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Archive for the ‘Magic Invisibility Sunglasses’ Category

Lunatics Lexicon

Posted in Anxiety, art, bipolar, book, crying, depression, diagnosis, emotions, friends, high, hospital, illness, insight, labels, love, Magic Invisibility Sunglasses, mania, manic, medication, mental illness, mother, parenting, Pernicious butterflies, psychiatrist, suicide, tea, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 19, 2011 | 87 Comments »

There is so much preamble I could put here, but I’m not going to. I’m so relieved that I got this project out of my head and onto paper before “that” feeling was gone, it’s taken almost 23 hours of almost solid work. So lots of colouring in, very little sleep, very sore hands, some scanning, lots of little niggling imperfections but here is is, my latest project. Please leave comments- I will reply- probably up until around Thursday or Friday when I will no doubt slide into my pit of black sludge again………

All images and in fact everything on this blog subject to copyright, don’t steal my shit.

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A Verbal Purge

Posted in Anxiety, autism, autistic, bipolar, children, crying, depression, Eating Disorder, emotions, health, illness, insight, Magic Invisibility Sunglasses, medication, mental illness, mother, parenting, stress, suicide, work, tagged , on July 10, 2011 | 32 Comments »

You know that acceptance thing that I talked about here somewhere ? Well forget it, I’m over it.

I’m guessing at the actual physiology involved but I can only assume that now that my body has had a reasonable level of nourishment for around a week it is no longer allowing my brain to remain in that blissed-out semi-starved state where everything is peachy.

I am no longer numb.

I can cope with being numb, not feeling anything comes easily to me, feeling the way I do at the moment does not.

I’m told writing is clearly a coping strategy for me and I hope it is as all my other coping strategies, which would be so much easier to employ right now, are extremely unhealthy. I have also considered just “going mental and smashing shit up” but as I would invariably have to replace said shit at some point and that would cost money I don’t have, I’m trying to avoid it.

Emotions aren’t my strong point; I have the emotional intelligence of a 3 year old. I struggle to identify what it is I’m actually feeling (ugh, I even cringe at the word) and then if I do identify it I have absolutely no idea what to do with it.

Today I have identified  ANGER

 

Oxford Dictionary

anger

Pronunciation:/ˈaŋgə/ (does anybody find dictionary pronunciation guides useful?)

noun
a strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility

I have checked to make sure it wasn’t just a rather extreme case of my default “emotion”- fine or perhaps fine mixed with a touch of indigestion or maybe fine and “a bit tired” or maybe fine but “a bit anxious”. I was meticulous in my checking as I don’t really do anger. It is with some surprise that I have concluded that it is indeed- nasty, painful, acidic, black, pungent, sticky, loud, dirty, dripping, searing, putrid, ugly, festering, foreboding, furious anger. “A strong feeling of annoyance, displeasure or hostility” doesn’t even come close.

The obvious question would have to be why am I so angry? Well I could point to a number of things but these things would count as no more than mere irritations- the cobbles on the road to Angrytown. I’ve had the same run-of-the-mill niggles as everyone else today, tardy children, difficult to remove screws, a bumped elbow, rubbish weather, other drivers and so on. The real reason I’m angry is that-

I DON’T WANT TO BE MENTAL ANYMORE

 

I’m done, I’m over it, it’s too bloody difficult.

I know I’m not special and I know I’m not different or unique. I know we’re all mental in our own way. I know there are many, many people far more mental and far worse off than me. I know that some poor buggers have had to take “weeks off work with depression” and I know that everyone gets anxious sometimes but unless you have experienced what I have experienced over the past few days then you can fuck off- you have no idea what its like to be mental.

This all reminds me of the time the 16 year old was diagnosed with autism- aged 3. So many people gave me the “we’re all somewhere on the spectrum” speech and as I was only young and very unsure- I took it, nodded glibly and moved on. It took me some years to pluck up the courage to reply to someone (who had told me they could only eat yoghurt with one special spoon- that’s how autistic they were) “OK, come back to me when you can’t speak, can’t communicate with body language, rub shit on the walls, pick holes in your own skin and wander onto railway tracks, then tell me where you are on the spectrum”. I still get that speech to this day and though my reply now would have different components I would be equally vehement. Unless you have been there or are there then you have no idea.

