Hormones!

I don’t have the urge to write my blog. I usually write when I need to pour out my feelings, make sense of things or if I have discovered something about me and this journey of mine post-Kieran. (Life forever divided into before and after Kieran’s death). This has been an ordinary day but it is for this reason that I am writing. I am not sad, upset, thinking of Kieran any more than usual, although that is likely to change as we hit Christmas and his birthday on Epiphany. But I thought it was important to write sometimes when I don’t feel the need in order to give a balanced view now to my everyday life without him. I’m not sure what I’m going to write so we’ll see what comes out as I muse.

The last time I wrote I had been very low and had been on a downward slope for several months- without rhyme or reason. I just felt sad all the time, had lost interest in swimming, reading for pleasure, etc. my concentration and memory were shocking, my self-esteem was low and my ability to multi-task and be organised was taking a huge amount of effort. I got by because although I am extremely self-critical and felt I just wasn’t doing well, I still manage to get things done at work on half a battery and I was managing to pass my assignments at college comfortably. But I was so slow, I was working at snail’s pace, had to keep refocusing. I knew I was dim-witted, compared to how I once was!

And yet, it wasn’t because of Kieran or any other reason. To put it bluntly I thought I was just being a miserable cow and needed a rocket up the proverbial to propel me into enthusiasm for things again, to speed my dulling mind up, to get me out of the house exercising again. Surely I was just being lazy! However in the back of my mind I was aware that I am “that age”. Peri-menopausal! (oh joy!!). Last year I’d had blood tests and certain hormone levels were dropping off and I was told to go back to the GP 3 months later.

Okay- so 18 months later, fed up with being dull and listless and feeling a bit “thick” I pulled off an NHS depression and anxiety tool that we use and thought I’d just exclude myself from having anything wrong with me other than being a cloth-headed misery! I did it tentatively and scored myself. It came out as mild- moderate depression! Sigh! I am not depressed, I do not want to be depressed but took myself to my GP and gave him the questionnaire whilst telling him I didn’t know why I was there because I didn’t consider myself depressed- just a misery, didn’t want any medication or anything but just wondered if it was my hormones!

I came away with Fluoxetine! He had to persuade me but thought it likely to be to do with my serotonin levels having dropped as part of this peri-menopause malarkey! Oestrogen stimulates serotonin: the mood-boosting neurotransmitter in your brain that’s responsible for making you feel good. Declining oestrogen levels are therefore directly linked to declining levels of serotonin, and this lack of serotonin can lead to low mood, and trigger symptoms of depression.

He said that most people that went to him wanting medication didn’t need it as there had been some trigger- like a life event… but he had the opposite with me where there was no trigger and I didn’t want medication.

I was happy to accept it being my hormones, but nothing else and reluctantly took his advice on the medication. He was really nice – he knew I was training to be a priest and said this would put me in good stead as a parish priest to understand the many that suffer from mental health problems at some time.

The problem is, as a registered nurse and Occupational Health Advisor of many years, I deal with mental health problems all the time- it’s the leading cause of sickness absence now- and I am only too aware of mental health issues and treatment, but, like many nurses, somehow I feel I should be invincible! And yet I should know by now- that I’m not! The loss of control I had and have had with Kieran’s death and now seeing I’m not immune after all to being a middle aged woman (horror of horror- I am not sure I’ll ever be embracing that!) means that I lean on God even more- unchanging, ever loving, ever present triune God.

Anyway medication wise- I felt a bit queasy a few days into taking it but then after about 3 weeks I realised that I didn’t feel so sad. I went back to my GP for check-up and found myself saying I was beginning to feel better- my concentration wasn’t as bad. So now I’m 3 months into taking it and whilst I still have up and down days- these are normal grumpy days that anyone has. My sleep is still hit and miss and I do get rather hot in the middle of the night and need a wee! If I potter to the bathroom keeping the lights off and one eye still closed then I may manage to go back to sleep- but often the brain goes into overdrive about absolutely nothing. I keep a cross and an Anglican rosary by my bed  and try to get back to sleep by holding one of them and saying the Jesus prayer repetitively or the Lord’s Prayer- although in my strange state of mind I end up thinking about which version I’m going to say!! In theory it’s “holier” (haha) than counting sheep but as I fall asleep the words become jumbled and my halo slips!! But I can cope with that because I am no longer a miserable cow!

