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Archive for the ‘stress’ Category

Friends: The One Where Nothing Happened

Posted in blogging, children, communication, DID, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, friends, Internal Communication, mother, MPD, Multiple Personality Disorder, parenting, single-parent, Skills, stress, therapist, therapy, Told you it wasn't like Stephen Fucking Fry, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on July 29, 2012 | 16 Comments »

Nothing happened yesterday so I’m still fine.

I’m still coping, it still looks good.

It’s as though, when the 7 year-old returned home, I faced a choice-

Parent

Or

Have DID

Obviously this wasn’t a choice I could make and as with all things for those of us with DID, the choice gets made for us. I can see what’s gone ‘wrong’ for want of a better word, what happened wasn’t a wilful mistake, it was a reaction. The way things are now is working; yesterday even included some fun activities, such as-

  • Very brief visit to a fruit farm
  • Watching Mama put petrol in the car
  • Playing Lego Star-Wars on the Wii
  • Grief counselling (he didn’t save his game)
  • Sibling rivalry- complete with screaming
  • Watching videos of Brown Recluse spiders on YouTube
  • Freaking out about sweetcorn

I can deal with all of this- and more, I can remain calm and appear normal the entire time, nothing gets the job done quite like dissociation. It works well for the children but It’s not sustainable.

I’m exhausted and that constant, low-grade pain that appears to have been gifted as some sort of bonus with DID that I’d usually be able to ignore completely has shifted up a notch. I’m horrified at how rapidly shitty “coping mechanisms” (why we call them that when they are invariably methods employed when we’re not coping is a mystery to me) used in the past have tried to creep back in and saddened by how difficult I’ve found this weekend so far.

I’ve been buoyed by the messages friends have continued to send, here and elsewhere, our resident comment moderator has been allowed to sneak out in the wee small hours to reply- that connection is vital and I’m grateful to those of you who recognised that even when we’re not allowed to talk, we’re allowed to read. You’re all very special and very missed, the internal pining-o-meter is off the scale

The silence is making me desperately unhappy and the external silence is no longer reflective of the state of things internally. I’ve never been so glad that you can’t tell by looking and again, I’m grateful for dissociation as this has allowed me to parent seemingly unhindered by the inner turmoil. I have a million thoughts but very few words, I miss my words.

If nothing else, this weekend has dragged me out of the creeping denial that was setting in again and that’s positive though painful.

I won’t deny that things are incredibly difficult at the moment but as ever my natural curiosity and love of learning has provided a distraction. I don’t always like what I’m learning but I do manage to pique my own interest often enough to make it all a bit less shitty for a little while. My low emotional tolerance and high distractibility have been assets this weekend.

I have an appointment with the <?> therapist tomorrow and I’m awfully glad I do. I’m confident that between us we can come up with some things that will help make the current situation not better, not even ok but just less de-stabilising. At the moment I’ll settle for regaining the courage and confidence in my skills to face coming home again after the session.

I have some new practical issues to face tomorrow. In order to get to therapy on time I have to leave the house at 7.30am, half an hour before the 7 year-olds holiday club thing opens. I’ve asked the 15 year-old to get up some 7 hours before her preferred rising time and mind her brother whilst I’m out. She’s agreed to do this but has yet to be persuaded to go to the extra effort of washing dressing and delivering the 7 year-old to his holiday club thing. So I am a little concerned that the current need to crash out on the bed for anything up to three hours in a switchy, drowsy, head-noisy haze after a therapy session will have to be ignored in favour of a return to coping.

So as ever, I don’t have my troubles to seek and the pace of life just feels relentless at the moment, there’s never a dull moment with DID.

I’d love some dull moments.

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Weakened

Posted in blogging, children, crying, DID, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Internal Communication, mother, parenting, single-parent, stress, tea, Told you it wasn't like Stephen Fucking Fry, Triggers, Twitter, tagged , , , , , , on July 28, 2012 | 10 Comments »

I don’t know if I’ve always hated weekends but I know I’ve always hated them since acute mentalism arrived. There are many reasons to hate weekends, that fluidity of time, lack of structure and routine leaves me even more bewildered than I usually am. Weekends bring with them an expectation that things will be different in some way, better in some way- everybody looks forward to the weekend.

