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.
Showing posts with label Meds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meds. Show all posts
Monday, 11 March 2013
Wednesday, 20 July 2011
A week of disquiet
It is strange how often the way things begin is very often the way they continue - even if you try your hardest to make it otherwise. This week is very much a case in point. Monday was just a mess. Emotionally, physically, mentally... and the rest of the week has tumbled its way out a chaotic travesty I would not in any way be able to fully explain.
Work is busy, chaotic busy and I have flip flopped from one task to the next and back to the first in a whirlwind. Swept along in a gallivanting wave of emotions and frets and thoughts that I have barely the time to pin down and process.
I am aware that outwardly I am probably coping a lot better than I am inside. My mind has been thrown through a loop. Unsettled and up heaved and shunted in such a way that every glistening web of a lie I have told myself about coping is coming unstuck and falling to the ground in tears.
I am stopping the Mirtazapine, I haven't yet started stopping it, but it was agreed at my Psych appointment on Monday that as it has had no positive (or negative) effect on me, it is not worth taking the extra chemical. It was a low dose, so I can pick a time to stop it and stop.
I wish most things in life were that simple: it is not productive, so lets stop it. Boom. Stopped. Sadly, everything else, my mind, my body and my soul are far from simple and far from easily untangled.
My Psych now wants me to spend the time between Monday's appointment and the next (whenever that turns out to be, probably in December/January now) deciding two things:
1) If I want to try to reduce the dose of the Venlafaxine and in doing so, potentially risk unsettling my emotional/mental well-being (her words, not mine).
and
2) If I want to try an anti-psychotic.
I think the second of those two may well be the thing that threw me through a loop. Not at all discounting the fact that every Psych appointment I ever go on throws me through a loop anyway. Monday's session ended with my normal dissociation, finding myself randomly in town with no recollection of going there and wandering in a half daze for a while. There are bits and pieces and fragments but I really think I go into some kind of mind-hibernation whenever I have an MHU appointment. Bleh. Is probably the main reason I don't ever push for them to be more frequent.
Then, we get around to the Psychosis part. I mostly find this unsettling. I guess everyone finds psychosis unsettling, whether they have it, or hear or read about it (and if you hear about it as a part of the psychosis itself then you really have a double edged sword). For the most part, I can brush it under the rug where it belongs, pretend it is not happening and get myself to almost believe the facade of calm I attempt to put on on the outside. These are the times when it is mild and merely disconcerting:
The sound of sirens regardless of where I am (I have been on a train in the middle of a field before now.... )
The smell of burning and of rotting
The tactile sensation like ants crawling over my skin
The flicker of ghosts and monsters or the lingering doubt around people and crowds
Then there are the times when things begin to creep past my ability to ignore:
The monsters
The ghosts becoming more frequent
The disturbed thoughts and the increase in my belief in them
Then the distinction moments when I no longer know which stage is the better one to have and the utter panic and disillusion that comes with wondering if it is you who is wrong, or everyone else.
Put down on paper like this, I can see why the psych is suggesting I consider an anti-psychotic. The problem is, I am not sure I have ever considered myself ill enough to take them. It scares me to think that the level of ability to cope I have feigned myself into believing I have may well be paper thin and merely an illusion. It scares me to think that any of these things are the psychosis and that it is not just a stage.
I have been told in the past that my psychosis symptoms are linked to my depression being bad. That the worst my depression is, the more likely it is that they will be triggered and I have the wonder of how much the psychosis plays of my social anxiety and how much of my social anxiety has been born as a response to the psychosis.
Everything in its duplicity plays off everything else and I find it hard to sit and work out what causes what and when and why and if I consider it enough to potentially try yet another line of treatment.
I have four months to mull it over.... I think I just needed to put some of my initial thoughts here to pin down some of the disquiet of the last few days. Somewhere.
Work is busy, chaotic busy and I have flip flopped from one task to the next and back to the first in a whirlwind. Swept along in a gallivanting wave of emotions and frets and thoughts that I have barely the time to pin down and process.
I am aware that outwardly I am probably coping a lot better than I am inside. My mind has been thrown through a loop. Unsettled and up heaved and shunted in such a way that every glistening web of a lie I have told myself about coping is coming unstuck and falling to the ground in tears.
I am stopping the Mirtazapine, I haven't yet started stopping it, but it was agreed at my Psych appointment on Monday that as it has had no positive (or negative) effect on me, it is not worth taking the extra chemical. It was a low dose, so I can pick a time to stop it and stop.
I wish most things in life were that simple: it is not productive, so lets stop it. Boom. Stopped. Sadly, everything else, my mind, my body and my soul are far from simple and far from easily untangled.
My Psych now wants me to spend the time between Monday's appointment and the next (whenever that turns out to be, probably in December/January now) deciding two things:
1) If I want to try to reduce the dose of the Venlafaxine and in doing so, potentially risk unsettling my emotional/mental well-being (her words, not mine).
and
2) If I want to try an anti-psychotic.
I think the second of those two may well be the thing that threw me through a loop. Not at all discounting the fact that every Psych appointment I ever go on throws me through a loop anyway. Monday's session ended with my normal dissociation, finding myself randomly in town with no recollection of going there and wandering in a half daze for a while. There are bits and pieces and fragments but I really think I go into some kind of mind-hibernation whenever I have an MHU appointment. Bleh. Is probably the main reason I don't ever push for them to be more frequent.
Then, we get around to the Psychosis part. I mostly find this unsettling. I guess everyone finds psychosis unsettling, whether they have it, or hear or read about it (and if you hear about it as a part of the psychosis itself then you really have a double edged sword). For the most part, I can brush it under the rug where it belongs, pretend it is not happening and get myself to almost believe the facade of calm I attempt to put on on the outside. These are the times when it is mild and merely disconcerting:
The sound of sirens regardless of where I am (I have been on a train in the middle of a field before now.... )
The smell of burning and of rotting
The tactile sensation like ants crawling over my skin
The flicker of ghosts and monsters or the lingering doubt around people and crowds
Then there are the times when things begin to creep past my ability to ignore:
The monsters
The ghosts becoming more frequent
The disturbed thoughts and the increase in my belief in them
Then the distinction moments when I no longer know which stage is the better one to have and the utter panic and disillusion that comes with wondering if it is you who is wrong, or everyone else.
