The Battle Plan: The NHS, the DWP and me

Thank you for inspiration! I shall work my way through it.

It’s only just occurred to me that many of you don’t know anything about my situation, or how I got here. I talk about treatment constantly, but have never clarified what treatment actually is. So, allow me to explain, in brief, where I’m from, what a Crisis Team is and what my treatment is at the moment. Some of this I have gone into before, so consider this a summary, a “previously, on Mentally Interesting….” if you will.

It started with hospitalisation. Well, technically, it all started years ago in a land far, far away, across the billowing winds of the Irish Sea, rolling sewerage onto the coasts, the crisp air punctuated by indecipherable Northern Irish swearing and sloping shadows of hand in pocket tracksuits stretching across the grey sand.

Inland, in a council estate in West Belfast, you had me, clinging with arse-white knuckles to disappearing, yet oblivious, sanity.

I think that some people are born with manic depression. I suspect I might be one of those people, as I was an odd, clingy, temperamental child (with emphasis on the “mental”). But I didn’t become “ill” until I was twelve. I developed a pathological fear of being seen and lived in anoraks, refusing to go out until it was dark. I hated the way I looked and made every effort to hide myself. I had started self harming, and then depression came. I was bullied, very badly, until that point, for various “too”s- being too small, too smart, too poor, too fat. My self esteem was non-existent and then, depression and self hatred seemed utterly natural, an expected reaction to events in my life. Nobody, including myself, thought anything of it.

In the years that followed, I was caught in the cycle of classic manic depression; swinging from one pole to another, constantly, without pause. My manic episodes were extreme, blotted into psychosis. I didn’t sleep, I worked feverishly, I talked, and talked, and nobody understood me, I was grandiose, inhabitant of the colour-running world of hallucinations and delusions, I ran riot, I had risky encounters, I was openly and legendarily mad. The months of mania would inevitably be followed by months of depression, and so it continued.

When I was sixteen, I was diagnosed with a mood disorder and given medication to not take. Anyway, from then I knew I had manic depression. Well, knowing is a strong word. Insight, they say, is the beginning of recovery. But insight is not admitting, “I am an alcoholic” or, “I am a manic depressive” and then continuing on the same lines. Then it is a trite excuse, and is not really believed because the implications of both are overwhelming. There’s work involved, medications to be taken, a life to be changed and altered, to be lived differently. I had no insight into what was wrong with me.

About three years ago, my moods started to accelerate, with months becoming weeks, becoming days, and becoming constant. The “euphoric” mania was replaced with dysphoric mania, or mixed episodes and I lost all sense of stability. In 2006, my dad died. I was already fairly ill then, but in the next months, I went to hell. I suffered a severe mixed episode that turned psychotic and ended up with me slashing my throat.

So, we’re back to hospitalisation, and here is where my treatment began.

I was in hospital for a few days. It was in Haringey, a borough of London notorious for its bad mental health services. It certainly lived up to its reputation. The hospital itself was a dreadful, dour shithole, staffed with inattentive nurses who basically let us wander aimlessly around the halls or spend hours in the smoking room. Taking a shower, I couldn’t get a towel so had to wrap my bedsheet around me, then sleep on it later. Medication time was the only time we really saw the nurses; the rest of the time, the office door was locked so the only option was to knock, wait for fifteen minutes, then slink away, disappointed. The medication itself was geared towards killing mania and psychosis, in my case. I took Haloperidol, an antipsychotic, and Lorazepam, which, as far as I know, is a sleeping type medication.

I was diagnosed as suffering from bipolar I disorder (generally seen as the most severe type, however, I think this is up for debate) by the psychiatrist and then discharged into the Crisis Team, who are a group of nurses and doctors that look after you at home, rather than in hospital. I had lost my job prior to my hospitalisation, and they rather stupidly urged me to look for another, even though I was clearly unwell. I was considered to be manic by the time I went home.

The Crisis Team’s main job was to administer Lithium. Lithium is generally the first medication to be prescribed after a diagnosis of Bipolar I. It’s considered effective, but it wasn’t in my case. Mentally, it did nothing, but physically, it made me shake and vomit. By November, I had found a new job, and shamefully I looked like an alcoholic at my desk, my hand tremors were so bad. I had to phone in sick on days that I suffered from lithium toxicity, which is when the levels of Lithium build up in the blood.

In the first few months after my diagnosis, I was in vicious denial that I had manic depression. I had spent my whole life thinking, this is the way I am, and there’s nothing wrong with me. I had refused time and time again to go see a doctor, even when those around me begged me to. To go from that to being a psychiatric patient was humiliating. I had always maintained that if something was wrong with me, it was minor and transient. Manic depression was neither minor nor transient, and I could not accept it.

I asked frequently for second opinions, telling the Crisis Team that the doctors had got it wrong. They did humour me, and I saw another two doctors, who both diagnosed me with the same thing, which was bipolar I rapid cycling. I railed against it, crying, screaming, kicking and scratching, yelling at anyone who mentioned it. It took me a little while to get my head around it, longer still to gain true insight into my illness, which, even now, I sometimes lose. Things are “mild” to me, even when they leave me housebound. I’m still sometimes unwilling to accept being ill at all.

My moods were not improving at all, and at the start of 2007, I had a manic episode and lost my job. My relationship with Rob was suffering, too. The tailend of mania was a trapped feeling, an aggressive teeth-baring type of mood. We had gone from fun couple to doctor and patient. My moods were cycling badly, and the medication made me sleepy, incapable of sex and highly irritable. So I moved out and we split up. I wanted to give him his life back. I felt ashamed of myself because I couldn’t be wild and wonderful anymore, even though he’d deny that I ever was. I hated that I had to live quietly in order to be sane, and I hated myself for the trouble and suffering I was causing him, and for the cold, dull feeling I had in my chest, the almost cruelty of emotions that mania can bring, and leave, even when it slips away. We got back together some months later, but it’s unlikely we’ll be living together again, not for a long time. I still hate myself for that period of time, even though it was necessary for me to move out.

It was also galling to know that things I thought were part of my personality were part of an illness that they wanted to medicate out of existence. I had to slow down, when I’d been running around for years and the energy and quickness I’d been known for had to go, amongst other things. I had to stop drinking because it worsened my mood and fucked with my medication, and I’m from a group of social drinkers, and I feel old and boring. I’m twenty two and should be reckless and irresponsible, getting pissed and falling about, but I’d probably end up back in hospital. Funny how a few years ago I’d never even have thought about that, and now I’m petrified of it.

