Comfort Zones

Mental illness sucks. It eats away at you without you realising. It takes away your desire to push yourself and makes you want to stay within your safe little cocoon you have unknowingly created. And it seems unbelievable that this can happen without your knowledge, but you make excuses for not going out or seeing someone, you tell yourself it’s ok this time. And maybe that time it is ok, because you are in pain or have a fever. But it’s not ok when you haven’t left your house for a week. And it’s not ok that you get anxious before answering the phone. And it is not ok that I couldn’t get on the train to go to London today.

My grandmother is sick. She has cancer, of multiple organs. Then her hip broke when she was walking around her flat and she had a heart attack whilst having the operation to fix it. So all in all, she’s pretty fucking sick. And all I had to do was get from my house to the station, get on a train and see her in hospital. It also happened to be my mum’s birthday today and it just seemed an appropriate time. But I couldn’t. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t even leave my house. I didn’t feel that physically unwell today, but once I got out the shower I suddenly felt really exhausted, which then sparked off the thought that what on earth would I do if I felt like that in the middle of Victoria Station? What if I fainted? Or had a panic attack? What if there was nowhere to sit? What if I couldn’t get myself around? Or if I struggled with the stairs*? I’m terrified of the idea of being stranded. And then the whole idea of London was just too much. I often find it quite difficult being in crowded and noisy places, I find it quite tiring just trying to focus on my task and blocking out the visual and audio stimuli. So I didn’t go. And on one level I don’t feel that bad about it and I tell myself it is ok, but it feels like somewhere deep inside of me that old ‘me’ is screaming that THIS IS NOT OK!

My doctor says that this is the sort of thing that the rehabilitation clinic can really help me with. This is a three week residential pain management program where you work with an interdisciplinary team of physio-, occupational, phsycho- and many more types of therapists to improve the quality of your life. However, unsurprisingly there is a high demand and low availability for this service on the NHS and I have been parked on a stationary waiting list since August. I only recently found out that the waiting has actually been closed since I was put on it as it was longer than the 25 week maximum. So I’m in limbo.

I feel ok. That is, I feel absolutely fine so long as I don’t think about ‘things’. You know... life... money...career... those kind of minor things. And so long as I don’t try and do anything that is too far outside my comfort zone, like get a train to London. Both my doctor and my therapist say that’s not so ok, but I think that it’s so much better than when I was just crying all the time we’ve got to take our victories where we can! I’ve been having a really nice week or so. I’ve seen Mr SF and had a couple of friends over for afternoons/evenings of chatting, cooking and eating (and sometimes watching giant panda cam!)Today I have FINALLY updated the blog (and in case you wonder why I've posted twice in one day, I've had a few posts half finished including the lemon cake for the past week or so, but have been distracted by various things. So expect a few more in quick succession if things go as planned) I guess I don’t think it is such a bad thing to live within my comfort zone, but I do think it’s pretty shitty I didn’t make it up to London today. I’m hoping to get there tomorrow because I want to see my Grandma and I’ve made a little something for my mother’s birthday.

As she hasn’t yet received it I don’t want to give it away, but I’ll give you a component and a little recipe.

Salted Caramel Sauce

I cannot get enough of this stuff. The sticky sweetness contrasts so beautifully with the flakes of sea salt. I could eat it with a spoon from the jar...it may have occurred once or twice before... Also I tried to take a photograph of the process and managed to burn my caramel - don’t take your eye of it for a second!

200g sugar

90g unsalted butter** cut into pieces

120ml double cream

1 – 2 teaspoons Maldon sea salt or fleur de sel

Place the sugar in the heavy based saucepan. On a medium heat, stir the sugar until it has melted. Once it has melted take off the heat and stir in the butter until it all melted and fully combined. You might have to stir quite vigorously.

Put it back on a low heat and very slowly, whilst stirring, pour in the cream in a continuous stream until it is all combined. Be careful as the temperature difference between the cream and the caramel will cause it to bubble up and possibly splutter.

Allow to bubble for about a minute before taking off the heat. Stir in ½ a teaspoon of salt and allow to cool slightly. Once somewhat cooler, taste and adjust the salt to as you prefer.

*Mr Spoonie Foodie and I have a great technique to tackle stairs when we are together, particularly the ones coming up from Brighton beach. He goes behind me and lifts/pushes me up from my bum whilst I just move my legs! Still painful but much less effort and it really does work surprisingly well.

** I’ve always been told that salt can hide the taste or poor quality butter, also by using unsalted you can adjust the salt content to your preference.