Put down on paper like this, I can see why the psych is suggesting I consider an anti-psychotic. The problem is, I am not sure I have ever considered myself ill enough to take them. It scares me to think that the level of ability to cope I have feigned myself into believing I have may well be paper thin and merely an illusion. It scares me to think that any of these things are the psychosis and that it is not just a stage.
I have been told in the past that my psychosis symptoms are linked to my depression being bad. That the worst my depression is, the more likely it is that they will be triggered and I have the wonder of how much the psychosis plays of my social anxiety and how much of my social anxiety has been born as a response to the psychosis.
Everything in its duplicity plays off everything else and I find it hard to sit and work out what causes what and when and why and if I consider it enough to potentially try yet another line of treatment.
I have four months to mull it over.... I think I just needed to put some of my initial thoughts here to pin down some of the disquiet of the last few days. Somewhere.
Sunday, 17 July 2011
Storm breaks
Today I am having one of those almost inexplicable moments of down. That deep endless, sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. The knowledge that all you can be is disappointment and failure and the echo of all your emotions in the heavy rain, lightning and storm outside.
Yes - I am typing this with a thunder storm raging outside my window and slick salt tears stinging in my eyes. Chaos abounds in a wash of inertia and the knowledge that it makes more sense to wait it out than to try and fight it.
In some ways, this is an inevitable. As there will always be a storm after warm hot humidity, so there will be tears and a grip of doubt after any drifting hopes. All dreams unravel and sift apart in the end - Crumbling down to the sharp thump of reality. Nothing but ash and darkened hazy clouds. The roll of thunder and the pattering of rain of window, brushed by winds on the way down. No path is ever direct. No smiles cure this frown.
I am due to see my psych tomorrow. I am, as ever, unclear what I want to say. I am not going to pretend I am better because I am not. Yet, I am failing to see the point of the large dose of chemicals I take every day - They have made me put on a lot of weight, and that is all I can really say for them. Maybe if I stopped I would be a lot worse, but I do not feel better enough to see the balance. Is putting on all that weight worth the narrow margin in my moods? I am not sure.
Uncertainty rolls around in my thoughts like the clouds across the grey, marl sky. My head is noisy and it makes it hard to focus, hard to distract. Too distracted for distraction. Too hurt and stuck in the same problems to be able to choose objectively what may be best. I may rest, instead. Sleep through the fret and threat. The cool damp distinguished wreck.
Yes - I am typing this with a thunder storm raging outside my window and slick salt tears stinging in my eyes. Chaos abounds in a wash of inertia and the knowledge that it makes more sense to wait it out than to try and fight it.
In some ways, this is an inevitable. As there will always be a storm after warm hot humidity, so there will be tears and a grip of doubt after any drifting hopes. All dreams unravel and sift apart in the end - Crumbling down to the sharp thump of reality. Nothing but ash and darkened hazy clouds. The roll of thunder and the pattering of rain of window, brushed by winds on the way down. No path is ever direct. No smiles cure this frown.
I am due to see my psych tomorrow. I am, as ever, unclear what I want to say. I am not going to pretend I am better because I am not. Yet, I am failing to see the point of the large dose of chemicals I take every day - They have made me put on a lot of weight, and that is all I can really say for them. Maybe if I stopped I would be a lot worse, but I do not feel better enough to see the balance. Is putting on all that weight worth the narrow margin in my moods? I am not sure.
Uncertainty rolls around in my thoughts like the clouds across the grey, marl sky. My head is noisy and it makes it hard to focus, hard to distract. Too distracted for distraction. Too hurt and stuck in the same problems to be able to choose objectively what may be best. I may rest, instead. Sleep through the fret and threat. The cool damp distinguished wreck.
Sunday, 27 June 2010
Maybe November
I have not been in a while - Again. I suppose I spend so much time thinking away from the computer that by the time I log on to write it all down the thoughts have become too tangled and mixed. A stream of consciousness that no longer makes sense.
I am still going to yoga (most weeks), and am still trying to jog. I am still struggling with my moods.
I saw the psychiatrist, my once every six month review, that reviews little and concludes less. They want me to go on the Anxiety therapy course and will not review my meds until they know that has not worked. It leaves me sitting and waiting, again. I am not always sure how long I can sit and wait.
I have already begun building up the amount of tablets I take in one go. Re-building up to an amount I know will do harm. Part of me knows it is wrong to do this, but that is the lucid part that wants help, that lets people know what is going on for me. There is also a part of me that just wants this to go away. To curl up and let it fade away. To step across that line and no longer have to believe in a reason to take the next breath.
I have had a date in mind for most of the year. I know the when, I know the how, I know the why. That part of me is strong and a planner - It has been at these stages often enough now to have learned from past mistakes. This time, it says, there will not be mistakes.
I write here now though, lucid and knowing how harsh and illogical that sounds. The thoughts do not leave though. I dream of methodology and consequence. I panic about what can go wrong and try to ponder ways to get around it.
I say to others all the time that they have to grab hold of the part of them that is lucid, that shinning light that fights and glows through the darkest thought and says: you can get through this. I do my best to do that. That is why I go to Yoga - to nourish that part of my soul and allow it a moment to breath, free of the deep, all engulfing sadness.
My fight has been shaken recently by the unsettling news that my boss is leaving in November. I am a Personal Assistant - so this means that in effect my job will change. I will have to get to know a whole other persons way of working and try to fit to that. The part of me that has a date in mind is glad the date is prior to that. The part that fights is looking at other jobs while waiting to see if maybe, just maybe the new person is someone I could work with. Either way, it will be a new person.
I have felt upset. Jealous of the people in the place that my boss will be moving to and conflicted by feelings that somehow it proves I am not good enough at my job. Every time something has changed in my role there, people have left me and my team has shrunk to the point where at the end of November it will just be me left. I feel deserted.
