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[CLKD]

2-3 hours of gym daily  - I simply do NOT have time for that.  We have a treadmill which is rarely used.  We have cycles which are rarely used.  We walk as often as we have time for.  We do housework which is good exercise and serves a boring purpose  .  Gardening takes up most of my time from Feb.. 

If anxiety strikes I am grounded, instantly.     No way could I leave the settee until the emergency med kicks in.  There were months in the 1990s when I was unable to leave the house. I would wake at 5.30 a.m. with acute anxiety, leap out of bed and get dressed.  Sit on the settee for hours, staring at the wall  .  I still don't know how I got through those months.

[GeordieGirl]

Oh what a fabulous doctor - it's refreshing to hear of one who's looking outside the box rather than just handing out ADs willy nilly.

Even when not suffering from depression, if I sit on the settee all day I feel groggy and unproductive, whereas getting out into the fresh air is invigorating and can really take my mind off things.  (Fresh air as in out in countryside rather than running around a city). Exercise is known to release endorphins which are the body's very own happy drugs and it's a natural way to boost mood. Yes it can be addictive but that's good for our bodies as well as our moods, I love it when I get that after exercise buzz.

I do hope it helps, although a 'cure' may need a little boost from the right hormones too. It should certainly help with sleeping if you do enough of it (even better if you combine it with good sleeping habits, such as eating before 7pm at night, turning off gadgets a couple of hours before bedtime, sleeping in darkness etc). 

GG x

[GeordieGirl]

2-3 hours of gym daily  - I simply do NOT have time for that. 

You don't need that much time exercising, although working full time and raising teenagers I find a long walk on an evening is really refreshing - quite often time that would be spent online.
There's evidence that sitting for too long can cause / exacerbate a number of conditions, today's sedentary lifestyles are likely to have far reaching consequences for our health.

GG x

[Sunnydays]

I went through a period of great stress some while ago and the only thing that kept me sane was my cycle rides where I would ride as fast as I could and cry my eyes out. I'm very certain that the only thing that kept me sane was exercising.
There's a post somewhere from Silver Lady who said that she literally 'walked through her menopause' in the sense that walking helped her a great deal. I think i've cycled, and still am, through mine.
A programme on radio 4 recently highlighted the massive benefits of exercise, simply walking, for mental health and one of my good friends who is a health professional cannot stress this enough.
I wish you luck with it all. The only caution I would say is not to go too overboard with the exercise as you might find that you bring yourself extra anxiety  if you can't maintain the programme (plus as we get older we can risk injury!)

[Greenfields]

Thanks for all these posts - it really helps hearing others perspectives.

I think my main issue now is for my body to recover from my breakdown.  Exercise definitely helps with this although I'm mindful that going completely overboard would be too much!

I still wake in the mornings with a very dry mouth - so my nervous system isn't completely reset - I think there's too much cortisol or adrenalin racing around early on in the day.

I can interact with people a lot now but I find that if I have a very busy day chatting to people, I feel a bit exhausted the next day - so it's about pacing.

Two people who shared with me their experiences of breakdowns had different recovery times.  One took Prozac and was back at work at 6 weeks (she also saw a therapist weekly as well).  The other had a breakdown followed by an episode of psychosis - was briefly hospitalised and then took early retirement from her then career and spent a whole year not working before retraining to do something else.  Both individuals worked in the teaching profession and both retired on good pensions.  Unfortunately I mistimed my breakdown as I had it before I established a good career with a good pension and in the middle of moving countries to boot! 

I had my breakdown at the end of March and it's now the middle of May and I'm functioning a lot better but notice that my nervous system can go into overdrive very quickly.  That's why it's so difficult with respect to dealing with the uncertainty around my future - if I still had a place on the Masters course in Canada this Fall I would have some security around what I would be doing. 

Instead, if and when I'm able to go back to Canada, I face another year of uncertainty with respect to whether I can get on the course and also a lot of uncertainty around employment - which I find particularly scary.  However, given the housing crisis in the UK, if I stay here, I face the prospect of my savings (which are essentially my pension) diminishing within a year or so as I cannot afford the rents but do not qualify for housing benefit until my savings drop to around 16K.

However they do not have housing benefit in Canada!  So although the rents are cheaper at the moment and rental agreements are much more straightforward and secure, I need to be able to work at least 2 p/t jobs as the wages are low and f/t jobs are hard to come by.

The 0 hours contract culture that is present in the UK is much more rapacious in Canada.  For example, a friend told me recently that she left the company she had been working for p/t due to the fact that they brought in a rule that p/t workers had to be available to work from 7am to 11pm daily - but nobody was guaranteed their hours - so you literally didn't know from one week to the next what you would be doing but you couldn't take another p/t job because then you wouldn't be available to the company under their rules.

