stress

Well here we are in 2022, and what a strange messed up year 2021 was, it started with the same high hopes we have now for the upcoming year, the hope that Covid is reducing in strength and severity, and that we will soon be able to get back to a more normal or familiar way of living.

Once again we all have had to continue to embrace a lot of changes with more Lockdowns here in Ireland and many other countries, Working From Home becoming more the norm than the exception, everyones schedules being thrown off track, whether you are an adult or a child. schools reopening and closing again, and of course the newer variants affecting kids more for the first time. So a lot to cope with for everyone. Keeping life balance along with mental health has been even more difficult over the course of 2021. One thing is for sure I am not the only person to get to a stage where it all became too difficult to deal with. Glad that I didn’t continue to dig don deeper into the hole this time and bury my head, In August 2021 I took a big and important step and decided to seek some professional help rather then just try and fix it myself, and that was a wise move. Life’s stresses and strains, the loss of my mother (which if being perfectly honest I probably haven’t grieved properly for ye) and all of the stuff that comes with that, depression takes it’s grip, so I went to a Doctor and started working on it.

After trying some different things we decided to try medication, and personally it seems to be the path that makes sense for me, everyone is different and how it affects you and the type of person you are will have a lot to do with what is best for you. So now I’m taking two slow release medications, one for the Epilepsy and the other for Depression, the one good thing is that having taken medication for many years and adding to that with the heart meds, nothing is a surprise, just like the Epilepsy meds it’s all about finding the balance that works for you with regards the amount of mediation needed to help and make sure it works without causing any issues. Still working through that but there is no doubt that it has helped me significantly, I’m not there yet, but on a new dosage the last couple of weeks and it should be taking affect now. All I would say is listen to the experts, take the time out of work or whatever that you need to, don’t rush it or you will end up back to square one and that won’t help at all. Besides it does take time to find the right dosage for you, so keep working at it with the doctor/s and keep talking about it. Other things you may need to thing about are changing things in life that are not helping you to keep ahead of things, of course some changes will be more difficult, the younger you are and depending on circumstances , it may not be possible to change working, reduce hours etc, but if it would mean helping your mental health, you need to check out all the options, it’s of no benefit to anyone for you to be out for months anyway.

But the most important thing, if it’s all getting too much for you, go talk to someone, a friend, family, a GP or more specialised Professional, talking about these things isn’t as difficult as it seems when you go and do it.

So balancing everything out is very important, of course things can be a little more difficult when people can’t do their hobbies/pastimes that help people to relax. Personally I’m looking forward to 2022, admittedly with some trepidation as it didn’t work out so well in 2021, but hoping that we will get back to living our lives, or whatever the new norm is this coming year. The Music Industry has been hit so had over the last couple of years,, for everyone that works in it, fingers well and truly crossed that I get to see and shoot some shows this year, it’s a much needed outlet for a lot of people and has been sorely missed. One manage to get to one event in 2021, the This Is Not An Uprising weekend, and it was brilliant to see a couple of friends and safely attend a show, but it’s not happening over here at the moment and more Tours are being rescheduled every week (have never had/seen so many Gig Clashes before, caused generally by everything being rescheduled multiple times and ending up on the same nights) if things get back on track quickly this coming year will be crazy for Gigs everywhere.

Getting out for walks is still very important, so need to get back to walking properly now, has been a bit sporadic the last couple of months while trying to sort things out, but walking is good for the mind, listening to audio books, spending time in parks or gardens for some nice nature to change things up a bit, nice to have a different bit of scenery to the same Roads I’ve been pounding for the last couple of years. Still I managed to walk over 2,000 KM in 2021, which isn’t bad, will see how we get on this time around. Planning some more trips to the Botanic Gardens and further afield and will bring the camera along too.

Travel wise, well I’m already resigning myself to missing the first few trips of the year, but hey what can you do, when stuff gets cancelled, postponed or simply travel becomes so difficult it’s not worth taking the risk, there will be future Gigs, fingers crossed.

So wishing you all a Very Happy New Year and hoping 2022 brings us all more good stuff than 2021 did, stay safe and communicate, like the old add said, It’s Good To Talk……….

Here are some resources for Mental Health Services in Ireland, they are easy to find online these days in many countries and since Covid there are more online resources available like video course etc……..

