Another December (Written 2nd December)

I have spent most of today crying my eyes out.  Hooray!  And I mean that.  Despite my status as Mentalist Ordinaire, I almost never cry.  I am stoic.  I have a perpetual stick up my bum.  I sneer at tears.  But for the past six weeks, I have been crying almost every day.  And on the days I cry, I really go for it.  Proper, facially disfiguring tears.  The sobbing recently have only been visited upon me when death has been visited upon my loved ones.  And on those lonely hours on a teenage mattress that squeaked too much and made my anguished wailing sound like very vigorous masturbation.  And listening to the Smiths while weeping for some imagined, life-swallowing problem (at least, I guess, my problems then were that I was locked in psychosis, and losing my mind, but also, there was this boy I liked…) is a kind of masturbation.

Ah, I’m trying to be amusing because I feel quite parodic sitting here.  My hair is greasy and half-heartedly scraped back from my blotchy Alice Copper face.  I’m wearing pyjamas, something normally reserved for weekends with my family.  I haven’t slept, and I am exhausted. I have eaten very little.  I look like a lady of the sorrows.

I have been crying because today is December 2nd.  I  place too much importance on anniversaries.   I would, according to rude maths and optimism, have most likely been a mother by now. I wrote about it earlier on my Livejournal then, infuriated with myself, deleted the whole journal.  I don’t feel so scared here.

I am hoping now such a day (like any other day, really) has passed that I might begin to feel better.   I have been very very sad lately.  I have been in touch with a charity and am going to go and talk to them.  Otherwise the other place is…the place.  And I would rather not go back to the old house.

Everything has felt disparate and unsettled lately.  I haven’t seen my CPN in a while, and the appointment I kept myself awake for on Monday never happened.  I was remembering earlier- almost with admiration- myself at the ripe age of nineteen.  A girl of prestigious self harm.  Hateful to be alone. Desperate, wandering, wild-eyed, extreme.  Although I am, for the most part, careful in managing my illness, sometimes I miss her.  Not the self harm.  There is an element of the abusive relationship there.  I have no desire to test the limits.  I don’t want to bind people to me with anything other than love.  It is scary.  It is isolating.

But I miss the fleeting, momentary freedoms of madness.  I feel bound, gagged and numbered sometimes.

At least with crying, with grief over something that has nothing to with being ill (although the reasoning that led to this did), I can feel like this is my own grief.  There is no pill to take it away.  No strategy.  No fruit smoothie.  No sunshine.  Just tears, and one day, soon, I hope, I will feel like I can live with myself again, and with the joys of this brittle, brand-new present, and not the ghosts of the past.  For months I have felt like I was wading through vapours.

I don’t know what to say anymore.

Whoops!

Oh bugger, I am a twat.  I had this on 100 posts per page- I have probably crashed quite a few browsers.  Sorry!  Set to the more sane 40 now.

Your Crumble Narrator

Thank you very much for your congratulations in the previous post.  The award is on top of my fireplace.  Its luminescence sets off my Rutles vinyl nicely.

I haven’t updated until now because I have quite sad, and it isn’t the done thing to turn around and pout when you’re receiving awards and people are telling you you’re great.  All that validation must go to ones’ head, and I wish I was more egotistical than I am so I was floating around haphazardly like a daddy long-legs, bouncing from cloud to cloud bowed by the weight of my head, hindered by my uncertain, hair-breadth legs.

I am certainly not moaning about it. I need that validation sometimes, because I often feel like toss.     But being unhappy right now feels a little bit like being ungrateful.  And I am unhappy at the moment- just the moment.  And it’s little to do with manic depression.

I was asleep for a little while tonight, and then awoken by a phonecall.  My blood freezes when the phone rings at four a.m.  In the middle of the night, it is never good news.  It was a Facebook friend- someone I knew years ago- thinking I might be up to talk.  And I would have been had I been somewhat more awake.  But I wasn’t.

My sleep has been erratic lately, and I am constantly exhausted.  I missed my therapy assessment appointment with the icicle therapist.  I can’t even remember what day it was, and, either way, I was too afraid of her to call.  The thought of her flatline voice worming through the phone handset (I don’t like using my landline, I become obsessed by the patterns of the holes, I lose my concentration), I’m worried now I’ve blown my chance to have therapy, but the alarm didn’t wake me up- it rarely does.  Nothing can cut through antipsychotics except fire and murder.

I’m awake now, close to 6am, because I don’t want to go back to bed.  I didn’t take any medication today because I have to see my social worker tomorrow.  The time was spilling past midnight, then one, then two… and if I’d taken my medication, I would have been in that coma for at least twelve hours and missed my appointment.

I’m putting this entry behind a Read More because it talks about abortion.  I think this month is one of those emotional meltdown ones- it’s near Christmas, which I always find difficult without my dad, my “due” date and Brendan’s anniversary.

Edit: deleting the rest for now.  Too much for me on a public blog.  Basically discussed nightmares, getting counselling from Brook, going off the rails this year, and nice things.  Sorry, and thanks for comments.

Bloody hell. “Dos and Don’ts for the Mentally Interesting” got the Best Radio Drama award at MHM

Well, CRIKEY and other such exclamations from my adopted homeland!  We went to the Mind Mental Health Media Awards at BAFTA yesterday evening expecting to have conversations about how great it was to be nominated and nothing else, and we won Best Radio Drama for the Radio 4 play based on this blog!  It was an immense, yet obviously welcome, shock. None of us had prepared a speech so we pushed erudite producer Fiona to the fore to say some words.

Here are some photos of us and our award (which, kindly, Lou and Fiona asked me to have).  And Jimmy McGovern, who was on the judging panel. Excuse how utterly shite I look.

Melvyn Bragg

Alistair Campbell accepting his award for, "Cracking Up".

Me, Lou and Fiona, featuring our award and MY GIANT KNOCKERS

SUBTLE

“Dos and Don’ts…” has been surreal- a radio play based on my scribblings here-therefore, my life- was something I’d never even have thought of or imagined anyone would be interested in.  And it’s strange for something that’s so intensely personal to be received in such a lovely way.  It’s so heartening that people feel it helped make a difference.  We all felt quite honoured to even be nominated.  And it’s a strange experience, sitting in a room full of people you don’t have to hide from, because they were all there with the same ideology, that there’s nothing shameful about having a mental illness.   I was reunited with Lou, the dramatist, Fiona and some of the shortlisters I’d met when I did it two years ago, which was nice.  And I think I coped fairly well with people talking to me, thanks to the lovely lovely free booze!

The shortlist was fascinating- have a look for yourself.  I’ve only seen/heard a few things on it (such as Terry Pratchett’s, “Living with Alzheimers”) but I shall now dig out the rest.  The Speaking Out award was given to the men featured in, “Chosen“, a documentary about the sexual abuse they experienced as children.  It was moving, and humbling, to watch them accept their award.

Anyway, HOORAY and such!  I shan’t go on about it  (mostly because I am a bit unwell today) but I feel proud.

Out to Lunch

(Redux- my first version of this disappeared for no reason!)

Right, I deleted my grumpy posts about losing my passport and having to waste money because I couldn’t get my flights and to shell money I don’t have on now getting an 11 hour journey home by ferry. Grr. I had been planning this visit home for ages and was furious that it all fucked up at the last minute due to quite extreme forgetfulness. (Fun fact: I took my passport out of my bag and then put it in a cool little travel wallet I had. Then I triumphantly declared I would put it somewhere safe, somewhere so safe that even tearing the house apart didn’t reveal its whereabouts). Robert is lovingly missing his flight to Belfast on Saturday to get the ferry with me later so that I don’t go mad and nut a Glaswegian in their beautiful face. Oh how I hate being cooped up on trains.

Boils down to: I will be away in Belfast for the next nine days or more, and not contactable by email since my mum lives in a household with no internet. Yes, they exist, but it’s Ireland so we’re lucky to have electricity EH. Have yet to book a return back to London as I’m not sure I’ll try chancing it with a shitload of birth certificates and stuff with Easyjet or if I’ll have to get the ferry back by myself. So! That’s it.

In mood news for a rare relevant post, for the past few weeks have been rather jittery, very anxious, imbued with the raging horn (oh yes), buggered for concentration, sleeping about two nights a week, talking bollocks, and, I guess, slighhtly hypomanic (which Robert was openly bemused at when we went to Tesco the other day and I was gabbling to myself about all the things I was putting in my basket while running up and down the aisles deciding I needed this and that) which is one reason I’ve been struggling with long entries. I’m okay, except that in the hassle to sort out getting home on extremely short notice, I forgot to pick up my prescription and will not have any medication until get back, which, at this point, is in question. That might spell trouble. So, if I come back in a week raving about being the next queen of France (which would be ridiculous, France doesn’t have a monarchy so expect further delusions of, “THEY’RE COMING TO GET ME WITH THE GUILLOTINE! MERDE!”) then do point and laugh. I also find it amazingly funny when I do take my medication and see someone- case in point, the therapy woman on Wednesday. I was still slightly drugged but also quite jittery so I was all over the place, rambling, pacing around then half-slumped. On the way back, the haze mostly lifted but I was almost FOILED by what I thought was half a polo mint in my pocket actually being half a 200mg Seroquel. I popped it in my mouth then spat, but bitter was my disappointment. But I smoked a menthol cigarette so all was well.

I shall leave you with some photos From My Real World and Everything to prove that I have a life, that I’ve taken recently, just to make this entry less of a waste of…internet.

Take care chaps.

Rob, my lovely ex boyfriend, with David, my lovely Scottish friend, playing with his band The New Royal Family at Ant Lib

Robert kissing Jack after kicking a ball into his face on Hallowe'en

We didn't just kidnap a child, that's Robert's stepson, and our pumpkin

 

 

 

Cheerio!  x

Blogs, forums and resources on ECT

Hello!   Do any of you know of write/moderate/recommend good blogs, forums or resources on Electroconvulsive Therapy?  I’d really like to compile a list and since my computer fried up last week (woe, had to reinstall the operating system), I have lost every single bookmark (fecking loads),  documents et al that I had concerning it.  Or if you’ve had ECT and have any personal experiences you’d be able to share, that would be appreciated too.  I can’t even find my own post on it.

Thank you muchly in advance.  Thanks also for commenting on my previous sad wee post- funny few weeks really to round off a strange year!  I feel like Egbert’s been at my head with a whisk.

EDIT:  This post isn’t about me, I’m not having ECT or anything.

On or around the 2nd of December 2009

I might have been a mum by now.

Feck

I am embarrassed to be writing this but I need to talk.

(Talk of imaginary spiders and ranting, cut for boringness and embarrassment)

Hypocrite

I know the vast majority of people with mental illnesses- like the vast majority of people without- aren’t going to stab me.  So I am feeling quite guilty that this morning, while in the reception area of my local CMHT, I seriously thought I was going to get knifed by someone sitting opposite me. They were staring at me very intently with an air of hostility, and the intensity of the stare frightened me.  I found myself busying myself in a boring way, to show how uninteresting and also unthreatening I was.  I nibbled a bit of the Tesco fruit salad I had in my bag. (I ended up not sleeping.  Thought fruit would perk me up). I pulled my hat down over my ears.  Sauntering up to the desk I forced myself to look cool and unbothered. Then I legged it.

Of course I wasn’t in any danger.  And they could have been staring at me because I looked like an idiot (I did).  And I’ve been the starer in the past.  I’m used to strange behaviour.  I’m often a strange behavee.   I’m wondering if this is a case of Mentally Ill Dominos, in which a circle of people with mental health problems act in ways which are innocuous but which feed into the mentalism of the other people in the room.  In this case, my ever-present paranoia.  Would I have felt the same in ANY waiting room?  Or am I indeed just a stinking hypocrite who’s afraid of people with mental illness?  Or am I just afraid of everyone?

Edit: Aha, showing your own prejudices there!  It was a woman.

Thank you Psych Central! and therapy things

Hello, this entry is sponsored by parenthesis (signifying an aside so you don’t have to).  And tiredness.

I’m in Robert’s new digs in South London, where he was born and grew up.  He is currently in pyjama bottoms exercising with a giant pumpkin.

Edit:

Thanks Robert!