I think I may be finally writing the post that can never be published.

I am in so much pain and so chewed up inside I am struggling to actually write, I wanted to present an eloquent account of my last few days in an attempt to justify my anger and my rampant desire to be normal. Anyone who is now planning on saying or is even thinking “yes but what is “normal”, who is “normal” anyway? (complete with air quotes)” can also fuck off.

We all know what normal is, normal is being able to go out of your house alone, normal is being able to go into a shop- even though it’s been rearranged, normal is eating pasta and bread at the same meal and not frantically Googling to see if that’s what normal people do, normal is not being so “good” at self-induced vomiting that you don’t even have to touch yourself to throw up, normal is not delaying every bite of food even when you’re delirious with hunger, normal is not debating after every mouthful whether to throw-up again or not, normal is not waking up every morning lamenting the fact you didn’t die in your sleep, normal is being able to answer a ringing telephone or better still make a call, normal is being able to remember what you’ve done, who you’ve spoken to and where you’ve been- without having to refer to written hints, normal is wanting to get out of bed in the morning and get on with your day instead of spending all day wanting to climb back in, normal is not abusing prescription medication so you can sleep and escape for a while, normal is not waking up four hours after you go to bed, normal is not having to work hard to resist the desire to take a razor blade to your own skin- because you know you’re in the kind of mood where you could happily sever a limb, normal is wearing sunglasses because it’s sunny or they look good- not to stop people seeing your eyes just in case they can see inside your head, normal is being able to sit in a room with your own children in the evening without wanting to climb out of your own skin, normal is not watching TV because there’s nothing on- not because every sound from it sounds like fireworks in your head and you’re already overloaded with all the other noises the world makes, normal is keeping your house tidy because you like a tidy house- not because you can’t bear to see anything out of place, out of your control, normal is having a glass or two of wine- over an evening- not in an hour in an attempt to anaesthetise yourself from your own misery, normal is meeting new people online who you genuinely like and not being too terrified to meet them in real life, normal is going to work, normal is not being too afraid to eat a biscuit in case you end up eating the whole packet, normal is reading a newspaper, normal is being with people and enjoying it, normal is not waking up every day and not dreading the inevitable abnormality you know your day will bring.

I could go on but this has rapidly become verbal self-harm and a whinge about not being who I used to claim to be.

Several people reading this will identify with one or more of the things I have raised- but imagine having them all and more every second of every day and you get a tiny bit of insight into my “life”.

So there it is- the truth. This post does nothing to challenge stigma, nothing to educate people about mental health issues and paints a very bad picture of me indeed. I have chosen 4 special people to read this post to help me decide whether to publish it or not, if you’re not one of the 4 and you’re reading it then I hope it has helped you in some way, if so then please leave a comment to that effect.

So how have I dealt with my anger? Well I’ve written this post, I’m not sure it’s helped as I don’t feel any less mental or angry now than I did when I started it. I feel there is so much more I could say but I can’t put it into words.

On a positive note, I suppose I’ve only started feeling this way because I’ve stopped starving myself and that has to be a good thing right? Maybe I will get there one day, I hope so.

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The Wrong T-Shirt

Posted in 6 year old, Anxiety, bipolar, blogging, budget, children, crying, driving, DVLA, emotions, Magic Invisibility Sunglasses, medication, mental illness, money, Pernicious butterflies, shopping, St Andrews, stress, tea, Wonderful GP, Wrong t-shirt, tagged , , , , , on July 7, 2011 | 5 Comments »

This is not some sort of homage to Wallace and Gromit, I despise Wallace and Gromit, for reasons I won’t go into. This is the (no doubt protracted, verbose) tale of how one woman can alter the rotational axis of her mental world and blame it on an item of clothing.