Aware. – https://www.aware.ie/programmes/online-self-directed/

HSE – https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/1/lho/northdublin/mentalhealth/mentalhealthsucidesupportdublinnorth.html

Look, it might night sound like much, or something that is even very important, but it’s certainly the most stressful thing for us all as a family during this most recent Level 5 lockdown period here in Ireland. As I’ve mentioned before our little boy, who is 5 by the way, is Autistic, he’s also very strong willed, strong and stubborn. One thing that he hates above all else so far in life is getting a hair cut, he doesn’t like people messing around his ears too much and the buzzing noise of a hair trimmer freaks him out.

Unfortunately during this form of lockdown it’s not possible to get a visit from his hairdresser, who is brilliant, but still struggles a lot to get any sort of shape to his hair before he completely loses the plot. It is what it is, but I hate the distress it causes him, his poor little heart rate goes through the roof (and to be honest so does mine, although he had relaxed a little over time and she can at least get a job done on it without us having to hold him still) do as you can imagine, that causes my heart rate to elevate quite rapidly and higher than a fast 10KM walk, which can’t be good for either of us. I know mammy feels the same, so a simple thing of cutting hair causes so much stress for the 3 of us, it’s crazy.

Anyway, it’s been coming, his hair was growing longer and longer, and the fringe was annoying him most getting in his eyes, but generally all too long for him and bugging him, so you can’t put it off indefinitely and with the lockdown period set to be extended Today was the day. We have managed to do it ourselves once, wasn’t great, but not too embarrassing to be out in. His preschool reopens tomorrow finally, so decided to give it another shot but that may have been a mistake.

We have a special children’s hair clippers, that’s quieter than most, so as not to affect children that don’t like noise around their heads, but still he hates it, and because he hasn’t been having regular cuts – and obviously as we don’t know what we are doing – it’s a big struggle from second number one. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m well used to using clippers, have been cutting my own hair for nearly 20 years with one, but that’s so not the same as trying to cut someone else’s hair, someone that’s wriggling, moving constantly, getting upset and just doesn’t want to do it. So starting off, I was the one calming him down while his mother tried to cut, but she has no experience at all with clippers and wasn’t comfortable doing the job, so I took over and asked for guidance, as I was cutting backwards effectively. The job just has to be done quickly, and get the main sections as complete as you can, so for this one, the fringe had to come up quite a bit. Also different than doing my own as I use a No.1 guite, effectively just the blade, and today we were using a 12, so not scalping him. Tapering I don’t do, trying to do it when the subjects head is bobbing around trying to get away from you is a million times worse, poor little guy.

It sure wasn’t looking Salon styled, no it certainly wasn’t. But needs must. in reality I was getting as stressed as he was, and that’s not good for someone with heart issues, his mother thankfully doesn’t have those issues, but just as stressed, and she was supposed to be guiding me, but that’s hard to do when you are hoping to get him not to have his ear cut off, we don’t need a Van Gough without the Art 🙂 So to de-stress it may be another session on the Treadmill tonight, we will see

So I tried to get as much of the bulk off as possible, tidy it up a little, bring the fringe back up so it wasn’t near his eyes (if only it had been straight) and the most difficult, get the bits around the ears. I’d give that bit a 6 out of 10, and the end result in how it actually looks, well more like a 3 maybe. I don’t think people have any idea, and I do know so many children that hate the idea of haircuts, and get upset when placed in the situation, but multiply that when the child has Autism and is very strong on top of it. hey it’s done for another couple of months (even if it will start looking even worse in a couple of weeks – you have to laugh. The funny thing is that he calms down quicker afterwards than I do, what’s that all about 🙂 we will try and sort out a couple of little bits when he falls asleep tonight, otherwise he’ll be in the lockdown haircuts of shame…… poor little guy, it’s as bad as the old days where mothers put bowls over kids heads and trimmed around them.

In the battle of man vs hair, this time hair and little boy definitely won….. he was back happy and laughing watching Blaze and the Monster Machines and we were both in need of either a lay down or a large drink. Until the next battle… he may be a little embarrassed about the hair, but come on, covering your head with a bear is not the long term solution 🙂

Tag: stress

Balancing the Meds, the everyday stresses and strains, a new year and trying to make your World work better for you.

But the most important thing, if it’s all getting too much for you, go talk to someone, a friend, family, a GP or more specialised Professional, talking about these things isn’t as difficult as it seems when you go and do it.

The most stressful thing so far in the pandemic lockdown…