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Posts Tagged ‘anxiety’

To Whom It May Concern

Posted in bipolar, communication, crying, Eating Disorder, emotions, high, insight, mania, manic, mental illness, suicide, The Fear, tagged , , , , , , , , , on September 14, 2011 | 39 Comments »

As I write it’s Wednesday 14th of September 2011, just after 8.30pm. My day has been unspectacular, especially by my own standards of late. I woke before 4,30am, on the sofa in the same clothes I had worn and slept in since Monday.

That paragraph sounds much like the beginning of one of those posts on depression I am so loathe to write, it’s not.

My mood remains “elevated” but it’s not the colouring-in, book writing elevation that we all like so much. This elevation can be fun, it gets me through the long days, the kids love “manic breakfasts” (bacon and pancakes- sometimes real sometimes imaginary), laundry gets washed and occasionally dried on the same day, I am (I like to think) funny, fun and engaging for my twitter audience. My energy levels are high and more than ever I miss my stupid car (it’s still in Newcastle) as there are so many places I want to go- usually to buy stuff- usually stationery. Mostly I just want to run away.

However this kind of elevation also brings with it a mix of anger, fear, rage, irritability, distractibility and anxiety that turns most days into a waking nightmare. I can’t concentrate on anything; basic conversation is beyond me and anything anyone says winds me up to a point I can’t hear them over the noise in my head. Writing this is a huge struggle and I’m not even sure what to say.

I am consumed with anger and rage at the slightest stimulus, be this political or personal. I get so overwhelmed by these feelings I end up going mental in some of its most basic forms- laughter, crying, a mixture of the two, fixating on rhyming words, taking risky walks in the dark alone, rocking back and forth, pacing or becoming completely immobile. All the while my thoughts are fast, jumbled and largely useless. I am easily confused and inclined to forget things, going out presents the ever-present danger of getting lost

We’ve been having the fine/ill debate regarding my mental health on twitter for some time now; for the most part I insist I am fine with fleeting moments where I confess I feel less than well. Many others have told me I’m not very well and haven’t been for sometime. I have had some advice to the contrary, the kind of advice that suggests I’m being somewhat self-indulgent and need to simply “stop” doing what I am doing. I can’t even comment on that advice right now except to say, maybe those who say that are right?

Every health professional I’ve encountered recently has gone to great lengths to tell me that they are “concerned” about me and that I am “very concerning”. This concern makes me feel guilty and I am going to extraordinary lengths to no longer be a “concern”. My attempts are superficial however and mainly involve lying about my mental health and telling people what they want to hear. I feel vindicated in doing this as I very quickly discovered “concern” never mutated into anything useful for me.

I don’t want to be a concern, I want to be fine.

I don’t think I am fine but I’m not entirely sure what to do with this revelation. I think  the part of me that surfaced over the last few weeks and tried to destroy me is on her way back (I still argue that starving my body kept her quiet) and I’m not entirely sure what to do (early signs are the drugs inventory and purchase of new razor blades). I am currently safe though it’s through conscious choice at the moment. I still don’t really know what happened over the last few weeks but I know I very quickly got to a point where I had very little say in my own safety. How do you keep yourself safe from part of yourself, a part of which you have little awareness until you see the cuts on your body or have to talk your way out of yet another MHA?

I don’t know where I’m going with this, I’ve just read it, it’s not one of my better pieces, (actually it’s shit) but it’s going up on the blog as I think it may be a cry for help whilst I am still able to do so.

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Premeditated Murder- Part One

Posted in Anxiety, Awesome Psychiatrist, birthday, blogging, depression, diagnosis, duloxetine, Eating Disorder, emotions, illness, labels, lithium, mania, manic, medication, mental illness, psychiatrist, stability, suicide, tea, The Fear, Twitter, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 4, 2011 | 31 Comments »

As I mentioned in my previous post I am considering taking lithium again. This was not my idea, in fact it comes way down on my list of ideas somewhere after “stick pins in my eyes”, “swim in a crocodile infested pond”, “go to a Miranda Hart gig” “listen to Demi Lovato”, “eat offal”, “take up card making as a hobby”….you get the picture.

Lithium is the idea of my Awesome Psychiatrist, a gentleman I was very lucky to be referred to and even luckier that he found me “interesting” enough for him to continue reviewing my diagnosis (diagnoses?) and treatment. It is not surprising that in light of recent events he thinks it might be time to try and introduce some sort of chemical stability into my chaotic life.

I trust the Awesome Psychiatrists completely, I did instantly, I have no idea why, I usually make mental health professionals work very hard indeed to earn my trust. The Awesome Psychiatrist is very skilled and very experienced he is a “designated national specialist” according to one website, I’m not actually sure what this means but he’s a nice guy, very funny, gives me tea during appointments and laughs at my jokes, all good qualities as far as I’m concerned.

In spite of this I am still in a quandary over taking lithium again, for reasons I will explain, some perfectly rational, some possibly less rational but no less pertinent for me.

