A mental health journal: day 50

Happy Groundhog Day. Look at that, we made it through November!

I apologise for the three week gap in my weekly blog. Sometimes the words aren't there and it's hardly the most thrilling of times. My lockdown days have been largely indistinguishable - school run, job hunt, daily exercise, weekly shop. Wine on Fridays and Saturdays. We are dug in, battened down. Waiting it out until Spring and hoping for a return to some form of normality. 

But there's disruption on the horizon in the form of Christmas. Like many I'm uneasy about the lifting of restrictions, but I can see why it's been done. The mental health cost of a Christmas lockdown - which millions would flout, further souring the mood of the nation - should not be underestimated. Either way, a post-Christmas spike in cases is inevitable. If there's to be a third lockdown in January, we'll all need a bit of cheer to see us through.

Needless to say our festive season will be very low key. All being well, we'll be joined by my wife's brother, who is part of our bubble. There will be small outdoor gatherings with parents and friends. I imagine mulled wine will be involved.

I have a bit of a battle with Christmas, which to me seems fantastically overrated. I love a bauble and a string of sparkly lights as much as the next person. I don't love the forced jollity or the relentless pressure to celebrate and spend. Or the cold and dark. 

Having grown up in the southern hemisphere I can report that far from being 'wrong' (as I can hear every reader now crying) Christmas in mid summer is freaking awesome. In South Africa it was celebrated with enthusiasm, but without the hysteria that grips the UK. Because the school holidays extended into the middle of January, our usual festivities were often followed by a week or two in Umhlanga, on the Indian Ocean coast. I'm sure my rose-tinted testicles (that's the correct phrase, right?) are a factor here, but I miss the warmth and simple joy of those days. And the relaxed pace which is conspicuously missing from a British Christmas.

Depression and the festive season can be a toxic mix and the years before my diagnosis were difficult. Nobody - least of all me - understood why I felt alternately morose and angry, why I was so overwhelmed by the avalanche of shopping and family gatherings. With better understanding, I've learned to dial out the noise and focus on the aspects I enjoy. My loved ones have learned to give me a little more space. I no longer buy presents for extended family (like many on the autistic spectrum, I find this extraordinarily stressful) but enjoy finding things for my wife and daughter. And in normal years, we try and keep the big gatherings to a minimum, with rest days in between. 

So I don't dread Christmas (much) any more. 

I do dream of spending the festive season away one year though. Skiing, perhaps. Or - whisper it - somewhere warm and sunny. In the meantime I'll enjoy the sparkly lights and the wonder on my little girl's face, eat my beige food (which does at least pair well with a variety of wine) and see as much daylight as I can.

A mental health journal: day 29

Where were you at 4.30pm GMT on Saturday 7 November 2020?

I was at home (obviously) hanging up washing (ditto) when the news broke; within minutes, my social media feeds had filled with clips of people dancing in the streets and opening bottles of bubbly. Like millions of others, I went a little blurry at the sight of CNN host Van Jones breaking down in tears. It was only then that I realised how draining the last four days had been.

I had followed the US election with interest, but without much hope. Not in 2020. And I had too many concerns at home to worry about a political battle happening thousands of miles away. Or so I thought.

Last week was rough. I felt twitchy and irritable, my anxiety skyrocketing, so beset by shivers and aches that I repeatedly took my temperature. Both my wife and I were unaccountably exhausted by mid-afternoon each day, our daughter reflecting our moods in sulks and tantrums.

But on Saturday evening some of the weight lifted, taking with it a chunk of the anxiety and exhaustion. We have some genuinely good news at last. There are mountains still to climb, but the world feels like a better place today - buoyed by the encouraging news of a covid-19 vaccine. 

This is a special week in our household. On 11 November 2000, I attended a family wedding which changed my life. I met a rather lovely woman, flung her around a cèilidh dancefloor without injuring her (much) and 7303 days later, here we are. Without that chance event, I wouldn't be here to type these words. Simple as that.

In a parallel universe, I've probably been talked into throwing a party to celebrate our second decade together. But in this one, food and drink will do just fine. Our wine rack is groaning with excellent bottles delivered by the brilliant Wine Utopia - supporting local business has never been so easy. I've been tasked with choosing and sourcing the food for our mini-celebration. It's a tough job... I was thinking along the lines of Côte at Home but am open to recommendations.