First of all,  THANK YOU! to Psych Central for giving this blog first place in their 2009 Top 10 Bipolar Blogs!  It was second last year so I was happy (and surprised, since I don’t feel I’ve posted much of interest lately) to be first this year.  Here is what they say:

1. The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive
Do’s and Don’ts for the Mentally Interesting was a BBC Radio play based on Seaneen’s blog produced last May and just nominated for a Mind Mental Health Media Award. Always a compelling and honest read, it was no fluke or sympathy vote that caused us to place this blog near the top of our list last year – it deserves many accolades. Well done.

I feel awkward at this kind of thing so will just say thank you for the loveliness. Well done to everybody, especially Bipolar Chica and Patient Anonymous, whose blogs I love.  I’m glad to see that this year includes a lot of newcomers, and not just old timers like me, Spikol et al.  And hooray for the madosphere!  Aceness abounds.

Life, as usual, continues at my undazzling end. I’ve seen not one but two of my Belfast friends of late, which is always lovely (and, for the photographically inclined, feel free to nosey at my October photos on Facebook).  Apparently I sound English to my countrymen’s ears, and Northern Irish to the English.  It’s no wonder my (Irish Republican) family only half-jokingly refer to me as “the traitor”.

It’s been a little bit of a strange month with my moods teetering to and fro.  I’m still feeling a bit weird so excuse me if I sound…er, weird.  I had the drying-out alcoholic shakes, so no sugar in the tea unless I was armed with a sponge at all times.  My mind had been racing a little bit too, with a slew of unsettling negative thoughts, which wasn’t good. Background noise was also turned up to eleven. I’d been on minimal medication for some time- my usual dose is 400mg but I’d cheekily lowered it to 100mg, then to 50mg, occasionally nothing, which, I have discovered, is a bad idea.  I know my reactions well enough to be able to do so fairly safely. Up the dose when hypomania strikes, lower it when depression does.  See-saw. So I upped the dose to 200mg, and the agitation has calmed down.  It had no choice but to, given the fact that I have pretty much spent the past three days asleep because of the extra 100mg.  It’s hard to shiver and shake in your slumber.  Downside is I’m exhausted, my concentration and memory are still shot and I have no idea how to help that.    I joke about my terrible concentration and my memory but it gets me down.  It buggers with two of my greatest joys- writing and reading.  I find it a huge struggle to write sometimes, I can rarely read anything more challenging than a magazine and I’m generally a forgetful, scatterbrained twat.   I need a tattoo pen to write stuff on my forehead but I’d probably forget what to write or get distracted halfway through.  Bollocks.

Last Thursday was my first (first! I thought there was only one!) therapy assessment.  I’d been a wee bit nervous about it as the therapist is an icicle of a woman.  She is beautiful.  That was my first impression of her when I met her last year.  In the olden days when people still cared about the possibilities of verse, many a thigh-rubbing poet heart would have been in an absolute frenzy about her hair, a waterfall cascading in sunlight, the golden silk with which god spun the sands…and so on.  You wouldn’t be able to hear yourself think above the din of quills scratching paper.

And she is cold. Her golden loveliness (even her name is lovely) makes her stiffness more striking.  She is expressionless, often toneless.  She is professional.  The impassive manner of therapists is the stuff of cliches but having had little to do with therapy, it’s something it’ll take me a little while to get used to.  I guess I’m more accustomed to the casual and friendly manner of my social worker.   Though I would much rather speak to someone who is professional than someone who isn’t, or who tries to be chummy and matey without knowing me.  I’m just not used to it.  And besides, we don’t know each other, even professionally.

(Urgh, professionally.  I realise sometimes that seeing me is someone’s job.  We’re not friends, and they might not actually give a toss outside that one hour a week.  It’s a disconcerting thought sometimes and makes me wonder about people’s sense of duty, not just professional people.  How would I feel if I didn’t have anybody, had never had anybody, who cared about me?  Even though I am unsure most of the time if I do, but I must do, because almost everyone does really.  I wonder how I’d feel about my appointments then.  I do, for the most part, look forward to them).

Anyway.  I was in a bit of a funny mood that day (aha).  And nervous, and a bit anxious about rambling and just sounding like a churlish, entitled brat and so on.  I wanted to be articulate, and to answer her questions.  Because these things can feel like the world’s strangest job interview.  (Especially when your social worker is sitting in on it.  But I was glad she was).

Hooray

I’m going to apply for this.

Addaction SmartScheme

Good idea?

“STATE-SANCTIONED MALINGERING IS THE BIRTISH DISEASE”

“Birtish”?

If this article can’t even be properly edited then why should I trust what they have to say?  Learn to spell.

The Daily Express is a horrendous little rag anyway, but here, for fun.

It is telling that more than1.1million incapacity claim- ants are not suffering from any physical disability at all, but get their handouts by moaning about problems like “stress” and “depression”.

Once again, the largesse of the welfare system provides perverse incentives for people to exaggerate their emotional suffering rather than demonstrate resilience; no wonder, then, that the number of people saying that they are “too stressed” to work has trebled during the 12 years of Labour rule.

By far the greatest outrage is the money dished out to more than 100,000 alcoholics and drug addicts. It is the height of lunacy and immorality for the state to pay people to continue with their dangerous habits. Awarding “disability” handouts to drug abusers makes a complete mockery of the law, given not only that narcotics are illegal but also that a  significant proportion of crime is committed by addicts.

These people deserve spells in prisons, not an easy lifetime on the dole (not sure what’s “easy” about living on £50 a week…). The incapacity benefits system has been disastrous for the moral fibre of our nation.

Ants claiming incapacity benefit is a new one.  But I can understand them being off work for stress.  Ants work really long hours.

I don’t trust any articles written about benefits that still call them “incapacity benefits”.  It is the Employment and Support Allowance now.  If someone can’t even use the correct name for the benefit, they have no authority to write in a national paper about it.

Anyway, there you go.  I am too knackered and pissed off today for much else.  But stop your moaning about potentially fatal illnesses like depression, eh.  Demonstrate more resilience.  Hang yourself from your good old Birtish stiff upper lip.

I am sick of this bullshit being published.  Swap places with someone incapacitated by schizophrenia for a week, you fucking idiots.

Edit: Going to add here, when I was sixteen/seventeen, before I got kicked out of college for being mental and manic, when people thought I’d be destined for Oxford, I used to lie in front of traffic, and think I was Jesus.

6am, awake

And tearful.  I miss my dad. I feel sad, in an almost nice way, because sometimes it’s good to sit in the early morning quietness and miss someone.

I’m going home next month for a week.  My family live in a different house now.  So he has never been there, and yet, I miss his presence.  This is what became of the house we lived in.

God knows what it’s like now.

I wonder if I become depressed and reflective in October because I’m sandwiched between my birthday and Christmas, and two times of my life that will never be the same again.  I think when you have your parents, in some way, even as you grow up- into your twenties, thirties, forties- you can still be a child.  Their child.  There will always be a moment of petulance in an unguarded moment, or someone to bat your wise adult hand away from the hot stove.  And then when a parent is gone, it’s not the same anymore. With Christmasses and birthdays now I don’t feel like my mum’s child but her equal.  Being the Grown Up, making sure she’s okay, and hiding it when I’m not.  No tantrums allowed, however seductive they seem.  I really miss arguing with my dad.  I miss screaming til my lungs are raw and slamming doors so hard the wood splits.  I genuinely miss it.  I miss Christmas day fights too.  It doesn’t feel the same now.

I try to nurture my sense of childishness at Christmastime, by myself, enjoying the lights, being excited by the weather reports, entranced by the midis of carols that would be charmless in July.  I don’t want to lose that.  I don’t want to be cynical and find that part of me is gone.

I become sad when I think of some of the more horrible birthdays and Christmasses we had- the birthday my dad rang up to tell me he wanted to top himself, when I went home for my eighteenth birthday and didn’t even get a card, and a few particularly brutal Christmasses.  There is no way to even up the tally now.  At least the last Christmas, my last one with Paul Molloy being my father, was happy.  He stayed sober for three days or so.  The last I saw of him- as an alive, animated person, not a yellowing sarcophagus, dying- was paying for my taxi to the airport, and, as he got out and headed to the off-licence, he was happy.

Ah, I should just go to bed.

Hooray, I’m not dead!

Tongue in cheek but …

Happy one year anniversary of me not succeeding in topping myself! And three year anniversary of being diagnosed with the mentals!

Shame, my flat’s a bit of a mess right now.  Maybe I should find some more pills for the sequel and get it cleaned again.

It’s been a very strange year indeed.  Changeable, surprising, painful, joyful, somewhat unproductive and downright fecking weird!   When I don’t feel so delicate, I’ll go into detail.

In 2009 I seem to have mastered the art of forcing myself to carry on living with a glimmer of confidence it might actually be worth it.  I went mental from April-July and didn’t realise how mental (manic, mostly) I’d been until I was chewing my fist off in August and howling, “OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK WAS I THINKING?!”  Swings and WOO-HOO! roundabouts, though.   I went through the heartbreaking end of a relationship with someone hugely important to me that I probably wouldn’t be here without and who I love(d) very much that was complicated with-and partly caused by- madness, which made me (and makes me, and scares me because I don’t want the same thing to happen again, to take people for granted, to make the same mistakes) sad and angry, but survived and coped with it like a “normal” person, i.e crying an awful lot. And began a new relationship with someone who taught me what love was when I was fourteen, which, to be honest, is sometimes very surreal.

I haven’t escaped a year without a fairly severe wobble since my mid-teens, so if I make it to 2010 lesser-scarred (and hopefully not mentally scarring those close to me, like I did this time last year), it’ll be a bit of an achievement.  Self fulfilling prophesies may not be us after all. I do have nightmares sometimes about the events last year.  It was fairly traumatic, but hey ho.  More traumatic for everybody else who saw my boobs that day though.

If I’d expired in my own vomit last year my Radio 4 play would have ended on a bit of a downer.  And I’d never have met Michael Palin.  Did I tell you I met Michael Palin? LOOK I MET MICHAEL PALIN!

That’s him considering the marriage proposal I’d scribbled in the inside of the book.  It was accompanied by a line drawing of my breasts.

Point is, it’s a year on and I don’t feel that way anymore, which I couldn’t imagine back then.

Anyway, hooray for me not being dead!  Cut yourself a slice of cake, but do hide the knife.

Edit: Robert sneaked out in secret and bought me a lovely coffee walnut cake with three candles.  It was bloody delicious and the other half has gone into hiding lest I scoff it down immediately. All a bit silly, but there’s nothing wrong with taking one day a year to go pat yourself on the back with some cake.  Or to let someone else do it for you.

Big old pile of toss

I feel like shite today. How are you?

My body the hand grenade

Because this blog is the only place I feel free to moan.  This isn’t a blog about eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder but I still have both (to use the names of the terms, shorthand) and they are making me fucking miserable.

Is there any debate on this?

I have to rush out to go to a wedding reception so apologies for this post being short and rubbish but quickly, here’s a story on the Daily Mail website about a twenty six year old woman who swallowed anti-freeze and arrived at hospital with a note requesting her wish to die.  Which was honoured.

It has the usual hysterical Daily Mail title of,

What kind of country have we become if doctors and lawyers allow a disturbed young woman to die?

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1219389/SPECIAL-INVESTIGATION-What-kind-country-doctors-lawyers-allow-disturbed-young-woman-die.html#ixzz0TWd6akN5

The coroner’s verdict was unequivocal. Dr Alexander Heaton, he said, ‘went over and above what was required of him’ when Kerrie Wooltorton was admitted to the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.

She had swallowed anti-freeze, but insisted she didn’t want to be saved. In her hand was a note which began: ‘To whom it may concern, if I come into hospital regarding taking an overdose or any attempt on my life, I would like for NO lifesaving treatment to be given.

‘I would appreciate if you could continue to give medicines to help relieve my discomfort, painkillers, oxygen etc. I would hope these wishes will be carried out.’

Kerrie Wooltorton, pictured with her godson George Miller, died at the Norfolk and Norwich University hospital after drinking anti freeze and leaving written instructions not to revive her

Those wishes were eventually carried out, to the letter – throughout the 37 agonising hours it took for Kerrie to slip away. But, initially, a second opinion about Kerrie’s mental state was sought by Dr Heaton as to what he should do: in other words, should he save this young woman’s life or not?