You don’t get time off from being mental, we work 7 days a week and are just as likely to be mental on Saturday as we are any other day of the week.

Now that the 7 year-old is home the weekend looms before me  his expectations that it will be somehow different, somehow better have to be respected, he’s not mental. Though slightly better than I was, I’m still the world’s worst sleeper and the 7 year-old is 7 years old so long-lies and lazy days are ruled out. The days begin early and are long.

I’m still stuck in coping mode, it’s going well and things that need done are getting done. One of the dangers of being stuck in coping mode is that you start to feel like maybe you did make it all up; maybe you’re not mental anymore, maybe you were never mental in the first place. After a few days of coping one begins to feel somewhat invincible- in relative terms. So as I look at the weekend and all that time to fill, all that time to spend with the 7 year-old I start to think of all the answers to the question

“Mama, what are we going to do this weekend?”

I think of the things we used to do- trips to museums, swimming, days at the beach, trips the cinema, long walks and picnics in the forest, gardening, shopping and I think for a moment “we could do any of those” and then I remember.

We can’t.

I’m fine.

Fine until something happens.

I don’t always know what that something is or is going to be. I risk-assess every potential activity and rule them all out. I’m not being risk-averse, I’m not wrapping myself in cotton-wool, I’m accepting my limits. I’m laden with guilt that my limits become the children’s limits too but for now, I accept that it’s better for them not to be taken swimming rather than be taken swimming by someone who probably wouldn’t make it through a trip to the swimming pool without several public meltdowns.

Obviously entertaining children can be done at home too; the 7 year-old is content to play the Wii for extended periods of time. I’m not as happy to leave him being babysat by technology as he’d like me to be. I feel obliged to do something with him, to entertain him, educate him and engage him.

I’m rarely short of ideas for activities and never short of the required materials, we live in a house packed to the ceiling with art supplies, books, games and toys. I’m not bad at playing, in fact I suspect as 37 year-old women go I’m rather good at it. I’m very bad at allowing myself to play, playing doesn’t feel safe. My inclination is to direct or observe the 7 year-old at play, I can’t join in. The upside of multiplicity is that I can do this and do it well, the 7 year-old is none the wiser and enjoys my company and comments as he plays. Only I can hear the crying inside.

It’s 7.45am, Saturday morning, I have two days to fill and right now, I have no idea how to do it. I suspect I’ll switch to auto-pilot, continue coping and appearing well, entertain, educate and engage the 7 year-old and this weekend will be as weekends have been for some time- a complete gap in my memory.

Coping brings with it silence, there are no tweets, texts, emails or Facebook updates to track my days the blog is the only form of outside communication we have it is also the only form of internal communication we have. Silence weighs heavy, it feels safer but it’s an ominous safety- I am tip-toeing around inside my own head trying not to cause upset. I know there will come a point where I run out of cope, I’ve been awake most of the night wracking my brain, trying to think of ways to combine parenting with the mentals and so far have come up with nothing other than to continue relying on my amazing powers of dissociation and hope nothing happens.

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Multiple Mama’s

Posted in children, co-sleeping, communication, DID, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, emotions, hugs, insight, Internal Communication, mother, MPD, Multiple Personality Disorder, NHS, parenting, single-parent, Skills, stress, tea, therapy, Told you it wasn't like Stephen Fucking Fry, Triggers, tagged , , , , , , on July 20, 2012 | 16 Comments »

Today I have been a Mama for 18 years. That’s technically not true; I only became “Mama” around 6 and a half years ago when my youngest son decided that’s what he was going to call me, the older children followed his lead. Previous to that, I’m not sure what my title was but my job was the same.