The dread ball is smaller today. I worry chiefly about my daughter, who faces the biggest challenges of her life - physical, mental, emotional - on a daily basis. She's so strong, but still so little. I can't protect her from everything, which is a mantra I repeat regularly but can't yet fully accept.

I hope everyone is finding ways to fight off the lockdown blues. For us, it's exercise in all weathers (brag: I ran/staggered 6km in the pouring rain today), Bake Off, Strictly, The Repair Shop, Brooklyn Nine-Nine reruns, Duplo, Play-Doh, lots of good food and drink. We're trying to make little plans, things to look forward to; trying, also, to focus on what we can control and shut out what we can't.

It helps that many millions of people are happier and more hopeful than they were this time last week. Long may that continue.

A mental health journal: day 23

Well. This is fun, isn't it?

Last week was half term - our first as parents of a school age child - and my wife took the week off. On her return yesterday, somebody asked her in all seriousness if she'd had a nice holiday.

We tried. We really did. And there were some moments of magic. But reality kept getting in the way.

In the early hours of Sunday 25 October, I was woken by the sound of my daughter coughing - a wracking, barking cough. She'd been getting over a cold, which has often developed into a cough on previous occasions. Her temperature was normal and as far as we could tell, food tasted as it should. In any other year we'd have dosed her with Calpol and waited it out. 

But of course we dared not risk it.

By late morning, after a sleepless night, we were pulling into our nearest drive-through test centre - mercifully, just 15 minutes down the road. The staff were friendly and efficient, the whole process appreciably quicker than our previous visit (to a different, more distant centre) during the summer. But the test itself was traumatic, as it always will be for a poorly four year-old and the hapless parent administering it. My wife rose to the occasion as she does every single day.

By midday we were home, tears dried, treats wolfed, hunkering down to wait. Friends and neighbours sprang to our assistance, delivering essentials as well as much-needed curry and Cava, and agreeing to drop our car off for its long-overdue service should we enter a third day of isolation. Not for the first time, I was grateful for the kind people in our lives, for a community drawn together in adversity.

It was a long 33 hours - but that's all it was. At 9pm on Monday, my phone pinged. Negative. We poured large glasses of wine and let the relief wash over us. My wife set about salvaging half term.

My brother and his family were visiting our parents in nearby Bramdean, and we'd made some complex plans to meet without breaking the rule of six. The first of these was a trip to a soft play centre with the three children. I can't even type 'soft play' without an involuntary shudder, but the pandemic has forced a semblance of hygiene into the armpit of children's entertainment: hourly scrubbing, nightly fog disinfection, fewer people.

After our recent trials I felt even more risk-averse than usual. But the weather was miserable and our daughter had had a wretched half term so far. So off they went, while I turned my brain off. And of course they returned with wide-eyed tales of huge bouncy slides and ice cream.

Our second expedition, to the Winchester Science Centre, was less successful. I'd spent too long poring over ever-worsening Covid statistics and was already sick with anxiety when we entered the ominously full car park. They'd taken all the usual measures - staff cleaning the exhibits constantly, every adult wearing a mask - but there were too many people for comfort. We lasted an hour. I kept the panic at bay, but it's the first time I've ever struggled to draw breath through a mask. I remember thinking that this place and others like it would probably be shut again by December.

I was wrong there.

Hallowe'en dawned to the growing noise about a second lockdown and the loss of Sir Sean Connery, and 2020 turned another shade darker. But after a week of broken nights our daughter's cough had abated; six hours of uninterrupted sleep had done wonders for the mood of the household. We celebrated with a playdate, dressing up, face painting and a spookily brilliant pumpkin walk beneath a full moon. 

As to the second lockdown - sooner and shorter might have been preferable in my uneducated opinion. Perhaps over an extended two week half term. Of course, the businesses and people devastated by the first lockdown will be most affected by this. I hope it's worth it, but there seems to be a spreading groundswell of dissent.

At the time of writing, the USA is waking up to election day. I can only hope that our fears about the result and its aftermath are unfounded, and that my friends on the far side of the Atlantic stay safe. 

I'm no closer to employment than I was two months ago. But there is hope. I've managed to keep up my fitness despite inclement weather and voluntary house arrest. My mental resilience has been sorely tested in the last two weeks. And it's stood up better than I would have expected. I don't think I'm supposed to be relieved that the holiday is over.

But I am relieved. We are still standing. And we did have cupcakes with skulls on.