The medical director of the hospital was contacted. The hospital lawyer was consulted. Then, and only then, was the decision not to treat Kerrie taken, the Greater Norfolk Coroner William Armstrong told me this week.

In other words, as far as Dr Heaton and his colleagues were concerned, all the boxes had been ticked. Legally, anyway.

Had he and his team not respected Kerrie’s wishes, Dr Heaton argued, they could have opened themselves up to charges of assault. That’s the law, apparently – one which, to all intents and purposes, has now resulted in lawyers sitting in judgment on life-and-death cases in A&E departments.

Such cataclysmic developments should give us all cause for concern, and this special investigation into the circumstances surrounding Kerrie’s death will do little to allay the fears of those who believe a culture of ‘medicine by lawyer’ is beginning to prevail.

The case has provoked fears that ‘civilised’ Britain is moving insidiously into an era of euthanasia on demand. All but forgotten, it seems, by those at the centre of this tragedy is the central principle of the Hippocratic oath, which has guided doctors for the past 2,000 years. It is: ‘Never do harm to anyone.’

She requested pain-killing treatment and explained she had called an ambulance because she didn’t want to die at home alone.

The problem here is that she was young and physically healthy and her illness was a mental one.  There is a prevailing attitude that anybody with a mental illness who is suicidal isn’t in their right mind.  In fact, having a mental illness at all- which invariably clouds your judgment (as does pain in the case of terminal illness, but that’s different because death is imminent)- means that their wish to die shouldn’t be respected.  That people are always treated, always eventually saved, will always look back and say, “I’m so glad I didn’t end my life then”.

But that isn’t always the case and sometimes, ending your life is the rational decision you take, not the irrational one.  And as far as someone can demonstrate that they know what they’re doing, then their wishes should be respected.

The Hippocratic Oath is the tenet of practice in modern medicine but medical intervention can just be a sticking plaster prolonging the process of life without any consideration as to which quality of life the person has.  It’s the whole, “sanctity of life” idea, that, “Hey, at least you’re alive!”, without thinking if that life is worth living to that person.  Not everyone would choose life over death.  If they had intervened in this case, Kerrie might have just been on dialysis for the rest of her life, and possibly would have made another suicide attempt.

I know it’s all well and good saying, “might have been”, by the way. Likewise, you could argue she might have been okay, might have been happy. But she wanted to die, the doctors honoured her wishes and they shouldn’t be attacked for it as harbingers of moral doom.  It is far more respectful to actually give a thought to the individual person’s desires than to just treat them with the vague, hypothetical, “first do no harm”. And I think it’s everyone’s right to end their own life if they want.  It is their life, after all.

Anyway, excuse the lack of proper intelligent commentary here but I mostly just wanted to bring this story to your attention- what do you think?  Should the doctors have intervened and tried to save her life?  Should suicidal people be allowed to die if you can’t prove that they’re in their “right mind”?

Workshy scroungers redux

Hypomania is calming down. I am a little bit disappointed by the relative quietness in my head. This typing sounds like thunderclaps.

Anyway, hooray for the Conservatives, the new-New Labour.  First we find out that DLA is in danger and now they want to cut incapacity benefits and boot people onto JSA, which is already a criminally low amount of money.   Given the idiosyncratic and very-much-geared-at-physical-illness criteria for ESA in deciding who’s “fit for work”, let’s enjoy our final few months hating ourselves for being too mental to hold down a full time job so we can hate ourselves for being even poorer.

The Conservatives say they would pay for their £600m plan to “get Britain working” by cutting the incapacity benefit bill.

People on employment support allowance who are deemed fit to work would be put on the jobseeker’s allowance, reducing their benefits by £25 a week.

All incapacity benefit claimants would be assessed to see if they could work.

Robert noticed my worried face as I read this story and said, “It’s ages away and anyway, it won’t be for people like you, who have real illnesses and have the doctors and nurses helping you”, but it is for people like me, and for people like you, not just the famed, “dodgy backs” of Britain.  (Speaking of which, as I write this, I have a completely buggered neck I can barely move.  GIVE ME MONEY).  It’s not the first time someone has said, “Ah, but YOU deserve it”.  They can only say that because they know me well enough to know and see first hand how severely my illness affects my life.  I’m still judged unfit to work by the DWP but I’ll eventually be assessed and probably booted onto JSA.  I can walk, after all.  And people who do bullshit, like a certain someone I know who does the double (works and claims benefits) and who faked a panic attack at an assessment, should be pulled (and in her case, kicked up the hole although there are many people who are in such poverty that they claim benefits for the much-needed extra income, which is seemingly never addressed).  But the process for judging who is and who isn’t “deserving” isn’t just a medical one, it’s becoming a moral and social one.  The system is hugely flawed.  Have a read of the Benefits and Work forum to see actual examples of the judged “dodgy backs” who find themselves utterly fucked because of it.

I am aspiring to be in part time work by mid-next year.  Nobody, including myself, believes me well enough for it yet,  but I try to routinely do something (even if it’s just writing something by a deadline) to test myself and to keep busy.  I am meeting the therapist for an assessment on the 22nd so that might help, too.  But it’s besides the point.  There is a sour attitude towards people who are ill in Britain right now.  I feel like human flotsam, guilty for every single penny I spend, even though I worked and paid my taxes since I was seventeen.  Just force people into shitty, badly paid jobs and cut benefits to the point where there’s no financial gain to be had on them. I don’t even have the energy or the impetus to write about it.  “Benefit reform” by both Labour and the Conservatives have long since ceased to pretend to be humanitarian.

(P.S:  I should say that I am embarrassed to be writing this as I know some people reading will be thinking, “Get to work! There’s nothing wrong with  you!  You can type this, you have a life!”  which is a little internal prejudice against myself I hold also because my problems are mental and I am often ashamed of them.  Which I think says quite a lot about what “real” illness allegedly is

Lydia just pointed out how much she hates the, “what do you do?” question from people.  Ah, yes, me too).

Dos and Don’ts was nominated for a Mind Mental Health Media Award. Hooray!

Cheers, MHM!

Leading mental health charity Mind today announces the shortlist for this year’s Mental Health Media Awards, sponsored by Comic Relief and Shift.Terry Pratchett, Fiona Phillips and Alastair Campbell are among those competing for the full length television documentary prize, and the BBC and Channel 4 go head to head in many of the categories, with top rated soaps Eastenders and Hollyoaks battling it out for the soaps and continuing TV drama award.

This is the first year the prestigious event, which celebrates the best portrayals of mental distress and reporting of mental health in broadcast media, will be managed by Mind following its merger with Mental Health Media earlier this year.

Radio Drama

• (BBC Radio 4)
• Dos and Don’ts for the Mentally Interesting
  Uplifting factual drama based on 23-year old Seaneen Molloy’s acclaimed blog about learning to live – and love – with bipolar disorder.

Yay!

I am proud, though feel somewhat fraudulent (and I do find it tricky listening because of this) as the play was partly based on a relationship with Rob that is no longer (though it’s no-longer-ness does not negate its loveliness and immensely life changing importance when it was an is.  And he is still my much loved friend).  But!- it’s very very lovely that people consider the play to have raised awareness of mental illness.  I hope it did in some way. I never really know what to say about it because its existence at all is highly surreal! But I was very happy and proud to be involved.

So, well done to the lovely Louise Ramsden, who adapted the play, and Fiona Kelcher, the equally lovely  producer!  (And squeak! Jimmy McGovern is one of the judges!  Quake!)  I have no idea if we’ll win anything but it’s still rather nice to be nominated for something (last prize I ever got a plastic parrot that had been wronged by nature).

Also on the shortlist:

EastEnders (BBC One)
One of EastEnders’ most loved characters, Stacey Branning comes to terms with the prospect that she may have bipolar disorder, the same condition that her mother has had for many years.

Eastenders fans, what do you make of this portrayal?  A spiteful text was sent to Robert about it about the episode in which she was diagnosed. Watch it! I hadn’t watched it in years, but the texter clearly thought such a portrayal would, er, somehow unmask my own monstrosity and his lunacy at being with someone like me.  (You can read Robert’s not-entirely-serious ramblings at The Trap Box and decide who is the real lunatic. The answer is, as usual, neither).

What from I’ve seen, it’s been handled rather well.  The discussion with the psychiatrist raised both a wry smile and inspired a somewhat uncomfortable shifting in the chair from me.  TV drama tends to go a little overboard when trying to convey bipolar disorder.  The characters are usually jumping up and down and waving their arms frantically, or leaden with depressive paralysis.  But Stacey was agitated- that skin crawling, can’t sit still, can’t hold a coherent thought agitation that’s very familiar to me.  And her terror, having seen her mother go through it, and her denial, was quite an important point to get across.  Now she’s descending into psychosis.

I was a little bit pissed that the histrionic, “promiscuous” (I hate that word, I hate what it implies, I don’t believe in it, but it’s what Eastenders were scripting her as) character was the one who became mentally ill, and thought it might have been more effective if someone less stereotypically “mental” became so, but I guess it did illustrate the descent, the gradient, the tremors.

Anyway, what are your thoughts?

I’d like MHM to introduce a web category for outstanding websites and blogs about mental health.  I imagine it would be a somewhat impossible task to be representative, but a cursory look over —————–> shows that there’s more than enough to warrant such a thing.  (And on a side note, how pissed off does the woman on the banner look?  GERROF MY WEBSITE!)

And to say I have bloggers’ block right now is an understatement.  I might join the ranks of the uber-Web2.0 Facepeople and do a video post next time, providing I can somehow brush my hair over my face and talk from beneath the curtains like the Wizard of Oz.  I may be struggling with writing, but christ, I can talk. (Though cannot promise to be coherent or interesting since I have slept not-much of late and I am a tiny bit high and have been admittedly somewhat unstable lately.  I am managing though, just not very good at concentrating for long, or short, periods of time! So, er, probably not a video but I can try).

(P.S:  I got an indefinite award from DLA, which I’m guessing is due to the, well, obvious.  It’s been three years since my diagnosis and here I still am. Anyway, no sooner had I found out the happy news of not having to do the renewal form in two years, I discover that they’re thinking of scrapping the fecking thing! You gits!)

(P.P.S:  The Mentally Interesting community still lives at Ning! Go frolic! Or as best you can do on antipsychotics! Go forth and stumble!)

ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH

-DELIVERANCE!  Literally.  DLA forms have turned up!

So, er, panic averted.  Anyone got anything nice to talk about?

A note

I habitually private/delete posts here that I consider too personal/too whingey/too directionless (on a blog like this, the criteria is rather… loose).  So if something you comment on goes missing, it’s not you, it’s me.

I got a few emails with my last into-the-ether post asking if they’d personally pissed me off.  No, and no-one ever has ever pissed me off enough for me to delete the post in a hissy fit.  So never fear!

So, some moaning to get out of the way:

I haven’t felt like writing in general lately so forgive my sporadicness.  It’s been like that for months, so.   I’m struggling so stupidly with writing that I keep finding that, when I do, I miss out words, spell things wrong and generally fail to find a flow.  I don’t feel like a good writer anymore, and I don’t feel like I have any of worth to say in this blog.  I’m so far unsuccessfully trying to boot my arse back into the habit.  That I am having such trouble with it has saddened me.  Blogs are often a good starting post to clear the blocks but this one, not so much.  I keep it deliberately focused on mental health and because I’ve been in a funk- both mentally and “creatively”- I haven’t really felt like writing about it.  There aren’t many ways to say it, unless I just post a picture of tumbleweed, like this:

That’s pretty much it.  I’m going to start a new, general blog in the hope of helping me regularly write again, and about subjects other than a) mental health and b) myself.  I could sit down with a Word document open but unfortunately it never seems to encourage that, “MUST DESTROY THE LOVELY SNOW WITH MY FOOTPRINTS!” feeling that I wish it did.  I might go through the comments on this post for inspiration.

I’m not unhappy.  I’m just a bit lost.