I did a casual job in Canada a while back and had to be available all the time but wasn't given very many hours - it was intensely stressful even though I was married at the time and my ex earned a good income.  And in that work, I damaged my arms with repetitive strain injury due to being asked to do a f/t workload in p/t hours.  When you are working such contracts, you become disposable.  My arms have never completely recovered from the injury and that has impacted my ability to hold down professional work.

I mention all this because exercise is definitely helping me deal with the stress but it doesn't remove it - add in the fact that my UK rental agreement is up for renewal in September and I have a very difficult landlord and I worry about being homeless - it's a lot to carry emotionally when you are recovering from a breakdown.  I have put in as much support in place as I can to help me (I'm now registered as a client with a social services agency so I have a support worker who can help me if my landlord is difficult with me in September).   

Having said all that, I try to stay optimistic and trust that things will work out.

[GeordieGirl]

Exercise will help manage the stress, it won't get rid of it if the stressors are still well and truly present - as it sounds like they are.  Easier said than done I know, but the more you chip away at these, the more the pressure will lift.  ADs will mask the pain and treat the symptoms, you really need to go right back and treat the cause.

Having said all that, I try to stay optimistic and trust that things will work out.

A positive mental attitude will be your best weapon in this. Looking back on life I see the challenges I've had have often had some kind of reason behind them or have put me on a different path that was better for me. I now take the view that whatever happens is somehow there for a reason and will lead to something better / better for me. It really does help rationalise things for me and get me through any sticky times.

There seems to be a lot of fors and against Canada. If you took out all the challenges of going or staying, what would you really want to do? Are you moving simply because of financial reasons or because you really want to be there? Focus on exactly what you want and then work on how to make it happen - it's often the indecision that leads you to feel like you're in limbo land and this can be unsettling.

Well done too on recovering from the breakdown, be gentle on yourself though and don't expect too much too soon (as we women tend to do).
GG x

[Greenfields]

Re: There seems to be a lot of fors and against Canada. If you took out all the challenges of going or staying, what would you really want to do? Are you moving simply because of financial reasons or because you really want to be there? Focus on exactly what you want and then work on how to make it happen - it's often the indecision that leads you to feel like you're in limbo land and this can be unsettling.


Thanks for your kind words GG.  Re: Canada - your words sum it up for me.  It's not clear cut.  I'm basically in between a rock and a hard place. I can't cope with renting in the UK anymore - I've had over 40 addresses in my life and a lot of them have been insecure UK rentals.  The experiences I've had over this last year - 2 bad landlords - have brought that home to me.  The first (from whom I rented a room) told me the heating wasn't going on until Dec and removed the thermostat.  I moved out and he had someone lined up to move in and he put the rent up because there's such a shortage of rooms and flats to rent here.  The second (from whom I rented a flat) I've had ongoing issues with to the point where the letting agent has told me that even though she doesn't manage the property, if I have to try and sort anything else out, to go through her because, in her words, one of the landlords is so "hotheaded."  Plain nasty would be a better expression - I've had one of them shouting at me down the phone quite unreasonably.  This is a retired couple who own at least 5 other properties in this area.

In Canada renting is much more secure providing one can make the rent and renters are treated decently.  The rents in the UK are just too much for me given my future income potential - I would have to wait for my savings to drop to the point where I could qualify for Housing Benefit - thereby losing most of my pension money. 

My plan was to return to Canada, do the Masters and get a good job so that I could save for a retirement at some point.  I also experienced severe culture shock when I moved back to the UK last year - so much had changed while I had been away.  I will always love the English landscape and when I was in Canada I missed that dreadfully alongside the slower pace of life in the UK and the friendliness of UK folk. 

Being an immigrant is hard - you are always an outsider although the Canadian city I lived in didn't help - it's not known as a particularly friendly place for immigrants to settle in and find work - moving to another place might work but a lot of Canadian cities are very built up without much green space - that's why I would struggle to live in Toronto for instance.  But there's things I like about Canada also and miss.  And there are things I really don't like about the UK either.  When I was in Canada I struggled to feel completely at home.  Now I've been in the UK, while I'm grateful for some things, the precarious of my situation in combination with the housing crisis makes me feel like I'm not completely safe here.

