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.

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.

Ooops

Well... that never happened...

Dust and Cobwebs

It has been so long since I have posted here. Stupidly long. Neglect amidst a mile of changes and many more miles of confusion and decision and chaos. As is life in all its ebbs and flows.

Time to dust the cob-webs from this thing and start again, and what better time than the first week of a new job. When my life feels like it is moving somwhere, and carrying me with it. Winds finally in the sails, even if the direction is not quite set yet.

Man the oars, I am coming back in.

So: new job, I am now an EA and the first letter of that alone rings excitement for me, as it is a step up (from PA) only a little one, but a step nonetheless and one I am proud of, as I have worked hard for it, and will work hard for it going forward - I picked a busy role. Busy is good for me, as it stops me ruminating and dragging myself down into the dark hollows of my soul and thoughts. That place still full of cobwebs and dust and dank from mould and misuses. The places in the soul we long to forget and have no real use or value for beyond the occasional trip below into the gallows to try to find something long forgotten, and barely missed.

I have some fantastic memories in there, somewhere. It just isn't wise for me to spend too long there. It is destructive for me. So, better to be too busy to have the time to wander the back-corridors and alleys of my own psyche. That is what I have now.

I am hoping that by being in a new place, with new friendly and enthusiastic people, doing the thing I like to do best (PA type duties, with lots of Governance and minuting.... Yes, I know, I am a weird one) I can refind those good memories, refind the smile on my face and the cheeky nature I know I have. That I can relight all the fires and shine back to those long forgotten hallows - those happy memories.

Time to dust those cobwebs, methinks.

Knowlingly alone

I have never felt more alone and confused. Today, I felt surrounded by monsters and amidst the fear and disgust I have come to find normal in their presence, I felt the shock and horror that no-one else had noticed. How could they not see? How could they not spot the discrepancies that scream at me so loudly I can barely look.

What makes this worse is that more recently I have begun to spot them amidst my colleagues and this is making work more and more difficult for me. I find it hard to look at them, to focus on what they are saying and to answer their questions without wanting to run, or scream and call them out to everyone as the impostor that they are.

Today, work was bad and then the journey between work and home tipped me from unsettled to just plain confused and alone. Silent in my own quaking fear as I found myself picking out more and more. It has got worse over the time I have been seeing them. At first it was just one or two, the initial taking over of the odd person here and there. The silent testers, to ensure they would not be noticed, I would assume. Of course it worked. No-one notices, so they they have begun to take over more and more.

I begin to fear for how long this will go on. How many do they need before they move on to whatever the next part of their plan is. I do not know the plan and I know of no way to stop it, or them. I can barely bring myself to write this. I am too scared.

Do they know yet that anyone can see past their glamour. Can spot them for their inconsistencies and wrongness? Can smell them? I am scared of what would happen if they knew. Would that make me a threat to their plans?

I feel tearful and alone. Sad and low and ultimately scared and disgusted that this can be happening around us. Increasingly. Slowly but definitely. One or two, I could ignore, I could shake off. I can't anymore. The colleague is that way now every-time I see them. There is no come or go, no 'what if it was just me in a moment'. There are too many moments and no-one else is noticing....

Flirting with inertia

I feel lethargic. Stuck in the vacuous cavern of my own melancholia. I sleep and I am restless, I move to try to focus and achieve an activity, for work, or play, and I want to curl up and sleep.

A restless existence that flirts with its own inertia. Constantly tidal waved by thoughts of my own decline and descent into madness, thoughts of death and how to get there and thoughts of what can be done to stop myself from swimming constantly against the tide.

I have tried to do all the things you are meant to do. I told my psych when I last saw them. I told my GP when I last saw them. I have informed HR and my boss. I have tried, and failed, on numerous occasions to call a crisis line. I have no voice for them. There is nothing but a gaping hole of a wound to my soul that I can find no band aid big enough for.

I am fast running out of fight. I know this, as I have been in this puddle of low before. I know the routine and run-of-the-mill stages of my own depression. Yet I can do nothing to stop it but watch and hold on for the ride.

I know that if this time round I reach the stage where I am taken to hospital, like last time. I want to be properly admitted. I only know this, because it is the one thing I walked away from last time, that I wish I had not. Maybe it seems odd to some people. Why would I want to be admitted to a proper ward. Simple. I want it recorded, I want it taken seriously. I do not want it brushed aside as an impulsive act or moment of indecision. Frankly, I spend so much of my life pondering ways of killing myself, it would be nice for the health profession to put as much thought into ways of helping.

I will stop now, or I will end up ranting, or crying, or both.

I just needed to write something. While it was here in my mind.

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.