The stress was too much

It's been 12 months since I last wrote a blog.

So where have I been what have I been doing but more to the point, what is happening now?

Well - the Wingwalker is back! The truth is I've been suffering from work related stress. A series of situations over the past 3-4 years had taken their toll and reduced me to a helpless quivering shell of someone who used to resemble me. One Friday evening in December last year the final straw snapped and I was left in a heap on the bed crying my eyes out with no-where to go, nothing to see and was not able to find a way out. The spiraling black walls of stress had finally caved in on me and crushed their mighty blow reducing me to lie motionless in life's despair. I had come to the end of the line.

Normally I'm a healthy, forward thinking and active individual who knows where he is going and what he is doing. But when all you can see day after day are hours and hours of endless depression, a feeling of worthlessness and anxiety all around you, even the slightest task or conversation with others become daunting. More and more I became less and less as I started to become invisible with the world. I was surviving on just three to four hours sleep a night and eventually became paranoid thinking that everyone at work was talking about me behind my back. Whilst at the same time I was glad I was being talked about for it meant that I was the topic of conversation and not being excluded from everyone. A strange paradox but none the less a true one.

I could go on and explain the physical symptoms I experienced which ultimately led me to taking not one but two trips to hospital by ambulance. In my mind the aches and pains were very real with one occasion feeling all the signs of a genuine heart attack. Thankfully though after being given a multiple series of tests, checkups and an interrogation by the doctors that even the gestapo would have been proud of, physically I am fine.

Were it not for the immense support, care and love from my wife with whom I am dedicating this blog to, I'm not sure what would have happened next after that Friday evening.

We sat down and worked out a plan.

First of all I took a trip to the doctors where I told him pretty much everything I could think of. How it started, what happened and where I was at. If you want to get better then there is no point in hiding anything back and you have got to speak out. We talked at length and he was very understanding eventually deciding on doing two things. First of all after signing me off from work for two weeks I was given some sleeping tablets to help me rest and secondly he said I had to go for long walks "to clear my head". I was hesitant about this as I looked outside the window at the weather on a howling London winters evening. Rain was lashing against the panes of glass and the bare trees were violently swaying from side to side in the roaring wind but I decided to give it a go.

I went to bed that night and took a pill. 13 hours later, I woke up. It seemed strange not going into work and going about the usual routine but I knew it was day one of the recovery process and that if I was going to turn this thing around then I had to make a start somewhere. Over the next few days I rested and walked. It's true that when you start walking your mind wanders and little by little things that were once blurred start to come back into focus again. Eventually I was off work for a little under six weeks culminating in repeated trips to the doctor to monitor my progress. When I eventually went back into the office some spoke to me and some didn't but that is changing. Since then I've had meetings with relevant departments within the company and things have started to change. Ideas and plans that were suggested before and refused are now being implemented. The progress is slow but definitely moving in the right direction.

Now 5 months on as I sit in the conservatory overlooking the garden I can start to feel the creativity come back again. The dark days of the past may still be fresh in my memory but I am looking forward. I still have on occasion some symptoms that I experienced from before but they are slowly dissolving away. My wife has been my rock and I cannot thank her enough for her support. I'm hoping that by writing blogs I can put my foot down on another stepping stone and move forward, clearing my head and seeing a brighter future. For me the bad days of depression, despair and feeling as valued as something scraped off the sole of someone's shoe are going. When you have hit rock bottom the only way forward is up. I'm still climbing and not at the top yet but it feels great to be on the move once more.

Wingwalker.