I have three children- an 18 year old son, 15 year old daughter and a 7 year old son. The children are generally happy save for their own individual neuroses; they are intelligent and good-humoured, curious, energetic, polite, creative, sociable in their own unique way and very loving.

My parenting style is eclectic though at times, probably best described as “haphazard” I kind of make it up as I go along. Cereal (branded or generic) is a legitimate dinner at least once a week, baby wipes are an excellent substitute for a bath every other night, ketchup is a vegetable. 3 hours a day on the internet is “learning”, swearing is ok if it is grammatically correct and used appropriately. Discussion at the dinner table is actively encouraged even if it is about world hunger or decomposition- which as anyone with a 7 year-old son will know; it often is. Bedtimes can be fluid if I’m not craving peace; curfews are negotiable if the text messaged request is funny enough. Later-on drugs can be experimented with as long as they’re not chemical or addictive, getting drunk is ok as long as you stay safe and don’t get “fall down, piss yourself drunk”. A screwdriver is a legitimate toy, breaking things is “science”, woodlice are pets. Food colouring is for icing, mashed potatoes and baths. Beds are for sharing, books are important but can be annotated if desired, magnifying glasses are essential as are torches. School is crucial and should be approached with enthusiasm and the courage to question, further or higher education is optional. Individuality is cherished, love is unconditional.

In return for my eclectic parenting style I have 3 rather wonderful children, all popular with peers, all healthy, all able to come to me when necessary as far as I know- as far as any mother can know I suspect, after all you don’t know what they don’t tell you. I know I’m not an ogre- the 18 year old is able to discuss his sexuality with me, the 15 year old trusts me with her secrets and friends, the 7 year old still thinks I am a walking encyclopaedia even though I have led him to believe that the answer to many questions is “magic” (accompanied by appropriate hand-gestures and “woo” noises).

I’d be lying if I said my mental health hadn’t affected my children, particularly over the last year or so. They have had to go through things and witness things no child should ever have to be subjected to. The one thing I know I will never forgive the mental health system for is the effect their mistakes and negligence had on my children. I obviously feel guilty about my own contribution to what the children suffered but I know I couldn’t help it. I also know I repeatedly asked those who should have helped me to help- it’s not my fault they didn’t.

Even outwith times of crisis and given that the illness I have, dissociative identity disorder (DID) doesn’t just suddenly appear in adulthood but has been present in some way throughout my life, my mental health has affected my children and my relationships with them from the start.

Today, July 20th 2012, I can only remember one of the ‘starts’, I currently have no access to memories of my children prior to 2005, it’s as though I wasn’t there.

I wasn’t there.

I have a metaphorical book of facts; I can tell you birthweights, the ages at which developmental milestones were met and have the odd anecdote but beyond that- nothing. I have many photographs of the children, sometimes they can help access a memory of a time, place or event but it is to my eternal sadness that there are very few, if any photographs of me and the children. I’m terrified of having my photograph taken, in the few photos that do catch me, I look terrified. I have no proof that I was ever there and in the absence of feeling like I was there, this is difficult. The children don’t have DID, they do have memories and they often share them. Their accounts of me are usually positive so I take comfort from that. I also know that whilst I may not be able to access my memories of the children- they are there and I’m hopeful that, in time, they will become my memories too.

There’s no doubt that my mental health has had many negative impacts throughout the children’s lives but I’d argue the positives from having multiple Mama’s outweigh the negatives.

I am able to share my children’s interests- everything from the 18 year-old’s love of trains and foreign languages, to the 15 year-old’s love of reddit and shoes, to the 7 year-old’s love of Lego and Spiderman.

