System up with the top down, got the city on lockdown.

March was by far the longest month of everyone’s life.  I was already having a shitty 2020, even before the big Coro V showed up.  David and I were unable to start IVF because some of my stupid hormone levels were too high.  That hurt, as we’d been waiting so long to begin.  Then the death of my cousin’s daughter, aged 24, Beautiful Sarah, attending her funeral in Dublin and seeing her heartbroken friends and my heartbroken family.  Then my mam was hospitalised twice whilst still in Dublin, first time with broken ribs from a fall.  I spent my last day in Dublin with her in A&E in the Mater hospital and it hurt having to leave her for the airport.  She looked so tiny and frail and scared.

Her second spell in hospital was longer and a bit more serious; she’d had a massive bowel infection and they discovered she has COPD (Chronic obstructivepulmonary disease).  It was terrifying because I couldn’t be with her, so I was calling every day.  It was the closest I’d gotten to losing her, and it probably wasn’t even THAT close.  I think it was the helplessness, I couldn’t do anything, couldn’t visit her or anything due to the sheer distance. 

On top of that, I’d had a falling out on a very public forum with a family member where I was made to feel like utter shit by a single comment.  I was on the precipice of a massive spiral down into my Dark Place.  My alter ego, Cunt Face lives there.  She’ll tell me I’m no good, she’ll tell me I’m worthless, and most crucially, she’ll tell me that if I kill myself, no one will miss me.  And although I was at the top of the spiral, she shouted loud enough that no one would miss me and that I should probably kill myself. 

I contemplated it for a day or two, I’ll be honest.  My constant misery made me hell to live with, spontaneously bursting into tears wherever I went.  I just wanted it all to stop, all my feelings needed to just fuck off. 

A phone call to my GP helped; I told her everything and she was reassuring.  The fact that by February, I’d already accumulated a years’ worth of bullshit and it had broken me.  I was worrying about fucking everything up with friends and family by being so anxious and depressed, relying on alcohol to help me through (bad idea – I potentially ruined relationships and friendships this way).

But I began to get through it, slowly but surely, the spontaneous tears stopped.  The feelings of despair began to subside.  Things were going a okay in Tara World….things were looking up….

Oh, hello Covid-19.  Let me clarify, I don’t have it but I’m terrified.  The only thing about this whole situation is that virtually everyone is in the same shitty rust covered boat, if you can take any solace from that?  We’re all now living in some weird dystopian time where we’re having to practice social distancing (some of us better than others), working from home is the norm for most people (quite how you all don’t just spend the day wanking, I’ll never know).  But no social interaction aside from with the people you’re living with (bad luck, David).  I have friends who live alone and who haven’t seen another soul for two weeks, how isolating is that?  How much must that affect your mental health?  I mean, I’m upset because I can’t visit my folks and they’re not tech savvy enough to have WhatsApp or Zoom or whatever else platform you use where you can facetime people.  But I’m lucky because they’re both still here.  People who have the big Coro V are dying alone because they can’t have visitors.  Imagine dying scared and alone…its gut wrenching to think about. 

The world is a fucked-up place right now.  Writing is useful for me to get all the crap out of my head and into my shitty little blog where I appear to be full of my own self-importance.  Well, buster, it’s my blog and I can post whatever the hell I like.  It’s heartening that in this unprecedented time that MOST people are being decent and caring, a lot are being cunts and attacking key workers or spitting at people, or just going out and about like fuck all is happening.  And those who don’t social distance, don’t get me started.  I’d love to think that when all this is done and dusted, society will be a brighter, nicer place, but the pessimist in me says it won’t.  People will go back to their own selfish ways…I hope I’m proved wrong.

Sarah Maguire

1995 - 2020

Always remembered, forever loved

💔

Snapshots

I've just come back from a much needed break away with my parents and my niece, Gabby.  My folks thought I could do with the break, so they booked us to go to Amsterdam (comments about weed and sex workers are not welcome).

I felt guilty going away, I mean I'm still off sick from work with mental health issues (and issues surrounding food). I felt worried for what people would think when they saw my Facebook updates and photos.  There are a few snapshots where I look happy and you wouldn't guess that I'm battling with low self esteem, self hatred and depression.  Speaking to a friend, I confided my worries but I also said that snapshots are just that, a snap, a moment in time and I'm great
at faking a smile.