I’m still muddling through the changes of the past few months.  I haven’t felt like publicly talking about any of it.  A load of good things have happened too, but I am a screamy-tantrumy-child when it comes to change.  I need to think of the future, and I’m…well, yes, a bit lost.  Not entirely sure where I’m going in my life in general.  Vortexy, confusing.  And another reason I haven’t been writing here or in general is Life Stuff- I’m doing the Life Thing, living it, rather than blogging it.

Hope everyone out there is okay.  Once again apologies for not keeping up with people and being terrible at replying to e-mails.  I haven’t really felt like I’ve much insight to offer for some time now.

It has been a strange and difficult year.

BBC Ouch on disability

Hello!  Here is another article from me on BBC Ouch.  It’s about what I discussed here recently; feeling like a fraud in terms of “disability”.

Here’s an excerpt from it:

One night at the pub, I was emptying my pockets looking for my keys when it fell out. It lives in a distinctive orange wallet and has the words ‘FREEDOM PASS’ emblazoned across it. An acquaintance picked it up for me and cocked an eyebrow. “How come you get one of these?” he asked. I cocked an eyebrow right back.

“Because I’m disabled”, I responded. With a barely concealed smirk, he replied, in the laborious tone of disbelief, “But you’re not disabled”. And, although my social worker, the Department of Work and Pensions and Islington council, beg to differ, a part of me agreed.

Disability is defined as, “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities”.  Having a mental illness does “substantially limit” my life. There are times in which I barely function on any meaningful level. No one would look at me and guess that sometimes I need help bathing myself, or that there are times I can’t cook a meal. But I do, and there are.

And yet, even though I’m speaking to you from Britain’s best disability website (oh yes), I feel like a total fraud. I felt like a fraud when I was filling in my Disability Living allowance forms, I felt like a fraud when I was staring blankly ahead for the passport photo I needed to get my Freedom Pass and I felt like a fraud when I retorted to my friend. I just have a mental illness, and some people don’t even believe that mental illness exists. Though I live with one, even I question whether I’m ill or just weak. And when it comes to mental disabilities, many people may question whether mental illness counts as a disability at all. Why should I get a Freedom Pass? What do I know about genuine disability?

The rest lives here.

Sorry I haven’t written in here for almost a fortnight.  It’s been a busy one, although most of it has been taken up with carking Lemsip in a bid to fight off the ills.   I’ve been busy in the social sense of staying sober and sleeping in the sitting room trying to stop coughing,  but absolutely unproductive in every other sense.  I haven’t written anything in two weeks.  I need to get back into the habit of writing regularly before I surrender myself to utter uselessness.

In terms of mood, I’m going through one of those strange emotionless, spaced out phases which are neither noteworthy, nor easy, to write about.

Before I go, a relevant post on therapy

Hello!  Occasionally some posts, like this one, will be illustrated by the lovely Prozacville, so go and visit him and give him praise as you would a deity.

I am sick of having “issues”.  But here is a post moaning about them!  Delicious irony.

But ooh.  I had forgotten the (free and fixed) Macbook had Photobooth.  Here I am relaxing in my sitting room.  Not pictured are my chandelier, maid, cigar and rent boy.

Except I’m clearly not relaxing in my sitting room, as only maniacs can relax when a lens is on them, and I have in fact turned the Macbook upside down and that’s not a relaxing pose.  I also have silly hair.  I dyed it red and blue, which apparently means orange and green.  I like to think I look like I’m sporting beguiling autumnal plumage, and not that I just look like a twat that’s been left out in the rain too long.

Ah, an illuminating appointment with my social worker today, so, thought I’d write about it.  Long, self obsessed and introspective- you could say it’s a Classic Secret Life… post.  (And a caveat here: remember this is a blog exclusively about mental health.   Some people seem to forget that.  I do not go through my day to day life going, “ARGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGH”.  I have other, more cheerful topics of conversation).

I’ve never really gone into detail about my now twice-monthly (or, as the kids say, “fortnightly”) appointments with my social worker.  They are mostly a bit of a chat, commentary on mood and someone for me to talk to.  She’s a lovely woman, quite clearly no-nonsense, which is sometimes appreciated and sometimes not (who doesn’t occasionally want a bit of, “Ah, there, there” and to just moan into your sleeve) and I like her.  The appointments are usually conducted in a small room with one window, and today there was the smell of cat piss emanating from…something.  I suspect it was me, since I’m not entirely convinced that Girl Cat hasn’t weed on the cords I’m wearing.  Then again, I didn’t really care this morning when I got dressed.  A cheeky sniff almost clears my name, but I have a bit of a cold so I may well infact stink of her waters.  My social worker insisted it was somewhere else in the room as, being a residential area, cats sometimes become cat burglars (a term which used to confuse me greatly) and pee all over the place before they’re shooed away.

She helps me with practical matters, and carried on my old CPN’s work in terms of benefits and housing.  But I can mostly do these things alone.  Okay, it takes me about three and half millenia to get round to doing it,  but I am fairly independent, as far as people within mental health services go.  She has been trying to sort out direct payments for me to study something, with both of us agreeing I need more structure in my life.  I keep- genuinely- forgetting to ring up, but I will tomorrow.  To be quite honest with you, I don’t particularly feel up to a lot right now, but I’d regret not trying, and it may well be good for me, especially with Robert going to university in October.  We could compare notes.

Today we discussed therapy, and why the person who makes the assessment had been unwilling to make an appointment with me.

I had therapy was last year, and it was CBT for body image problems (BDD).  I spent most of 2008 in a depressive stupor, indeed, I don’t particularly recall much of it.  Therapy started off okay, but I was already rather depressed, and as it progressed, I began to feel worse.  By the time of the fourth or so appointment, I was so depressed that I didn’t actually give a toss about my appearance, so it was difficult to engage with it.  What had seemed greatly important no longer felt important, along with everything else in my life.  So, the therapy ended.

It was assumed that the trials of therapy had worsened my depression.  The stress of looking inward and so on.  To this day, I still don’t think that was the case, but maybe there was something subconscious.  Either way, in September (or possibly October), I was prescribed Effexor, went loony, took a huge overdose and there you go.

So.  The Therapy Lady didn’t want an appointment for that reason, and also another reason, which is that she didn’t think I saw some of my problems as being part of my personality and that I only saw my problems as part of a chemical imbalance.  Ergo, therapy would not be helpful.

It is true that I have tended to be overly clinical about myself.  I am increasingly seeing myself as a whole person, with other problems, but for a long time, I was quite clinical about everything.  I saw my moods etc etc as being outside myself.  Which puts me in a helpless position, no?  Not entirely.  I have made the appropriate “lifestyle changes” to manage my illness- I didn’t drink for ages and am not doing so again, don’t take drugs, try to sleep, try to eat, avoid stress etc etc etc.  But…

Being diagnosed with bipolar disorder was a kick in the bollocks for me.  Who in their right mind (FNAR!) wants to be diagnosed with a serious mental illness?  It sucks.  It’s crap.  It makes you feel as though you have, “REJECT” stamped across your forehead.  The only way I felt able to cope with it was to see it in a medical sense, as an illness, as something outside myself.  Because if I thought that I bought this on myself, that it was my fault, that I was flawed and fucked up (which I do often think), I could not cope.  I would simply just not be able to face it.  Giving myself distance, writing about it, even sometimes coldly analyzing, was what I needed to do for a few years.  And I was rather, “Ah.  Well.  That explains an awful lot”.  And I should have been relieved, but I was devastated.

It was easier for me to see it that way.  I would not have come this far without that perspective.  It’s unhelpful for therapists, but I needed to face up to and deal with the other stuff in my own time.  I do consider bipolar disorder to be a chemical thing, by the way.  The chemical basis, if you will.

I have other diagnosed problems, namely body dysmorphia, bulimia and self harm.  My social worker mentioned that those things in tamden with bipolar disorder are not that common, due to the shifts in self perception and weight that comes with bipolar.  This is true,  but it still stands, although in terms of bulimia, I’d consider myself better.

That’s enough for me- I don’t really want more fecking problems, more diagnosis. I have trouble enough agreeing with the existence of the others.  I don’t want to be pathologised.  And, although maybe once I did see these things in isolation to bipolar disorder, I don’t think I do anymore.  As time has gone on, I’ve moved further and further away from defining by diagnosis, and thinking in terms of diagnosis at all.

Then she said the dreaded words- “personality disorder”.  My arse clenched right up.  You couldn’t have fit an atom up there.  Because I knew what was heading towards me, with the stinging predictability of a slap from a raised hand.  Borderline personality disorder.

Diagnose me with shit if it’s accurate.  Don’t diagnose me with inaccurate shit just because I’m a woman who self harms and has rapid cycling.  Borderline is one of those things nobody really wants to be diagnosed with because it is the equivalent of your doctor saying, “Fuck knows”.  I don’t want to be diagnosed with it, either, because I think it’s wrong. I was told I had “borderline traits” after an hour long appointment with a doctor in Haringey a week or so after I left hospital.  That isn’t a diagnosis, but I even disagree with traits.

24

Right, enough self pity for now! I need a self pity break.  I have one scheduled in my calender.  (This is not true.  The only calender I have in my vicinity is the Ramadan Countdown Calender.  It has chocolates.  It was a worthy purchase).

Tomorrow I am 24!  Or I could be 24 today, because nobody knows for sure when I was born.  You think my mother would remember me crawling out of her vagina, but apparently she doesn’t.  And I didn’t really crawl, I just kind of fell out.  On maybe the third or fourth of September, I was born in a lift.  Which gives me HILARIOUS ammunition when people chastise me for not shutting doors behind me.  Oh yes.

Anyway, for my birthday I got a ticket to Offset, in which I shall break my festival hymen.  (This post seems all about the vagina today.  Let’s see how many more references I can slip in).  So, that’s where I shall be this weekend. Before I go, I will clean my sofa cover as, due to an unfortunate incident with a bowl of cereal, it looks like I have pissed myself.

So, I’ll see you in a few days or so.  Have a good weekend chaps!  I’ll leave you, as usual, with an attempt to force my tastes down your throat.

Oh dear

What’s the most violently dispiriting thing about filling in my DLA renewal forms: that I have to write about my worst days, my calamitous failures, my frequent inabilities to do even the simplest of things, in order to keep receiving it to be able to carry on living in my flat (my entire living situation is dependent on the severe disability premium because I’m under twenty five), or that I have not lied once?

There indeed really have been times- and more than I would ever like to admit- that I have been so depressed that I haven’t peeled myself off my bed to go to the toilet and have just gone in a nearby cup.  And there have been times I have wandered the streets propositioning random strangers for sex.

Where I am right now is not that low (looking back on those times, I do not recognise myself in them, and at the moment, my mood is quite low but enough that I at least feel somewhat human) but I know and fear I could be there again.  But hey, achievement for the day, I finished filling the fecking thing in.  It took me months to feel able to do it but I did.   I hate, hate having to dance for money and I still struggle to see myself as someone “disabled” by something, even though going through the form truthfully kind of shows that I am in some way.  Still, Hooray for me.

(The problem is, I don’t think I have severe bipolar disorder.  I am not sure I have it at all).

Mood Disorder Research Joy

My mood is still in the gutter, spiraling between complete emotional nothingness and depression, so, eh!  Combination of general mentalism and realising I got knocked on my arse in April, had a little bit of a breakdown and haven’t been the same since.  I have little motivation to write, or do much else.

I did, however, manage to do some research with Cardiff University at midday, having completely and utterly forgotten about it.  I nearly jumped out of my skin when the alien squeal of the doorbell shook me from my half-slumber.    I was still drugged enough to be cheerful and docile, so I floated into the living room and sat down on the floor like a Buddha and let her ask me questions.  Robert was there, so I unceremoniously shut him in the kitchen like a naughty pet.  He was content to wash dishes and eat yoghurt and generally fop around, before disappearing to the fancy dress shop to get god knows what for god knows what reason.  But he doesn’t need to know about some of the less glamourous and less interesting depths I’ve fallen into over the course of my life.  Those conversations to be conducted in a different time.  Although he gently calls me insane anyway, and was around at the time when I was suffering from the most severe psychosis of my life, so I don’t think I can really scare him.  Still, I’m determined to try and keep Teh Mentals from defining this one to save heartbreak.  It does help that he’s not all there himself, but then again, nobody I’ve ever gone out with has been, really (that they like me is evidence of this OH FNAR FNAR FNAR).