These are all as irrational as my dreams about jumping of roof-tops to a lack of witness and assistance. I will fight them in the same way, distract myself and keep on going. Keep working, keep jogging, keep moving on and hope that somewhere along the way there may come a miracle that helps everything suddenly fit and not feel so chaotic and broken.
My thoughts may swirl and spin and confound, one after the next - too fast to record or make a logical, grammatical sense out of. Maybe one day they will be given a path that helps ease the knots they bring.
Maybe.
I am still going to yoga (most weeks), and am still trying to jog. I am still struggling with my moods.
I saw the psychiatrist, my once every six month review, that reviews little and concludes less. They want me to go on the Anxiety therapy course and will not review my meds until they know that has not worked. It leaves me sitting and waiting, again. I am not always sure how long I can sit and wait.
I have already begun building up the amount of tablets I take in one go. Re-building up to an amount I know will do harm. Part of me knows it is wrong to do this, but that is the lucid part that wants help, that lets people know what is going on for me. There is also a part of me that just wants this to go away. To curl up and let it fade away. To step across that line and no longer have to believe in a reason to take the next breath.
I have had a date in mind for most of the year. I know the when, I know the how, I know the why. That part of me is strong and a planner - It has been at these stages often enough now to have learned from past mistakes. This time, it says, there will not be mistakes.
I write here now though, lucid and knowing how harsh and illogical that sounds. The thoughts do not leave though. I dream of methodology and consequence. I panic about what can go wrong and try to ponder ways to get around it.
I say to others all the time that they have to grab hold of the part of them that is lucid, that shinning light that fights and glows through the darkest thought and says: you can get through this. I do my best to do that. That is why I go to Yoga - to nourish that part of my soul and allow it a moment to breath, free of the deep, all engulfing sadness.
My fight has been shaken recently by the unsettling news that my boss is leaving in November. I am a Personal Assistant - so this means that in effect my job will change. I will have to get to know a whole other persons way of working and try to fit to that. The part of me that has a date in mind is glad the date is prior to that. The part that fights is looking at other jobs while waiting to see if maybe, just maybe the new person is someone I could work with. Either way, it will be a new person.
I have felt upset. Jealous of the people in the place that my boss will be moving to and conflicted by feelings that somehow it proves I am not good enough at my job. Every time something has changed in my role there, people have left me and my team has shrunk to the point where at the end of November it will just be me left. I feel deserted.
These are all as irrational as my dreams about jumping of roof-tops to a lack of witness and assistance. I will fight them in the same way, distract myself and keep on going. Keep working, keep jogging, keep moving on and hope that somewhere along the way there may come a miracle that helps everything suddenly fit and not feel so chaotic and broken.
My thoughts may swirl and spin and confound, one after the next - too fast to record or make a logical, grammatical sense out of. Maybe one day they will be given a path that helps ease the knots they bring.
Maybe.
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Dissociative Thoughts
I have been spending a lot of time thinking. Not that that is anything unusual, or amazing, just that that is part of why I have not been here to post - Strangely enough. I have been thinking and re-thinking over the same thoughts and trying to mesh them in a way that does not sound wrong.
Frankly, I have given up trying. So will post it, however it happens to tumble from my brain and through my finger tips onto the keyboard.
Someone said to me recently that I am 'qualified' in mental health. Not in the 'I have trained and gained some form of Masters' sense, but in the 'certifiable' sense. This, and the recent pledge campaigns of some organisations, got me thinking about mental health and my own stance on it.
I am very very vocal about the fact that I do have 'issues'. I think in some ways this is a good thing - As it means people are less stunned on the occasions where I fall apart and it all goes wrong. I do not have a why or a how though - So am very reticent about giving details on those things and I think that in the long term, people get pissed off with me and want me to just 'get over it'.
I have had that said to my face more than once in my life, so it would not shock me if it was the general opinion of many human beings that I come across in my day to day life.
I have done a lot of reading, a lot of research and have talked to and chatted on forums with many people with large variations of mh issues. I am a supporter on one forum. So know that I am often surrounded by it.
I can not say that means I understand it any more than I did when I first started out though. Mostly, it has given me terminology. A way of defining some of what I feel and think and experience so that I can express it in a unified way. I think this may also piss off the 'get over it' crowd. As they somehow feel, if I really did have these things, they would have been dealt with by now.
Sometimes I wonder if I have made myself the way I am. If my Mother is right when she says I 'take on' the symptoms of what I have read in some 'way of gaining attention'. I wonder if this is the true nature of myself. An attention whore. Then I realise that at my worst, at the times when I am really struggling, my instant reaction is to dissociate, to curl up in a feotal position, often in a fit of tears and hide from the world. Somehow in the hope it will go away and leave me to some semblance of peace.
I have dissociated a lot lately and it has left me feeling tired. I spend a lot of time fighting to bring myself back and stay 'grounded'. It is mostly only mild, but there have been a few times this past week or so when I have 'stepped away' for long enough to feel a distinction.
Dissociation - for those of you that do not know, is like a circuit-breaker in the mind which switches when the mind feels like it can not cope with an overload of stimuli, emotion, or experience. In my case, therefore, it is mostly when I am very stressed or upset, or if I am out in crowded places. Everyone dissociates to some extent - some believe that is part of what day-dreaming is. It is when everything gets that little bit hazy and you can't quite remember what happened during those five minutes. Where the world feels like it is being viewed through a bubble and is that little bit more out of touch.
I only bring it up as I have come to the conclusion this is what has been happening, gradually more and more frequently for me. It took a fair bit of research to reach that conclusion. Mostly because if you look online and google dissociation, you will be pointed towards Dissociative Identity Disorder (once called Multiple Personality Disorder) and PTSD and the suffering of some major trauma or abuse....
The most trauma I ever really had in life was a four and a half day coma at the age of 4 - when I was diagnosed of diabetes. Seconded only by the death of my Grandmother when I was 11.