Faking it?

I take and post a lot of selfies, my reason for this is that I can control how I look, if my smile looks okay, my usually tend to be close mouthed because when I smile with my teeth, my top lip disappears and I look even more ridiculous.  And I tend to just post my face because, even though I am losing weight (too slowly for my liking, and I'm still convinced I'm not losing enough despite having been told that my weight loss is fine and in fact ahead of where I should be) I don't want people seeing the mess that I am.

The holiday was wonderful, and a lot of those smiles in my photographs are genuine, but they're just a snapshot where it looks like I haven't a care in the world, where I'm not concerned with what I can and can't eat (what's SAFE in my mind for me to eat and not eat), where I don't feel like an enormous whale, an embarrassment for my family and friends to be seen with...

Yes, I am scared of bread.

I'm still awaiting a psychology appointment through the bariatric service (thanks Tory bastards).  I still need help, discussing with my GP my food phobia, when I said something about not technically
being an eating disorder, she said that there's a spectrum of eating disorders and I'm on there... Great.  Imagine you went from not caring what you put in your mouth to having to check everything, to look at the protein content of everything, so I eat virtually the same things (nuts, hummus, cracker breads, king prawns, eggs, mash)  - these are my 'Safe Foods'.

I'm hanging in there, still not sleeping brilliantly, lying in bed because there's no reason to get up, same with showering...I know that's disgusting but I'm still pretty much 'Meh, what's the point'. Thanks depression, you wanker.

I know my friends and family are all supportive and love me, and I know that when I write blog posts like this, I upset them.  I'm sorry for that, I have to write down my thoughts and feelings, it helps me and God knows I need all the help I can get.

Mini T's Mini Meltdown (This is NOT a delicious recipe)

I went to a horror movie convention the other weekend in Birmingham.  It was brilliant, met up with friends and made some new ones, including Michael Myers himself, the actor Tony Moran.  It’s true, we’re FB pals, HE friend requested me. I taught him the word minge.  Fairly proud of that. 

 

Anyway, I got some photos with some Nightmare on Elm Street stars, Rod Lane from NOES 1 (Jsu Garcia) and Roland Kincaid from NOES 3 (Ken Sagoes) (paid for) and some pals took some snaps of us too.  And then I saw the photos, and I could have wept.  I look utterly horrendous in every single one.  I’m the size of a juvenile elephant, my face looks utterly ridiculous, I have about five chins and that weird top lip disappearing smile that always makes my teeth look more prominent than they are.  This is why I haven’t posted any of the pics up.  Even the ones I’ve paid for.  Even the one of me with Jsu Garcia AND Ken Sagoes (a photo op I’ll never get again) because of how I look.

 

Regular readers of this blog will know that I have major hang ups about my appearance, most noticeably my weight and then my actual physical appearance.  I thought I’d come to terms with the fact that I could look pretty at times, and hell, I even wore a bikini and posted it on the internet…I think that was more the prosecco though than me.  These photos from the horror con kicked off something in my brain which, coupled with a few other things, caused me to have a bit of a meltdown over the last weekend.

 

Anxiety had kicked me around on Friday and Saturday, culminating in me dropping out of a well overdue night out with my gal pals.  I couldn’t have coped with all the photos, the trying to make myself look presentable enough to be seen out with these women, my best friends, who are all goddesses in their own way.  In my brain, sometimes, I feel I don’t fit in with them.  And it’s something I can’t quite put my finger on.  It’s nothing they’ve ever said or done, it’s purely me and my own stupid brain.  So I ducked out of our night out because I knew I wouldn’t be able to cope with me ruining every photograph.  And I stayed in, with the cats for company.  Weirdly, as the time passed, and I knew I didn’t have to go out, my anxiety eased off a little.  Just a little though, it’s still here, kicking the crap out of me.