I am a very accepting person, anything goes. I have a moral compass that spins freely. Nothing my children do is unacceptable, certain situations may need a careful approach; some extra thought but nothing phases me. I’m slightly challenged by the 18 year-old’s support for Scottish nationalism (with a capital N) but there really is no-one better for him to discuss it with and I’m optimistic I can convince him otherwise but equally happy if I can’t. I frequently annoy the 15 year-old with my general ‘enthusiasm’ for things but she knows that it can be used to her advantage- be this in shoe or pancake form. The 7 year-old can vomit on demand at the dinner table should I stray from his desired diet of processed beaks and feet wrapped in batter, served with bastardised potato shaped into smiley faces, animals or letters but he knows I love those smiley faces, animals and letters as much as he does. I don’t stress over the little things, meeting the 5-a-day requirement in this house often includes the consumption of  “imagination salad”.

Thanks to my amazing powers of dissociation I am excellent in a crisis, should you back-flip into the corner of a table and sever a blood vessel there is no-one better to accompany you to A&E. I am a calm, reassuring presence even when faced with spurting blood and general distress.

I am fiercely protective of the children and attentive to their physical, emotional and environmental needs. This means I am happy to demand a same-day GP appointment in the face of cross-examination and insistence that such a thing is impossible from the receptionist. I am quick to challenge a school “behaviour policy” that uses shame to try and elicit compliance and should the children desire a mural on their bedroom wall or fairy lights in the kitchen than that’s ok too.

I am a good Mama.

So why today am I sitting here, worrying?

I’m worrying because tonight I have promised to take the now 18 year-old out for his first legal pint- out, to a pub. I don’t need to tell you just how challenging this is, I briefly began to consider all the known triggers and stopped when I got to double figures. I daren’t even think about the ones I don’t know about. I’m confident that I will appear well, it may be the quickest pint ever but I’m sure it’s something my son will remember forever and I’m honoured he chose me to share this moment with him. I’m pretty certain that the situation will be so stressful I’ll have no memory of it at all and I don’t doubt that it will cause some internal distress, but I’m going to do it- that’s what Mama’s do.

I’m worrying because on the 3rd of August my youngest son will return to my care full-time, having spent the last 9 months or so living with his father. I have stayed in contact with him throughout this period and it was always my intention to have him home when I felt well enough. The choice to wait until I was well enough wasn’t mine to make so he’s coming home a little earlier than I would’ve liked, I am in no doubt that this is the right thing to do. I accept it will be challenging and I accept that my progress, which to-date has been consistent and rapid will probably slow as I try to combine therapeutic work with caring full-time for two children again.

I’m worrying because although I know I’m a good Mama, I’ve lost a lot of confidence in my skills, I share the role with several others.  They all have something to bring and all have contributed in some way to the amazing creatures the children have become. I don’t expect it to be easy but I know, in time, I will get that confidence back. In spite of everything I have three securely attached, integrated little people to love and call my own.

Well I say little people- the 18 year-old is 6ft 2 with size 17 feet, I can only hypothesise that his father was a giant or a clown- perhaps a giant clown? I have no idea and I suspect, given my track record with men that some things are best left dissociated.

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To-Do List

Posted in 6 year old, autism, Awesome Psychiatrist, bipolar, blogging, children, communication, crying, depression, emotions, Fab Psychologist, Fantastic CPN, hospital, illness, insight, lithium, Lovely Dietitian, mania, manic, medication, mental illness, money, mother, parenting, recovery, social worker, stress, suicide, support, Wonderful GP, work, tagged , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2011 | 14 Comments »

I think this may be one of those posts on depression I talked about, I’m not sure, I’ll just write and see what happens.

It’s been a funny day- as in not at all amusing in any way shape or form and in fact nothing funny has happened so I’m not sure I can qualify that summing-up. It just feels funny. I’m sure there are many pathological explanations for this- a shift in mood state, the inevitable come-down after a period of elevation, the fact I stopped taking the dreaded lithium on Sunday night? It’s not my area of expertise so I’ll stop speculating.

I’ve had a hard week, again, nothing particularly difficult has happened (especially when you contrast this week with the past 3) and I haven’t actually done anything or been anywhere.