Today I am wearing the wrong t-shirt. The t-shirt I am wearing is black, 100% cotton, comes from H&M and has a v-neck. It’s a perfectly nice t–shirt, goes well with the rest of my outfit (black linen trousers, red Converse high-tops) but it is just all wrong.

This is the second time in 5 days I have worn the wrong t-shirt, it’s not the same t-shirt but they both are now burdened with the homogeny of being the wrong t-shirt; I suspect that every t-shirt in my possession could easily be assimilated into this group under the right (or wrong?) circumstances.

The first day I wore the wrong t-shirt I was convinced I had worn the right t-shirt the previous day and the right t-shirt (black, 100% cotton, H&M, round neck) was therefore in the wash. The impact on my mental state of wearing the wrong t-shirt was disproportionate to say the least.

As soon as I had put the wrong t-shirt on I was gripped by fear and anxiety, my stomach was in knots, my head was spinning, my hands were shaking- I entered a phase of utter panic and I even think rather uncharacteristic tears were involved at some point. I adjusted the t-shirt (black, 100% cotton, M&S, v-neck) smoothed the t-shirt, pulled the t-shirt down, moved it back up but it didn’t help. I was having a meltdown and it was obviously because I was wearing the wrong t-shirt.

There was a vague awareness somewhere within me that my reaction to the wrong t-shirt was in fact a massive deflection. There were several things going on that day that were a source of some anxiety for me. It was infinitely simpler though to dismiss my issues and therefore the risk of feeling any emotion and blame it all on the t-shirt. I continued to obsess over the t-shirt- was it too tight? Was it too loose? Was it too black? Was it too cottony? I didn’t know, I just knew it was wrong.

The answer was simple- get a copy of the right t-shirt and put it on.

The keen eyed amongst you will probably have noticed that both the right and wrong t-shirts share a number of features- both black, both 100% cotton, both from H&M, both t-shirts- the only disparity being round neck vs v-neck. I don’t think I have any preference regarding necks on t-shirts; the wrongness of this t-shirt was far more intrinsic and overwhelming than just the shape of the neck.

So I jumped in the stupid car and went straight to H&M- having good shops nearby is one of the many benefits of living in a town that is essentially a giant university campus, I rushed in and hurriedly purchased 2 exact copies of the right t-shirt. I got home, took the wrong t-shirt off and put the right t-shirt on.

From that moment on, my day went swimmingly and I was happy, in fact I was cured…….

Not surprisingly replacing the wrong t-shirt with the right t-shirt did absolutely nothing to quell my anxiety and my body continued to over-react to every stimulus. Light was too bright, noise was too loud, the cry of “Mama” from the 6 year old that sounds so sweet at 8am was akin to shoving a breadknife in my ear- repeatedly.

I decided, having changed the t-shirt that I had done all I could and I would simply have to get on with my day as best as I could. I managed to identify the real sources of the anxiety eventually but it did little to alleviate the symptoms. I spent the rest of the day feeling horrible but made it through aided by too many cigarettes and my trusty “magic invisibility” sunglasses. I was even more relieved than usual to put my pyjamas on that night.

So today, when I finally got bathed and dressed after lunch (all the food groups represented in reasonable quantities) my palms began to sweat and my heart began to race I got completely engulfed by the sheer awfulness of it all and I felt terrible. The t-shirt (black, 100% cotton, H&M, v-neck) was wrong- again.