That is it. Honestly. It is almost impossible to find information that does not somehow suggest there must be some onion ring in your life that needs peeling away at to find. But I digress and know this is something I have mentioned before.
I started Yoga recently. The first class, I think this was one of those times when I dissociated and was most aware of a feeling of vulnerability. In its most child-like state. Fragile and panicked and unsafe. Scared of everything and wanting nothing more than to curl up and protect the self. That is, after all, what the feotal position is for.
I would raise it as an issue or mode of thought with someone from cmht, where it not for the fact that I no longer see anyone from there... I think I am due to see the Psych next in July or something.
Beyond that... Nothing. No-one. So I will write here. To put it down. However fragmented it may seem.
Frankly, I have given up trying. So will post it, however it happens to tumble from my brain and through my finger tips onto the keyboard.
Someone said to me recently that I am 'qualified' in mental health. Not in the 'I have trained and gained some form of Masters' sense, but in the 'certifiable' sense. This, and the recent pledge campaigns of some organisations, got me thinking about mental health and my own stance on it.
I am very very vocal about the fact that I do have 'issues'. I think in some ways this is a good thing - As it means people are less stunned on the occasions where I fall apart and it all goes wrong. I do not have a why or a how though - So am very reticent about giving details on those things and I think that in the long term, people get pissed off with me and want me to just 'get over it'.
I have had that said to my face more than once in my life, so it would not shock me if it was the general opinion of many human beings that I come across in my day to day life.
I have done a lot of reading, a lot of research and have talked to and chatted on forums with many people with large variations of mh issues. I am a supporter on one forum. So know that I am often surrounded by it.
I can not say that means I understand it any more than I did when I first started out though. Mostly, it has given me terminology. A way of defining some of what I feel and think and experience so that I can express it in a unified way. I think this may also piss off the 'get over it' crowd. As they somehow feel, if I really did have these things, they would have been dealt with by now.
Sometimes I wonder if I have made myself the way I am. If my Mother is right when she says I 'take on' the symptoms of what I have read in some 'way of gaining attention'. I wonder if this is the true nature of myself. An attention whore. Then I realise that at my worst, at the times when I am really struggling, my instant reaction is to dissociate, to curl up in a feotal position, often in a fit of tears and hide from the world. Somehow in the hope it will go away and leave me to some semblance of peace.
I have dissociated a lot lately and it has left me feeling tired. I spend a lot of time fighting to bring myself back and stay 'grounded'. It is mostly only mild, but there have been a few times this past week or so when I have 'stepped away' for long enough to feel a distinction.
Dissociation - for those of you that do not know, is like a circuit-breaker in the mind which switches when the mind feels like it can not cope with an overload of stimuli, emotion, or experience. In my case, therefore, it is mostly when I am very stressed or upset, or if I am out in crowded places. Everyone dissociates to some extent - some believe that is part of what day-dreaming is. It is when everything gets that little bit hazy and you can't quite remember what happened during those five minutes. Where the world feels like it is being viewed through a bubble and is that little bit more out of touch.
I only bring it up as I have come to the conclusion this is what has been happening, gradually more and more frequently for me. It took a fair bit of research to reach that conclusion. Mostly because if you look online and google dissociation, you will be pointed towards Dissociative Identity Disorder (once called Multiple Personality Disorder) and PTSD and the suffering of some major trauma or abuse....
The most trauma I ever really had in life was a four and a half day coma at the age of 4 - when I was diagnosed of diabetes. Seconded only by the death of my Grandmother when I was 11.
That is it. Honestly. It is almost impossible to find information that does not somehow suggest there must be some onion ring in your life that needs peeling away at to find. But I digress and know this is something I have mentioned before.
I started Yoga recently. The first class, I think this was one of those times when I dissociated and was most aware of a feeling of vulnerability. In its most child-like state. Fragile and panicked and unsafe. Scared of everything and wanting nothing more than to curl up and protect the self. That is, after all, what the feotal position is for.
I would raise it as an issue or mode of thought with someone from cmht, where it not for the fact that I no longer see anyone from there... I think I am due to see the Psych next in July or something.
Beyond that... Nothing. No-one. So I will write here. To put it down. However fragmented it may seem.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Paranoia, Self-worth & a lack of caring
Sometimes I think Paranoia is the thing that breaks me. It makes me loose what little faith I have in human beings - that is, the ones I know and would normally trust, not the ones I am shite scared of when my social anxiety is playing up.
To explain. If you have a friend, a colleague, that tends to imply that you value their opinion. Say one day you are walking down a corridor and you see said friend or colleague, talking, maybe laughing or seeming cross and gesticulating in your general area. The human brains natural reaction is to be defensive and assume they are somehow laughing at you, because you must be stupid, or look ridiculous or they are just plain fed up with your attempt to be friendly and normal around them. A lot of people are able to brush aside this thought and assume it is something completely irrelevant to them. I am unable to do this, at the moment (note: sometimes I can) as my perception gets more and more distorted by the workings of my own brain against itself.
With Paranoia/Depression/Social-anxiety, this is made worse by the belief that everyone hates you, that you are worthless and truly a waste of time and that any of the evaluations your brain says others are saying about you are not just correct, but under-exaggerated. You are, in fact, much much worse.
What if they found this out? How much would they hate you and laugh at you then? How can you stop it, when you are not even sure you can pin-point what part of you it is that is so flawed and distorted?
I say this may be the thing to break me, because I have such a low self-esteem. Because my brain tells me, all by itself exactly how bad I am - The last thing I need is to believe that this is what everyone else thinks of me as well. If anything, I try to achieve the opposite. I do my best to be 'normal' and 'stable' and friendly. I do everything I can to try to help others, to please them. All I want, in some part of me, is for other people's approval. I get horribly upset if I feel I have done anything wrong. Anything that may prove that negative self-destructive part of my brain just may be correct.
I will be honest in saying I am struggling at the moment. I spend much of my time trying to improve myself - I have bought a rowing machine to try to help with my fitness, I try to jog during the week (even if this does mean accepting that people will sneer and laugh at me, because I will never be one of those people that is just skinny as a rake and looks good in sports clothes).
