Today was a very trying day. I knew it was doomed from the start. Which is about the time I finally made it to bed last night when I finished work (because sometimes my 16 hours are not regular people hours and because Im working flat out in those 16 hours to drive my business to be as successful as it can be, because I am ambitious and driven not just because the threat of the HMRC looms over me) only to be awoken about 2 hours later by "he who never sleeps" AKA my teenage son with aspergers.
No one can fully appreciate what it is like trying to care for a sleep deprived teenage boy with aspergers when they themselves are an adult with aspergers and bipolar disorder and just as sleep deprived, unless they are actually in that situation themselves. It is exhausting. And when I say exhausting I literally mean in every way possible for every fibre of the human body and psyche.
I then spent the next two hours awake despite the mirtazapine. And unless you have experienced it no one can fully appreciate what it is like trying to function like a normal human being when you have had a medication and the sleep pattern it induces interrupted like that.
I therefore spent the whole of today feeling a way that can only be described as like being really dizzy while also very intoxicated and on a cross channel ferry, intersperced with moments of feeling like being on a lift that is plummeting to the ground. And thats how I had to work today, and with clients not just in my own office.
And that was just the physical affect.
It also affected my mood, resulting in an argument with my sister at the train station this morning, during which she threw the documents my son had dumped, in his own sleep-deprived temper on the back seat, at me: I informed her she could get a taxi to the school if she wasnt going to behave like a grown up.
You see when you are dealing with adverse side effects of medication its all to easy to allow yourself to succumb to the pressure and stress you feel of every day living. And effectively that is exactly what my sister and I are both doing.
A person can only remain strong for so long under so much pressure, and we each feel the weight of the world on our shoulders. Its hardly surprising though is it? Following the budget, the one you are so eager to stand by rather than oppose, we are on tenter hooks, neither of us knowing entirely where the metaphorical axe will fall.
It is not an easy way to live by any stretch of the imagination.
I am a strong person. I have had to be, no matter what I've faced. And although I have shared a lot of my experiences during this campaign I have not shared even a 10th of what I have had to shoulder. But a person can only remain strong for so long. That is why I am reliant on anti depressants for sleep, that is why I am so reliant on my job to keep me sane.
Yet if the incumbent government gets its way, which it seems it is to do because you are so "laissez faire" in your approach to "opposition" that borders on treachery to your own party, I may be forced to give up my job. You have no idea how catastrophic that would be for me. We are not just talking about my livelihood, we are talking about my mental health. I already suffered one breakdown after changing careers and giving up my teaching dream, I honestly do not think I could come out the other side of another breakdown.
Football is everything to me, beyond what joy motherhood provides me. And no matter whether it makes me huge profits I am good at what I do, and that is just as important as whether or not I am profitable. I know I am good at what I do because I am constantly sought by other clubs and every bit of work I have has been through word of mouth; I have a good and strong reputation. I didnt actually know until last night how strong that reputation is, when a players sibling told me how highly my club value me. You have no idea what that means. It goes far beyond validation or simple job statisfaction. To take that away from me isnt just about making a financial cut, its taking away a piece of me, because I have put my heart and soul into everything I do. I do not want to give up.
And yet a man in a suit with a calculator may just force me to do that. So yes, these are testing times.
And ultimately that is why I have opened up this campaign. This is no longer ONE voice, this is many voices, because as I told you right from the start, this isnt just me and how the policies of the incumbent government affect me and my family, this is about how policies are affecting EVERY family in this nation.
How can you say you are for a fairer society for all, and yet condemn by capitulation an entire nation to the suffering that will be the result of these cuts? How can you betray the legacy of Labour so openly?
The gap between the rich and the poor is ever widening and your failure to oppose will widen it further.
For the sake of my family and every family you need to start listening to our voices and those of the MPs who fill the benches around you in the commons.
Constituent, Labour Party member, Union member, sleep deprived carer, concerned citizen, self employed mother, mother of a teenager with ASD, socialist, environmentalist, Disabled Rights supporter, Jeremy Corbyn supporter, mother feeding her children with nectar points, defender of the vulnerable, advocate, logistics savant, concerned niece, grassroots activist, anti austerity campaigner, RNLI supporter, unashamed welfare state service user & social housing tenant, protester, fire brigade supporter, carers allowance claimant, less than perfect parent, socialist agitator, worrier, mental health service user, football mum, social justice campaigner, immigrant, proletarian, CND supporter, #endausteritynow campaigner, someone with nothing better to do than wait for a plumber, cost cutting football medic, Catholic, one voice speaking up, someone seriously questioning their membership, angry social commentator, frustrated activist, grieving friend, betrayed party member
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