I indulged my body for a while and paced the bedroom in an attempt to silence my mind- then in a moment of self analytical genius I grabbed a pen (blue Bic Cristal medium- always) and notebook (Oxford A5 Plus- always) and wrote down the real reasons I was wearing the wrong t-shirt. Here, in handy list format in order to keep the reader engaged, is what I came up with-

I am very concerned about my financial situation- before I went mental the first thing I did every day was check the bank. The household budget was worked out to the penny and I knew every single incoming and outgoing transaction in great detail. I have somewhat taken my eye off the ball financially and now find myself in a very precarious position indeed. The DVLA took my driving license off me when I went mental but the bank let me keep my debit card, it may have been safer in the long term if this had been the other way around. At the moment I find myself almost completely incapable of even thinking about how to deal with this. This morning I rang HMRC to inform them of a change to my circumstances regarding Tax credits. The prelude to this phonecall was around 3 hours of all consuming anxiety at having to find and collate the relevant information and actually make the phonecall. The phonecall lasted approximately 3 minutes 43 seconds but it nearly killed me. Tomorrow I will consider whether to speak to the bank, BT and Scottish Power.

I needed to buy bread and milk- my local branch of Morrisons has been rearranged, it’s like someone has ripped my Morrisons mental map out of my head and replaced it with a giant terrifying void. I went to Morrisons earlier in the week and ended up completely bewildered, frightened and upset- I managed to find the milk as I think it was roughly in the same place but I can’t face going back especially as I suspect the reorganisation is ongoing and there is a risk it may have changed further. Today I drove 10 miles to go to Tesco for bread and milk. I can hear you all suggesting online grocery shopping but this is out of the question as it would involve someone else selecting and examining my produce- the risks are too high. I have done online grocery shopping in the past but the horror and trauma of “substitutions” may never leave me. Online grocery shopping and its delivery necessitates someone knocking on my door at some point within a two-hour time slot, the uncertainty and lack of control over this is too much for me. Again I find myself at a loss as to how to overcome this- mixed with shame at just how badly I am handling simple things at the moment.

My phone rang- a ringing phone strikes fear in my heart, I never answer the landline and I am very selective as to whom I give my mobile number. “Unknown number” has now rung my mobile 3 times today- if it’s you, text me and tell me you’re going to call, ask me if I will answer (my response will invariably be “no”) leave a voicemail identifying yourself and your reason for calling or email me but please stop calling. My body is flooded with adrenaline and I fear I may be on the verge of a heart attack. That heart attack will be your fault, my death and the end of one of the best blogs on the internet will be on your hands. There will be an enquiry and you will be grilled as to why you chose to kill me with your incessant desire to try and persuade me to engage in a telephone conversation. Twitter will hate you and will invent a # tag so that Tweets calling for you to be slain in revenge can be easily searched for.

The 6 year old was watching Stuart Little for the second time in 15 hours- I don’t know where to start with this one, a brief synopsis of the film, through my eyes may help you to understand.

Dr House and Barbara Maitland from Beetlejuice (a far superior film) want a child so they go to an orphanage and adopt a mouse (as you do). The mouse has an adults voice and can drive- they parent it anyway. The anthropomorphisation is inconsistent- the mice wear clothes but the cats do not yet both animals speak. The whole film is culturally unreferencable (my own terminology) the iron is from the 50’s but the bike (a proper bike, given as a present to the mouse-child) is from the 70’s, the wardrobe spans at least two decades. Something happens to the mouse, the most nauseating movie family ever invented all come running to the rescue and they all live happily ever after- or something. Twice- in 15 hours. The added irritation of this scenario comes from the 6 year olds continued inability to hear properly in spite of the insertion of grommets last month; everything he watches on TV has to be at “make Mama mental” volume. We live in the smallest house in the world, we have one TV- I can hear it in every room.

I have lost my ability to journal- I have kept comprehensive diaries throughout my mentalism, in the last few days I appear to have lost my ability to keep my diary- yesterdays entry is 3 lines written in the morning and the rest of the page is filled with biro scribbles. Without my diary I have no idea what’s happened during the day. I can cobble together a history with tweets, texts and drafted blog posts but the diary would’ve filled in any gaps- it’s gone. I live in a permanently bewildered state and my most frequent question during any conversation has become “what day is it?” I had a visit from The Guilt Riddled Friend- she used to be the Lovely Friend but as her holiday both this year and last has coincided with an entirely coincidental trip back to the bin for me she has taken it upon herself to accept rather a disproportionate amount of blame for my mental decline. Anyway, The Guilt Riddled Friend visited yesterday and I spent most of the time revealing the hideous state of my memory, I even had to be prompted into remembering the lunch we shared at the weekend. Yet again I am unsure what to do about this, I think I can forgive myself for not knowing what day of the week it is as it is the summer holidays (38 days left) and time tends to drift. I am inclined to think that my poor brain is just so overloaded with anxiety and paranoia (coming to that) that it simply can’t also cope with remembering what I’ve done, I think post-its may be the answer.

