My pace of life was incredibly fast before, I was lucky enough to have a very big social circle but that required constant maintenance in order to keep in touch and on top of everyones lives; get-togethers, phone-calls, texts, emails, and keeping up with friends further afield via good old Facebook & Twitter. Ash and I rarely had a weekend day to ourselves and I'd often come into work on a Monday morning for a rest! Our weekends would be booked up weeks in advance, seeing up to 7 or 8 different friends/family members over the course of 1 weekend.
Amidst this, I was planning my 30th Birthday Wild West Bonanza, which was without doubt going to be completely over the top. It was the ideal opportunity to finally reaffirm our wedding vows in front of all the friends and family who never saw us do it the first time round which was super, just adding a teeny bit more pressure to the day! The event was 2 years in the planning and it was a brilliant day, we had 200 guests, hired a huge barn, had a line dancing teacher, a DJ, more magic touches than you could shake a stick plus an onsite campsite for people to stay over too. As always I took this in my stride and whilst in the planning stage of the party back in Sep 2009 I decided that rather than pay someone to decorate my venue, I'd enrol onto a balloon art course, as you do!
I really enjoyed the course and saw a small business opportunity arise so decided to launch myself as an independent party decorator - I received a generous start up loan from my parents-in-law without which I'd never have been able to give it a go and for 9/10 months before I fell ill, it was doing very well. The reason for telling you about this is to help build up the picture of my lifestyle; full time job, part time business (the 2 combined was equalling 80-100 hours work a week), hectic social life & event planning my own party. The other big factor was my ability to take on a lot of emotional stress and upset from friends and family. I was the go to person for a number of people which I took as nothing but a compliment. Over time I found that I was taking on a heck of a lot of emotional distress and was constantly involved with other peoples business trying to help or intervene. I can now see that these people would often leave my house or hang up the phone feeling happy and relieved but I'd be left worrying about their situation and wondering what I could do to help. Don't get me wrong, I was very happy to do this, I felt like I was being a great friend, I just couldn't see the detrimental affect it was having on my health.
I've suffered with migraines for quite a few years and after several visits to the GP I concluded that this was something I'd just have to learn to live with. They were incredibly debilitating and often leave me in bed for days at a time. One of my best friends, Trilby, has seen me with a few over the years and has told me that I look like I've had a stroke when I have one coming on. I've had to drive home from her house on more than one occasion after feeling the triggers over dinner and have had to pull the car over to be sick or be left wondering the next day how I got home without being able to recollect the drive, rather worrying to say the least!
2 other notable bouts of illness over the past few years included a couple of weeks in May 2007 where I thought I'd contracted Hepatitis A but the blood tests came back inconclusive & in December 2009 when I thought I had stomach flu. I ended up in hospital with excruciating stomach pains but the Dr dismissed it as a virus. Looking back I can now see that both of these displayed classic symptoms of anxiety and were another warning sign for me to slow down.
Foolishly or naively I didn't, and the situation carried on spiralling. We had the big birthday bash in June 2010 and I had booked a couple of days off work to recover afterwards - I was anticipating a huge hangover! I had bought the puppy for my Husband and was due to pick her up that same weekend so thought a couple of days at home to 'relax' and get her settled would be good. I remember that I was due back to work on the Wednesday and I had to phone my boss, Lois, and ask if I could take some extra time off, I put it down to tiredness but looking back, that was the beginning of the end! Something just wasn't clicking. The next couple of weeks passed in a bit of a blur, lack of sleep from the new dog, tiredness from the party and what was essentially the culmination of a good couple of years build up of anxiety just waiting to burst through.
The first weekend of July was a hectic one, I had a big balloon job for a wedding on the Saturday which involved an early start and 9 hours work (I had already spent 3 evenings prepping for it that week), the venue was outdoors so I had battles with the weather on the day which saw my stress levels escalate. Anyone who knows me will also know that I struggle with my weight (I just love food far too much!) and I remember a child at the venue asking me if I had a baby in my tummy.. a tiny comment but on that day, in that state I could literally feel the cracks starting to appear all over me. That same evening we were hosting a BBQ for some friends and the following day as well as travelling 30 miles back to the venue to clear up, we were hosting a family BBQ. On Monday 5th July 2010, a date that will stick in my mind forever, I was up early to decorate a balloon for a girl at work and while I was doing it I could feel my hands shaking uncontrollably. I was attending a funeral that afternoon, so I put it down to feeling 'anxious' (ironically enough) but I guess this was when I started to think that things weren't quite right. By the time we left the office to go to the funeral I was feeling very sick and had a headache, again, you'd assume it was because of the difficult afternoon ahead. It was a very sad funeral and I found it to be a huge emotional release, in retrospect I think it was just what my body needed in order for me to be able to finally let go. I remember travelling home feeling absolutely drained and exhausted beyond anything I had felt before.
I took myself off to bed early that evening thinking it would all be OK the next day, when I woke up on the Tuesday I went into the back garden where Ash was playing with Poppy (the puppy) and I just looked at him and said 'I can't go to work today, something's wrong'. Simple as that. I am not the sort of person to do that and I'd always feel very guilty about calling in sick. However on this occasion I just knew that enough was enough and something was about to give.
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