Damn you, rapid cycling!

My appointments with Hannah are now every fortnight instead of every week while I’m getting therapy. I didn’t realise that therapy was going to be time limited, but it is. It concerns me a little that I will have to be all better within X amount of weeks.
I’m seeing the psychiatrist again soon [...]

Therapy Assessment

Or, “One hour of me feeling defensive and being asked questions like, “Why do you use labels like manic depression”?
Because I have this treatable illness called “manic depression” and you were asking about it? I’m fairly well read when it comes to psychiatric diagnosis, mostly because I write this blog and like to be informed. [...]

The Sane Guide to Living with Mental Illness: Medications

I was watching cigarette advertising from the 1950s onwards on Youtube today. It’s all very aspirational, grand cars billowing Camels smoke from the driver’s window, doctor extolling the virtues of Chesterfields and such like. So I made my own non-aspirational cigarette advert.

Anyway…
Here is another one of my more sensible guides to mental illness, [...]

50

Happy would-be fiftieth birthday to my dad.

This is my dad and me back in 2004. Very unflattering photo of both of us. I think he was in the middle of asking me something.
I love photography, as did he. For the first eight years of our lives he seemed to have a camera [...]

Operation You Make Me Sick

I spent a good hour on the phone this afternoon to an eating disorder charity, Beat. I initially rang them to ask one simple question- “If I begin eating again, will I gain weight?” The answer was, “Maybe to begin with you’ll gain a few pounds as your body adjusts”. Looking down [...]

Friends of the Madosphere

A question I get asked a lot in relation to this blog is- “Have you made any new friends because of it?”
The rather blunt answer is, “Not really”. There is one actual friend that I have made from this blog, and a few acquaintances who I might be friends with if I was not [...]

In Happier News

Edited the link- I’d put the wrong one in there.
But in good news, I received my copy of One in Four today, which I wrote for!

In hindsight, the article I wrote is far from my best work but I’m still proud to be a part of it. The magazine itself is fantastic and is available [...]

Benefits and banality

Ah, I am terrible at staying away. It’s in my nature to write things down.

Snake and Crocodile

Just popping by to gratuitously plug Rob’s new web comic, Snake and Crocodile!
It features Snake…

…and Crocodile…

…with occasional special guest stars sauntering in to be cocky.
Anyway, go visit. It’s brand spanking new so expect it to be updated regularly.
Hurrah!
(You may have seen two entries here today but those were mistakes, I was just talking to [...]

I’m not right now at all

Oh look! A lyric.
I keep writing posts and then deleting them. It comes down to this: things are not going too well here, in terms of shoddy and desperate mental health, so I might be an absentee for a little while.
I’d say, “Oh no! I don’t know what’s wrong!” and look [...]

Admitting to feeling like crap

This was a private post but I’ve decided to make it public instead.

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Does anyone have first hand experience, or could they provide me some links to first hand experience, of Electroconvulsive (or Electroshock) Therapy?

Thank you!
I have treatment resistant depression, so ECT is kind of an, “Oh shit. I really hope I am never that severely depressed” prospect for me. I don’t think I have ever [...]

Remember to Live

Anyway, as an antidote to the previous post’s misery (it’s relentless these days)…
I’m not angling to lower the tone of this blog with titillation, but here is a photo of my “Memento Vivere” tattoo taken a while back. It means, “Remember to Live”.

“I’ll wish, and the thunder clouds will vanish”

You don’t have to read this, I’m mostly talking to myself here. It’s about my dad, and missing people, and feeling very sad because of it.

Thanks

Labels and language

Bipolar disorder is “just a label”.
Not to me.
I know mental illness is culturally and personally complicated. A faction, a rather large vocal faction, don’t believe in the existence of mental illness. There’s another debate about this over at Mental Nurse. I stayed out of it.
It’s fair enough to hold your own [...]

Feeling Like Crap

I’ve been exhausted lately. Not a bit of yawning, but horizontal, legs buckling under the strain of walking, barely able to stand up, yet hardly able to sleep, exhaustion. I’ve suspected medication and depression, but now am increasingly believing that it’s something physical rather than mental as, for now the third time, I’ve thrown [...]

Shout Back

For no reason at all, tonight I’ve got suicide on the brain, which is why I’m sat over here typing because my head is screaming angrily at me. When I have a nice, blue skied, life-is-here kind of day when I feel depressed, I get the idea that it’s a good place to [...]

Feck off

Why am I signed up to loads of anti-psychiatry mailing lists?!

The Myth

I’m a twenty two year old manic depressive woman. I live in the nightlife capital of Britain, I worship dead rock stars, I’m covered in self-harm scars, (a “trend” that has been popularised over and over again), and at one point, I could drink for England.
I have just dribbled lukewarm tea down my chin. [...]

Still entertaining fantasies about throwing medication into the Thames

I had an appointment with the CPN today. She thinks I’m quite depressed, which I can’t deny, but does agree that maybe the medication is contributing to my dullness and flat affect. I still feel completely out of it, I’m still unable to hold a conversation (so today was fun, as you can [...]

A Proper About

I need a new banner. The one above isn’t exactly subtle, is it?
I’ve mentioned before that, because I’ve suffered from manic depression for pretty much as long as I can remember, I find it difficult- almost impossible- to separate my personality from the illness.
So, I’m going to attempt to explain to you my background [...]

Doctors and Nurses

From the patients point of view, therefore doctors, don’t take offence!
I’ve been reading Dr. Crippen’s blog, as I usually do. He’s a GP who is very critical of “nurse specialists” who he feels are part of the intrinsic “dumbing down” of the NHS, doing jobs that they’re not qualified to do. His blog [...]

Dead Outside

My boyfriend thinks that I don’t like him anymore because I am incapable of expressing any emotion other than irritation or sadness. And frustration. I can barely put my arms around him these days. I do love him, I just no longer know how to show it. When I got home, I [...]

Medication and loneliness

There is not much to say right now about anything. I still feel bizarre and disconnected.
I want to go on holiday, wondering if a change of scenery will help shake me out of whatever is happening to me at the moment. But a) I can’t afford it, and not having a debit [...]