Monday- a social worker from the local children and families team came to carry out an assessment in light of the 3 “child at risk concerns” from the police following my behaviour over recent weeks and contact from the ninja CPN. The assessment was a gruelling affair and ultimately felt like a lynching. I had it all under control for around 45 minutes until the ninja CPN arrived (45 minutes late) and in my words “painted me as a total loony” in her words “told the truth”. Either way the assessment went on too long and I lost it towards the end, partly due to nicotine withdrawal, partly due to being talked about as though I wasn’t in the room and partly due to the social workers insistence on informing me that there may have to be a child protection investigation.

The social worker herself was patronising and clearly had little understanding of mental health. I know I’m not the best mother in the world and I know I don’t always try my hardest but to have to sit and listen to a complete stranger tell me just how badly I was failing was very difficult indeed.

Of course maybe she never implied that at all? I have noticed this week that every interaction I have had with the ninja CPN where I mention something someone else has said, she insists on me recounting it verbatim so that she can point out where I am misinterpreting things, employing magical thinking or just fabricating things. I can’t even trust my own thoughts and impressions any more. I feel stupid, childish and powerless.

I am not surprised or ashamed that my family has come to the attention of social services; I’d be more surprised if we hadn’t. My argument against their involvement is simply that they have nothing appropriate to offer. I was also more than a little annoyed that suddenly they were intruding on our lives when in all the time the 17 year old lived here and his autism wreaked heartbreak and havoc on us all they never offered a service, in spite of being asked. What my family needs in order to function properly is for me to be well- thinly veiled threats about child protection measures aren’t going to help me achieve this. The social worker wants to come back- well at least I think she does, I received a letter addressed to me and the 6 year old, making an appointment to visit the 6 year old and someone else who doesn’t even exist. Clearly just an admin error and my rage over it is no doubt my own fault for being difficult and misinterpreting things but it pissed me off anyway.

I assume the appointment is to see the 6 year old and the 14 year old again. The 14 year old is largely unimpressed with the social worker, her opening gambit of “I know it’s not easy being different, well some people like to be different- like Lady Gaga” sealed her fate with the 14 year old. The 14 year old is a wonderful creature, intelligent, engaging and probably the funniest person I know. She may be a little “old for her years” at times but she can spot a patronising bastard a mile away. I don’t disagree that the 14 year old would benefit from some emotional support, after all if I had cancer others would be falling over themselves to ensure she was ok, I’m just not sure that social services are equipped to offer her the kind of support she needs.

So the intervention of social services has me hell-bent on proving that their services are no longer required, maybe that’s the way it works?

Tuesday- the Fab Therapist visited me at home, she was impressed by my apparent fineness given the horror stories she had been told by other “team members” since our last interaction some 6 weeks ago. I don’t think we talked about much, I’m not really sure but we can’t have done as I don’t recall having a meltdown after she left. It was kind of her to circumnavigate my avoidance by visiting me at home and I expect our next appointment in 4 weeks will only have me moderately filled with dread and fear as opposed to having dread and fear seep out of every pore like usual.

This brings me to the realisation I’ve been generating this week- mental health professionals cannot make me better. I have a great “team” (that makes me want to vomit) an Awesome Psychiatrist, Fab Therapist, Wonderful GP, Lovely Dietitian, Fantastic ninja CPN and even an ok-ish community based psychiatrist (promoted from “dickhead” after he didn’t put up a fight against my discharge from the local bin last Thursday). They are all very knowledgeable, compassionate people that work very hard but there are no magic wands.

At the end of every appointment, at the end of every day, I am alone with the mental.

Part of my problem is I don’t know where I am or what I should be doing. Am I ill? Am I recovering? Am I all better now? Should I be taking it easy? Should I be trying harder? I simply don’t know. The last few weeks have been a kind of perpetual crisis and I knew what I had to do then, I had to fight, fight against the horror that is admission to the psych ward, fight against the intrinsic death that is psychotropic medication. I won both of those fights- my prize?

I’m still mental.