 

Writing about how I’m feeling is one of my main coping mechanisms.  It’s cathartic.  And I might overshare at times, but I’d rather do that than have all my feelings and emotions bottled up, ready to unexpectedly spill.  Folk call me brave for writing, I’m not.  I’m just sharing experiences I’ve had, that others might have had, so that maybe one other person can read it and know that other people get anxiety and depression. 

 

I’ve always been an advocate for speaking about my mental health; and I will continue to be.  I’m aware that others feel they can’t speak about it which is sad.  This is a conversation that we need to have, we need it to grow above just a hubbub; it needs to be a loud and angry conversation.  Mental health services are getting slashed by the government (and previous governments).  Mental health charities and other charity helplines are getting inundated with referrals, letters, emails, telephone calls from people suffering because there’s no mental health service near them, or that it’s been so slashed to the bone, they can’t get an appointment.

 

It’s not shameful to have a mental health issue.  We need to feel comfortable to speak about it.

 

 

 

Hello blogger, my old friend

Hi.  Me again.  I know I only ever write when I’m upset or something catastrophic has happened to me and for that I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get this out.

I hit 36 in May of this year.  I’m getting on (in dog years, I’d be dead).  As every media outlet seems to delight in telling me, I’m not getting any younger, so I should probably start a family or something.  Well dear readers, I’ve tried (not like the Immaculate Conception, obvs) actually, I should probably say WE’VE tried, and nothing is happening.  And it’s probably all my fault.

I’m morbidly obese, according to the BMI scale.  And I’m shocking trying to do anything about it.  Sure, we both try to eat healthier, but as with everything, that falls off during the month until we’re just eating junk and crap and getting takeaways instead of cooking.  And each time, I beat myself up, each time, I fall back there.  And I’m not an emotional eater; if anything I’m an emotional starver.

To add to things, I can’t exercise at the moment due to a stupid trip down the stairs that’s fucked my hip up (I can’t tell you how excited I am to have a man jam a steroid injection into my hip joint – but I don’t know when that’s going to happen – could be a fortnight, could be November).  So my movements are very restricted, walking can be agony at times, so treadmill running (which I actually enjoy) is way out of the question.

So being a fatty isn’t conducive to conception, it certainly also means that IVF isn’t an option either.  I’m so desperate to lose weight AND have a child that it’s all I can think about.  If I wasn’t such a great big fucking fat mess, then we’d be swimming in kids now, probably.  I’ve even enquired about a gastric bypass so that I can’t eat the world.  My circle of close friends, bar one, have at least one child.  I’ve jokingly said to my friend who has four that should she pop out another, could she just let me have it instead?  It’s easy to try to laugh it off; it isn’t so easy to hide the pain and the tears regarding a situation that is ultimately probably my own making.

I know I probably shouldn’t be whinging on about how I’m fat, I’m well aware it’s my own fault, it’s just losing weight isn’t easy, especially when you suffer with depression, low self-esteem and that nagging feeling that you’re an embarrassment to your friends and loved ones due to your size.  I grew up with the mind-set that fat cannot be attractive, although there are hundreds of THOUSANDS of exceptions to this rule.  I found myself perusing ‘pro ana’ sites as I browsed for which VLCD was best.  And that frightens me, but then again,  I’ve felt like a failure for not being able to develop an eating disorder for fucks sake – how screwed in the head am I?  Like that is how any normal person thinks.  I’ve downloaded a ‘virtual gastric band’ hypnosis app, knowing that it’ll just be mumbo jumbo bollocks and won’t help me a jot (still going to try though, I have to). 

I suppose this is heading, ultimately, to the fact that I am just terrified that I am never going to have a child of my own, I’m never going to give birth, hold nine months’ worth of work, blood, cells, love; nine months’ worth of David and me mixed together into a teeny tiny mewling pink ball of new human.  I know there’s adoption which is something that we’ve discussed in the past, but to me, right at this moment in time, I want to feel how being pregnant feels, the tiredness, the puke, the ankle swelling, the constant need for weeing, the contractions, all of it.

If I start dieting now, I don’t know how long it will take for me to get to a weight where I can actually realistically conceive, assisted or not.  I’m scared I’ll be too old; I’ll be 40 or over.  But Christ knows, I have to do it, I have to try.

 

Try harder, you stupid critter.