Step back and breathe

Before January is coming to an end I’ll take some time to look back on 2020. That year was probably the darkest year of my life, and NOT because of Covid. As I wrote in a previous blog our family was confronted with severe mental health issues of our son in 2020 and we are still (trying to) deal with it. Trying, because after all these months I still struggle with it enormously.

I also wrote that I felt we were slowly climbing out to the light. Well I was wrong, we hadn’t hit rockbottom at all! It got worse and made us feel pretty desperate.

I’m grateful for all the help he gets from care givers these past months, but as a parent we feel a bit left out in the proces. I’ve always tried to lend an ear to whatever problem my children had and this situation was no exception. But to listen to the same story, worries and troubles over and over again is a whole new thing. How to handle suspicion and anger, doubts about therapy and his own mental abilities? What to say when the other one doesn’t want to live anymore? And how to behave when there is someone in your house who hardly speaks and shows nothing but anger?

The whole situation took its toll on me and I knew I needed to do something about it to prevent me falling apart. And although it wasn’t easy I decided to literally leave everyone behind and go to France in September for a corona-proof hiking vacation with my brother and SIL.

I have a professional person with whom I talk once or twice a month about all the troubles and he already told me I needed to distance from the situation by claiming more time for myself but that is easier said than done when you all live in the same house. Going to France however would literally mean creating distance between me and the ‘problem’ and I knew hiking could give me more peace of mind.

It turned out to be THE BEST decision of 2020. I will tell about the hikes in other blogs but they did what I hoped they would, I got out of my head and found peace of mind again, and it rekindled my passion for walking.

In hindsight the whole situation at home has taught me a lot about (dealing with) mental illlness and about myself. We’re not even close to an end to this situation and it’s not easy to realise that he can’t always control the anger and suspicion and that it simply happens to him but by distancing myself mentally I can handle it better. That doesn’t mean distancing from the person but from the situation and there are a few things that help me.

I use mindfulness to delve into memories that give me a good feeling, reliving them almost from hour to hour and thus taking my mind away from the worries. The roadtrip to Scotland in 2016 with friends I met on Twitter has been an anchor that helped me through the darkest moments. Long walks, usually on Sundays, help me boost my energy and clear my mind, while enjoying nature’s beauty. I also read a lot, listen to music from my youth (going down memory lane) and try to make time for creative hobby’s.

Furthermore I learned how important it is to talk about it with other people . I’m grateful to have family, friends and people at work who I can trust outside of my family at home. Especially the chats with far away but very close friends help me on a daily basis. Sharing my troubles with them doesn’t solve the problem, but helps to make the burden less heavy.

Social Distancing At Home

When I started to cough a little bit more, sneezed too often to blame it on the weather and started to feel less and less well last Friday I knew the time of working, isolation and social distancing was over and had to be changed into quarantine. The efforts to prevent becoming ill hadn’t worked and although the symptoms don’t necessarily mean I would test positive I need to act like I have.

For now it means no visit at all to my mum. Though she’s vital and in good health she’s also 87 and has a heart condition. Fortunately she understands the severity of this virus and takes every precaution necessary to prevent from getting infected. I couldn’t be more grateful for that.

I had to call in sick from work, something I haven’t done in the past 10 years, and if it had happened during normal times I never would have done so at all. But rules and regulations are to be followed. I said it so many times before. It’s my turn now.

At home I have to practice social distancing as if I’m living on an island, to prevent my hubby and 2 adult sons, who live at home, getting ill. Both boys are strong and healthy, but hubby suffers from severe COPD and that means I could be a major threat to his health.

Social distance at home means I have my own corner in the livingroom, sleep in a seperate bedroom, am never together with anyone else in the kitchen or any other room and we have sanitizing handgel and cleaning wipes on every floor. I perferably wear long sleeves to keep me from touching door handles, light switches and stair railings.

Being mindful has helped me a lot these past weeks to be aware of how often one touches his/her face and contactpoints. I don’t think my hands and house have ever been as sterile as in these days. It all may sound exagerated, but these days I follow the saying: “better safe than sorry” to the letter!

It’s Monday now and I’m feeling better than Saturday which was a really bad day, but at least I had no fever. This morning I called the doctor’s office and was told to stay at home until 24 hours without symptoms have passed. After that I am allowed to go out again and eventually work. I will not be tested, not even with a vulnerable person in my close vicinity. The symptoms are not severe enough. Of course the latter is a good thing, but we will never know if I had a mild form of the virus or that it was just the flu.

And while we remember better days, we keep our distance, wave at eachother and blow a kiss, and hope that this soon will be over.

The Freedom to Take a Walk

Last Sunday I went for a walk. Not the first time this year and it reminds me that I need to post some photos and info from my other walks this year (I wanted to write a blog after each walk but so far that didn’t work out).