This evening I find myself back to struggling to find the will to live. I am aware I have very few coping strategies for times of “distress” (that also makes me want to vomit) so I’ve had a quick look on some websites to find out how other people do it. I’m still none the wiser. Yes sure I can sit here, in my corner and name all the colours I can see but that won’t help sort out the mess that is tax credits, it won’t help me be able to put up with the simultaneous noise from the TV, the DS and the 6 year old when he is here, it won’t help me be able to sit and enjoy a film and some mother-daughter bonding time with the 14 year old, it won’t get the school uniforms washed, dried and ironed in time for school on Monday, it won’t help me get back to work, it won’t pay the mortgage, it won’t cut the grass or fix the bathroom…..I could go on. When your life is a catastrophe, it’s very easy to catastrophise.

Wednesday- I have no idea what, if anything happened on Wednesday- oh yes, I wrote my last blog post and sure enough as I said in reply to one comment I am still as lost and clueless as I was when I wrote it.

Thursday- again, nothing happened that I can recall but in truth it’s therefore not impossible that there was a zombie apocalypse or a plague of sharks or something, my recall of events is sketchy at best.

Friday- AKA today. Well I think I’ve outlined above where I am today, I’m not sure even if I read it back I will have any idea. I think I’m back at the “must get a grip” stage, I have a to-do list for tomorrow- it has one item on it-

Get washed and dressed

 

In all honesty that will be a major achievement, wish me luck.

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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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Always/Never 20 Things I’ve Learned This Week

Posted in bipolar, blogging, children, communication, depression, Eating Disorder, emotions, Fantastic CPN, friends, health, hospital, illness, mental illness, NHS, parenting, psychiatrist, relationship, shopping, single-parent, stress, suicide, tea, therapy, Twitter, tagged , on June 24, 2011 | 9 Comments »

Given everything that’s happened to me since I last blogged I really feel I should insert a profound, poignant, detailed post here but I’m not going to as I’m not up to fluent prose at the minute. Instead I thought I’d share a little bit about what I’ve learned in the last week in handy list format- with numbers for easy reference.

1- Never go without food entirely for six days

2- Never go to Argos

3- Always avoid situations where hymns will be sung

4- Never let your first interaction with a different GP be largely wordless aside from incoherent shrieking and an insistence that you are “fine”

5- Never get in a CPNs car

3- Never tell a psychiatrist that you intend to kill yourself

4- Always inform health professionals in advance that you do not like to be touched- loudly and assertively

5- Always take an overnight bag if you are taken to a psychiatric hospital to be “assessed”

6- Always challenge the use of the Mental Health act if you perceive it to have been abused

7- Always assume you won’t see a doctor and be discharged until early evening at least

8- Never underestimate how much people care about you

9- Never assume you can leave it to someone else to get the spiky thing to put the washing line in

10- Never underestimate your ability to install small domestic appliances and make it entertaining

11- Always measure, mark and then drill, don’t just drill

12- Always pay attention to that little white stick and those little red lines on your cars petrol gauge

13- Never tell people you are fine when you are not

14- Never assume nothing is unforgivable, some things are so terrible they are

15- Always trust your instincts

16- Never go four days without washing your hair

17- Never forget that stubbornness and arrogance can be used for your own benefit too

18- Never underestimate the power of tea

19- Always make time for toast

20- Always remember that “the best thing about Mama’s bed is that it’s got Mama in it”

So another quiet week then………..

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The Scottish election- a mentalists view

Posted in activist, bipolar, blogging, election, emotions, Fife, health, illness, Labour, mental illness, Nicola Sturgeon, politics, PPC, Scottish Parliament, stability, stress, students, Twitter, work, tagged , on May 8, 2011 | 3 Comments »

Following the disastrous results for Scottish Labour after Thursdays elections, a number of Labour bloggers have been giving their thoughts on what went wrong and what we should do next. Being not only mental but also political, I couldn’t let the events of the 5th of May pass by without comment albeit a uniquely mental, parental type of comment.