I was assigned a CPN. I wish I had a good word to say about her, but I don’t. I saw her once a month, sometimes less, and the appointments would be for fifteen minutes, in which she would nod and take notes. It confused me, the whole thing. I didn’t know why I was seeing her because our meetings achieved nothing. She kept advising me to get a job, oblivious to the fact that I kept losing them. From November 2006-September 2007, I was fired from a total of seven jobs, variously due to manic and depressive behaviour. My manic behaviour, in the setting of work, involved me seriously overstepping the mark on many occasions, for example, this. I would talk and talk, confuse people, disclose intimate details and act inappropriately . I worked hard but could not concentrate, so the work suffered. Depressive behaviour meant I could barely get out of bed, and social anxiety would kick in so I was frequently having panic attacks. I was noticeably a wreck which personally and professionally confines you to a doomed straitjacket. People are personally uncomfortable around someone who is clearly sick, and professionally, I couldn’t perform.

I lived in my own place by May. It was in a new borough, Islington, so my care was to be transfered. The whole process took six months, by which time I was on the verge of homelessness because I kept losing jobs.

When I met my new CPN, I had just come out of an episode of psychotic depression. The old CPN had given me antidepressants, but that kicked me into an furious hypomania, for the second time, effectively taking antidepressants off the menu forever. I’d tried to kill myself by overdosing on Lithium and I didn’t tell anyone for a while. When I did, it pissed people off. I guess it’s just a fearful reaction, but I felt very alone. So for that period of time, I relied on the Samaritans.

Islington was different, though. I was on Depakote and Seroquel, which was working, to a degree. My swings were becoming less severe, yet still very frequent. I was still completely unstable and the work situation was making everything worse. I’d get a job only to lose it, and each time, it chipped away at my self esteem. The uncertainty of finance, uncertainty of everything, was driving me mad.

The first time I met with the Islington team, I was introduced to the psychiatrist and my CPN. They explained what their approach would be; weekly appointments with the CPN and periodic reviews by the psychiatrist. They asked me about my living and work situation; a cold bedsit, trying to find a job.

I am on an Enhanced CPA which means I see my CPN frequently. She monitors my mood and steps in when things get bad, like recently, when she was considering admitting me to the Crisis Centre, and she called in the Crisis Team. I see the psychiatrist for medication reviews. Islington has given me one of my Mentalist Commandments: Mentalist: know thy services. The Enhanced CPA also means that technically I’m a risk to myself and others. It’s true! Uncomfortably true. I’ve harassed random passersby in manic times, gone home with total strangers and psychotically believed people were out to get me, therefore lashing out at them. It’s that kind of thing that makes me squirm a little bit, to know what I’m capable of.

One of the first things that the Islington team did was to take me out of work. The psychiatrist advised me to stay off until I was stable enough for work and wrote a sicknote. The previous CPN’s encouragement to get jobs was discarded. The new CPN agreed with the psychiatrist, and set about helping me get benefits.

This was a chore. I applied at the beginning of October and was turned down for Incapacity Benefit due to a lack of National Insurance contributions. They wanted to know everything about me, from my income (nil) to the colour of my knickers. At this point, I was surviving on kindnesses and donations to this blog.

The DWP proceeded to lose all my forms so I had to start again. My CPN helped me with everything, writing letters and applying for DLA for me. It took two months before I saw a penny, and two months or rent I couldn’t pay. That period of time was incredibly stressful.

I am off work for the forseeable future. The opinion of the psychiatrist and CPN is that I should be stable for at least six months before attempting to work. I’ve managed a month at most so far! The problem of going back to work before being well was made abundantly clear in the previous months; I was fired a lot, and it meant I had no money for bills and rent. The instability of my situation reflected the instability of my mood. If I go and work before I’m able, I risk losing my home. If I ever live with Rob again and try to work before I can, then he might be homeless too.

Although I come across as very coherent, my illness is classed as severe because it relapses constantly. I have had very few periods of stable mood, nothing coming to over a month. They’re certainly not as severe as they used to be, but that’s not particularly useful when my moods still fluctuate massively. It might not sound bad to you, but consider the average case of bipolar I disorder. They have nine episodes in their lifetime. I’ve knocked that out in a year. I mention work frequently, because I do feel guilty for being dole scum. I remember how proud of me my dad was when I got my first job. I feel as though he would be ashamed of me now. But my CPN and psychiatrist tell me not to even consider it right now, and that it’s okay that I need to claim benefits. They’ve backed me up a lot, and have written a lot of letters attesting to what’s going on, so that makes me feel less guilty.

It doesn’t mean I am lying on my arse all day, though. I make an effort to write and do odds and sods for other people when I can. It doesn’t translate into disciplined work, though, not right now. This period has been the longest I’ve been off work. I’ve worked almost constantly since I was seventeen.

The other problems are my medication- which is now Lamictal and Seroquel. Seroquel is very sedating, so I can barely function in mornings. I take 100mg of Lamictal and 400mg of Seroquel. Occasionally, others are thrown in during bad times, such as Valium to quell anxiety.

Recently, my CPN helped me move out of my bedsit and to get benefits for a new flat. My bedsit had a broken window, was freezing and damp. It wasn’t exactly suitable either, as I had to share with people. My periodic paranoia, and the big fuck-off self harm scars over me make that extremely difficult. She made a case to the council, and since my benefits changed and I was awarded Severe Disability Premium (which you get if you’re on middle or high rate DLA, as I am since I often need people to look after me) I can, for now, live on my own in a flat, which I do. The Severe Disability Premium negates the Under 25 rule, which says I am not entitled to my own place. Most under 25s are students or live with their parents, so they don’t see the point in allowing them to rent their own place. It’s one of those strange discriminations.

My treatment takes up quite a lot of time and if I had a job, the chances are I’d have to quit being treated for this. I am starting therapy soon. My CPN is ace, and Islington is a world away from Haringey. But because I can’t take medication for depression, the only thing I can do is learn coping mechanisms. The practicalities, the getting dressed, is hard. So therapy will be helpful for that. There are other things in my life, manic depression aside, that I find hard to deal with. My dad’s death and Brendan’s death are things I need help with, things I rarely talk about. It’ll also be helpful for the periodic times that I am overwhelmed totally by the realities of my situation, and I want to flush all the medication down the toilet and burn my medical records. There are times in which I just sit and cry because I didn’t ask for this, and because I have fucked up so much because of it. I expected my life to be totally different than this; I was meant to do so well at school and university, but because I was ill, I scraped seven GCSEs, got kicked out of college and put my family through hell. I have to take medication pretty much forever, and even missing two doses dramatically worsens my mental health. That irritates me. That stuff is sometimes very difficult to face up to, as is the knowing that all I can do with this is manage it and not cure it. That terrifies me. Manic depression is episodic, and I have no idea if these frequent, less extreme mood swings are the best I’ll get, or if, one day soon, as in the past, I will be blindsighted by a massive episode of depression and mania that will proceed to ruin my life.

