Running Away.

"You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”

In the past two years no quotation could resonate with me more. After mum suffered her stroke in 2013 I lived in Cairns for another two years, everyday was the same day for me for the first six months after the incident. I would wake up early enough to be at the hospital each morning to either check in on mum, feed her breakfast, bathe and dress her and get her ready for her day of appointments; if my sister wasn’t able to get there early enough. After seeing mum in the morning I would go to work for a full day and then once work was finished I was back at the hospital till 8:30pm every night. I was living in a constant never changing cycle, wake up, hospital, work, hospital, home, sleep and repeat. My mental health was seriously being neglected and I wasn't giving myself time to heal and cope.

I just kept focused constantly, even opening a tanning business on the side so I would keep busy enough to not be with my own thoughts for too long. I was living in a constant state of denial, I didn’t want to believe what was happening was true. How could this be my life now? I would vigorously research miracle stories of stroke victims who made miraculous recoveries, who had similar stroke effects as mum and thinking she would be as lucky as them. I would show her YouTube videos of other sufferers who were making positive changes in their life and I would even keep a journal every day and note the bad and good things that would happen to mum.

I didn’t want to believe that this was my reality, I thought this was a nightmare that would soon be over just as quickly as it had happened. When my family and I would have serious discussions about mum’s future, I would always talk about her job and her love for her kids at work. I wanted mum to be back at that school doing her job that she lived for, I never wanted to accept she would never work again in her life. I slowly started to withdraw myself from my family and found it really hard to be around them as it reminded me of the life we all once had. We were all now carers of our mother and the role reversal was something none of my sisters and I knew how to cope with. The affect of this situation wasn't only impacting on us but on my nieces and nephew, who once upon a time had this vibrant, full of life, passionate grandmother to now someone they didn't know. I was so grateful and thankful and still so thankful for my wonderful girlfriends who I have been friends with for 15 plus years, who were there to support from the beginning, even though we didn't have to  necessarily talk about the situation I always knew they were there.

August, 2014.

I was living alone in cairns at this point, with my cat in a two bedroom apartment, I loved our little home but honestly hated my life. I still remember a call from my sister one night, I was in my kitchen cooking dinner and she rang me crying, asking me to seek help or just to start talking to them again. I would always reassure her I was doing fine and everything was okay but deep down I was on struggle street, big time! I barely slept at night and honestly didn’t speak to anyone about how badly I was feeling, I wish I had though. I used humor as a coping mechanism, was going out and drinking a lot more than usual and always keeping busy, so from the outside looking in you would think everything was A okay.

Talking about how I felt to my family or friends made it feel real, even talking about my mum in general made me anxious and uncomfortable. I didn’t want any of it to be my life; so the more I blocked it out I thought the better. Most nights I would lay in bed listening to her old voicemails, thankful that she had left so many unnecessary voicemails “hey amy, it’s just mum, call me when you can” hallelujah that this woman didn’t know a missed call notification was enough; because at the first stages of mum’s stroke she had lost any ability to communicate.

I was often reminded how blessed I was to still have my mum, this statement was true, I was BEYOND blessed to have her still but the only way I could explain how I was feeling at that time was that my mum was now the shell of the woman she used to be, watching the person you LOVE more than life in extreme pain is excruciating, there were endless amounts of times I would want to switch places with her, she didn’t deserve what happened to her. Then another stage of grieving; anger would be so present, I was so angry that this happened to her, I was angry how it had affected my family, I was angry at the doctors for not doing more to help her and I was just angry that I didn't know how to cope with these emotions. The mum I had was no more, I still had to grieve and process that.

They say there are five stages of grief; denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I found myself at the first stage; for a long time, I honestly don’t think it hit me what had happened to mum, until I moved away and was out of my routine. My life  had changed and I wasn't in my comfort zone anymore. I never wanted or thought I needed to seek professional help until I met my partner.... Patrick.

Townsville, 2015.

The day I knew I needed help, was a Sunday afternoon. I still remember it like it was yesterday, Pat and I were driving home from the city, I can remember being a couple of corners away from home and didn’t want to go there so kept driving around and around a round-about. Pat had no clue what was going on and just thought I was lost, I didn’t even realise I was driving in circles; it was like I was in a trance. We got home and Pat went out and mowed the lawn because, as I had done many times before I reassured him everything was okay and I was just tired. Pat mowed the lawn for about an hour; he left I was in the shower and came back inside and I was still in there. I hadn’t stopped crying, this was the first time I had ever experienced the horrible flash backs associated with trauma.

I opened up to Pat completely for the first time and what a freeing moment that was, he was so supportive and encouraged me to seek help and to not be afraid to be totally honest. *when you ask someone if they are ok, really listen, you don’t know how much you are helping* It took me a few months and a few more breakdowns to reach out to my now counsellor; Julie but I am so glad I did.

The important saying we hear and see so much in our day and age is “it ain’t weak to speak”, I was terrified to tell Julie, Pat, my friends and even my sisters how much I was struggling and what was going on in my mind, for fear of judgement, little did I know being so honest was not only helping myself but other people as well. Reflection is such a wonderful thing, I thought that initially moving to Townsville would keep my emotions under control but instead 'Running Away' allowed me to open up to emotions that I had been suppressing for so long, I was able to really understand what was going on in my mind and put an action plan in place to cope with what was going on in my life and head.....

Opening up to people can be so extremely uncomfortable and daunting but trust me it is the most beneficial thing you can do.