I can not, however I try, crawl my way out of the black hole I have been sucked into - The one that sung so loudly from my last posts. I feel stuck in this low phase and everything is gradually getting harder - To the point where sometimes, I really do not care. I do not have the energy to stand trying to tidy my eyebrows (however much they need it), I really don't care if I have showered or got dressed (frankly on the weekend, I rarely do) and getting out of bed is just something that takes too much effort. More importantly, I am beginning to not care about whether or not I continue to fight this thing. What is the point? All I will do is go around the same road and reach the same conclusions. There is no point. There is no magical value to my existence - so why fight to improve or continue it any further?
If people hate me so much, if I am that bad that they have to talk about me behind their backs, or I somehow do something that annoys them - Why bother?
I was watching a Dylan Moran DVD at the weekend, he made the point that humanity is the only species that the world is trying to tell to 'Fuck off'. One may well do it a favour and get it over with.
I have a holiday in March. It has been paid for, so I will go. There is nothing after that though. Nothing planned, nothing scheduled, no people to let down.
I have found my when.
To explain. If you have a friend, a colleague, that tends to imply that you value their opinion. Say one day you are walking down a corridor and you see said friend or colleague, talking, maybe laughing or seeming cross and gesticulating in your general area. The human brains natural reaction is to be defensive and assume they are somehow laughing at you, because you must be stupid, or look ridiculous or they are just plain fed up with your attempt to be friendly and normal around them. A lot of people are able to brush aside this thought and assume it is something completely irrelevant to them. I am unable to do this, at the moment (note: sometimes I can) as my perception gets more and more distorted by the workings of my own brain against itself.
With Paranoia/Depression/Social-anxiety, this is made worse by the belief that everyone hates you, that you are worthless and truly a waste of time and that any of the evaluations your brain says others are saying about you are not just correct, but under-exaggerated. You are, in fact, much much worse.
What if they found this out? How much would they hate you and laugh at you then? How can you stop it, when you are not even sure you can pin-point what part of you it is that is so flawed and distorted?
I say this may be the thing to break me, because I have such a low self-esteem. Because my brain tells me, all by itself exactly how bad I am - The last thing I need is to believe that this is what everyone else thinks of me as well. If anything, I try to achieve the opposite. I do my best to be 'normal' and 'stable' and friendly. I do everything I can to try to help others, to please them. All I want, in some part of me, is for other people's approval. I get horribly upset if I feel I have done anything wrong. Anything that may prove that negative self-destructive part of my brain just may be correct.
I will be honest in saying I am struggling at the moment. I spend much of my time trying to improve myself - I have bought a rowing machine to try to help with my fitness, I try to jog during the week (even if this does mean accepting that people will sneer and laugh at me, because I will never be one of those people that is just skinny as a rake and looks good in sports clothes).
I can not, however I try, crawl my way out of the black hole I have been sucked into - The one that sung so loudly from my last posts. I feel stuck in this low phase and everything is gradually getting harder - To the point where sometimes, I really do not care. I do not have the energy to stand trying to tidy my eyebrows (however much they need it), I really don't care if I have showered or got dressed (frankly on the weekend, I rarely do) and getting out of bed is just something that takes too much effort. More importantly, I am beginning to not care about whether or not I continue to fight this thing. What is the point? All I will do is go around the same road and reach the same conclusions. There is no point. There is no magical value to my existence - so why fight to improve or continue it any further?
If people hate me so much, if I am that bad that they have to talk about me behind their backs, or I somehow do something that annoys them - Why bother?
I was watching a Dylan Moran DVD at the weekend, he made the point that humanity is the only species that the world is trying to tell to 'Fuck off'. One may well do it a favour and get it over with.
I have a holiday in March. It has been paid for, so I will go. There is nothing after that though. Nothing planned, nothing scheduled, no people to let down.
I have found my when.
Sunday, 10 January 2010
Moments of Decision
I have come to the rather distressing conclusion that I am running out of 'go and fight'. That is, the thing that keeps one going even when depression is gnawing its way through your heart and soul. It is often said that such times can be got through by breaking them into smaller segments; minutes and hours that form the days and weeks of our lives. Doing this, however, can take a lot of self-talking and stubbornness and can be very tiring.
Imagine those mornings when your alarm goes off and you really wish it did not have to, that you did not need to get up out of bed, or move, or take the next breath. That there was no need to reach across and switch the damned thing off to save it waking the house-hold. Say, it is cold outside, or you did not get to bed until much later than planned. Now times that, tenfold. Mix in a lack of self-worth, a lethargy that makes breathing feel energetic and the realisation that you are somehow still here, alive even though a large chunk of you wishes it were otherwise.
All that, just to get up. Mostly, I am able to force myself out of bed. One of the things I have learnt through years of practice is that if I let myself just lie there. I will never get up. I will stagnate and this makes things worse. I know this, as I have done it. It gets you nowhere - least of all, out of bed.
When I write that I am running out of go and fight. It is that stubbornness and self-bullying that forces me to move. To keep breathing. To keep fighting. To ignore the dark caverns of my mind and soul as they scream and tug at me, trying to pull me down. Each moment is getting harder to push myself through - As though there is some thick myre in the air, a sludge that pulls me backwards.
The thing that makes this distressing, is that in previous moments when this has happened I have ballasted myself on the promise that I would speak to a Doctor, a Psychiatrist, or a Therapist and we would find a solution. We could change my medicine or see what is going on that is wearing me down in that moment. This time, I feel like that ballast has floated off into some distant dark place that I can no longer see or reach. The Medical Profession has given up on me and essentially said there is nothing they can do.
Oddly, there is very little that has held me upright this week and weekend.