The walk felt a bit strange. I usually go out on my own for a walk on Sunday and last Sunday was no exception to it. What made it different was the fact that I was wondering if I will be allowed to go out for a Sundaywalk the following week also.

In this troubled and worrying time, with the Corona virus spreading globally around, I already try to avoid most and close contact with other people outside of my family, but I think there are way more measures necessary to keep the threat contained. The time for appeal to common sense is over, we need clear decisions and vigor. With my husband (severe COPD) and my mother (heartcondition) in the high risk group I get very angry when people keep saying it’s just like the flu and keep doing what they always do.

My walk last Sunday was a nice one, through The Malpie, a region with wet heather and fens. Let’s hope I can soon walk there again with a less heavy mind and soul.

At the moment we’re still allowed to go out and I will be walking tomorrow. Walk while I have the freedom to do it.

Carpe Diem

A Mindfull Sundaywalk

I went out for a walk yesterday. Normally I have a plan where I want to go but this time I went without one. I decided to go where my feet wanted to take me, and let it be all about the journey, not the goal!

It was supposed to be a short walk, an hour and a half or so, but turned out into a 20km hike through woods and on the moor of the Strabrechtse Heide. Luckily I always take my backpack with me, just in case. As usual after a few kilometers I found my pace and what I call ‘adjustment to the world around me’, paying closer attention to whatever comes along and on my way, buildings, paths and nature.

Some years ago I followed a workshop Mindfullness. I was having issues with chronic hyperventilation at that time, and was looking for ways to treat it. Yoga helped me with it, but I heard about the benefit of mindfullness and was curious to learn more about that as well.

In short mindfullness means to be in the ‘now’. Not thinking of the past, not about the future, but focus on what happens right this moment, what you do, what you see, where you are. I was hooked right from the beginning. It helped me not only to get the hyperventilation under control, it became a tool to relax and find inner peace when I felt nervous or restless. Mindfullness requires no special equipment or place, it can be practiced in every situation, at home, at work, in a crowd or when alone. For me it works fantastic, especially in times of tension and anxiety, but also during my walks.

Walking in a mindfull way has taught me that there is so much more to see around me than I see at first glance. The great views, many colors of green, the changing pattern and colors of the sky. Even weeds are beautiful when you pay more attention to it.

Today I walked some new paths and some familiar ones. But the familiar ones looked new as well, now that I was walking them in a different season. Different flowers were blooming, grasses grew so high they were blooming too, and formerly bare trees now wore green leaves.

Memorial stone for the crew of the bomber that crashed here in WWII

On my way I also passed memorials of WWII. One was a stone with a plate to remember the crew of bomber that crashed there in August 1942.

The other one is the foundation of a hidingplace in the woods where 30 men hid from December 1943 untill September 1944. They hid in ‘Kamp Dennenlust’, as it was called, initially to prevent to be taken to Germany for ‘Arbeitseinsatz’, but later fighting as partisans. Also pilots who were crashed found a temporary refuge here. People from the small village Moorsel, where I had lunch today, secretly brought food if any was available. To see the remains of this camp and imagine how it must have been for them to live there, I realised once more how fortunate I am to be able to walk here in freedom.

Walks in these woods and on the moor are always peaceful and quiet, noises of daily life inaudible. The wind in the trees, singing birds, crickets and my own footsteps are the only sounds I hear. And this time a choir of froggs welcomed me when I came out of the woods and entered the moor. So funny. A few cyclists, walkers and a horserider were the only other people I met on my way.

After 4 1/2 hour I returned home, physically tired but happy, mentally refreshed and with enough energy to face another week. It was a great journey!

The sound of Silence

I live in a noisy household, and by that I mean that there is almost always someone or something that makes noise. Whether it’s people, music or television, it’s hardly ever silent when I’m at home. Somehow I’m the only one in this family who can thoroughly enjoy to be at home without having music or television on and since my time alone at home is very scarce it feels like a constant battle to claim those silent moments. And I do love silence so much! And although mindfullness taught me to shut myself off from most noises somehow, it doesn’t work in stressful times.

My first daily walks lead me through the streets of my hometown. Very nice, but mainly paved sidewalks. There is also a road that circles the village, approximately 8km long with a path for cyclists alongside, that I soon used to keep track of progress in distance and time. But there’s always traffic, not constant but it’s there, and so, though the countryside on the other side of the road is beautiful, there is always noise.

Luckily my hometown lies between the Strabrechtse Heide and de Grote Peel, two large nature reserves in Noord-Brabant. Woods, moor and heather are within walkingdistance from our frontdoor and so walking longer distances became not only a way to stay in shape, they became an escape from noise. And when noise was reduced to nature’s own sounds I was able to thoroughly enjoy my surroundings. It didn’t even matter how the weather was. Just being outside, looking around in a mindfull way, discovering hidden paths, beautiful views and extraordinary places was, and still is, enough to relax and collect energy.