If any of you were thinking of participating in the Cardiff Mood Disorder research (link here, and they’re also researching psychosis) this is basically what it involves.

The focus of the study is, as far as I’m aware, the role of genetics in bipolar disorder, and also the role of stressful events and so on.  I emailed them on papyrus, and they only got in touch a few weeks ago, so prepare yourself for a bit of a wait.

Firstly, a warning.  If you’re not in the best state of mind, it might be a good idea to pass and reschedule.  I am not at the moment, and found the whole thing a bit depressing and, when my customary mists cleared, I spent, and am spending, the rest of the day feeling rather (understatement) shit.  I was at first somewhat ashamed that I had totally forgotten they were coming- not unusual for me since I tend to forget everything- but it meant I hadn’t tidied up and I thought, “Christ, I’d like to at least pretend I am a fully functioning human being”, instead of hurriedly trying to boot floatsam out of the way and using my very best ashtray for the dregs of my nervous chainsmoking.  And in my Buddha state I picked the hell out of my arms and didn’t realise I was doing so until about forty five minutes in, which also embarrassed me.

The questions themselves are the usual kind of fare the psychiatrist might throw at you during a prodding diagnostic interview.  However, they’re somewhat more detailed.

The first round was the usual fare: when did you first have an episode of depression, when did you first have an episode of depression and so on.  Then the, “How many episodes of mania/depression/mixed episodes have you had in your life”, which, for me, is almost impossible to quantify due to my rapid cycling.  It was easier to say within a year, but that varies a lot, too.  She asked (and she was very nice- clearly unshakable, attentive and sensitive, and didn’t mind my cats annexing her bag, trying to steal her folders because they like manic depressives, they are comfy and feed them) about my longest episodes of illness.  In my case, that was about a year of constant and severe depression, eight months or so of the same with mania.

They asked if I’d been hospitalised and who I saw about my mental health.  I don’t see many people.  I don’t think my care or my case is particularly urgent or severe- I just have a social worker, and I occasionally see the psychiatrist.  It’s just monitoring, though I’d appreciate more practical help, and don’t feel I have the right to ask (I am, after all, able bodied.  I just get massively demotivated and get nothing done.  Would like some help with that sort of thing because it is largely my mood affecting my energy, I am not naturally a lazy sod).

Then there were the diagnostic type questions: when depressed, have you ever felt/done/etc.  I found this uncomfortable because she asked questions about how it affected your relationships, and that, my friends, is the thing I find most horrible to discuss with absolutely anybody, because the answer is, “So much more than I had ever wished for”.  She asked about suicide attempts, which I also found uncomfortable to talk about.

Same with questions about mania.  She asked about what manic symptoms I’d experienced in my life (the good thing, I guess, is that if you’re wavering on the question of, “Do I have symptoms of manic depression or am I just a whingey twat”, answering these kind of questions gives you a not-very-nice clarity on the answer), which amounts to, “Lots”.   The one I tend to miss out on is euphoria.  When I have mania, as opposed to hypomania, I become a raging, well, maniac, as opposed than a Ned Flanders, happy-clappy, I love you you’re my besht mate type of dovelike little sphere of sparkledom.   So divulging some of my manic symptoms was in part, excruciating.  Genial discussions on police cautions for aggressive behaviour, propositioning strangers in the street and screaming fits of rage at your loved ones are not pleasant.  And all of it somewhat adds to the depressive feeling of, “Well, it’s no wonder that nobody likes me” and that anyone no longer in my life was well rid.  That’s quite self pitying though, and a bit of a self fulfilling prophesy.

The psychosis questions were fun.  Nothing makes me feel more “mental” than talking about psychosis.  Some of it is so outlandish, some of it is so sad for me to remember. Some of it is so blurry that I don’t remember it. Mostly, though, it’s absolutely, cowering behind your chair, “I CANNOT BELIEVE I DID THAT”.  One long, drawn out howl of, “OH FUCK”.  Occasionally punctuated by sniggering.  Because some of it was funny, too.

Then there were questions about my family, and my responses amounted to, “Yes, my parents are mental.  My mum is unclassified mentally ill and my dad is a mental and no longer alive alcoholic.  My siblings are surprisingly quite balanced”.  So that was that.

And then the part I really forgot about- they take your blood.  All of it, every drop.  I am writing this with my bones. I can’t imagine how they coax this out of interviewees with psychotic symptoms.  I am, as you know, terrified of needles.  Yes, it’s quite stupid given the state of my arms and legs, but I am.  I was still under the influence of Seroquel enough to be quite relaxed, though I did have a cigarette, wishing, as I sucked it like one might suckle their mother’s breast, that it had something stronger in it.

She stuck a needle in me, I didn’t scream and run, and now I have a fetching little plaster.  And then she left and I have this questionnaire to do, which features such questions as, “Do you think your mother is a good woman?” Ho-hum!  The feminist in me is outraged by its wording.  Look forward to doing that one while I procrastinate in debasing myself for money on my DLA renewal forms.

It was worthwhile to take part, since I’m all for the cause of furthering understanding into mental illness, man, but be careful if you’re not feeling too good.

You’re a mental patient

Oh lord!  A video about mental health that’s…wry, funny, honest, silly.  Have a look at this:

It’s about the experience of being admitted to hospital (in particular, the Maudsley in South London, where the artist (comedian Kim Noble, who was part of Noble and Silver, an act I hated) was admitted and whose staff and patients help make this video).

I like it a lot and it resonated with me given my brief but unbelievably boring time spent in the NHS’s finest condemned building.  The part in the video which pointed out the three missing Scrabble pieces made me laugh out loud.  Rob and I were lucky enough to be given a WHOLE ENTIRE game of Connect 4 to play in the drafty but private room away from the funeral flowers, but the rest of the “distracting” games in the day room were straight out of the stroppiest ever child’s toy chest, replete with Crayola graffiti and jigsaws that resembled cliff faces in their dropping off into the abyss-ness.

What do you think of it?

The yellow minute before the wind walks

I have a horrible, horrible churning feeling of foreboding.  I feel like something awful is about to happen.

Statistics, lies, progress

EDIT: Summary:  I think I am doing quite well but wish I was doing better.  And this post is a bit of a whinge.

It’s also my birthday next week.  I had almost forgotten about it.  Twenty four, bloody hell.

I’m a curious sort and have, since the beginning of my treatment, read about bipolar disorder and other mental illnesses with the detached academic mindset of a student. It is interesting. It is fascinating. And, even though it’s happening to me, I sometimes feel, reading those cold little symptomatic checklists, alien, unfocused, outside.

I am, in many ways, a very typical manic depressive (although, like many people who suffered from psychosis during their episodes, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder were also thrown around the diagnostic discussions). My flavour is Bipolar I disorder, which is more colloquially known as classic manic depression, the joyful kind of alternating periods of mania and depression. I haven’t had a pure manic episode for some time, though I am afflicted, still, by rapid cycling and often have bursts of hypomania- irritable, raging- that I don’t think noteworthy enough to comment upon here. None of it feels noteworthy anymore, and crisis are dull. It is just my life now, disabling and frustrating as it is.

Now I skirt around the fringes of depression and those are the times when those frigid little statistics I so nod upon strike me as roughly as the Grim Reaper’s bony, arse-white unsympathetic fingers. Beyond interesting in these moods, they just feel damning. Like this:

Suicide and Bipolar Disorder

• Bipolar disorder results in 9.2 years reduction in expected life span, and as many as one in five patients with bipolar disorder completes suicide. (National Institute of Mental Health)

Mentally Interesting Community on Ning

Hello!

(from the ace Prozacville)

Dirtdog kindly set up a fan page for this site, but lovely as it is, I think it’s a bit too focused on this blog.  BUT!

I did think it might be a nice idea to set up a community for Youse (and me) to chat on and share things, so I did on Ning.

Click here to visit Mentally Interesting on Ning!

(http://mentallyinteresting.ning.com)

Ning is quite groovy- you can post blogs, photos, talk in chat, it has a forum and it’s all shiny shiny new!  It is for people with mental health problems but also for anyone interested, their loved ones and so on.

Join me or else it’s just me on my lonesome lurking round an empty community crying to myself.  It’s a bit rough around the edges right now but I’ll dust it up.

Note to shameful self

I need to stop drinking.  I went a year teetotal and recently relaxed my rules, and I am now reminded why I stopped drinking in the first place.

I went out last night with friends, and, feeling socially nervous as I do, ended up drunk, far more drunk than I should have been (and I have a lower tolerance for alcohol because I went so long without it, and my medication).  I have no “off” switch, I go past the point of no return.

I probably made a dick out of myself, who knows, I don’t remember.  What I do know is that I’m sitting here covered in cuts (my own work) and bruises, a fucked leg and a trashed flat.  I’m using wifi right now, I have to go and buy a new modem.  The Mac was fixed but my other computer has a smashed monitor.  I basically wrecked everything in this flat and there is crockery everywhere.  And I fought with Robert.  Fuck me, I’m a catch aren’t I.  What the fuck am I doing.  I absolutely adore him, and he’s rather intense and inspires the same in me, which is mostly life-affirmingly wonderful but the intense emotions cover a range.  Mostly adoration, though.  I would rather take the bad intense emotions too than not have them at all.

I don’t have much of a temper but christ, I do when I’m drunk.  All my pent up emotions, for I am surprisingly stoic in my day to day life, come to the surface and I lose it.  Recently, having had more pent up emotions than usual (I pretty much had a breakdown in April, a very quiet one but it was there, and I haven’t recovered, and summer is often horrific for me in terms of my mood, as now), when I get drunk I go mental.  So yeah.  Off to Argos with me to buy a modem, that I can’t fucking afford anyway.  I need a new monitor but I really really can’t afford that right now.

Given my mentalist disposition I lose my temper quite rarely.  But this is why I stopped drinking, and this is why I am stopping again.   It is not worth it. And I fucking hate myself when I’m drunk and hate myself even more the next day.

I’m posting this here to shame myself into action, and to own up.  I was so proud of myself for knocking drink on the head before.  Time to be proud again.  And would also not like to destroy this relationship, which I seem to be trying hard to do because apparently I don’t deserve to be happy or loved or something, and shouting at people for no reason is fun.  Self sabotage is fucking stupid.  The only way to stop this bullshit childish brat behaviour is to take control of it again, so, here I am.

Emails

Please excuse me if you don’t get a reply to your emails straight away or at all.  I promise I’m not a snotty bitch who’s too cool to respond.  I’m a snotty bitch with an appalling memory and I often forget to respond, not just to emails from readers but also from my friends.  I do read everything I receive.

I also try not to give advice because it puts both of us on dodgy ground.

In other news, depression is genially trying to beat me again and I am pretty much sick of being a mental.

Videos on mental health and stigma

On Friday, in my capacity as Blogging Mentalist with a Big Mouth, I attended a roundtable discussion chaired by Mark of One in Four in which we gave our opinions on adverts produced by mental health charities regarding mental health and stigma.

The three we looked at were these:

“Schizo”, part of Rethink’s, “Time to Change” campaign.  I support the campaign’s aim but I think this video is misjudged.  I know it tries to be-  “Look, here’s a nice middle class white man with schizophrenia, he’s not an axe murderer!” but it left me cold.  Then again, I don’t think the campaign is aimed at people like me, people who do have a mental illness.  It’s aimed at the rest of the world who don’t and who have certain preconceptions about us. (Us, eh, as if people with mental illness are a community. We’re not, and the closest thing we have is the blogosphere).

We watched a few from Shift, who in this series, are providing resources about mental ill health in the workplace for line managers.  I think the bad acting in this distracted me, and it’s moreso about workplace stress than mental illness.

The messages being- mental ill health costs loads of money, and beware your photocopiers because mental people are unpredictable and will break them.

And then we watched the Wellbeing East videos, in association with the Mental Health Foundation.  I’ve already discussed these videos here (and is it a coincidence I ended up in hospital a day later, EH?)

Then, off the record, we also watched Comic Relief’s video, sponsored by Time to Change.  This was the only one, in my opinion, that had any sort of impact on the person watching.  This one got it mostly right.