All is not perfect- swimming holds no appeal at the moment and I haven’t got back into that- but I have signed up for Salsa lessons with my friend starting in the New Year (on the back of a priest at college giving us all a salsa lesson at our first residential of the year and earning the nickname Debbie Magee by a couple of people). Salsa was taught to us in a theological context- dance of freedom and expression out of black slavery.

I think this year, this 5th Advent without Kieran, has not felt so emotional so far. Whilst I still see things that Kieran would have liked, it has become more a passing thought than an all-encompassing one. To be honest church hasn’t felt quite like church this Advent- and perhaps that has helped being away from the church in which Kieran was born into, baptised and in which his ashes are interred. Circumstances have meant that on the first Sunday in Advent, Kevin and I were in Berlin for our 28^th wedding anniversary. Last week church was cancelled due to snow, and yesterday it was Messy Church in the morning and carols in the evening and I’d decided to go to Lichfield Cathedral instead for the service of nine lessons and carols- I fancied being immersed in the sound of choristers, a bit of processing ceremony and the splendour that is Lichfield Cathedral. (Despite being an evangelical, I sometimes think there is a little bit of Anglo Catholicism wanting to be let loose in me at times! ) No doubt on Christmas Eve after Christingle when we place our candles afterwards in the garden of remembrance for Kieran, emotions will catch up with me once more. I’m also leading the service for Midnight Holy Communion which is always rather special and then playing my flute Christmas morning. It will be rather lovely as Tara, my beautiful daughter, will be playing alongside me on Christmas Eve again and my rather splendid son-in-law Alex will be playing the organ on Christmas morning, before my wonderful son Aidan and bright and bubbly daughter-in-law, Beth, join us for dinner, travelling up on Christmas Day (after Aidan has managed Central Line tube drivers on Christmas Eve).

We are all going to the pub for Christmas dinner this year. It is at family occasions where you notice the loved ones missing and yet they are the perfect opportunity to laugh and remember and keep the memories alive. I have learnt though, that just when I think I have gone through an event unscathed, later, at some point, it hits me again. But I have now learnt that this is just how it is, I can’t control it, it’s normal and it shows how much I have loved and continue to love my son.

 

 

 

For those of us that grieve;

Father God,

Open our hearts and minds
to the healing, the warmth,
the light of your presence.

We pray, Lord, and we trust
that those we miss have found the place you prepared for them,
their home within your heart.

Open our hearts, Lord,
to joyful memories of love shared
with those who have gone before us.

Help us tell the stories
that make the past present
and bring us close again
to those we miss.

Teach us to lean on you, Lord,
and on each other,
for the strength we need
to walk through these difficult days.

Be with us as we cry and sing our way
through Christmas cards and carols;
help us find and open the present you bring: the gift of your peace
in the birth of the child we call Christ.

And give us quiet moments
with you, with our thoughts,
with our memories and prayers.

Be with us, Lord,
and hold us in your arms
even as you hold those
who have gone before us.

Help us to trust that one day
we shall be with those we love
when your mercy gathers us together
in the joy of the life you promise us.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour,

Amen

 

 

And I pray for us all that

the joy of the angels,

the eagerness of the shepherds,

the perseverance of the wise men,

the obedience of Joseph and Mary,

and the peace of the Christ-child

be all of ours this Christmas;

 

 

 

 

A Celtic blessing

Deep peace of the running wave to you,
Deep peace of the flowing air to you,
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you,
Deep peace of the shining stars to you,
Deep peace of the Son of Peace to you.
May the road rise to meet you;
May the wind be always at your back;
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
May the rains fall softly upon your fields.
Until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

 

 

Have a peace filled Christmas everyone xxx