Snow flakes and a breeze

Have you ever had that feeling of fragility  like the slightest breeze could make everything tumble and topple away from you, piece by piece.  Small snowflakes in a winters breeze.  Each a tear un-falling.

I have been feeling this way more and more lately, without knowing a how or a why. Like I want to cry, but doing so would be the final straw and the damn would break, a storm of emotion flooding through.

This is why I have decided to come back here.  It has been so long and I have not written so much that could and should be said.  It is hard to know where to begin, so I will begin simply with now and hope the rest will fill itself in in my own way.

I am living very much day to day at the moment.  I wake up, go to work and have breakfast, take my meds and then try to do work - knowing that I am not doing as much as I should, or as well as I could do.  Everything I touch breaks and everything I plan changes.  I pull myself through the day, go home, and before you know it, it is time for me to take my meds and go to bed - knowing the next day will be much the same, but hoping it will somehow be better.

Nothing much does change. I am in the same place, with the same thoughts as I have been many times before. The only difference is that now I am on more meds, having broken down a few more times since I last wrote here.  Breaking down is hardly a new thing, but doing so in work, is. It was kind of my self made boundary and I broke it without really realising what I was doing.  In a way, the not realising is proof of how bad I was feeling at the time.

So I continue to see my Psych, who is helpful and is willing to try medicines with me - hence my new Anti-psychotic, Amisulpride (Solian) which I take twice a day.  Which helps a little with my anxiety and is meant to help with paranoid thoughts... not that it has done that yet, but I am only on a low dose still, so we will see.  Psychiatric stuff seems to take a long time with lots of waiting in between, when all you really want is someone to snap their fingers, or give you a hug and it to all have magically gone away.  No more negative thoughts, no more anxiety and twitchyness around other people, no more seeing ghosts and monsters that want you dead in one form or another.  It was be nice to wake up one morning and not have so many things careening around in my head that I can't remember the things I am meant to be remembering.  

My memory really is atrocious  and I guess that is part of why I am writing here again.  I want to get some of it down, before I forget.  Or I wont have it anywhere and someone will ask me - most likely in therapy of some sort, and I wont have an answer.

I guess on a more practical stand-point, I am still living in the same house with my parents.  I still don't have the financial security to move and buy my own place and more than anything, this breaks my heart.  I would love to move more than anything and really, I would give a limb for it, but a part of my mental unstableness just makes me far too prone to impulse spending and money mis-management and in the end all I can do is blame myself, and feel sorry for myself and add it to the list of things I hate about myself.

There are many things I want to change, and many things I fear never will and I watch them from a glass panned window, wafting by like snow flakes in a breeze.

Ultimatums

There are moments in life that act as ultimatums. Something has to give, one way or another and as much as we may all like to bury our heads in the sand from time to time, it will always come back and bite us with its inevitability.

I have, today, been having one of those days when the inevitable has been staring at me with steely eyes, waiting for me to make my move. One way, or the other.

My depression feels very much like it is winning today. All the signs have been there. My focus and attention has been off. I have been tearful and avoiding people and sounds, flinching away from them like something painful will come from the vague awareness of their presence around me. I have begun stock-piling, medicines and ideas, plots and methodology.

My body sickens me. My BMI is 30.8, which makes me obese for my height and age. I need to loose at least 30lbs to be considered back in a healthy weight range. I am constantly achy as my joints are not designed for this amount of blubber and walking a 15 minute route from my home to the train station reduces me to tears.

Part of me is thinking that the extra weight will help gravity as it pulls me down to the ground from where-ever it may be that I eventually leap. The other part is planning a diet, a proper one that is due to start in earnest tomorrow.

It is that, or listen to the side of my brain that says I am fat and ugly and worthless. Because I am. Because I can give nothing to this world at the moment. I struggle to focus on anything for longer than ten minutes at a time before I have to switch away.

Part of my mind wants to curl up into the foetal position in a dark place somewhere and cry quietly to itself. It has been doing that for a while now.

Something has to give and soon.

I can not shake the feeling that whatever shifts is going to soon, one way or the other.

I can not stop the whirl-wind of thoughts and feeling. The constant gnaw of panic and anxiety chipping away at my soul, tearing it to shreds in sheer hatred and frustration. I barely sleep for the constant back and forth between one thought and another. Would this be the best? Or this? Would anyone miss me? When is the right time? What should we wear?