These campaigns are designed to reduce the stigma surrounding people with mental illness.  And it is there, and it exists within ourselves.  When we watched the Shift videos, Mark asked that if we’d been in our office and had been shown them, and the manager had asked us if we had any issues or views on it, would we share that we had a mental illness?  And, after a little silence, we all said that we wouldn’t.  The Shift videos try to promote more understanding, more sympathy towards mental illness in the workplace, but the culture of most workplaces is bitchiness and gossip.  And those people are, by and large, not your friends.  So it is promoting stigma not to speak up, or is it just none of their bloody business?

Anyway, what do you think about these videos?

23

I was in a rather good mood this morning,  but now I feel grizzly and sad, in a somewhat adolescent way.  I think my life would be better with less overanalysis and paranoia.  Sometimes I am thrust back into that paralysing teenage insecurity that makes me miserable.

I grouched around in my fluffy leopardprint cardigan for a little while before deciding that Super Noodles were the answer.  Super Noodles, along with Toasted Toppers, were like the proverbial mother’s magic kiss to a scraped knee when I was a child (being that my mother wasn’t really the kissing knee type, I had to content myself with processed foods).  So I gathered my pennies and lint and decided to go to the shops, then, reminding myself that I was in fact a twenty three year old women and not a fourteen year old child (although, ahaha, given that I’m once again in a relationship with the boyfriend I had at that age, can you blame me for feeling regressive?) I decided to empty the cat’s litter tray and take out the bins.  In a bid to save my shiny gold coins, I had bought Tesco Value binliners, which are apparently not designed to dispose of three days worth of clumpy cat urine and feces, and proceeded to split all over the floor.  And my shoes, which now smell like ammonia.  So I got on my chapped knees and swept up all their poo while they regarded me with their headlight eyes barely concealing amusement.  Oh yes,  my life is awful, isn’t it.  WOE.

My grumpiness lifted for a second in the street, when I glanced the moon, and smiled at the memory of the first time I saw it as it was.  I was twenty two, finally kitted out with the correct strength of lenses, and had never known it was an orb, surrounded by a black ring.  To me, it was just a silver coin, or cheese, or a sliver.  It was lovely, to see it.

It has been an interesting few days.  Yesterday, I ventured out to my friend’s leaving party.  The traitorous little scumbag is leaving beautiful, green and thoroughly splendid England for bloody America.  There, I would be meeting Rob’s new girlfriend (who I did want to meet), and was in such knots of sheer panic and nerves about it that I almost turned away and asked Robert to wait in a pub nearby so that I could see if I felt up to hanging around.  (I am not sure about writing this in here, as I don’t want to be Mentally Ill Ex writing about someone’s boyfriend, it feels out of order).

It was massively awkward for a little while and I did consider leaving. I felt sick and panicked. The situation was weird, and I was so incredibly nervous.  I’m not good socially anyway, and it was also the first time in a few months I’d seen quite a lot of my friends.

So, I managed the way other people manage- by getting absolutely plastered drunk.  Hooray!

Rob’s new girlfriend is beautiful, entertaining, friendly and cool.  She’s also good at bowling and the only time in my pathetic attempt at it I knocked anything down was with her guidance! She was very sweet to me, though in my Day After Fuck Me I Drank A Lot Paranoia, I’m panicked that, in trying to convey that I thought Rob was great and ace, I somehow came across as a crazy ex who hadn’t let go or something.   And when I’m drunk my mouth seems to run away with me and I can be quite indiscreet.  But it was- and forgive my wankiness here- healing to meet her.  I didn’t really grieve the end of our relationship for a while because I felt I had no right to, and I had tried very hard to keep things normal, in fear of losing my best friend, too (because he was).  But things weren’t normal,  and it was selfish of me to try and pretend they were,  they were different and when I began to accept that, I began to grieve it, got upset over it and that was necessary, it was needed and I felt more at ease thinking about another relationship when I admitted that I needed to sort out those feelings and was honest about it.

Meeting Rob’s new girlfriend is the ultimate in the, “This is weird.  We are with different people now” experience that I had been dreading, proper cold sweat dreading.   When you’ve been together for years like we had been, extricating yourself from the, “We” identity that you forged as a couple is mentally challenging (at least for me, who had not had a relationship like that one before, and we went through a lot so it made the “We” stronger), and the new relationships are the complete, “ah, no longer” wake up call, that, although inevitable, is still very strange.  Meeting the new person makes it all very real. There was nerves on both sides. But seeing him happy, and seeing how lovely she is (exceptional taste in women, that Rob) made me happy, too.  It was tinged with a bit of melancholy, naturally, but I want him to be happy.  I always felt like I was holding him back.  He has really thrown himself into his life since our relationship ended, and I am very proud of him.  He deserves brilliant things.

Introducing him to Robert was good for me, too.   I have, essentially, bitched about him for nine years (and he not so affectionately referred to me as his, “insane ex girlfriend”.  To be honest, he has a few of those.  And yet we are together again!  Funny…) and he doesn’t have the best reputation.  He was a very hurt eighteen year old then.  My family dislike him and disapprove of our relationship (I was very ill indeed when I was with him, suffering from psychosis, and after we broke up, half of Belfast jumped on the hating me bandwagon, not instigated by him, but not helped, and I had pretty much a two year long nervous breakdown, was a total mess, and it culminated in me leaving the country.  Also explains somewhat why I am so paranoid about people deciding they don’t like me anymore, because that’s what happened, and I found myself alone.  Gosh, I’m really bigging him up.  Trust me, he’s great and it was a decade ago).

I hope they’ll feel differently if they meet him again, though I wish I had their approval, and that I could talk about him because he treats me so well and makes me happy (and I write this drinking out a huge mug with, “You are loved” written on it which I admired for its tack and sentiment, and which Robert went back and bought for me a few days later, and always uses it for the coffee he makes me).  I understand entirely why my family, particularly my sisters, have a problem with him, and I respect it’s them being protective because they love me.  But it has been a bit isolating, not being able to talk about him with people I love.  And weird because his family have been completely brilliant with me, even though I led him out of South London, over to Belfast then broke his heart and fucked up his schooling.  He has very ace siblings and his mum has made me tasty dinners.  But I can understand that to my family and friends it looks like complete lunacy that we even talk to each other, given our history.

Rob’s opinion mattered to me, because, well, I respect his opinion, I want him to like Robert, and he bore the brunt of the bitching, so I’m glad they got on.  And Rob was an important person in my life, and it would have been strange not to introduce Robert to him.  Even though it was odd for me to introduce the two people that have been most life-altering and myself-altering to each other.

Things will still be weird for a while, but as time goes on, hopefully they’ll be less weird.  I don’t expect me and Rob to be SuperBestFriends right now, and I don’t want to be in his face in the beginning of a new relationship.   I hope in the future we’ll be able to be good friends.  We’ll see, really, but life goes on.  I’m mentioning this here because I am shyly proud that I have handled this in a mostly adult way (even if I did get absolutely pissed in a non-adult way), which I’m not sure I would have been able to do a few years ago.  Ah, I’m a grown up.

Anyway- like I said, I don’t think I should write about these things anymore because it is rude.  So moving on.

It was great to see my friends, though I have been so socially out of the loop that I found it quite difficult to know how to act.  I’ve lost the ability to relax and felt a bit tense and out of place and was worried I was making people uncomfortable. I’m socially awkward at the best of times but recently I’ve felt more out of place than usual. I’ve forgotten who I am a little bit socially.   Ah well.  It’s been a weird couple of months, I’ll readjust.

Mentally I have been wobbling a bit more (depression, intrusive thoughts, general mood swinging and increasing frequency in self hating thoughts) in the past few days but am seeing my social worker on Thursday so will tell her about it.  I’m back on the Seroquel (itching is gone, thank god) and finally got some proper sleep, which was much needed (although I couldn’t wake myself up properly for another twenty four hours, banning myself from leaving the house so I didn’t stumble cheerfully into traffic).  I’ve been struggling a bit with panic and anxiety, which is why I’m up editing this post at 5.30, despite medication.  My head was barking at me and I started to feel shivery and scared, so here I am in my sitting room while the sun rises.

I haven’t felt like talking about my mental state too much recently because even though I’ve made it clear that my manic depressive moods are not explicitly related to my circumstances, right now, I still don’t want anybody to think that they are making me sad when they’re not.  Suffice to say, manic depression is still the most massive pain my arse, but I’ll live. Swings and roundabouts etc etc.

Other interesting things- including a roundtable discussion about mental health campaign advertisements with One in Four- have happened, but I feel rather knackered now in this horrible heat and am going to stick my head out the window.

PS: If anyone wants to be employed as my arsekicker, please apply within.  I have so many things I need to do but have been suffering from bone-sapping exhaustion for months (yes, I know I need the blood test) and have done fuck all.  And also I’m clearly lazy.  I keep forgetting about things, and my shit memory is legendary but even setting constant reminders on my phone isn’t helping: so HERE IS A TO DO LIST:

1) Pay electricity and water

2) Ring up BT and tell them to shove their overpriced broadband up their hole because I can’t afford it anymore

3) Respond to emails instead of reading them then somehow thinking that a mental response counts

4) Look into night classes for Access Courses so that I might have something to do with my life and might have a proper job in the future

5) Sort out DLA forms  (oh god, I hate them)

6) Keep the bloody social worker appointment

7) Get some food in

Do the portfolio website or at least plan it.

Of all the intensely private things I have posted on this blog, I think that is the worst of the lot.

Question about withdrawal symptoms

I haven’t taken Seroquel in a few days (genuine forgetfulness in getting my prescription, and also the novelty of attempting to sleep without it, which I manage for a few shallow hours) and I CANNOT STOP SCRATCHING MYSELF.

I have a new prescription to pick up tomorrow but do you think the mad itchiness is related to withdrawal?

What’s are the strangest withdrawal symptoms you’ve ever experienced?  I’ve had to jump ship with quite a few medications but I’ve never experienced anything more unusual than coursing rage and the old physical sickness that made me want to literally jump ship.

Dispatches from itchiness

edit:  Garbled entry ahoy!  I am very tired indeed! If you can’t be bothered to read a garbled entry from me, do feel free to read this article by evolutionary psychologist Satoshi Kanazawa about why modern feminism is illogical, unnecessary and evil instead. Should suitably jolt you awake if you’ve just lumbered into work.

It’s 3.30am and I am not in bed because I am covered in my usual welts that have been making me scratch so much I’ve given up on my pathetic, bitten nails and started using a butterknife.

The first thing I did when I got off the plane on Thursday (apart from fight the urge, Dr. Strangelove style, to do a Beatles wave) was rush to the nearest WH Smiths and buy my weekly crack-haul of Rubbish Women’s Weeklies.  One of the first headlines I saw was, “JAN’S EAR WAS BOILING ON THE HOB”.  Now, doesn’t, “boiling on the hob” sound like the most unthreatening murder related phrase?  If you’re going to cash in on shocking headlines, “on the hob” is just clumsy.  There’s something inherently mumsy about that phrase which makes murder and dismemberment seem like a kind of vaselined memory of a yesteryear Sunday roast.

That aside, this is what’s been happening since we last spoke.

I finally saw my GP about the charming ravages of inexplicable bruising and tiredness.  One of the first things he said to me was, “When did you last see your psychiatrist?”, followed by somewhat of a lecture on self harm when he rolled my sleeves up to perform the, “Psst psst” operation with the blood pressure cuff.  I think it’s a testament to my calm (aha) nature that I didn’t punch him out.  Still, I am now the proud owner of, “Admit One” to the haematology lab of the local hospital, which I’m sure I’ll cash in on… at some point when I have balls larger than a mosquito’s heart.

I also managed to smash the screen of my Macbook, so that’s the end of that.  I felt a horrible, materialistic grief at it, even though it was donated to me for the princely sum of nothing.  It made me feel Proper Writerly in that pretentious way that people write their “screenplays” in Starbucks, posed amongst the sunlight as if they’re being painted across the street by a rather talented peeping tom.  I rather enjoyed staring at a blank screen on a train, wishing the internet would work so that I could watch documentaries on 4oD instead.  Naturally, I can’t afford the prerequisite forty billion pounds for another Macbook or laptop so it’s back to the slavery of the desk for me.