So, the plan is:

1) Continue seeing the CPN weekly, who gives me emotional and practical support.

2) Call in the Crisis Team when things get out of hand.

3) Frequent medication reviews and adjustments. I get some input into this because my medication has made me gain an awful lot of weight. I also have problems with self image (to put it mildly- I had Body Dysmorphic Disorder, though I’d pause in saying I still suffer from it) and eating, so gaining more weight isn’t exactly helpful. It does make me squidy and comfortable to lean on, though. My hair started to fall out when I was taking Depakote, too, so I had to take vitamin supplements for that. Mentalist medication really makes you sexy, doesn’t it.

4) Not looking for work until I’m stable, but still trying to do stuff to keep my brain from liquidising. Attempting to do stuff to keep my body from liquidising, though that’s difficult because I often become fearful of leaving my flat. I’m working on that, though.

5) Keep Rob informed of “crisis plans”- i.e having the CPN’s number and knowing about the Crisis Centre.

6) Getting therapy to learn how to cope with living with manic depression, amongst other things.

So, at the moment, that’s kind of what my life revolves around. It’s a lot to me, because I went from someone who even refused to see a GP to someone who has a nurse and a bag of medication. My CPN has hope for me because I have decent insight into my illness. Recovery is an ambiguous word. No one has really defined it for me so far. The general opinion of the people who look after me is that, for now, I need them and that my mood swings are more in control of me than I am of them. When that dynamic swifts, or if it does, then “recovery” might have some meaning. God, it’s going to be a bloody load of work.

Zombie

Last week, I asked my friends for some advice on how to deal with depression. You think I’d be an old hand at it now, but I’ve never really been good at coping when I’m depressed. I just pull on my rattiest, most stained pyjamas and shut the outside world out. I can’t take antidepressants, therefore cannot medicate the crap out of myself, so managing is all I can do.

The most consistent piece of advice I got was to force myself to do things. Since I’ve been a virtual recluse recently, I decided to force myself out of the house, and I did so in style.

I spent Friday lumbering around an outdoor set being a zombie extra for a new mini series written by Charlie Brooker. He’s the excellent writer of TVGoHome and the not-so-excellent Nathan Barley. A friend had told me about it and I’d planned to do it before I became depressed. I debated with myself for most of Friday; it was really a beautiful day but still I felt extremely anxious. I’d been bankrupting myself on private taxis for the short journey to Rob’s, so how would I cope with public transport? How would I cope meeting new people when I could barely muster up the courage to speak to my friends?

It turned out to be a lot of fun, and nothing bad happened. We assembled in Whitehall, Trafalgar Square, and, despite my living here for over five years, I had to stop and ask for directions. It took four attempts; two tourists and one suit who actually barked, “Sorry, I’m very busy!” at me, before I found someone kind enough to help. Their help amounted to pointing, “There!” and I turned round, and there! it was indeed.

There were about one hundred people with nothing better to do on a Friday milling around. I was alone, so tried to shoot friendly glances at people, hoping they’d let me tag along with him. By chance, I spotted someone I know from Verbwhores, so I ended up floating around with him. Or stumbling around, since I was a zombie.

In short, we spent seven hours lurching around a coldly lit outside set, bathed in fake, syrupy blood with our arms outstretched. I met two students who kept making me laugh so I was a fairly useless zombie. Every so often I’d dissolve into giggling and pray that a camera was nowhere near me. My height proved a handicap once more, so I slipped to the back of the crowd and aimlessly ran with the rest of them. During the first crushing wave of zombie wailing, I was pressed uncomfortably to the front of a metal gate, while someone gyrated behind me. Whoever that was owes me dinner and a phone call.

As it’s summer, and let’s face it, because I’m a chainsmoker, my asthma was playing up. I felt like an old granny as I wheezed my way across the concrete struggling to breathe, probably making me a rather convincing zombie. I got let off the hook from playing a dead body as I’d cough every few minutes, rather ruining the whole corpse effect. So I spent the end of the night drinking tea and indulging in my nervous habit- talking constantly- which pissed a few people off. I tried not to worry, though, and decided that it didn’t matter because I’d never see them again. Many people asked my least favourite question in the world: “What do you do?” Answering breezily with, “I’m off work because I have severe manic depression that I can’t control” elicits averted eyes and an unsubtle sloping off. So I answered with the next best thing- “I’m a writer”. It sounds so pretentious, though, so I always feel the need to puncture any glamourous illusions that they may have by clarifying that I write about mental health. This is true, it’s not a lie. I write a well-known blog, I write odds and sods for mental health publications and my writings will be the basis of a one off Radio 4 play (if that goes ahead). I spent most of my sane time writing, all my aspirations are to be a writer, and yet I feel like a fraud whenever I say so.

Later, I sat on a bench in Trafalgar Square with my new student friends, rambling and giggling as pigeons with revenge in their eyes rained shit down on Jon’s trousers. Then a walk across the Thames at sunrise, deserted, desolate, beautiful.

I feel a lot better now, and quite proud that I managed to get out, stay out and not panic. I was loathe to get home alone at night, so I deliberately stood my ground until the morning when the tubes would be up and running again and I’d have a carriage to myself. Since then, I’ve spent a day in the park and got the tube again. The bleakness is lifting, and I am glad. The Crisis Team are coming around tomorrow, armed with medication, and hopefully it shall be their last visit for a while. I am dressed, made up and I have been having stuff to eat. It is a vast improvement on the last three weeks. They did say that Lamictal should be taking effect by now, so it’s probably that, in combination with actively trying to help myself. I have been lapsing in and out of it in the past few days, but more out than in. This is good.

Anyway, here are some zombie photographs for you. People quite suit bloodied faces. Maybe this should be my new night time look.

This is going to be my photo for Zombies Reunited.

Inspiration

I’m on the verge of quitting this blog since my half-arsed entries and wittering about depression when nothing has changed is really beginning to annoy me.