If I had to go by my heart, I would probably stay in England in the longterm.  But financially I can't make it work and the renting has a very bad impact on my mental health and sense of security.  And as I'm 51 (52 this year) I have to be realistic about my options.  I don't know how much worse it's got to get in the UK until people realise that everyone should have access to safe secure rented housing.  Being a renter is just an awfully stressful way to live in the UK.  So when I move back to Canada, I will be glad to leave that aspect behind.  But employment is, I think, easier to come by in the UK - although now that I am hitting mid-life I will probably encounter a lot of age discrimination - which is prevalent in Canada but not as much as in the UK. UK employers have a reputation for being more disability friendly though (although that wasn't my experience in my last job) whereas Canadian's really don't.

Basically I feel screwed either way I go!  But financially, if I can move back to Canada, the savings I do have will last longer as the rents are cheaper there.  And I also think there is more of an understanding of the structural causes of poverty there - whereas here, if you are poor, you're branded by the media, the government and the wealthy as feckless and a waste of space.  I remember a while ago seeing a UK newspaper article where some upper class person went on about how the poor were poor because they couldn't cook - you would never see that kind of narrative in Canada.  But then, in Canada, they've had food banks since the 1980's and poverty is getting worse there too.   

However, I am determined to restart my life and while I've had some very bad experiences over the last year - an abusive boss and 2 bad landlords - I've also been met with much kindness by other people - so I have to trust that, at some point, things will work out for the best.

[GeordieGirl]

Hi Greenfields,
A couple of thoughts:

1. Have you considered investing your savings above the £16k threshhold in a pensions pot? Then they're not classed as savings and would take you under the amount needed for housing benefit. Worth getting financial advice on this but it's a logical step given your age. This could resolve the cost of renting so finances are no longer part of the equation. It sounds like you've had some bad experiences with rental properties but this isn't necessarily the norm, I've a number of friends who rent and have lived in the same houses for many, many years without issues. It probably is better going through an agent though.

2. Which UK areas are you looking at and have you considered moving? I'm from Co. Durham originally and there are some fabulous places up there with very good priced accommodation. The house next door to my sister has recently sold for £60k - a semi with three bedrooms and views over open fields. (!!). Rents are subsequently lower too. The same applies to a number of un-central locations. They're beautiful but because they're away from commuter belt (an advantage in my eyes) they're much cheaper.

3. Why are you choosing Canada for a Masters? Would it be possible to do it in the UK?

GG x

[CLKD]

The dry mouth may well be due to your sleeping with Gob Wide Open    .........

Maybe eating a biscuit before going to sleep will help any sudden anxiety surges which can be caused if the body is hungry.  Or having a bananas or porridge an hour before bed? 

In the UK a nervous 'breakdown' isn't considered as such unless a person spends time in a Mental Health Unit.  But I know I had a breakdown ....... I was as low as I could get without digging into the ground but couldn't afford the over-night price of a Hospital bed.  Never want to feel *that* ill again!

Let us know how you get on >wave<

[Greenfields]

Hi Greenfields,
A couple of thoughts:

1. Have you considered investing your savings above the £16k threshhold in a pensions pot? Then they're not classed as savings and would take you under the amount needed for housing benefit. Worth getting financial advice on this but it's a logical step given your age. This could resolve the cost of renting so finances are no longer part of the equation. It sounds like you've had some bad experiences with rental properties but this isn't necessarily the norm, I've a number of friends who rent and have lived in the same houses for many, many years without issues. It probably is better going through an agent though.

2. Which UK areas are you looking at and have you considered moving? I'm from Co. Durham originally and there are some fabulous places up there with very good priced accommodation. The house next door to my sister has recently sold for £60k - a semi with three bedrooms and views over open fields. (!!). Rents are subsequently lower too. The same applies to a number of un-central locations. They're beautiful but because they're away from commuter belt (an advantage in my eyes) they're much cheaper.

3. Why are you choosing Canada for a Masters? Would it be possible to do it in the UK?

GG x

Hi GG - thanks for that advice - no I hadn't thought of doing that. I will have to look into it although I thought a lot of landlords don't like taking tenants who are on housing benefit?  I also didn't know Co. Durham was so cheap. The area I live in (Hampshire) has 1 bedroom properties that sell for 168,000 pounds which is impossible for me.  The catch would be for me to be able to get a job with a salary that would pay enough to cover the bills - I don't know what the job situation is like up North?  I had the impression it was pretty bad.  I don't want to do a Masters in the UK as I don't want to practice as a social worker in the UK - in Canada it's quite different and what I wanted to do was be a clinician which is essentially doing counselling and I wanted to combine it with yoga and mindfulness meditation.  If I wanted to work as a counsellor in the UK I would have to start from scratch doing counselling courses as in the UK social workers don't do counselling as part of their degree studies - UK social work tends to be lots of paperwork (that's my understanding) and the burnout rate is very high.