Things are going quite well with Robert, although my difficulty in dealing with change has been grating on me.  The downside of getting into a relationship with somebody who already knew you rather well is that the first flushes in which one performs the vaguely passable impression of a normal human being are beyond parodic.  But evenwith someone who knows you well, it’s all still too much to put on them, and I don’t want to do that again.

Everything has moved very quickly.  It’s been less than three months since Rob and I broke up, and already both of us are in new relationships.  I’m happy for us to move on (and I want Rob to be happy and I want to be happy, too), because we should, but I am occasionally struck by the strangeness of it, and the swiftness.

I didn’t want to let life pass me by out of terror, and that hiding under the bed for a year maybe wasn’t the best course of action.   It was four very eventful years of my life with somebody that I loved very much, and even though it was my decision to end it and it seems to have been right for us (and my conduct was not the greatest), it made me very sad and alone-feeling.  I am getting better at it and I know it’s natural, it’s just all very new and strange, getting used to relationships and life changing,  coming to terms with everything, the weirdness.  I talk about it all a bit too much in a bid to work through it in my head, and also because there is no conduit between my brain and my mouth when it comes to talking.  I have no internal dialogue, just a loud, hapless, farcically tripping over bits of wood external one.  I need to exercise some form of control over my mouth.

The changes are exciting too, but I am a bit of an idiot who runs and hides with this kind of thing.

I still haven’t properly discussed therapy with my social worker (along with a lot of other things I haven’t done lately), but I will, because I think I need it.  I was going to go to Brook and get counselling over the whole stuff in April (crying fits and rants about it all, combined with my tiny breakdown in May, give me the impression I might not be as okay about it as I thought- I didn’t go through it alone, it wasn’t just me, but it changed how I saw myself, my past, present, future, and not in a good way) but pure cowardice has stopped me.

I would like to get a bit more help with things than medication, though.  I think I’m ready for all that stuff, finally, and I don’t want mentalism and emotional worries to carry on ruining my life and my relationships.  I need a bit of help to get out of the paranoid, cyclical and obsessive thought patterns that make me miserable.  Hooray.  And I need to try to live more “in the moment” and to look to the future instead of the past because I want to be happy, I want to give things a go with Robert because he is lovely, and I just want to be able to feel hopeful about life, to be open, and to not be so scared.  Because the moment can be quite wonderful and the world, beautiful.  I very very much want to be happy and I often am because my life-mentalism aside, if you can imagine such a thing- is for the most part exciting and good right now.  I have very little to complain about.  Even if I’ll always have a mental illness, I need to get a handle on it and realise I am still living in the world.  Which is what I’ve tried to do lately.

I should get my head out of my hole, eh!

ANYWAY!  I’m going to stop talking about this now.

In Mental News, I am managing, though struggling with depression (which is getting worse but which I will talk to my social worker about, as it’s intensely annoying given that there’s, as usual, nothing in my life that’s particularly depressing) and intrusive thoughts that I am dealing with but that irritated me by still hanging around on holiday, which is one of the reasons I really struggle with actually going on holiday at all.   My moods, unpredictable as they are, can sometimes scupper a good time and I don’t like letting people down like that.  Having to take medication, or not, is also annoying.  In Barcelona I took as little as I could get away with, but spent one day so drugged up I couldn’t absorb anything.  I think the contraceptive implant is also making me a little bit unstable; I’ve varied wildly between wanting to laugh hysterically, cry and wanting to scream for the past month, and put on even more weight.  And I’ve had bouts of rage- well, aren’t I just the loveliest to be around, eh?

The problem with holidays, well, with anything, is that you can’t get away from yourself.  And I do often try.  I entertain a ridiculous amount of fantasies that involve me packing a bag, leaving no note, discarding my phone and taking a flight somewhere, anywhere, and starting again.  Then I survey the realities of the situation- not least two hungry, friendly cats who need me, what would be a shattered family ringing the sad relic of a phone off the hook, a flat without rent paid, a thousand little comforts that I would miss.

When I was younger, I had a doomed and pointless relationship with a Welsh man.  I would save my school lunch money and, most Wednesdays, take the two hour long train journey to Dublin, followed by the overnight ferry (the grandiose Ulyssess) to Holyhead.  There, I would entertain myself by lying to anyone I can came into contact with.  I lied about  my name, my age, my whole life, and, if feeling particularly brave, my accent, which doubtless sounded sketchy in the extreme but which in my exuberance I thought I’d probably gotten away with.   For a few hours, maybe twice a month, I would pretend to be someone different entirely.

I sometimes wonder if, by writing this blog, I am taking refuge that, in this medium, I can come across as wiser, more together, more interesting than I really am.  Because in my daily life, I am scattered, I am paranoid, I feel like a liability.  Whereas I hope you look forward to my increasingly sproadic updates, in my day to day life, I would imagine you to be less enthused about such things…

I did have a wonderful time, despite, as you probably know, the Mentals, they follow you, and that pissed me off.   I would have liked to have been someone else without these problems, and would have liked to leave some of my issues and sadnesses and worries at home.  In the moment, as I said, would make my life a lot happier, and I often need to be kicked into it!  Intrusive thoughts have been particularly bad now for a little while, and the degree of emotional numbness I have to employ to deal with them (for sanity’s sake- they would break me otherwise), can drift, jellyfish-like, into my life, surroundings, infection- and it’s downright fecking annoying when that happens.  As I’ve taken a moment to hiss at my brain to shut the fuck up, I’ve missed something.  It isn’t fair.  And so very hard to explain!- even when you’re with someone who knows the score as far as your mental health is concerned (the upside, then, of going out with someone who knew you already- you don’t need to have the awkward, “So, er, here’s a funny story about this time I spent in a mental hospital…” discussion).

The trip to Barcelona was planned at about fifteen second’s notice.  It’s been a while since I’ve done anything spontaneous, given my caution these days, my necessary caution to look after myself, which I often bemoan.   It was only my second time out of Britain in my entire life.  The first, a jaunt to America with Project Children when I was twelve, doesn’t really count as the whole thing was such an unmitigated disaster that I’ve actively blocked half the memories out.

But look, here I am looking deceptively grumpy in a posh eatery in a place that isn’t Britain!  Hooray!  And you can smoke indoors.  I felt so naughty.

And kissing Statue Monkeys- the craven, concrete keepers of humanity- in a bid to spare the lives of us all. Appease them.  They live everywhere, even in zoos.

Robert is a great person to go on holiday with (although sometimes I was struck by the weirdness of being on holiday with him, both because of who he has been in my life, and because this is all very new)- he tries to talk the language (albeit in a South London accent, and I can now say “please” in Catalan), isn’t afraid to try anything and has the childish enthusiasm of a five year old who’s downed a whole tube of Haribo, except when sulking about leaving expensive Venetian plague doctor masks in overpriced taxis.

Like I said, it was brilliant, I just wish I could have left my crap at home!  Sometimes, I felt euphoric and free, and it was romantic and fun.   I am now getting too tired to write but!  I wish I could go and live there.  I could subtly just show up in someone’s flat and change the locks while they’re at work.  It has opened my eyes a bit, I barely realised there were places outside England (though I do, and always will, have an adoration of windswept, freezing shuttered seaside towns).

I was expecting I guess, the sterility of Britain to be on mainland Europe, but it wasn’t so- Barcelona is a beautiful city, somewhat ruinous, with sandy coloured blocks with balconies squaring up to each other amidst the blazing afternoons, even its pavements artistic and adorned with carvings that look like flowers, look as though they belonged on the walls of a Roman bath, so if like me you’re prone to staring at your feet as you walk, you still have a view.   It’s a mix between the old, almost medieval, gothic and modern, which doesn’t jar.  It is alive and vibrant, even in the quiet streets late at night you still here music or singing from somewhere.  People eat late there, there isn’t the weekday rush to bed at 10pm, and yawning.   Kids wander around kicking footballs at midnight.  I sat coveting calamari (which I used to be afraid of, but now love) at 3am.  Robert bought a load of Barca stuff for his (pre-marital) stepson and we ran into the massively talented waiter who played football with him two years beforehand, and wandered around in his ANTIMADRIDISTA t-shirt, which I’m sure endeared him to the rabidly Barca supporting locals.

Our hotel was huge and modern, in a quiet neighbourhood near the Arc de Triompf.   We didn’t get up until the afternoon most of the time, the heat was very unforgiving and lots of places would be closed in the afternoon.  It was also near the Park of the Ciutadella, where parrots apparently congregate, but I didn’t meet one.  I did, however, meet a Spanish pigeon.

"HOLA, I am deep voiced PIGEON".

We didn’t go to many of the big places because we didn’t have time.  We visited Sagrada Familia, Casa Milá and other Gaudi works- they’re all beautiful, startling, and strange to see them just plonked on a busy street.

Sagrada Familia, the world's most beautiful construction site...

Casa Mila

Went to the chocolate museum (Robert, as a foodie, wanted to shag everything he saw) and got chocolate tickets (the whole place smelled so delicious that I wanted to live there), went to the Miro gallery where I jumped through a sculpture when nobody was looking, walked La Ramblas (but not with real intent EH MANICS FANS EH EH EH) which is like a circus crossed with Oxford Circus and got stoned near the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia on three puffs of very strong Chilean weed given to us by Carlitto.   (Proof once more that cigarettes are currency- he asked me for one and in return he handed me a joint.  I haven’t smoked in years, it was rather…affecting!)  We spent most of the time at the Cathedral with a ton of people who were playing flamenco music, and were eventually moved on by La Policia, bastardos!  We giggled a lot on the way back.  We also went to Barcelonetta, the little fishing area on the coast, where the sea is turquoise and where I embarrassed myself as a tourist by being genuinely quite happy to find a copy of the Sun on the beach.  I paddled in the sea a little, I got very wet.

Most of the time was spent in various cafés where I drank so much coffee I could have powered a small hamlet with my energy.  My eating disorder also followed me there so I was quite paranoid about eating, but the food was too gorgeous not to and by the last day I felt comfortable enough with it to relax somewhat.  I had, for the first time: paella (HOW DO YOU EAT THE SHELLFISH. HOW?!  Is it living decoration, because I ended up just talking to it), lamb’s brains (not mine, and horribly smooth), tripe stew (also not mine and it looks like what it is, which is the innards of cows) and QUINCE! which not only has a wonderful name but also tastes so sweet it’s indecent.

This is not just any paella. This is delicious paella with El Gordo the shellfish, that I had no idea how to eat and refused to suck out its innards.

The nicest place was Casa Delfin, which we went to twice, sitting outside listening to the street sounds.  Food was rather cheap (ooh er, price of beans innit), the alcohol amazingly so, though I only drank two or three times.   We went to a posh place once, and I felt acutely aware that we didn’t belong with our mad hair but I quite like that feeling sometimes.  It overlooked the harbour, which was beautiful at night.

We also wandered round Montjuic, which houses the Olympic stadium.  It’s odd to see such an expanse utterly empty, and it was, except for two cats padding along the steps.  See?

Cats! In the Olympic Stadium! Cats don't care! They own the world!

I was nervous about going somewhere hot because of my arms, which I kept covered up most of the time, but not, as you can see, when I went to the beach.  I get rather paranoid in short sleeves and I had some relatively new marks so didn’t fancy running the gauntlet of, “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS” that I’ve got in Belfast and London.

A man did decide to comment, in Catalan.  He stopped me outside a cafe and gestured to his arms, and began miming cutting.  He was talking, in some context, about sexy Brazillian ladies who cut themselves, and oddly congratulating me, and Robert, about my arms.   It was the only time somebody pointed them out, but still, an odd attitude.  I didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended.

In short: it was great.

Hope I can go back at some point when I am rich, because it was such a beautiful city and I didn’t get to see as much of it as I’d have liked to.  I also felt strangely smug getting free though not free sandwiches on the flight home.  Ah, I’m easily pleased.

Anyway, after the “Read More” is a thousand photos for the interested, click to embiggen them.  I am off to bed with my butterknife!

All Change

So, life goes on.