So, To give me some inspiration for new posts, I’m throwing this one over to you lot: ask me a question or give me a topic and I promise to write a blog post about it (relevant stuff would be best!).

P.S:

And on and on and on and on…

I feel depressed, still. I felt alright for a day or two, but it’s back. Getting bored now. It’s not that I can’t enjoy anything. I can, I do smile. But immediately after I slip back into this. I feel like a puppet, the mouth being jerked by invisible strings.

I keep thinking about just running off somewhere, lying on a bed in a seaside hotel and just not moving for days. I have enough money in my bank account to do it, but not the energy. I wonder if a trip away from here would sort me out, but it’s not here that’s getting me down. It’s me.

The Crisis Team came again yesterday. I was angling to be discharged, because I just want to be left alone now, and I don’t like this fuss, don’t like being asked how I feel all the time when the answer isn’t changing. But I ended up crying. I tried to wriggle out of having manic depression. I spent yesterday researching it and trying vainly to disprove it. I compared myself to all the case studies and tried to draw the conclusion that they are wrong about me, and have always been wrong about me. But I know deep down that were not. I wonder if it was worth being diagnosed in the first place. But it wouldn’t have made a difference. At least the drugs keep me quiet. There have been no life ruining episodes of mania for a while. And it is mania, and it is depression, and I can’t get out it, no matter how much I want to. It is too long, too much for life and too uncertain.

They talked about recovery. I don’t even know what that means. Less extreme episodes, less frequent episodes, no episodes, getting on with a normal life despite it. They said what is happening now is that I am being disabled by it, as I kicked myself again for just not going outside. It feels very far away. The last time I was in the care of the Crisis Team was when I left hospital, almost two years ago. They said I should be better in two months, could go back to work. That makes me laugh, now. I remember lying to the staff in the hospital, telling them that they had to let me out, I had a job to go back to, when I didn’t.

It’s a bad idea to read about mental health because it makes me so angry. I get sick and offended by people talking about “labelling” themselves with names of mental illness. Schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression, schizoaffective, they’re all labels. Cancer, diabetes, asthma, MS, they’re illnesses. So what is happening to me. They just gave me the wrong label. If they renounce it, peel it off my forehead, I’ll be right as rain.

Since they halved my dose of Seroquel, I haven’t been sleeping very well. I feel tired but I’m not good at relaxing and going back to bed doesn’t do anything, I just sit there thinking. They talked about adding an antidepressant, but they can’t. They make me high, and I would almost welcome that. At least mania is forgetful. I can barely recall my manic episodes. So I forget how bad they are and just remember the guilt and destruction they left behind.

Tomorrow Hannah is coming out again, and I am going to attempt go out and do something. I am nervous, like I am always nervous when I am going to do something.

Can you tell I can’t be bothered to write in here anymore? Or anywhere, for that matter.

THIS IS SO BORING.

Over or under

EDIT: Referring to America here…

This is interesting.

I kind of agree that bipolar disorder is sometimes diagnosed so you can chuck medication at the person instead of investing in psychotherapy that similar looking personality disorders often respond to. Likewise, bipolar misdiagnosed as borderline is unhelpful because the antidepressants used to treat BPD can kick a bipolar person into mania.

I also think that bipolar disorder is overdiagnosed, and I always have thought this. GPs should not diagnose mental illnesses, and the overdiagnosis and light way it is dealt with deeply trivializes the illness (and it is an illness, yet it’s treated in a different way to schizophrenia, which is considered “serious”. I am probably wrong, but I have often thought of bipolar disorder as a sort of cousin to schizophrenia, since it can encompass persistent psychosis, and there is the overlap of schizoaffective disorder).

People have problems, but because they’re angry, or emotional, or unstable, it doesn’t mean that they have manic depression.

It bothers me that drugging people into submission is seen as the way to go rather than considerate helping of that person, which requires more thought. Drug companies are the main players that are pushing this, “Oh wait, you don’t have depression, you have bipolar disorder! Here, have some of our antipsychotics too!”

In a survey of 700 people, 145 indicated they’d been diagnosed with bipolar disorder yet Zimmerman found that only 43.4 percent of those diagnosed with bipolar disorder had been diagnosed by a doctor using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV.

Mental illness should not be casually diagnosed. It is like other illnesses, it should rigourously be tested for. Since no clinical tests exist, well, employ the most stringest psychiatric tests and then diagnose. Of course, some people don’t present the same so you have to use your intuition.

I think it’s okay to question your diagnosis and seek a second opinion. Naturally if you think you might have a mental illness and aren’t diagnosed with one, seek a second opinion. Or if you think you’ve been misdiagnosed, or whatever. I did, I didn’t accept my diagnosis of bipolar disorder at first. I had been diagnosed with a “mood disorder” at sixteen, then diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder after a period of hospitalisation. I sought a second opinion, then a third and fourth, because I thought at worst I had clinical depression of some sort (odd, considering I was completely bouncing off the walls when I was diagnosed with manic depression). I actually begged the Crisis Team to get a doctor out to me and recant my diagnosis, so convinced I was that I would be exonerated and lo and behold, not mentally ill. Obviously, as here I am, that didn’t quite work out. They were very through, but still I didn’t believe them. The first and second times, Rob was with me and told them things, so I wanted another opinion. Same diagnosis, again and again, except “rapid cycling” was added. Loads of people were dealing with me at that time, so I did see quite a few doctors.

I also was diagnosed with “borderline traits” by another doctor (I think they were a psychotherapist, not a psychiatrist, but I am not sure), one who didn’t even have my medical file. He still thought I had the same old- bipolar 1 rapid cycling” but tacked on borderline traits. I was pretty pissed at that, not, as some people have said, because I think it’s a negative thing, but because I thought it was inaccurate. My doctor said it would be useful for psychotherapy, but still, I was irritated that I was diagnosed with “traits” which amounted to, as the doctor said, self harm and “impaired attachment”. The latter especially annoyed me as, although I had a difficult relationship with my parents due to my mum’s mentalism and my dad’s alcoholism, the relationships were equally very loving and I care a lot about them, and vice versa. I am not in anyway unstable in my relationships. Yeah, I have disagreements with people, and I’m socially nervous but, for the most part, I’ve had the same friends for years and years, the same views and the same quite stable, nice relationships.

The former two irritated me as well because my self harm has always been more methodical than impulsive, and I think it’s perfectly natural to resort to it when you’re leaden with depression or can’t calm down with energy. And I have always felt that my moods were unstable but not particularly my emotions, if that makes sense. I don’t have massively fluctuating opinions of anybody. All stays pretty much the same.

