous but I have been so brutally honest [aside from names and giving my location] that I know it wouldn’t take a genius to piece together a few key events and know it is me.
So I guess that was one set of the issues and quite a big one.
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At the same time, it also became apparent that there were a lot of strong opinions from people on mental health & having a family. Not on my blog I should add but in other places. I have the full support of my family and my fiance’s family, as well as my care team, but I don’t feel able at this time to be judged by others who don’t know the full story.
I do understand their concerns; it is of course the well being of a child and we should all be concerned that a baby is going to be able to be taken care of but I know that I can do that and I know that I am healthy enough now. I also know that trying to conceive is such a difficult journey that having to justify myself or feeling like I have to, isn’t good for me or my partner.
Everyone is entitled to their opinions and please know that I am not slating anybody, especially not when it comes from a place of concern for a child because if there were more adults concerned for children, then there would be a lot less damaged adults. It is just not something I feel able to deal with right now because I want to focus all my energy on keeping as healthy as I can and fighting to get the right help for fertility treatments we may need.
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I never intended to disappear when I started to get healthier. I wanted this blog to be a true reflection on recovery from mental health – from very poorly to living a happy and settled life. This is why I hope I can come back in the future, or at least now and again to give updates for those who know me and for blog followers.
As for right now, I’d say I am recovering. I am not recovered and I have a long way to go but I think part of my recovery is accepting that I may be at this place for a long time.
There are some factors outside of my control that prevent things from moving further and there are things that I continue to work on and strive towards.
I am coming to the end of my trauma therapy in the next few weeks which is something that has really helped me to change certain aspects of my life and how I look at them. It is the end of one chapter but the beginning of another at the same time.
For me, this is a good place, realistically. Sometimes it feels absolutely awful but then I realise that I have learnt the skills to tolerate it and also to continue to manage it safely and that is so important. Nobody ever said I would get back to being happy just yet but being able to keep myself safe is good and it’s adding to that.
My next step is to overcome the emetophobia. I’m not so scared about discussing that because in terms of mental health, I don’t think phobias are viewed so negatively in terms of stigma but that’s another thing entirely! If I look back a few years ago, this just all seemed impossible.
My life was a chaotic mess but it is not a chaotic mess anymore, not at all. It is stable and though there are ups and downs, it does not spin chaotically.
I am getting stronger every day and for a long time now, I have known I have a lot to live for and though sometimes there is that fleeting thought about wanting to die, it is natural now to dismiss it and remember all the people and all of the things who are here and who are worth fighting for.
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I am so sorry to leave but I hope you can all understand where I am coming from and I also hope to be back soon 🙂
With love,
Lucy x
Looking for Lucy 