I had a near mental breakdown in the last lockdown.
My support bubble and I had reached that cosy stage of slippers in front of the fire, television and cooking meals for each other. I was happy.
Then I got labyrinthitis, he blew me out on a Sunday arrangement and we argued. He blanked me for 28 days.
I cannot tell you how powerful blanking is. We used to call it sending someone to Coventry. Every morning the anxious checking of ‘phone and e-mail for contact. Increasing terror of loneliness as I was dizzy, alone with the ghost of my father trying to sort out his house and then a breathtakingly beautiful snowfall which left me isolated for 72 hours and aching for my bubble to come and snow ball fight, toboggan, make a snowman.
I became largely dysfunctional. I didn’t know what to do, who to tell, how to cope. I logged on to Facebook four times a day. Like Grayson Perry, I adopted a bear, in my case a cuddly brown bear who looks like my support bubble and has the same ferocity and sense of fun. I took a photograph every day and began a children’s book. I felt useless and ineffectual against the growing tide of injustice Johnson and his Government are creating, a teacher who hasn’t been in a classroom for three years. I cried. I ranted. I lay in bed. I began an artists campaign against the building of Sizewell C. I have no idea where this deep-rooted fear of rejection came from.
My support bubble WhatsApped on Valentine’s day to invite himself for tea the next day. We met up, once. I am healing now that spring has sprung by treating myself gently. Buying daffodil bulbs. Weeding. Drinking take-away coffees and treats. Walking with friends by the sea and in reeds. Reading books about rewilding and I went for a glorious kayak on the Deben, a first for me and the turning point. I am lucky. I live in a beautiful part of the world. I think I can recover without psychiatric help but what of those kids and wives and husbands and old folk locked behind closed doors that this government has ignored?
ness365 