So I resisted that, and I’m not sure if it still stands. Either way, it hasn’t been mentioned for ages and ages.

I resist any diagnosis of something that I feel doesn’t cause me enough problems to be regarded as “illness”. Manic depression, okay, definitely, shall hold my hands up, it fucks up my life big style. Anxiety and panic, well, I think that’s down to depression. It was recently suggested that I may have a form of agoraphobia, and I refuted this. I have trouble leaving my flat, and often feel paranoid but when I really try, I can manage.

And, to be honest, I sometimes doubt I have manic depression because it’s too “serious” for me. But the people around me and my CPN basically tell me to wise up because in person it’s screamingly obvious that I do have manic depression and it has been for years. Still, it’s hard to accept and sometimes I question the positive aspects of the diagnosis.

I don’t think diagnosis should be made lightly because the implications of them can be far reaching. For example, I know someone who is going for a job and who has signed away medical confidentiality. The problem is, he has psychosis. He’s been to the doctor and didn’t want to be diagnosed with a psychotic illness, so, he has depression and had a psychotic break, even though, secretly, the psychosis is ongoing. He thought, probably rightly, that a diagnosis of psychotic mental illness would impede his job hunting.

However, I think there are many many people out there with undiagnosed mental illness.

As for diagnosing bipolar disorder in children; don’t get me fucking started on that.

P.S: Mood has slipped back down. Oh well. Distraction is good.

P.S

If you link to me, please don’t just link “Pole to Polar”- add the whole Secret Life stuff in, as I want to try and phase out “Pole to Polar”, which will be tough as most of my search terms are that.

Laughing at suicide

My mood has picked up a little, which I attribute to the lack of sleep I’ve had since my Seroquel dose was halved. I was sleeping far too much for a little while, for about fifteen hours a day. When I stop sleeping again, my mood and energy picks up for a moment. Then it either escalates or plummets. Fingers crossed, eh. I’ve been diligently taking medication too. The Crisis Team are coming again tomorrow. If I still feel okay tomorrow, they should leave me alone now.

I am also thinking fairly rationally now, which is good.

I’ve actually gone out two days in a row, which has been a first in the past few months. Yesterday I went to St James’s Park with Rob and we fed squirrels. I absolutely love squirrels. I had never seen one until I moved to London, which was odd as the estate we lived on in Belfast backed onto farmland. I either wasn’t looking or there is a lack of squirrels in West Belfast. The first time I saw a squirrel was in Essex as I walked to work. It was shimmying up a drainpipe in the street, and I ran towards it, fascinated. I wasn’t sure what it was for a second, and then I recognised it as a squirrel. That was a good day.

We crouched near the fence, making those kissy sounds that people instinctively make to attract animals. A passerby had given us some nuts, so we held our hands out, hoping the squirrels would come. And they did, taking the nuts out of our hands with their teeth. I almost passed out with joy. Another squirrel hopped over to Rob and sniffed his empty hand, then loped away, rather disappointed. It was great. The next step in loveliness is a squirrel setting up home in my pocket and deciding to be my best friend. I see squirrels flinging themselves from branches outside my kitchen window, so I am going to buy a bird feeder and hopefully I can make friends with them.

I’m still bogged down in depressive thinking (namely relentless feelings of self hatred that I cannot seem to shake. I think if I kill myself, it will simply be because I can’t live with myself, rather than out of sadness. I set my own teeth on edge) but finding it easier to distract myself from it. I’m good at that. Paranoia is sending me indoors again because people keep laughing at me.

I’ve also pulled back from having fights with friends who voted for Boris Johnson (the likely consequences of such are not good for anybody- either Boris fucks up and London suffers, or he does well and we get a Conservative government in the next general election, which is the most depressing of all thoughts) because I believe in democracy, even when its results make me want to scream.

I’ve been reading some people’s opinions on train suicides; i.e taking yourself out in style. I’ve been on a train that hit someone and was dismayed by my fellow commuter’s attitudes. There was a lot of tutting and glancing at watches. I think that’s rather insensitive when you consider that someone’s unbearable life has just ended.

I think it’s human nature to think of themselves, however. I know that I deal with the awful things in life by taking the piss. I honestly don’t think I’d cope otherwise. I make jokes about my own problems. Usually if I do this around other people, I’m greeted with that kind of uncomfortable silence that by now I’m very used to. I take the highlights of awfulness in my life- such as “funny” episodes of psychosis- and leave out the unfunny stuff, like having nowhere to hang myself so sloping into the kitchen, tying stuff around cupboard doors and hoping that if I kicked it shut hard enough, I might break my neck.

My big sister is the same. We joke about my dad’s death and people think it’s disrespectful. It’s not, it’s just the way we deal with it. He tried to kill himself loads of times (he obviously wasn’t very good at it), so when he finally managed it with drink, we weren’t surprised. It mean that we weren’t devastated, or that we didn’t love our dad. It was tragic and heart breaking. But if I think about it in those terms, all the time, I will go mad. And I find it very, very hard to seriously discuss my dad’s death with anybody, because it’s too painful.

Similarly with Brendan (who died in December), one of the first quips I made was, “One less Christmas present to buy, then”. It’s not crassness, just how else can you cope with it?

So I’m flippant about things, sometimes at inappropriate times. I joke a lot about my illness, even though I find it very far from unfunny indeed. But my humour about it is part defence and I find it hard to switch it off. Even with my CPN I constantly make cracks about really quite terrible things.

It’s quietly, in private, that I feel overwhelmed with sadness at the stuff that has happened in my life. I think that’s true of most people. My twenty two years haven’t exactly been Disney. When I am alone, I am often in tears or in thought. Since my diagnosis, I have been trying to make peace with myself regarding my manic and sometimes depressive, out of control behaviour. And because it’s ongoing, and because I am still heavily under the influence of my moods, that is not easy. I am the same person, either way, but my behaviour is radically different. It’s humiliating and hard to reconcile with. I feel guilty, all the time, for it. I try to understand that it is because I was/am ill, but it was still me.

