Today I spotted some very clear signs in a man who is now the sole carer for his wife. She lives with dementia, she does not suffer from it, and it’s he who lives with it hardest. This well-built structure of a man looked depleted, shorter and smaller than usual. He must have taken up the exact same space as usual but somehow there was less of him to see. He answered honestly to my ‘are you ok?’ and I applaud the very bones of him for doing so. I’m sure this was not the answer he’d had planned. And it was he who alerted me to, well, me.  

The man hadn’t slept in who knows how long, through worry, through fear, through futility. It’s one of the biggest and most obvious signs that the swamp has engulfed every part of you. From limb to heart to hairs on the head. I and we (a specialist I work with) offered hints as to where to seek help and we signposted as best we could. GPs, carer’s centres, talking therapies. I may as well have stood making notes. That level of tired felt familiar. Everything just needs to stop. But sometimes it lets you and sometimes it won’t, as sleep and takes its own form and thoughts. That special ‘tired’ is the very same one that keeps me up as much as puts me to bed. It denies and it hits out at will.

So yesterday I hit the hay hard, I been too busy to think or to sleep for too long. My limbs ache, my eyes hurt, my head fizzes, my presence is physical only. I crashed like I said and I did so again and on the third time I woke up that day, I recognised exactly where I was.

Being busy don’t mean it’s all fixed. Being frantic don’t mean it’s all cured. Being this busy I’m basically doing nothing but surviving if you can call it surviving. I better call the GP or do something. But I don’t, I write songs at 3am, letters to a God I don’t usually believe in all dressed up as spurned and burned love letters.  

And that song, in it’s unfinished state, is here

(And just how we got to this post, right here is where it all started….)