And an emotionally tumultuous week has bought that truth crashing home.  I have finally realised it’s all different now.  And I have to get on with it.  I haven’t even liked visiting this blog lately, let alone writing in it, because it all just reminds me of what my life used to be like, and isn’t anymore.  And recently, I’ve been out Doing Real Life Stuff, which means I have less time to write here, and also less inclination since it seems overly private to broadcast and I’ve not wanted to.  So excuse the flat tone.

I’ve been alternating between happiness and grief over the past week.  Happiness because I took the plunge and have started another relationship with someone new.  Well, he’s not new at all, he’s old, the oldest of the lot.  I am, very strangely, going out with my first boyfriend again, the one I wrote about here, and referred to as Vornstar (and whose blog you can find here). Some may question such actions!  I don’t want to talk too much about him here, but he’s great.  Our past relationship was rather volatile and ended badly, but we’re ten years older and wiser, and I can’t really shock him in terms of mentalism because he knew me at my worst.  We’ve both changed a lot, and it isn’t a retread of old feelings; it’s new.  But often highly surreal.   I was fourteen when I was with him, and spent the nine years in between slagging him off or having disastrous attempts at friendship when he was in an awkward situation.  He was practically a mythological creature to me, and now he’s in my kitchen making a posh sausage sandwich.  I don’t think I would have even considered being with someone else, without it feeling like a too-soon rebound, but Robert is quite different.  Even then though I have wondered if it’s too soon.

We had become close friends, but I was afraid to commit to anything more because I wasn’t over Rob, and wasn’t ready.  I’m not entirely sure I’m ready now, but I’d rather go for it, risk a chance at happiness or heartbreak, than be afraid.   I have just wanted to hide under a rock in the past few months.   I’m lucky in the sense that Robert knows me well enough to listen to my angst about Rob without feeling threatened or pissed off, but this week has been so emotional because actually entering into a relationship with him means it is really, really over with Rob, that things are going to be totally different from now on and that hit me hard enough for me to spend the past week occasionally bursting into tears and rambling (and relapsing into self harm once, very superficially, to get rid of stress, which was silly of me, and I regret it).  It’s not the best way to start something new, but it was needed as I’d been running away from it all for months.  It has been cathartic to get it out of my system.

It was right for me and Rob to go our separate ways, but I had been assailed by suicidal guilt that I even liked Robert (yes, it’s confusing), further guilt because I felt like I was putting Robert in a bad position by talking about Rob, worried about “replacing” Rob, which I didn’t do but couldn’t help feeling like it looked that way, and worrying that if I liked someone else or got into something it gave the impression that I didn’t love Rob, when he meant the entire world to me, and adjusting to how different my life is now, how different it will be, has been massively emotional. But it was four years of my life.  So I have decided to stop beating myself up for feeling sad about it sometimes.

I think things will be okay, and that hopefully me and Rob will be friends in the future, if he wants to be.   He is moving on, and so am I, and that’s the way things should be, really.  I have no regrets about our relationship.  And Rob is absolutely brilliant and I want him to be ecstatically happy in his life because he deserves to be.  I’m keeping my distance from him for a little while to give each other some space to just live.  So everything’s good.

Mentally, I’m alright though have dipped in and out of depressions.  My life is generally rather lovely at the moment, although my emotions have been all over the place, which I think is only natural.  Sometimes I am really happy then feel guilty for it, so.  I’m quite stoic sometimes and I tend to bottle things up, then they fly out like vengeful wasps and turn the air yellow and black.   And then I feel better and have a cup of tea and calm down.  So, I am rattled after the storm at the moment, but okay.

I’ve been messing around with my medications and that actually seems to be rather helpful.  When I start feeling depressed, I knock the dose down, when hypomanic, I knock it up.  My social worker knows about this and thinks I’m familar enough with my medication to self medicate to a degree.  It seems to be working and keeping me on enough of a level to manage.

On a level enough to go on holiday, which usually fills me with dread because I worry I’ll spend the whole time depressed.  Robert is taking me to Barcelona on Monday, a decision based on the, “Oh fuck it” principle of just doing stuff.   I haven’t been outside the UK in eleven years, so I’m massively excited, though pissed off I’ll be in the sweltering heat in either long sleeves or a bandage.  Hiss.  Still.  Hooray!

Anyway, there’s a rather dull update from me.  Nothing much is happening here.  Just Living and Stuff.

Ask the Minister

Posting this on behalf of my beloved editor Mark, and I’m sure you can think of a lot you’d like to ask.

Hello!

For issue six of One in Four (www.oneinfourmag.org), Phil Hope MP Minister of State for Care Services and his Conservative Shadow Ann Milton MP have agreed to answer questions submitted to them around the subject of mental health and mental wellbeing.

It’s a great chance to sound out either about what might happen in the next few years regarding mental health.

What we need is people to ask the questions!

If there is anyone that you know who experiences mental health difficulties who is interested in what might be mental health policy or practice over the next few years, could you forward this email on to them?

Questions should be related to mental health and wellbeing and should avoid particular cases unless they have wider implications.

Questions should be sent to me:   mark@socialspider.com

We need your questions by the end of this week Friday 31st July 2009

Cheers,

Mark Brown

Development Director Social Spider CIC /
Editor One in Four magazine

Limbo

Before I begin aimless self pitying ranting, you should watch this documentary by Tony Robinson, called, “Me and My Mum“.  It’s a heartbreaking and insightful documentary about our care for the elderly, and about his mum, who suffered from dementia.  He made the decision to put her into a nursing home, and questions it. I’m probably not alone in being absolutely heartscared of ending up spending my last days as an object having become demented, but… well, the alternatives are euthanaesia (which I agree with), and being cared for by your family.  I’m also petrified of ever having to make that decision for someone else.  Standard of care seems so variable- I know two carers.  One fairly well, who is passionate about his job, and one not so well, who doesn’t give much of a toss.  I’ll write a proper entry about this stuff at some point, but for now, do have a watch.

I’ve finally made an appointment with the GP, at the sane hour of 6pm next week.  I missed my last one because it was ridiculously early (for me), and it would have involved me giggling and slurring as I slumped in the scratchy fabric chair. That’s if I had arrived there at all, which is questionable given that I’m so drugged in the morning I think nothing of playing chicken with traffic.  I have been feeling dodgy as hell for months, but hypochondria has kicked in, and I am quite worried something is genuinely wrong, as opposed to just general malaise.   It would be vaguely hilarious for this blog, and my life, to end claimed by some obscure physical illness.

Well.  I am in limbo at the moment.  My life has changed a lot in the past few months and my confidence has utterly deserted me.  There are people who wiggle past in the street, bottom cheeks wiggling like a naughty kissogram beneath a satin sheet.  They have this perky little walk.  I don’t.  I am one large sag at the moment, gathered up, ruffled forehead.  Right now, my self esteem is in the toilet.  I don’t like how I feel, look, talk, am, write, read, anything.   I am afraid, all the time, of everything.  There is a sense of, “Well, what now?”  I’m alone, no partner in crime, and I feel it, acutely.  Very alone.   I have no idea who to talk to, or what to say, and I’ve got used to it, so even thinking about the massive step of texting a friend feels like a horrendous imposition.  Easier, I guess, to confide to the winds, like this.   And each decision carries with it the possibilities of failure, heartbreak, breakdown.  I used to love the uncertainty, but I don’t right now.  My old impulsiveness, which has often served me well, has scarpered.  I have struggled to even decide whether to leave the house.  It seems to be a moral dilemma.  I am paralysed, and I don’t feel strong enough at the moment to take many knocks.  OH WOE etc etc etc endless ad nauseum.

I haven’t really been seeing my friends recently, I don’t feel I’m particularly wanted or missed, though have been forcing myself into somewhat new friendships, bathing in the relief of not being known as mad, angered by myself when it becomes abundently clear.   I have always found the experience of living with a mental illness, or even just “mentally interesting”ness to be a profoundly alienating and lonely one.  There are vast parts of my life and emotional landscapes that are taboo.  No one smiles and clinks a glass to tales of abandoned psychosis, nobody thinks it sweet that your hands are shaking, and asking the question yields an awkward answer (my moods, they switch, heighten, energy rips through, physically vibrating, or I get tremors from my medication).  It is a novelty, it is “charming”, but not to me.  The novelty wears off, and these new friendships feel on such shaky ground because of it.  I have ruined most of my friendships and relationships by becoming “too much”, so the tendency to hide, to be alone, feels sane, sensible, and responsible.

I haven’t been sleeping properly, and I have horribly lost the ability to write.  I am captive to my, “What ifs?” which lead me to… nothing.  So here I am, in between, inert, and that’s one reason I’ve had little to say.  I’ve thrown the vageries of my dwindling energies into the most basic aspects of existence, and there has been so little left over for the more exquisite aspects of living.   I hate writing this, I hate the way it sounds, I hate the drudgery of my own thoughts and the boredom of my expression of them.  Everything I have written in the past two months has been utterly shit and that’s knocking my confidence too.  My mind is so scattered and so scared it seems nothing is squeaking through.

So I am in limbo, nowhere land right now and hope I am not here for much longer.  My moods are becoming increasingly more difficult to hold together though I am trying.  I’ve been having sproadic attacks of depression that I force myself to reign in, or at least shut up about so I can pretend they don’t exist.  The past few days have been rather shaky, with yesterday being rather bad, but I am throwing my mental arsenal at it all and resisting the urge to tape up my flat and just sleep for a few months.  Sleep away the years, sleep away the pain and wake up tomorrow a girl again…

I think I’d benefit from a massive kick up the arse and a gigantic shot of, “Oh, who cares?”  That might help.  Who cares about the fearof failure, of being a fool, of pain and of losing control?  The more I choose to be alone, to emotionally, in some way, isolate myself, the more control I feel I have over this.  But it’s so bloody dull and joyless.  I am just a coward.  And should stop moaning about my life when there is little really wrong with it.  I’m alive, I’m here, it should be enough.

My physical health is failing me, so apologies

Many apologies for sporadic updates.  For once, it’s actually my physical health that’s giving me the most problems at the moment.  I have yet to see a doctor, as I said, I hate GPs.  They are usually dismissive of me, since I’m “mentally ill”, all my problems are in my head.  I’m going to have to go in and whip up my sleeves and pull down my tights and show them the bruises I’m covered in (which I showed Rob today, he was aghast.  One on my arm is particularly impressive).  It’s most likely nothing, and I should eat more meat and get iron or something.  But I should drag my arse to the doctor’s anyway, if just to put my mind at rest a bit.

I have been so very, very tired of late.  The heat is not helping in terms of sleep.  I am mostly too tired to even write.  And right now, I am in my living room, having set up bed on the sofa, as I did as a child.  I’m watching television, something I almost never do.  I have Diet Coke next to me, I am hot and tired, and feel as though I’m fluey.  So, if I’m absent for longer it’s just my physical ills dogging me.

Mentally, I am mostly okay, though being dogged by intrusive thoughts I am struggling to handle, and ongoing paranoia, feeling like I’m a terrible person etc etc etc etc and so on forever, paralysing each thought, each action, to stasis.  Something I need to confront and cope with, I feel.  I haven’t been that great taking my medication lately, and when I have been, I’ve been taking half a dose to keep my mood up.  Being too sedated can make me depressed and I want to be careful this summer.  I was supposed to go for counselling about the abortion at Brook this week but I decided against it.  I don’t particularly feel ready to talk about it.  I was there to get the contraceptive implant so I don’t have to go through it again, and while I was there I ranted and raved about how it changed everything, how I was raging that it changed my relationship with Rob (to the point where I ended it, and felt like I abandoned him, and so on, just raging, and private, so!) and changed how I saw myself and how sad I was, and so on.  She booked me in there, since I clearly need some sort of counselling.  I’ll make another appointment when I’m ready.

Hope you’re all okay out there.  I am listlessly meditating on my childhood tonight, remembering all the days of feeling ghostly prone on the seatee in my parents’ house with their voices feeling so far away…  Recently I’ve been thinking about standing on a chair in my granny’s kitchen doing the dishes, feeling helpful and grown up… So, in the comments, if you like, please join me in regressive dreamlike remembering and tell me a little childhood memory of yours…