Firstly, the lethargy is a strange thing in that, there is such a thing as being so depressed, one does not have the energy to act on the suicidal and self-harming impulses - This lasts for a while until one reaches the Moment of Decision - That famous bit where the depressed person decides on their course of action and is somehow magically better to outside viewers, because they can see an end to all of it. A literal end. A permanent one. I am not at that point yet, I have, however, had constant thoughts and plans swirling around in my head and know that without the second thing that has held me up, I probably would have acted and taken that Moment of Decision. It is at that point now where I am having dreams about it.
The second thing that has held me up, is also odd. It has been the British Weather. Anyone that knows me, knows I hate the snow, and it does very little to improve my mood. What it has done however is acted as a logical delay. Any decision to take action normally takes everything into consideration. Mine, included how overly stretched out British Emergency Services are. Why, would I want them to be wasting their valuable time on me, if there are people out there who genuinely want to live and are struggling through the snow and ice, who may have fallen and injured themselves, or who may have hypothermia or need help that is stuck somewhere in a snow drift. All very mellow dramatic, but also very true and reflective of our current News Reports. The weather is so bad, people are dying in it. People that shouldn't.
I know some-where deep inside that there is an inevitability to all this. It will happen. It is just a case of when. I suppose I write here in order to help sort out the mass of thoughts in my head and ensure I can not deny it to myself at a later point. These are true thoughts, they are mine and I have been having them increasingly over the last few weeks.
I do not write here as a cry for help, or for attention. This is not a little-white flag that is being waved in hope that someone will come magic everything better. I am beyond believing such things work. Please, if you are reading this, do not patronise me by assuming that is all this is. I did my 'cries for help' when I made appointments with the Doctor's and the Psychiatrists. I went and told them what was going on in my head and asked for help. They sent me away with nothing to show for the effort. Unless you are able to clobber them over the head with a mountain of common sense, I doubt there is little that can be done but watch as it unfolds. Which it will. I can feel it unravelling slowly but surely.
I know what my final messages will be though, my dream told me that, short and simple and sweet and sent in every format achievable. E-mail and text and twitter. My dream showed me the way and it was surprisingly simple.
I woke crying, as I am now, but it still made sense to me. I just have to wait for the right time.
Imagine those mornings when your alarm goes off and you really wish it did not have to, that you did not need to get up out of bed, or move, or take the next breath. That there was no need to reach across and switch the damned thing off to save it waking the house-hold. Say, it is cold outside, or you did not get to bed until much later than planned. Now times that, tenfold. Mix in a lack of self-worth, a lethargy that makes breathing feel energetic and the realisation that you are somehow still here, alive even though a large chunk of you wishes it were otherwise.
All that, just to get up. Mostly, I am able to force myself out of bed. One of the things I have learnt through years of practice is that if I let myself just lie there. I will never get up. I will stagnate and this makes things worse. I know this, as I have done it. It gets you nowhere - least of all, out of bed.
When I write that I am running out of go and fight. It is that stubbornness and self-bullying that forces me to move. To keep breathing. To keep fighting. To ignore the dark caverns of my mind and soul as they scream and tug at me, trying to pull me down. Each moment is getting harder to push myself through - As though there is some thick myre in the air, a sludge that pulls me backwards.
The thing that makes this distressing, is that in previous moments when this has happened I have ballasted myself on the promise that I would speak to a Doctor, a Psychiatrist, or a Therapist and we would find a solution. We could change my medicine or see what is going on that is wearing me down in that moment. This time, I feel like that ballast has floated off into some distant dark place that I can no longer see or reach. The Medical Profession has given up on me and essentially said there is nothing they can do.
Oddly, there is very little that has held me upright this week and weekend.
Firstly, the lethargy is a strange thing in that, there is such a thing as being so depressed, one does not have the energy to act on the suicidal and self-harming impulses - This lasts for a while until one reaches the Moment of Decision - That famous bit where the depressed person decides on their course of action and is somehow magically better to outside viewers, because they can see an end to all of it. A literal end. A permanent one. I am not at that point yet, I have, however, had constant thoughts and plans swirling around in my head and know that without the second thing that has held me up, I probably would have acted and taken that Moment of Decision. It is at that point now where I am having dreams about it.
The second thing that has held me up, is also odd. It has been the British Weather. Anyone that knows me, knows I hate the snow, and it does very little to improve my mood. What it has done however is acted as a logical delay. Any decision to take action normally takes everything into consideration. Mine, included how overly stretched out British Emergency Services are. Why, would I want them to be wasting their valuable time on me, if there are people out there who genuinely want to live and are struggling through the snow and ice, who may have fallen and injured themselves, or who may have hypothermia or need help that is stuck somewhere in a snow drift. All very mellow dramatic, but also very true and reflective of our current News Reports. The weather is so bad, people are dying in it. People that shouldn't.
I know some-where deep inside that there is an inevitability to all this. It will happen. It is just a case of when. I suppose I write here in order to help sort out the mass of thoughts in my head and ensure I can not deny it to myself at a later point. These are true thoughts, they are mine and I have been having them increasingly over the last few weeks.
I do not write here as a cry for help, or for attention. This is not a little-white flag that is being waved in hope that someone will come magic everything better. I am beyond believing such things work. Please, if you are reading this, do not patronise me by assuming that is all this is. I did my 'cries for help' when I made appointments with the Doctor's and the Psychiatrists. I went and told them what was going on in my head and asked for help. They sent me away with nothing to show for the effort. Unless you are able to clobber them over the head with a mountain of common sense, I doubt there is little that can be done but watch as it unfolds. Which it will. I can feel it unravelling slowly but surely.
I know what my final messages will be though, my dream told me that, short and simple and sweet and sent in every format achievable. E-mail and text and twitter. My dream showed me the way and it was surprisingly simple.
I woke crying, as I am now, but it still made sense to me. I just have to wait for the right time.
Tuesday, 5 January 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, 3 January 2010
Disproportionate Woes
Thanks to the generosity of my Mother, I went shopping in WHSmith today, in the hope of spending a £10 gift card she had given to me. Why people think WHSmith is a place for gifts escapes me, but at least it is not quite as bad as an Argos voucher - By which I mean, you can at least go into the store and browse for things and spend said money on impulse.