Fellow Scottish Labourite and blogger J T Smyth raises a point that resonates particularly with me “ Personally I know I did not do enough that I could have done to help the party”. Other than donating some of my (massive) collection of corex boards to my CLP, erecting a “Vote Labour” garden stake and sending a brief but heartfelt text to a friend standing in the election- I did nothing during the campaign.

Why? I don’t feel any less affiliation with the core values of the Scottish Labour Party than I did, I still think that the Scottish Labour Party are best placed to govern Scotland but I spent the campaign in a kind of election-less bubble, avoiding Scottish newspapers, skipping over tweets about the campaign, ignoring blog posts and generally just making myself unavailable. I did this for several reasons but it’s taken me a while to figure out what those reasons were.

Lack of confidence is probably the main reason I hid from this campaign, sure I blog and I tweet- without the cover of anonymity but it’s one thing being “seen” on screen, it’s a totally different facing people- people who know what happened, people who witnessed my “fall from grace” as mental ill health tightened it’s grip. At times I wish I hadn’t been so “brave” (as people are wont to call it) about my mental illness, it would be so much easier to return to my previous activities if nobody knew just how mental I’d been. I haven’t seen many party colleagues since I got ill and now that my daily interactions are mainly with health professionals and children, I don’t think I’d have that much to say to them. Even I can see that I’m no longer that rather loud, outspoken, energetic, informed activist I once was- and it feels raw, I have no desire to accentuate my failings by exposing myself to situations that amplify those feelings of being different.

Lack of stability is another reason I avoided the campaign- stress is my poison- good stress or bad stress, it doesn’t matter. I know myself well enough to know that the exhausting excitement of the campaign trail would’ve sent me reeling. Whilst this may have turned out to be “interesting” on the doorstep, I couldn’t risk the potential humiliation- for me or others. Don’t misunderstand, I’m actually really stable at the moment, manage day-to-day without the massive mood swings of the past, but only because I lead a quiet life and the most stress I encounter is a long queue at Morrisons or a six year-old demanding to use the garden sprinkler every time the temperature struggles over 10 degrees.

My other emotional Achilles heel- shame has kept my profile low for this election. During the last election campaign (May 2010 for those that have blocked it out) I went from PPC (prospective parliamentary candidate for the non-politicos) to psychiatric inpatient- the details are all on this blog somewhere. I don’t think I am ashamed that I spent time in hospital when I look at it in isolation but when I look at in relation to the circles I mixed in before I became ill- then I am ashamed. I have campaigned with and worked with party members and other politicians from all backgrounds, but I don’t remember any of them “confessing” to ever having suffered from a mental illness. Some backgrounds are favoured in politics- working class, parents, community activism, union involvement, university education but I can’t see any political party clamouring to attract those of us who have experienced mental-healthcare provision first hand. Do I think this should be different? Well of course I do. I still feel as though I have the same things to offer as I did before mental ill health got the better of me but now I have a whole new area of “expertise” to help shape policy. The question is will I ever have the confidence again to offer my views?

The good news is that I kind of got my mojo back in time for the election. In the morning, whilst driving my car to the garage again (see Twitter for the MOT saga) I wept silent tears as I tried hard not to think about the election, my past and my future in politics, I was struggling for breath at the mere thought of walking into the polling station as a simple voter as opposed to collecting turnout figures or greeting people at the door, I was mourning the previous camaraderie of election time. Fortunately I got a grip.

On Thursday, I voted (both votes Labour, yes to AV) and I smiled at the activists on the door and suppressed an overwhelming sense of grief that I did not recognise the Labour activists manning the polling station (I later rationalised that they were probably drafted in from the university so I probably wouldn’t have liked them anyway- see here). I went home, did the domestic stuff, parented for a bit and sat myself down in front of  Tweetdeck. I was still there 23 hours and several lost politicians later and I enjoyed every minute. I didn’t enjoy the absolute drubbing we got from the SNP but I had forgotten how much I like an election. Via Twitter I was able to vicariously attend counts, sample ballot papers, speak to candidates and generally just have a good taste of what was going on outside my own four walls and more importantly outside of my head.