It is raining in St Andrews- again. I have good old-fashioned cabin fever as we haven’t been for a walk en famille for days. The 6 year old believes he is made of sugar and would therefore melt if he were to go out in the rain and it is so dark I could not employ the magic invisibility sunglasses without fear of bumping into things, or worse- other people. I could go for a drive but have avoided it for several reasons-

1.The stupid car is very small, conversation with the hard of hearing 6 year old is much like having him sit on my shoulder and shout questions about appendicitis, third world economics, dolphins and theology at me.

2.People with as much epinephrine, norepinephrine, and cortisol as I currently have coursing through their veins should not be in sole control of over a tonne of metal, glass, plastic and spiky bits.

3.I don’t know where to drive to, I have a desire to drive to somewhere the sun is shining but I suspect this would involve a very long drive indeed.

I suspect people may be reading my blog- if anything is going to highlight just how irrational and mental I am at the moment it will be this. My blog has suddenly become very popular and has had consistently high views for days now. This is why I blog is it not? I certainly have no problem writing and publishing posts and I provide the link willingly, but I am caught up in a bizarre, compulsive mobius loop of posting, stat checking and paranoia. I can’t make any sense of this at all so I’ve chosen to ignore it and publish this post, if nothing else it will provide a bit of insight into just how crazy us crazies can be. I love people commenting on my blog, I soak up the praise like a big affirmation seeking sponge with very low self-esteem. I love the thought that someone somewhere is sitting laughing at my jokes and I like to think that I’m doing my bit to challenge mental health stigma by proving that even the most normal of people can go completely bonkers under the right circumstances……(you may laugh now)

There is no amount of medication that could even begin to address this kind of situation, psychiatry has no answer. I have no answer either, last week I was delighted at the number of readers, this week it is completely freaking me out. You’ll note it’s not freaking me out to the extent that I’ve stopped blogging, I am nothing if not paradoxical.

I feel anxious­- again I am in danger of just sounding ridiculous but as anyone who suffers from anxiety knows it is fantastic at feeding itself- both physically and emotionally. My shoulders hurt because I am anxious- sore shoulders makes me anxious, so my shoulders hurt, which makes me anxious, which makes my shoulders hurt…..you get the picture. My body is wracked with pain and my mind feels as though it is filled with poison, a poison that in turn, seeps into my bloodstream, courses round my body and ends up back in my mind where the whole sorry cycle begins again. So I end up feeling anxious about feeling anxious.

I have tried many strategies to address the way I am feeling at the moment- mainly involving drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. I have had hot baths (boring) and pyjama time is rapidly getting so early in the evening that there is little point in getting dressed at all. So far I have resisted the temptation to use medication to alleviate my symptoms for two reasons-

1.Lorazepam makes me sleepy- I have two children to look after, 6 year olds do not generally allow their Mama’s to nap.

2.The Wonderful GP is away on holiday for 3 weeks. I realised I referred to her as The Lovely GP in my epic post, she hasn’t been demoted; it was just a continuity error on my part. I am rationing my lorazepam for bedtime use- refilling my prescription would involve facing The Different GP and I don’t think I’m quite ready to do that, besides I can’t imagine, given his interaction with me to date that he’d be too keen on handing over a prescription for benzodiazepines.

So here I am yet again in the throes of mentalism, my stomach is full of giant pernicious butterflies but I can only assume that this too will pass. I am coping, but only just, whatever you do don’t phone me to check if I’m alright.

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