I came out of the shop with more than £10 worth of books and an 4GB SD card (hp) for whatever it is one of those can be used for in my little eepc.
Whilst browsing the somewhat depressing selection of books my local WHSmith holds, I came to the conclusion that in every single one of the 'woes of my life' book, the person in question had been abused and horrifically treated and this is attributed as the cause for whatever mental illness and/or spate of self-harm they have had. It occurred to me that there are far too few books out there about people who have or do suffer from some type of mental illness, or who have been swallowed whole by the addiction of self-harm without having been abused, abandoned or somehow hit over the head with a mallet or the worst of societies parenting.
I have a mental illness (woohoo... ?) and yet I have at no point in my life been abused. I have had good parenting, nothing major or tragic has happened in my life and I am pretty sure I have never been hit over the head with a mallet of any kind. So, one can see where the problem lies. I am often faced with the stereotype that because I do not come from a broken family, because I have not been abused, because I am intelligent and able to 'function' (by which they mean, I go to work) I somehow do not qualify for the term 'mentally ill'. Better yet, I have been accused of being a hypochondriac, an attention seeker and worse yet, I have been told that I have taken on board the very things the people in all these 'woe is me' books do and think and somehow merged my personality thoughts and actions to fit, as some kind of attempt to seek attention and affection.
Ummm... No. The problem is, there is a HUGE stereotype and stigma created and it goes so far and so deep that I have met Psychiatrists that live by the notion that there must be something in my past, or my environment that makes me the way I am, else I simply can not be the way I am.
Bollocks to that, I say. I have lived my life and no amount of digging will reveal anything untoward at all. My problem is purely chemical. My brain has a chemical imbalance - that, is the sense in which I say I have a mental illness. At least a part of my problem is dealt with by medicine. Everything else is dealing with the way this has distorted my thinking (for example, I am due to attend an 'anxiety course', by which one learns mechanisms to deal with anxiety, not by which one is given lots of anxiety and expected to somehow magically come out unscathed). It has nothing to do with 'coming to terms with my past'.
If anything, this is probably part of why every time I go to a counsellor or psychotherapist they come back with the fact that it is 'not suited to me'. Of course it isn't. There is nothing to dig up. Of course I am not going to suddenly peel back like and Onion and reveal some hidden gem we can work through. There is no gem. Well, that, and I am ruddy difficult to get talking in the first place. Sure, I can type about myself here, but if you sat with me and expected me to talk about myself you would quickly find that I would have to know and trust you a LOT before the walls were moved and I would reveal anything.
Maybe one day I will consider myself to have enough life experience to even this disproportionate balance. I am not at that point yet. I am only 27 - There is apparently a lot more life to live, however much I may kick and scream about it.
And as a completely aside note - my legs are complaining from yesterday's bout of exercise so I guess it must have done some good. Key now is to try to make some kind of habit of it.
I came out of the shop with more than £10 worth of books and an 4GB SD card (hp) for whatever it is one of those can be used for in my little eepc.
Whilst browsing the somewhat depressing selection of books my local WHSmith holds, I came to the conclusion that in every single one of the 'woes of my life' book, the person in question had been abused and horrifically treated and this is attributed as the cause for whatever mental illness and/or spate of self-harm they have had. It occurred to me that there are far too few books out there about people who have or do suffer from some type of mental illness, or who have been swallowed whole by the addiction of self-harm without having been abused, abandoned or somehow hit over the head with a mallet or the worst of societies parenting.
I have a mental illness (woohoo... ?) and yet I have at no point in my life been abused. I have had good parenting, nothing major or tragic has happened in my life and I am pretty sure I have never been hit over the head with a mallet of any kind. So, one can see where the problem lies. I am often faced with the stereotype that because I do not come from a broken family, because I have not been abused, because I am intelligent and able to 'function' (by which they mean, I go to work) I somehow do not qualify for the term 'mentally ill'. Better yet, I have been accused of being a hypochondriac, an attention seeker and worse yet, I have been told that I have taken on board the very things the people in all these 'woe is me' books do and think and somehow merged my personality thoughts and actions to fit, as some kind of attempt to seek attention and affection.
Ummm... No. The problem is, there is a HUGE stereotype and stigma created and it goes so far and so deep that I have met Psychiatrists that live by the notion that there must be something in my past, or my environment that makes me the way I am, else I simply can not be the way I am.
Bollocks to that, I say. I have lived my life and no amount of digging will reveal anything untoward at all. My problem is purely chemical. My brain has a chemical imbalance - that, is the sense in which I say I have a mental illness. At least a part of my problem is dealt with by medicine. Everything else is dealing with the way this has distorted my thinking (for example, I am due to attend an 'anxiety course', by which one learns mechanisms to deal with anxiety, not by which one is given lots of anxiety and expected to somehow magically come out unscathed). It has nothing to do with 'coming to terms with my past'.
If anything, this is probably part of why every time I go to a counsellor or psychotherapist they come back with the fact that it is 'not suited to me'. Of course it isn't. There is nothing to dig up. Of course I am not going to suddenly peel back like and Onion and reveal some hidden gem we can work through. There is no gem. Well, that, and I am ruddy difficult to get talking in the first place. Sure, I can type about myself here, but if you sat with me and expected me to talk about myself you would quickly find that I would have to know and trust you a LOT before the walls were moved and I would reveal anything.
Maybe one day I will consider myself to have enough life experience to even this disproportionate balance. I am not at that point yet. I am only 27 - There is apparently a lot more life to live, however much I may kick and scream about it.
And as a completely aside note - my legs are complaining from yesterday's bout of exercise so I guess it must have done some good. Key now is to try to make some kind of habit of it.
Friday, 1 January 2010
Things to do when you are dancing
So, tomorrow is Saturday, and the last one before the larger majority of us in the UK have to return to the world of work on Monday... after far too long a time to be spoilt out of the habit of getting up and out and being focused on anything for very long at all.
