Yesterday was a day of revelation for me. I definitely learned two things for myself and one of them I am going to show you and the other you can figure out for yourself. I must admit this post is spontaneous, thirsty and certainly not what I planned. Maybe I am reaching out... call it love if you like <3

I have posted from time to time in recent time about some of the pressures I am under and my mental health - even to the point of oversharing. In fact i am guilty of doing just that right now.

So, yesterday I had an evaluation by a psychologist and as part of that I was required to fill in a "depression questionnaire" which had points allocated per given answer. I returned a score of 19, which is on the second worst rung in the scale.

She then outlined, and this is the first new thing I learned yesterday, that concerning depression and suicide that there are three tiers.

Resignation - "I don't want to live".

Suicidal Thoughts - "I want to die"

Planning - "This is how I am going to kill myself".

The evaluation and score showed that I was only just in the "Suicidal Thoughts" stage but right on the border with the "Planning" stage and that while not borderline that I am on the verge of hospitalisation and she of course has initiated an action plan. On the positive side at least I am reaching out and the support is there. Of course this evaluation and ongoing support was done in the context of me sharing other deeper things from my life.

I was deeply shocked that I am so close to the edge and yet it resonated as being 100% true.

The second thing I learned, and you can draw your own conclusions, happened when I got home. Mama_Rah asked me about my visit and I was reluctant to share in front of the boys and she pushed and said they weren't even listening. So I told her as delicately as possible and even used a hand gesture like a finger across my throat so the boys wouldn't pick up on what I was saying. I felt a bit coerced into sharing - at that moment - but she wouldn't let go.

Her response was to laugh in amusement and say "You won't do it anyway."

This may be true, but really?

And that is where I will finish today my friends. As always, stay safe and well.