It's raining, it's pouring

here. In so many ways. The quandary of a joint blog is that sometimes one is down and the other is up. And there runs the risk that one is seen to be raining on the parade of the other, and so on and so forth. Bec is in that place at the moment of about to endure the hell that is moving and the grief that is dealing with a bank but all for moving into a delightful home that will give her and the brood more space than they have ever had before. I'm so glad she's opened the Ladies Lounge because quite frankly too much talk of grevillias over geraniums or camellias instead of azaeleas and I would be a definition of narky never quite encapsulated by a human being before. But this week has been very very grim for me. The dog was the straw that broke my back, then I got sick. Then Jasper got sick. And all along there was a sub-plot of Mum upstairs being sick. And still sick. So just when I think I can't take any more, she comes down all "I think I need to go to hospital". And then let the feeling of complete overwhelmation; the absolute "I am barely holding it together for my family, I have no more to give and I just can't carry your load as well" feeling; the subsequent shit-heap of guilt at being so inept, selfish and incapable; the rolling anxiety attacks where I feel like my heart may burst from my chest, that I'm going to vomit (again) and my skin is absolutely on fire take hold. I believe this week is the closest I have come to a complete nervous breakdown. I came close once when Felix was a baby, but you know, such fond memories fade with time. Maybe this is what it is? Maybe I'm in the midst of one? I'm permanently cranky and on edge. I can't get out of bed in the mornings. I lie awake in the middle of the night feeling like my body is on fire as I am gripped by anxiety about nothing, I'm not even lying there worrying about how we won't ever own property, or about Oscar, or about Felix's literacy, or the latest round of bills, or that we will be living with my mother until she draws her last breath and if I can't care for her through gastro how the fuck would I do so if she was dying, I'm just anxieting. I have night sweats. I am crying all the time. I don't want to go to work. At all. I don't want to talk to anyone. Small talk makes my neck itch. I am melancholy, forlorn and have such a pervading sense of hopelessness sometimes it makes it hard to breath. See? Forget raining on Bec's parade, I'm a torrential floodwater warning dousing of relentless rain. I know I am taking measures to come out of it. I know it takes time. I know I need to see my shrink sooner than the 23rd, but after missing a whole week of work last week that is not realistic or feasible. I know, I know, I know. I'm closing comments on this. Just because.