So here comes the political bit! The results of Thursdays election were shocking but perhaps not surprising. From my perch on the periphery I could see that the Scottish Labour Party were offering nothing to the electorate, our campaign was negative and mainly centered around the ever present threat of being a victim of knife crime, as James Mackenzie put it (in an article I now can’t find and therefore can’t link to) “you are going to get stabbed”, hardly the stuff of promise. We eventually decided to adopt the SNPs promise to put a freeze on council tax but beyond that we offered very little. The Labour Party has a proud history of standing up for and representing  the Scottish people but we have failed this time. As I previously mentioned I had a garden stake……

Yes- That's the stupid car that spectacularly failed its MOT

 
…..and I lived in constant fear that someone going by would ask me why they should obey the stake and vote Labour. The only answer I had was “because we need all the help we can get”.
 
I have agonised over whether to contribute my thoughts to the “where did we go wrong” debate as after all I did nothing to help but I really feel that I must say something.
 
I was disheartened on election night as we lost more and more MSPs to hear the party spokesmen (and women) say repeatedly “the Lib-Dem vote has collapsed” as far as I saw it, this was nothing to do with our poor showing. Even I could see (and I am mental) that as a result of the coalition in Westminster the Lib-Dems were in for a beating, instead of using this as an excuse we should have mounted a campaign to scoop up those votes- and we could have done. I know that our share of the vote actually increased in several constituencies but not as much as the SNP share increased. In North East Fife alone the swing to the SNP (from the Lib-Dems) was 15%- we still came 4th.
 
So where did we go wrong? Well this post from the Yousuf has some good points but I would like to add that we failed to credit the Scottish electorate with the intelligence to separate Westminster from Holyrood. This (in spite of what Ed Milliband said today) ignorance on our part left us fighting a faux fight against the Tories in London.
 
Our election paraphernalia failed to recognise the existence and achievements of existing MSPs instead favouring those who may or may not have a future profile within the party.
 
Some of our candidates (not all) were drawn from the traditional background of career politician, there were very few “real” people for the voters to choose.
 
I honestly don’t know where we as  a party go from here and again my lack of confidence is leading to a certain amount of self-censoring. I hope that the promised “root and branch review” provides a period of time for honest reflection, I hope that grass-roots members (even those who are latent) are given an opportunity to air their views. I think Iain Gray has done the right thing in resigning as leader of the Labour Party in the Scottish Parliament- but even his title speaks volumes. The Scottish Labour Party need to forge an identity, separate from the London based labour party. I am disturbed by Ed Millibands proclamation that he will be involved with our review- given that the national Labour Party remained largely silent as the results poured in on Thursday night/Friday morning.
 
We face a very tough time but it is also an opportunity, I simply hope that the opportunity will be taken.
 
 

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>Mmmm Pie

Posted in bipolar, stress, tagged on July 1, 2010 | 2 Comments »

>Just a quick blog to say, I don’t have much to say! I have had a hard day, full of mental unhealthiness and queries met with unacceptable (to me) answers form my team.

Again, I’ve had enough, I want to be better and I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I would do anything to feel better or at least have some idea of when I can expect to start feeling better. I’m usually in bed by now but delaying as I can’t bear the thought of going to sleep only to wake up to the same crap tomorrow.

On the advice of my fantastic (though today again, frustratingly unarmed with a magic wand) CPN I have made a list of my current stressors- there are 10 of them that I can think of and it’s no wonder I’m having a bad day really. I rated them all out of 100 (even somewhat geekily made a pie-chart) and not one of them scores under 40/100.

The problem is what do I do now? I want to hand the list (and the pie-chart if they think it will help) over to someone else and say “here this is what’s wrong, fix it” but I can’t.

Some of the stresses will fix themselves over time but some of them will take some effort from me and the big one “how long will it take me to get better? (90/100)” cannot be answered until it’s happened.

So I’m having an angry day, a stressful, angry, horrible day.

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