Last week was one incredibly challenging for me, both mentally and physically. To feel the world slip away, while knowing that all eyes are on you, and not having the energy to say or do a thing. To lose complete control over your body, and feel helpless knowing that's your only option until it passes. Fainting is it the strangest mixture of being unaware and aware at the very same time. You feel your eyes rolling, your head dropping. You feel it, but you can't stop it. You become aware of your blood, you can almost feel it washing down towards your toes in waves. Sometimes you've got no choice but to give in to your stubborn and say goodbye to the world for a moment. Fainting is terrifying but temporary, and when it's happening, there's no stopping it.
The timing of this has been awful, my sisters recently moved out and my mum and stepdad are away, so I'm home alone, and yet I've never felt less capable of being independent.
It's isolating. This week has felt lonely. I was sent home from work on two days and called in sick on two other days. The people who care, have been worrying about me, rightly so. However, there is this weird line, where your friends and family begin to feel more like your babysitters as they're constantly (and kindly) checking up on you. The two-way streets of relationships can move away from their usual give and take when one person is more vulnerable.
I've also felt haunted by the fear of fainting. It's easy to cancel plans and stay at home in bed because of 1. it's scary to faint 2. it's scarier to faint in public 3. I don't want to be a liability. As much as staying home in bed can often be a wonderful thing, when overdone, it can lead to mind spirals, it can pull you into a state of sadness. when your home has become your base after being off work sick, the four walls that you live in can become kind of evil, you feel both like a prison in your home and in your head, if your mind is that way inclined. I know myself well enough to say, my mental health is very up and down. I'm either high or low, and that is the highest highs and the lowest lows. So a week of feeling poorly and alone in my own home was more than likely to send my mind on the eeriest wild goose chase with the destination being the hell of my own head.
Of course, the easy option is to accept that I'm not well, I can't do anything, and because there's a possibility of fainting I could stay home, where I'm living with sadness. But the easy option isn't always the best route.
My sister asked me about my plans for the weekend, I told her I was going to cancel my plans because I didn't feel like it and... what if I faint?!
She told me I had to keep my plans or see her, she wasn't allowing me to be home and sad (she knows me well it seems)
So after sending my friend's several stroppy texts (sorry guys) saying I couldn't make the Bristol Food Tour which had been planned and paid for, for months, I finally owned up let them know I was worried about fainting and asked if they were they okay with me going knowing it's a possibility I could faint. Of course, they wanted me to go, they're my friends, after all.
So went, stocked up on Lucozade and water, and dressed in a rainbow dress, anything to convince myself I felt colourful (and perfectly timed with Pride), and I had a great time. I did faint. In a dumpling restaurant, I woke up to a sky of paper cranes, which was surreal, but also as nice as fainting can be. What I feared came true, yet nothing bad really happened, once the fainting part was over. Everyone I was with looked after me but didn't fuss too much, and the day carried on.
That was yesterday. Today, I still feel weak, but I feel like myself. I had forgotten how that feels over the past few weeks. Sometimes a day with friends is what you need to escape the prison of your own mind, and to find yourself. Mental Health is, of course as important as physical health, and they often walk hand in hand, but yesterday was my reminder that they don't always have to.
Outfit Details:
Dress: New Look (on sale now)Shoes: Vans (similar linked)
Hat: Urban Outfitters (no longer available in yellow)
Glasses: Tom Ford (similar linked)
*affiliate links are used in the blog post.
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