I don’t really get caught up in this “OMG BIPOLAR IS AWFUL”ness. True as it is. I do sometimes, though, get winded by it. This illness has a one in five suicide rate, and lots of other people with it die as a result of substance abuse (which is high in people with mental illness), heart attacks from stress and obesity aggravated by medications and reckless, manic accidents. That is a fucking travesty, moreso because of the light way its dealt with by the media as some sort of artistic posery. And I do wonder, when will I die and how? Will I end up killing myself (which, despite my grandstanding, is likely) or will I become manic and run into the road (equally likely as I’ve had tons of near misses). Mental illness, across the board, decreases life span. In this study, the average age of death was forty seven. Forty seven, when the average human life span is over seventy years old.

So part of the reason I laugh at this stuff is also because I know that I might commit suicide. No, not just because of “the illness”. I resist it, and have resisted in the past. But there have been at least three times in my short life when I have seriously attempted it. No “cry for help”. I wanted to die. And I often feel that I want to die. I might get better. But I have to live with the fact that I might get worse, and it might be easier to get worse than to get better. I don’t mean that I will decide, “Oh fuck it”, but all it takes it one unexpected manic episode for me to stop taking medication and stop treatment, and my mental health will, as it has done so many times, go downhill. I have been there before. I might be there again. I just don’t know. I do try, quite hard, to get better. I do everything I’m told to help myself, I take my medication, I write about it, I research it, if I start to get bad, I am now getting help. But I am constantly aware of how out of control things get. And also of how unpredictable my severe shifts can be.

Making jokes about it makes it easier on those around me who live with the fear that I will kill myself. Rob now refuses to think about it, though he did for a while, and felt he had no future with me because I didn’t feel I had a future, full stop. I am much better than I was a year or so ago, and that is good, and I acknowledge it. But it does scare me how bad I have been, and how bad I might come again. So I tell funny stories about thinking that Danny John Jules was stalking me, or seeing the Homepride man float around my bedroom, waving at me. And leave out the stuff about seeing my face rot and fall apart, jumping off a multistory for fun and hearing a voice constantly telling me to kill myself. Because it’s scary.

The most depressing stories of the day

0252 Veteran Labour MP Austin Mitchell has a much simpler solution to his party’s woes: “Is suicide a suitable way out?”

I haven’t cared about much lately. The psychiatrist came today, lowered my dose of Seroquel and said I came across as flat. I do care about this, though.

I don’t generally disclose my political views here, and didn’t much discuss voting or the election with anybody online but have been reading with great interest. I was raised in that bizarre tradition of not discussing who you vote for (even though everyone in my family votes Sinn Fein without exception).

Suffice to say, my politics lie on the liberal left and the last 24 hours have been depressing and frustrating. I would like to shake Britain today.

Tory Boris Johnson predicted to win the London Mayoral race.

And look at all this blue.

A homophobe, classist, elitist (some people argue that elitism is good and that people are largely cretins, I don’t support this view) as Mayor of multicultural London. I can’t believe that people voted for him. I know how disillusioned people are with New Labour but I don’t see how people forget that this man is a Tory, and all that they stand for. Just because he’s a blustering, affable buffoon it’s no reason to vote for him. Yeah, wasn’t he funny on Have I Got News For you. He has said nothing of worth throughout this whole race. Check out his policies.

We must stand up for our brave, hard-working police men and women to ensure they get a fair deal from government.

How, Boris?

Those who abuse their free transport privileges will be able to earn back their free Oyster by doing community service as part of my Payback London scheme.

What does that even mean? What is abuse? Are you talking about “youths”, as you probably see them, drinking on buses, or are you talking about people on Freedom Passes who use their pass before 9.30am?

The tube needs to be rescued from the ruins of Gordon Brown’s finance deal, so that vital upgrades that were promised actually happen. I will look again at having an air-conditioned tube. We need to take the thumbs of the RMT off the windpipe of London commuters with a no-strike deal that gives both sides the benefit of an independent arbitrator.

Anti-union, Boris? Really? I’d rather have to take the bus than deny people the right to strike.

I will fight for London’s rail commuters and campaign for longer trains, more frequent services and Oyster at all stations.

Again, how?

• I will support the Low Emission Zone to improve air quality.
• I will take a zero tolerance approach to littering and graffiting.

So basically you’ll continue what Ken did?

He’ll back London business. No mention of trying to close the gigantic earning disparities in London, which has some of the poorest boroughs in the country. Oh, he tokenistically points it out, but that’s it.

Oh wait, he does mention something:

It is a scandal that a child born in Haringey is three times more likely to die at birth than a child born in Richmond, and that if you travel eight stops on the Jubilee Line, from Westminster to Canning Town, the average life expectancy of residents declines by eight years. That is as great as the difference in life expectancy between Britain and Lebanon.

No Mayor can ignore this. Just because the Mayoral remit doesn’t currently have any powers over healthcare, it doesn’t mean City Hall should wash its hands of it. I will take a far more proactive approach to these issues:

• I will make it my moral duty to speak up for Londoners and help them by telling them frankly what kind of healthcare they are actually getting. The data is out there, and I will highlight where the government is failing us.

No, Boris, it’s not about healthcare. It’s poverty. It’s well known that simply being poor shortens your life expectancy. How do you propose to help the poor people in London? Everyone knows where the government is failing. Postcode lottery and all that, drastic underfunding of services and some of the worst cancer survival rates in Europe. So richer people go private. Poorer people cannot. You can’t do anything about that. You telling people what they already know isn’t going to do a fig. People die younger when they’re poor. The simple stress of surviving on a low income- which you’ll do nothing about- the prevalence of smoking and substance abuse (higher in the working classes) contributes to these early deaths.

Just read his policies. It’s all, “I’ll stand up”, “I’ll speak up”. Not, “I’ll do”, or, “Here’s my plan”. It’s specious guff. And it looks like this man is going to be the Mayor of my city. Of course, people think it was between him and Ken. Stop thinking like that. If you truly believe in the Liberals or Green, then you should have voted them. It’s not a “waste”, it’s not “pointless”, as the current research is showing (25% Liberals, 24% Labour). Ken might be the lesser of two evils, as people seem to see him now. But that’s the truth- he is certainly the lesser evil here.  Protest voting is useless.  If you’re protesting against Labour, vote Liberal.

The Conservatives have the majority of the councils across Britain now. If the 2010 election turns out like this, we’ll be back to a Tory government.