So, things this Mouse has to do before Monday are:
Lets embrace this little glimpse of hyper while it is here and do with it what is best done! What do you think? After all, they nearly always come before a bad crash, so why not use them for their best?
If it all goes wrong, there is always Monument bridge to sit awaiting.
So, things this Mouse has to do before Monday are:
- Go for a jog of one kind or another (this is ignoring the forecast of -1 and snow/rain)
- Tidy bedroom, as it won't get done after Monday.
- Sleep - ideally, else Monday will be torture.
- Sort out lunches for the week - Cous-cous is my friend.
- Resist temptation to log on to work e-mails and make self panic about the approach of Monday
- Sort sugars out - as much as anyone can in two days....
Lets embrace this little glimpse of hyper while it is here and do with it what is best done! What do you think? After all, they nearly always come before a bad crash, so why not use them for their best?
If it all goes wrong, there is always Monument bridge to sit awaiting.
Wednesday, 23 December 2009
Pre-Christmas
I really hate this time of year.
The weather is shite, my lack of working ears mean I fall over all the time as the ground is icy. It being cold means my sugars go all over the place, so I feel tired and lethargic... and all of my usual escapism's just stop working or are completely impractical (i.e jogging, see above inability to walk).
Add that to the fact that this is a time of year when everyone is stressed and yet meant to be the most sociable they will ever be in the year. My entire family gets together and everything is meant to be sunshine and daisies when I barely get through 30 minutes without wanting to run away and cry.
There is an insistence on buying presents that are always either too much or not enough to give to said person.
I am not a bah humbug person... honestly, I love seeing my family and I like making others happy, so buying them gifts to make them smile is a good thing.
I just hate that it is the middle of winter when half of my thoughts are leaning towards jumping of Monument Bridge. It is everything crammed together all at once. People shop as though the shops will never be open again (when in fact they are closed for all of two days) and you wonder why my social anxiety hits the roof and I want to just curl up in my room and never come out again.
I am so anxious my heart is in near constant palpitations and my chest-tightens. I am shaky and tense - but too tired to have that tension released.
If last year is anything to go by, I will barely make it through Christmas without cracking. New Year I am worst with, who wants the thought of going through it all over again, like some broken record. I have things that are being planned for the year ahead... but my brain has trouble seeing past the end of this year... It is part of my illness, I have trouble with time. I get a mental block where anything past x date is too hard for me to conceive.
It is a black void. A nothingness.
I do not want to end up in Hospital again (and if I do, I want to be on a proper ward and not just lumped on a random one and left for four days like last time as they have no space)... but I can only put on a shield for so much to face everyone before I crack.
This year feels worse. There is less time to relax. This evening we see my Uncle. Tomorrow we are seeing someone else. Christmas day we see a whole mass of family. Boxing day is with my Sister & husband, day after my Cousin and her family and baby et al... then it is New Year.
Gah! *heads desk*
I had a dream last night that I made it through it all and the first day back at work the Reaper was with me the entire day and said "You know we are going" Just as I got off the bus at Monument. My meds seem to squash them so much during the day - but they can't stop my dreams, it seems.
Part of me is going: 'Have a good time, be cheery, be better, make an effort and stop being so damn miserable!' and the other half really just wants to give up. I am so conflicted I am spending half of my time hidden in my room crying and wondering why we have to go through with it and when I will be able to breath properly in town again.
If this is the most medication and coping mechanisms can do for me... I am not sure I want another year feeling like this. If the Drs can't do anything else and this is the best we can get -- - Is this what we have been fighting for? Because I am not sure it is worth it.
The weather is shite, my lack of working ears mean I fall over all the time as the ground is icy. It being cold means my sugars go all over the place, so I feel tired and lethargic... and all of my usual escapism's just stop working or are completely impractical (i.e jogging, see above inability to walk).
Add that to the fact that this is a time of year when everyone is stressed and yet meant to be the most sociable they will ever be in the year. My entire family gets together and everything is meant to be sunshine and daisies when I barely get through 30 minutes without wanting to run away and cry.
There is an insistence on buying presents that are always either too much or not enough to give to said person.
I am not a bah humbug person... honestly, I love seeing my family and I like making others happy, so buying them gifts to make them smile is a good thing.
I just hate that it is the middle of winter when half of my thoughts are leaning towards jumping of Monument Bridge. It is everything crammed together all at once. People shop as though the shops will never be open again (when in fact they are closed for all of two days) and you wonder why my social anxiety hits the roof and I want to just curl up in my room and never come out again.
I am so anxious my heart is in near constant palpitations and my chest-tightens. I am shaky and tense - but too tired to have that tension released.
If last year is anything to go by, I will barely make it through Christmas without cracking. New Year I am worst with, who wants the thought of going through it all over again, like some broken record. I have things that are being planned for the year ahead... but my brain has trouble seeing past the end of this year... It is part of my illness, I have trouble with time. I get a mental block where anything past x date is too hard for me to conceive.
It is a black void. A nothingness.
I do not want to end up in Hospital again (and if I do, I want to be on a proper ward and not just lumped on a random one and left for four days like last time as they have no space)... but I can only put on a shield for so much to face everyone before I crack.
This year feels worse. There is less time to relax. This evening we see my Uncle. Tomorrow we are seeing someone else. Christmas day we see a whole mass of family. Boxing day is with my Sister & husband, day after my Cousin and her family and baby et al... then it is New Year.
Gah! *heads desk*
I had a dream last night that I made it through it all and the first day back at work the Reaper was with me the entire day and said "You know we are going" Just as I got off the bus at Monument. My meds seem to squash them so much during the day - but they can't stop my dreams, it seems.
Part of me is going: 'Have a good time, be cheery, be better, make an effort and stop being so damn miserable!' and the other half really just wants to give up. I am so conflicted I am spending half of my time hidden in my room crying and wondering why we have to go through with it and when I will be able to breath properly in town again.
If this is the most medication and coping mechanisms can do for me... I am not sure I want another year feeling like this. If the Drs can't do anything else and this is the best we can get -- - Is this what we have been fighting for? Because I am not sure it is worth it.
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