I also need to find an employer who's disability friendly as computer set up really matters to me if I'm going to use it regularly in my work.  That was a problem at my last job as the abusive line manager had a go at me for not doing an online course even though the computer wasn't set up properly according to a VDU assessment that the manager had done and it caused me pain to use it and I had declared my repetitive strain injury on a health form. 

With hindsight, I should have just gone straight to HR at head office but I didn't as the line manager was the one responsible for passing my probation period and I didn't want to rock the boat and he was being particularly nasty that day and implied I wouldn't pass the probation period (my colleagues were stunned as they thought I was going well - and unfortunately he continues in his post even though grievances mount up against him and staff have been signed up sick on stress leave due to his behaviour - I myself complained before I left to his line manager - but nothing has been done).  I actually pointed out to him that if I used the computer for the course i would have to shell out another 40 pounds for a massage due to the pain it caused me - and I was shelling out for massages every other week as it was - and I was only being paid 18K a year which worked out at 1200 a month - and around 900 was rent and bills - so it didn't leave enough to live on it as it was.

There are also things I really miss about Canada - the space, the up beat can do North American attitude and their attitude to immigrants and to people in poverty - it's much more caring even if the social safety net isn't as comprehensive as in the UK.  Also the sense of space and the weather - I miss the hot summers and the cold winters although I couldn't contemplate a 6 month winter at minus 40 which is why I never moved out West to Alberta or Manitoba or Saskatchewan.  I also really miss North American Buddhism - I studied with some great teachers out there and would love to do more study with them.

I also miss the security of rental properties out there.  I think your friends are very lucky if they've never had any issues with renting in the UK.  I've always had issues and I'm actually a really nice caring tenant!  In my current flat I moved in and there was no hot water working and I was never offered any compensation.  Then I had issues with black mould - and the landlord said it was my fault. I went to the CAB and they said no it wasn't.  The Letting Agent suggested I wipe down the surfaces regularly with bleach which is what I do now as the landlord isn't going to do anything.

If I could get a reasonably paid job I might stay in the UK but I find the rental situation very stressful here.  And I'm not sure what area I could work in in the UK either given my disability and the fact that I don't want to practice as a social worker.  I've looked at some jobs online but, to be honest, at the moment, it's too overwhelming to look at in any depth as I'm still recovering from the breakdown - so I have to give myself more time before I tackle it.  I've lost a lot of confidence in myself and in life generally since all this happened.  But given that it's May and this only all happened in March, I keep telling myself I'm doing well with where I'm at.   

[Greenfields]

The dry mouth may well be due to your sleeping with Gob Wide Open    .........

Maybe eating a biscuit before going to sleep will help any sudden anxiety surges which can be caused if the body is hungry.  Or having a bananas or porridge an hour before bed? 

In the UK a nervous 'breakdown' isn't considered as such unless a person spends time in a Mental Health Unit.  But I know I had a breakdown ....... I was as low as I could get without digging into the ground but couldn't afford the over-night price of a Hospital bed.  Never want to feel *that* ill again!

Let us know how you get on >wave<

I can't eat before bedtime because of the Utrogestan - I have to avoid eating 2 hours before I take it and 1 hour after I've taken it.  I do make sure I eat good meals and snacks though.

Re: nervous breakdown - actually it's not even listed in the DSM as a condition but it's what best describes what I experienced and my Dr agreed with me.  It was a horrible experience as I had to take care of myself for a whole week when I really felt very very ill.  Not having a good Dr or easy access to a Dr didn't help either.  Am so glad I've got a good Dr now - its made the most enormous difference to me - just getting good treatment and kindness and understanding from her.

[CLKD]

Being listened to and our feelings validated makes a huge difference!

[GeordieGirl]

I can't eat before bedtime because of the Utrogestan - I have to avoid eating 2 hours before I take it and 1 hour after I've taken it.  I do make sure I eat good meals and snacks though.

If you're having problem with broken sleep / insomnia it's best not to eat after 8pm any way, so your body has time to digest the food properly before bedtime.

I hadn't paid heed to the eating rules around Utrogestan, but I do eat earlier now so suspect I've fallen inside of this (mostly, oops!)

GG x

[Greenfields]

Being listened to and our feelings validated makes a huge difference!

Abso-bloody-lutely!!

It's why I want to be a good kind helping clinician - my therapist in Canada saved my life and my current Dr has also given me so much help.

[CLKD]

How about volunteering?  This can lead to paid employment and sometimes, accommodation. 

The North-East is lovely  .  Lots of scenery, plenty of fresh air ……

My sister found Vancouver really backward.  She wanted to take her young children swimming but was told she wasn't allowed to underdress them by the pool side  and to take several children into the changing rooms wasn't easy.