I have decided somewhere, amidst all this, that I need to loose weight. I need to do something to keep the 'keep going' part of my brain focused on the positive. As without that, I do not have any fight left.

I am in one of my lowest states and I know that the moment that fight stops, the moment I allow a pause, I will end up in Hospital.

Something has to give. That is my ultimatum.

Subjective Self

I have not visited this site in a while. I have had nothing of great magnitude to say that has not already been said before, many times. That is not to say I have not been thinking just as much and mulling things over. I just have not recorded them, partly, because I have been afraid that writing them down would make them real or somehow overly trivial in the eyes of the world.

I should come back though - For the catharsis, if nothing else.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the notion of self and self-worth. About the values that people build their world around and where they come from. About how people can be so cruel at times and not appreciate that their view may not be the same as that of the other.

I have been ill some of the time I have been away, I have also been on holiday to Cyprus (much sunshine and a week of relaxing and not worrying about work). I am, however, still here, still churning the thoughts in my mind and breathing in and out. I am still not entirely convinced on the why and if it should continue that way.

I have had two resounding thoughts this past week. I should not be here and I am sorry that I am. It occurs to me that one has to place a low value on their own self-existence if they feel the need to apologise for it. I am not sure what my brain is convinced I have done wrong, yet I can not help but want to apologise for simply existing. For failing so far in my path to self-destruction and in doing so, for dragging everyone around me through the miserable mire that is my minds own creation.

These thoughts are not at all helped when those few people that bide their time in ridiculing others decide that I am a worthy target of their jokes. This happened last night and is, if anything, a common occurrence in my life - I have a sign somewhere on me that just seems to say "I am not normal, take the piss out of me." I was traveling home after a fun day out and this small thing chewed up the little self worth I had gained through the day and spat it out the other side into the trash. I cried the rest of the way home.

I spent a number of hours thereafter thinking through, not entirely rationally, what the concept of normal is and exactly how subjective that is from person to person. One sees another, but they do not fit into the tight box criterion for that person's sense of 'normal' even if it is perfectly normal to the other. Does this mean that person is abnormal, or are they just different and when does different become bad?

I am often a person that people struggle to categorise. So much so, I can not categorise myself and this leaves me wide open to the parts of my brain that are determined to see my demise. That part of my brain is loud at the moment, it can pick apart my every flaw and re-define my every thought and meaning, my every breath and step to drag me towards an ultimate end. There is still a part of me that fights this, which writes and tries to think rationally, that puts things on hold until a later date in the hope that something can be found between now and then that will improve the self, or the world, enough to make its continuation less painful.

I am a constant, ongoing battle between the two. Undecided, conflicted and scared of the many thoughts and actions. The plans and times and dates. The what ifs and why nots. It is no surprise that I tire myself out. I have given up on professionals providing any help - They have made it clear that they will not help, unless I take very particular actions. This traps me in the conundrum. I have no faith in an ability to be able to stop should I let that side of me loose.

These are in no way finished thoughts, I am sure I will return to them. For now though, that will have to do, as my brain has run itself into a muddle that makes no sense to put down here.

Strength Deployment Inventory

I was out all day yesterday - in training. All of the PAs (well, bar two, one of which was in Scotland... which is a wee bit of a commute, and the other ill) and me sat up in one of our meeting rooms for a whole day and had training on a thing called the Strength Deployment Inventory.

This, is basically a system that sorts you into a personality type based on what your personal strengths are when things are going well, and when they are not going well and how you can use them to over-come when things are not going so well.

My results were not surprising for me, I had a hunch what type I would turn out to be. That is a Blue-Green blend (Cautious-Supporting). Then, when in conflict, I slip fully into being much more Green (Cautious-Analytical).

What was revealing for me in the day, I think, was not finding out about myself - since, mostly it was stuff I already knew. It was discovering that the other PAs were mostly Blue (Altruistic-Nurturing), with one Hub (Flexible-Cohering) and that the idea of using your strengths to work with people who have other strengths is not the reality of the situation at all.

Instead, what the course expected people to do, was second guess the strengths of others and then steer your actions towards what suited them. What this means, is that as the other PAs are Blue's and the Hub can be seen as a potential Blue, my Analytical, formal and details driven style has to be put on the back-burner while I write in an in-formal, pleasant people focused style to them... even when I am trying to do my job, of asking them to meet a deadline, or format a document correctly and on time.

