DRAINED

Some days I feel completely drained. My energy is sucked out of my vitals, drips off my fingernails and gets shallower with every breath.  These last few days I have not felt like contributing to Blip, but I've been encouraged to do so by See Me's new campaign, My Unfiltered Life - take a look and support it if you feel you can.  The idea is that social media is dominated by people showing off their perfect children, perfect holidays, perfect pets - while we all know life isn't really like that most of the time.  I have always felt able to show some of the darker side on Blip, because of the wonderfully supportive community it is. 

Some days I feel completely drained, but not today!  After a few low days, I am back to my normal optimistic, cheerful, energetic self.  It's worth stating why:

1. I have the tools to deal with the spells of low mood that in the past would have propelled me into a depression.  Mindfulness has literally saved my life and given it back to me.

2. After two years in recovery from a serious health crisis, my son is well, has been nominated for two awards because of his work over the past two years and is starting at university next month - aged 43.  He left school at 16 and has done mainly manual labour since, in spite of his undoubted potential.  I am so proud of him.

3. I have a wonderfully supportive network of friends and family, headed up by the Professor of Blip fame. 

4. I have the most fantastically rewarding job possible - I don't earn a penny from it, either. 

5. Stigma and discrimination against people who experience mental ill health is being challenged and is decreasing. This latest See Me campaign will help drive it out still further. None of us would be ashamed of saying we have asthma or a sprained ankle - we should no longer be ashamed of mental illness. 

I'm still working out how to link blips to myunfilteredlife, but meanwhile adding it as a blip tag and hoping you will too. 

P.S. I rather like the drain cover.  Who knew they had markings for the direction of travel?   I feel a mini series coming on.