I have taken many psychotropic medications in the past, so many I’m not sure if I can remember them all but I will try- bearing in mind I only came to the attention of the psychiatric profession (this time around) in January 2010 this is quite a list-

Fluoxetine

Venlafaxine

Olanzapine

Quetiapine

Aripiprazole

Carbamazepine

Lithium

Agomelatine

Sodium Valproate

Duloxetine

Various benzodiazepines

Various hypnotics

I took propranolol in an attempt to counter the tremor lithium gave me- it made me almost blind

I was also once prescribed Risperidone for about 20 minutes but never took it

These drugs were in various dosages, in various combinations at various times, I stopped taking anything on the 19th of January 2011. I started taking Agomelatine on the 16th of  March and stopped taking it some 8 weeks ago for reasons that will probably soon become clear. I could write a blog post on each one and the reasons I hated it but this post is about lithium.

So I’ll start with the rational reasons I don’t want to take lithium again.

Lithium has many nasty physical side-effects; in my experience it causes agonising leg cramps, nausea, dizziness, constant fatigue, headaches, disabling whole body tremor, constant thirst, an insatiable hunger and accompanying rapid, uncontrollable weight gain. I don’t cope well with physical ailments, I tend to ignore most physical symptoms, preferring to ignore the fact I actually have a body at all. Feeling ill all the time forces me to acknowledge I have a body that is more than just somewhere to apply pyjamas. It makes me very uncomfortable. When I look back at diaries or blog posts I am reminded of just how dreadful I felt whilst taking medication. I accept I was over medicated, poorly medicated and poorly monitored but I have no confidence this won’t happen again. I would be mad to volunteer to make myself physically ill again.

Drug-induced weight-gain is tortuous, for anybody, for someone who likes to be in control of food as much as I do it’s even worse. I have managed to crawl to quite a sound footing in terms of eating disorder recovery, most days I eat three proper meals a day, snacks in between and have managed to make it through a whole month without any self-induced vomiting. No mean feat for someone who appeared hell-bent on starving herself to death a short time ago. I remember the incredible lithium hunger so well, I would be drop-down-dead starving almost all day, it never went away. I can’t help but think introducing a drug that messes with my metabolism would be self-sabotage at this stage.

Lithium is a mood-stabiliser, yes it helps prevent extremes of mood but it also has a tendency to cancel out all the ones in between as well. I functioned on lithium but I was without thoughts, ideas, feelings or reactions. I was empty; I am in danger of straying into the less rational reasons for not taking lithium so I will direct you to this post written by a much loved friend on the subject, she explains it better than I ever could.

So those are my experience-based, rational, understandable reasons for being reluctant to take lithium again. If I have the words and the courage I will try and explain the other reasons. I would appreciate anyone reading to let me know that they nodded and said “uh-huh” throughout this next bit as opposed to laughing aloud or further questioning my sanity, I have awareness that my beliefs are a little skew-whiff but this does not stop me believing them.

I often joke about being “poisoned by the medical profession” in fact during my first consultation with the Awesome Psychiatrist I made him promise not to poison me, I make it sound funny- I am deadly serious. I believe the medical profession want to poison me and make me something/somebody I am not. This belief  has some basis in fact, after my diagnosis there was a tendency to attach pathological labels to all my past behaviour. All the things I did, all the things I achieved were painted with bipolar, taken away from me, turned in to symptoms as opposed to qualities.  I believe that the psychiatric profession do not like me being who I am (or perhaps rather who I can be when not hooped-up on mentalism?) I am tempted to self-censor here as I know that what I’m about to say merely supports my diagnosis but I will go ahead. The psychiatric profession want me to be the same as everyone else, they want me to conform, be normal, be boring. I haven’t quite made up my mind if “they” (ie- everyone else other than me in the whole world) feel envious, threatened or just don’t like me, either way I know they want to drug the Zoë out of me.

The way I feel about this is paradoxical to my general feelings of self-loathing and I can’t really explain that other than perhaps by referring to that shameful symptom of bipolar- grandiosity. It is my understanding that grandiosity is a symptom of a manic state though and high or low I feel exactly the same way about lithium and exactly the same way about what “they” want to do to me. Even when I am crushingly low I would rather be dead than take lithium.

Simply thinking about taking lithium again makes me panic, it gives me the fear I shake and sweat, my heart races and I start scurrying around inside my own head. I have got as far as allowing the Awesome Psychiatrist to start the process, I am still in control, at this stage I have no intention of taking it.

I believe that in voluntarily taking those tablets I would essentially be killing a part of me. This sounds like a standard case of “missing the highs” and maybe it is, it feels much scarier and final than that though.

Lithium mutes the Zoë in me, it leaves behind a fat, trembling body inhabited by functioning parts, things get done but we don’t “do stuff” (“stuff” being a handy catch-all word to describe the stuff  Zoë does). Having re-read that (very long) sentence I am aware I am possibly making little sense, except perhaps to myself. It’s 3am I should probably stop and have a milky drink.

I don’t know what to do about this situation, I clearly cannot continue the way I am, I am just not safe- in either mood state and I accept that I am unwell (though I am willing to argue as to just how unwell I am). However I know that if I take lithium, the author of this blog will die and I suspect she’ll take the twitter account holder with her, I will still exist in some form but I won’t be living.

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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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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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