Oh, and I have been told not to do that as often... even though the reason I do, is that the deadlines are rarely ever met, so I remind them more often.

We did a whole section in the afternoon that just felt like an attack on my style of working. In effect, because everyone else already fit into the Blue Zone, I was the one expected to do all the work to please them, because the deadlines and structure and routine that make me comfortable and safe, and that I work with best, do not work with/for them. I instead have to be 'open-minded' and flexible, to be informal and step away from routine communications that are fairly straightforward to understand, because they need to be padded out with superfluous niceties.

There were a few pointers for them to work with me, but it felt like they were undercut by the discussion and this, by the end of the day, just re-affirmed everything I already knew: I love my job and I am good at what I do, I just do not fit with the other PAs. We are too different.

I took many good things away from the day. I just also took away that sour taste in the mouth that you get when you know you have hit a dead end.

I guess in many ways, I am fairly strong in the green sections of my personality. I am a bit socially-autistic. I have social-anxiety! When I was younger my communication was frequently attacked as stupid or I was told to shut up if I ever gushed over something. So I stopped doing it. I am an awkward communicator, the formal, standardised style suits me as I can do it without stepping away from what is needed, without having to do the whole informal thing that makes me squirm at the very thought. It is a learned response - and I have just been told that in order to work with others I have to unlearn it, and they don't have to lift a finger to try to unlearn the fact that they can not handle something formal.

I will stop ranting now, it isn't going anywhere. Just needed the grumble.

Institutional Walls

It can take a long time for me to gain trust in people and I have a natural lack of trust when it comes to the medical profession. They make me weary. I think possibly because I saw so much of them growing up, but mostly because I had a very bad GP (and surgery) for quite a while and it left me with the belief that they really did not give a toss one way or the other.

Sadly, this means I am a bit shaky with any local services. Today, I lost my trust and belief in the local CMHT resource center. I last saw them a couple of weeks before Christmas, and spoke with my Psychotherapist, Chris, who had previously mentioned that she would discuss my case with the Occupational Therapy team and her other colleagues as Psychotherapy did not seem suitable to me. I saw Chris, and we were joined by Judith, one of the Occupational Therapists. Judith discussed my needs with me and possible reasons for my social-anxiety. She picked up on my hearing straight away and that warmed me to her.

I guess I was too gullible because of that and gave more faith than I should have.

Judith discussed having a couple of appointments to get me used to the service and an anxiety course, which would be either in January or March. As I am one to put practical suggestions to use sooner rather than later, I said I would prefer to join the January one... hence my mentioning it in previous posts. I left that appointment with the impression I would receive more information in the post, along with appointments to see Judith.

By yesterday, I had received nothing and had already been trying for a couple of weeks to get in touch with Judith, Chris or one of their colleagues.

It turns out if someone calls you from the Resource Center, it goes through a central number, and that this is the number I have always been given for the center. It also turns out that if you call a direct number and it rings over a certain number of times, it diverts to this central number.

That number is as useless as a map written in Kanji. They could not tell me who had wrung me. They claimed not to have anything to do with the course, and stated it was dealt with by a different department, who they could not put me through to, but said would call me back (they didn't).

I finally got a call this morning from Runwell Hospital. The main hub of CMHT in my local area. It is basically the Mental Hospital (yep, it used to be the old fashioned kind too) and has their appointments centre.

They informed me that they could not put me through to Judith, but would send me an Assessment Pack, which I would have to fill in to then receive a phone call to see if I even qualified to receive the service in the first place.... That I did all this before seeing the Psychotherapist was irrespective. They could not put me on the anxiety course without the forms filled in and the phone call had. The course was meant to start today, so effectively, I am not going on it anymore.

Stupid NHS red tape.

I am back to square one with the entirety of CMHT because I went through all this to get to see Chris. I am no longer seeing Chris as I was supposedly referred on to OT and am not suited for her type of therapy.

The Psychiatrist there were useless as ants in shoes (I asked for help, they said there was nothing they could do and to use coping mechanisms) and I only held out for the fact that therapy may well have been what I needed to deal with my social anxiety and the seeing things and the loosing all faith in human beings and believing they were monsters.

Maybe that is the problem? The entirety of the NHS is being run by monsters. Anyone would be hard pressed to convince me otherwise right now.

I really do have the belief that the only way anything ever gets done when it comes to MH issues is if someone rocks up to A&E having done some serious harm to themselves. It is unsurprisingly tempting and yet, the fact that I use every ounce of my strength to not do that, somehow means I will never get the help I need.