And don’t give me the bullshit of art flourishing under oppression, which is ridiculously something that has been expressed by some people I know. Persecution flourishes under oppression. Bigotry flourishes under oppression. A Tory government doesn’t believe in modern art, doesn’t believe in vocations, doesn’t believe in equality. They believe in the white middle class and all their policies are aimed in furthering them while stepping on everybody else. So many lost their jobs in the last government. They are sectarian. They are the party that overlooks the atrocities and violence carried out by Loyalist forces in Northern Ireland, because apparently the IRA are the only terrorist group in Northern Ireland. (Call me an Irish Republican. Politically, yes, I am. Ireland was colonised by the British mainland. Partition deliberately excluded Catholic majority areas (namely Donegal, which, as you see from maps, is in the North but is part of the Republic) so that they would forever have little political influence and basically Northern Ireland will always be part of the UK. I don’t support any violent actions. Neither, though, do I support Northern Ireland and Westminster’s adamant refusal to acknowledge Unionist and Loyalist violent acts). They’re anti immigration, anti-Islam, anti Irish, anti everything they’re not.

And we, people like you and me, mentalists, people who survive on benefits, will be dropkicked by them because they believe we’re malingerers or murderers.

Fair enough that Labour’s performance has been dire in some places. They took us to war (and a lot of shadow ministers supported this) and their NHS track record is awful, with funding cuts across the board, particularly in mental health services.

But that doesn’t mean that the Conservatives are now good.

Just what the Conservatives represent is damning enough. I know I’m generalising massively but to see how they and their voters think, just read the Conservative press such as The Daily Mail (Littlejohn in particular, who always evokes a massive, “You’re so right! That’s what we all really think but can’t say due to the PC culture blah blah) as opposed to the liberal press such as the Guardian. Then you’ll see what each truly stand for.

It’s just incredibly depressing.

Too late now. I think Boris has won. I’m not writing off the next four years. I am just upset at what he represents, when I believed in London, in Britain, more than this.

Red Sky At Night

Today, my CPN came to visit me instead of me visiting her. She commented on my P.J Harvey print (a piece of artwork on my wall that I received on my nineteenth birthday) and had two cheeky fags, even though she’s given up. I find her much easier to talk to than any of the Crisis Team. She mentioned that the Crisis Team want to continue working with me, despite my wishes to be left alone. The Crisis Team generally hang around until they’re reassured that you’re not going to kill yourself or hurt yourself. The way I see it, though, is that either of those actions are my responsibility and I don’t want people to interfere in my choices.

Of course, I wish there had been a Crisis Team around to stop Brendan from leaving us, and it is that kind of thing that keeps me hanging around, as well as not wanting to hurt my family or Rob. But I often feel as though I am hurting people more by being alive, since I’m constantly being “coped” with, when people would have better lives without me.  People would invite Rob out more, like they did before me.  He’d get more sleep, he’d feel better.

Sometimes, it is such a comforting thought, knowing that, if I choose it, I have a way out of this. It’s just how I feel at the moment.

I still feel very low but I’m doddling along. I have been much worse than this in the past. The doctor is coming out tomorrow to review my medication. Apparently Lamictal should hopefully start to pick me up soon. This all feels like fuss to me. I’d much rather just try to get over this on my own terms, in my own time. When they come to visit, it feels like a performance. I just want to lie on my sofa and be quiet.

I did slope to the shops earlier in my pyjamas and a hooded top. It’s only a minute away. So much for being glamourous. All my dresses are hanging in my wardrobe rebuking me as I pull on another pyjama top in the morning. The talkative, funny person who used to wear them feels very far away. It has been raining all day. The sky is veined with red and purple, and there has been thunder and lightning.

God is here. You will not find tomorrow.

That’s the subject line of some creepy spam that I was sent earlier. Although these titles seem randomly generated, they do, on occasion, make me uneasy.

There isn’t much to report over here, and I haven’t really been in the mood for writing or talking. Depression is the most boring subject in the world, due to the similarities of every single case of it; at the core, there will always be sadness, hopelessness, guilt and self-abasement. So it seems pointless to describe it, when all that changes is the face.

Crisis Team Part Two

Still low, so no witty or cynical posts for you at the moment.

Crisis Team

My depression took a very sharp downturn a few days ago. I’d been feeling quite awful all week. I had stopped sleeping, despite taking Seroquel. I spent my fifth anniversary alternating between crying my eyes and lying on my seatee staring at the wall. The fifth anniversary post was written a week ago and saved, then copied and pasted on the 25th. I had written something else in it that was far more downbeat but I left it out.  I did mean everything I said in it, though.

My sister advised ringing my CPN, which I did. She got me Valium to take the edge of anxiety and called the Crisis Team in. I think this is because when she mentioned suicide I started laughing hysterically. I’ve also been having problems with paranoia.

Rob has been taking care of me. He gave me a bath on Friday because I hadn’t washed for a week and had spent a few days in the same clothes. When I first took the valium it made me very giggly and relaxed.

The Crisis Team were supposed to come today but someone was stabbed outside my flat last night and nobody can get in or out. I can hear them outside on their walkie talkies and the whole area is taped off.  There are stab marks embedded on the pavement.  I might tell them I’m fine when I next see them because I don’t really like being with them. My CPN’s first idea was admittance to a crisis centre or hospital but although I feel very bad, it’s not bad enough for that and I think being trapped would make it worse.

I feel better today, partly because I am absolutely fucked on drugs and don’t really know how I feel. The drugs kill all feelings. I can feel the depression in my body but my brain is too confused and numb. The valium seems to make Seroquel more potent so I’ve been sleeping for about fourteen hours and spent the days feeling zombified. Today I am completely spaced out and weird. I got up from the chair to write this though, and I had to go outside today and I didn’t panic, so that’s better.

My Five Year London Anniversary: An Introspective then Retrospective

25th April means I have lived in London for five years!

Given that I didn’t even think I was going to be alive in five years, that’s pretty good, isn’t it!

So, five years ago, I took a taxi to the airport and never looked back.

Well, that’s not entirely true. For the first year, I was desperately homesick. I remember sitting on a wall in Southend on Sea and I cried because I suddenly missed my siblings so much. I have been tempted to go home, many times, but never have.

Mania took me to London. It was an impulsive decision. I was seventeen. I had a grand total of twenty quid, but I also had somebody to live with when I moved here, my ex boyfriend, Jonathan. I wasn’t a lodger, I temped and paid my way, thanks very much. In the second half of the year, though, I became deeply depressed. And thus began our strained relationship. Although we have nothing but warm feelings for each other now. I am absolutely grateful to Jonathan. It was not easy living with me.

My life in Belfast just seemed…over. Predictably, it was my mentalism that kind of wrecked it. I was really, really ill for quite a long time and had practically destroyed or bemused every friendship that I had. I was too ill for college, and was kicked out with the advice, “Your health is more important than your education right now”. My home life was awful, because my dad’s drinking was out of control. When I left, I felt like I had abandoned him, and that feeling has never left me.

There were also far too many of us squeezed into my mum’s council house and I was a teenager who needed privacy. Also, my door had been kicked down!

Some of my friendships still remain- a tentative friendship with Tracie and Andrew, who are married and respectable, and, in comparison, I feel bohemian and unwashed. I am still friends, of course, with my beloved Stephen. And I still adore and love my family, and I always will. I still get homesick, I still miss my family.

My ace big sisters, although Paula is making a weird face!

I don’t regret moving to London. I have made some fabulous friends who make me smile and laugh and who- I think- like me for me. I like them, very much.

I actually live here which shocks me- it shocks me deeply that I stuck it out, I didn’t leave. There have been nights when I have been steaming through Central London on the number 4, head leaned against the bus window, sliding past the Thames and thought, “Wow. I actually live here”. I’ve had almost twenty jobs! (Fear not, I was a temp!) I have been:

A journalist

A web designer

An archivist (and here is a photo of me as an archivist: I worked in a dingy basement. I used to walk outside on my fag break and tell people that there was anthrax in the building.)

A PA

….and much more. I’ve performed the best I could in all my jobs. My stupid mental health just got in the way.

I’ve written for several different publications. A radio station might be making a play out of this blog. I’ve been to a lot of gigs. I’ve written zero novels!

I am only twenty two and I’m sure I will be brilliant in a Future Job when I am Stable and Allowed to Work Again.

Looking back, I’ve actually done an awful lot. Most twenty two year olds are at university or living with parents. I have worked hard and I have fought very, very hard to survive here.

I have lived in eight flats. Here are a few of them:

This is my desk in Wanstead, where I lived with Jonathan. That’s Cook’d and Bomb’d on the screen!

Crouch End

My room in Crouch End where I lived in 2005!

And this is “the Bunker” in Finsbury Park. I lived here for a year! It was called The Bunker because it had a glass door and no windows. But I was very happy here. The landlord was an Italian who said, “Ciao!” and “Mama Mia!” I loved him.

After that, there was me, Rob and Hobbes’ flat in Crouch End, which I loved:

There was of course, the Arctic, my last bedsit:

and now my new place.

I’ve had innumerable hair colours:

Black!

Pink!

Purple!

and Red!

I’ve had some fun times. One wedding, one engagement party, a million Stay Beautifuls, tons of pub quizzes, many, many picnics.

I got a tattoo!

I met Neil Hannon! I met Eddie Izzard! I met the Manics.

I interviewed my idol, Neil Innes.

I have slept with seven people. Not too bad for the manic depressive hypersexual. Although I did proposition a ton of strangers in various manic episodes. I also “slept” with someone when I was psychotic. I did not sleep with someone, I just thought I did.

I went to Suffolk. We saw this church, in the dark:

I’ve had bad times.

I have been to five funerals. Five brilliant people that I loved. They were in the space of three years.

I had nowhere to live, but a friend helped me. I was almost homeless last year, but again a friend helped me. So thank you for friends who have given me places to stay. I have not been alone in all this. If I was, I wouldn’t be in London anymore. Probably wouldn’t be anywhere anymore.

I’ve had a few complete psychotic nervous breakdowns. I averaged about one a year. If I get past this October, it means I’ll have had a whole year without one.

I have been hospitalised once. That was terrifying.

Facing up to and accepting my illness, its extent and what it had done to me was and is one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

Living in London has been a massive struggle, emotionally, physically and above all else, financially. But I am glad I have had that struggle.

In five years, I have had two relationships. The first was with Jonathan, which I mentioned earlier.

The second one was with Rob.

That’s been for almost three years, save the breakup last year. I lost my way that time and didn’t know what was what. I am very glad that we got back together. And in a way, I am glad we broke up, too. Not because of lack of love. I love Rob, more than anything in this entire world. I don’t think that I could love anyone or anything more than I love him. But I found out how to be independent, how to live alone. I needed that break to sort myself out and to reestablish our relationship as boyfriend and girlfriend, not carer and patient. I needed the break to find out how much I loved him and didn’t want to lose him.

Rob is the greatest aspect of my life that has made this struggle worthwhile.

He is the reason that I do not give up, no matter what. When I feel like I am losing and that I should just end, I close my eyes and think of him.

I know you all see Rob as some sort of saintly force. He’s not. He’s human, and flawed, and lovely. He’s a cocky, sweet, silly, funny, blonde eejit who sometimes wakes up and thinks he’s a dog. He can make five innuendos in the morning before he can remember his name. He says, “Bollocks” a lot and he laughs like Sid James. He looks fantastic in his military jacket. He smokes self consciously in a vain sort of way. He has beautiful eyes and lips and, ahem, a beautiful body. He’s extremely intelligent. We argue but don’t fight. He is whimsical. We have flick fights. We share a cat.

He puts up with me, and he actually seems to really love me. He knows me better than I know me. He reminds me gently that I’m nuts when I think I’m not, he has kept me on medication and has helped keep me alive. He puts his arms around me and kisses my forehead. He makes me laugh more than anybody else. He holds my hand when we watch the shopping channel. He’s wiped blood from my arms and face and kissed my scars. He plays guitar and sings to me. He reaches the stuff in the cupboard that is too high for me. We have our own private language. He tells me I’m great at stuff he thinks I’m great at and tells me I’m crap at stuff I know I’m crap at. He tells me I’m beautiful and tells me that it will be okay. He gave a face to what was destroying me; my spiky sea urchin in my brain that tries to kill me and messes things up. He tells me, over and over again, that it’s not my fault. He knew I had manic depression a long time before I knew I had manic depression. He doesn’t mind that I like to read shit magazines. He gets angry on my behalf.

So, five years on, I am really grateful for what I have. Okay, yeah, mental illness and etc. Which is shit, and difficult but yeah, it’s there.

But also a brilliant boyfriend, a clutch of good friends, absolutely lovely, supportive blog readers, somewhere warm to live, a great CPN who is helping me get my life back on track, a physically healthy body and my family. And London, outside my window.

No matter how depressed I get, I’ll read this, and remind myself, of what I have. And how lucky I am to have it.

Mild Depression

The Doctor Who Hears Voices

On now on channel 4.

EDIT: Docu-drama, not a documentary as I originally thought. Bit disappointed that she was an actress.