Writing this, and thinking about it is making me tearful, but I do constantly find it amazing that the NHS is unable to be more pro-active and preventative. If someone asks for help, that should mean they need it, not that they are somehow fine. There should be some acknowledgement that maybe it took a lot for that someone to ask for help in the first place and that they haven't just asked the moment the sky looked a little grey.

Frankly, I have given up on them ever doing anything to help me. Why should I put faith in an institution that does not listen to a word I say and judges me before I even say a word? Maybe that will piss of anyone that reads and works in the medical profession, but I have yet to see proof that says otherwise.

Grizzly Bug

I find my self incredibly irritable today. Possibly the remaining parts of the mixed-state, most likely my brain's way of announcing its dissatisfaction at the realisation I am back in work and had, indeed, dragged it out of bed at an early hour this morning.

This - of course, means I am tired. Tired makes me grizzly (think toddler tired).

One hopes it will come to accept it soon enough and just stick to its normal routine of demanding regular caffeine intake instead. A demand I am more than happy to oblige.

I have been busy this morning, partly as I am irritable and I know it is best to keep moving rather than try to sit still when in such frame of mind. Trying to keep still is like telling someone who had an itch not to scratch it... never works, makes things ten times worse and anything that was meant to be done, is left incomplete.

One other thing that is not helping, is that the Anxiety Course is meant to be starting tomorrow and I still have no information on it... I do not even know if there is a space for me to attend. This makes me sad, and, what the hey, it makes me anxious as well. I have organised with work to be able to work from home on Tuesday's... but I do not want to stay home tomorrow on the whim that it may take place, or they may have a seat free... I have chased it up. I am waiting for them to call me back.

Right, on with the work thing, before I wind myself up over things anymore than I already have.

May go make a coffee first though.....

The good, the bad and the ugly duckling

There is a term used when describing moods, called a mixed state, literally all the worst bits of depression with all the worst bits of the hypo-manic stages of mood. Today, has been mixed on many levels, without a drop of consideration for moods.

To start with, my aim to get sleep back-fired and I ended with a result of very little sleep indeed. I was still awake at around 04:30 am in the midst of a bout of hyperactivity in which my brain would not sit still for thoughts and my body could not settle into one place or another. One quickly becomes bored in such places of time, when the majority of the world seems barely moving and everything else seems completely ground to a halt.

I finally convinced myself to get out of bed in time for lunch. Had lunch, sat in monotony for a while wondering why there was nothing decent on television anymore... I had no focus or concentration and no motivation to move even though part of me could not stop doing so.

I eventually built up the will to get changed and go out to try out my new jogging kit. I set out on my normal route, walking mostly - since I still have a cold and it is very cold outside. I was pleasantly surprised to find my layers kept me nice and warm so I was not shivering like I have in the past when going out. Much good news. Having walked and jogged around my normal route, I then decided to test out the trail part of my new trainers and took to jogging a couple of light circuits around the field that is sat behind our street. I was equally impressed with the trainers. I think my Asics are still best for the pavement, but the trail trainers are brilliant for grass, mud and slippery stuffs - which is what they are designed for.

In some ways - it helped, it got me out, gave me fresh air, made me smile and eased my thoughts for a little bit. It is just a shame that I am so damned unfit at the moment and have to head back home eventually. I hated seeing my shadow while out and about, simply because I know how badly disfigured it is. Ugly to the world, but impossible to stay hidden.

I think my moods instability over the last few days has hit a head today and I have reached a point of stagnation. Stuck neither here nor there, knowing both exist but reaching for neither. This evening, I feel like I am walking downwards towards some dark hole in the ground and have forgotten how I got there in the first place, or what one may hope to obtain by turning around. It is an unwieldy feeling that makes me feel hollow in the pit of my stomach and brings tears to my eyes. It makes me want to blaze.

Maybe work on Monday will help to re-instill some routine, some security into my system and it can step back up to gain some faith in this existence. Right now, stood where I am, I do not see enough in it to push through. It takes too much effort.

I wonder how many people feel the sensation of being stuck in a rut. That somehow they can pound the pavement of this life as much as they like in one direction or another - but still end up in exactly the same spot. The same concerns, the same questions, the same insecurities and obsessions. The same aims and goals.

There are a few things I have as goals in life, and unfortunately, none of them are simple or cheap. Else I would have them already.