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Posts Tagged ‘therapy’

The Doors Of Consternation

Posted in DID, Dissociation, DIY, DLA, driving, Internal Communication, The Smallest House in The World, therapist, therapy, Told you it wasn't like Stephen Fucking Fry, Triggers, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 11, 2012 | 31 Comments »

I need to buy and fit two doors. Why I need to do this is not important and indeed I’ve decided why the two doors are missing in the first place is not important either- purely as cover for the fact I have absolutely no idea. I suspect they were victims of a period of home-improvement cruelly disrupted by the arrival of mentalism.

The smallest house in the world is one of the more obvious casualties of my descent into mentalism. It was never palatial, always in a constant state of “being done” but now it’s verging on barely habitable. I could list the problems but it’d be very depressing so I’m not going to. These days I just turn the music up so I don’t have to listen to the malevolent drip, drip, drip that comes from the dodgy plumbing in the bathroom and if nothing else the resident slugs provide material for humours tweets.

Replacing the doors presents multiple challenges- some are obvious and certainly not unique to mentalism.

B&Q won’t deliver them; they won’t fit in the stupid car.

I’m quite proficient in DIY but don’t think I’ve fitted new doors before so may have to upskill myself.

The smallest house in the world has the most awkwardly sized doorways, any doors would have to be cut in order to fit; this would have to be done in the garden and as everyone knows it’s monsoon season in the UK.

I was assured by the <?> therapist at some point in June that I have

“Solutions not Problems”

She’s right, though also sailing dangerously close to wanky platitude territory and everyone knows how much I love wanky platitudes-except perhaps the <?> therapist….? I’m sure she’ll be told at some point, no doubt when she crosses the line from “wise words” to “wanky platitude”.

I do have solutions to all the above problems-

I can drive; I could hire a van.

I’m literate; I could learn how to fit doors.

The house is complete shit-tip, who am I trying to kid that it would look any worse with a few piles of sawdust here and there?

I could do all of these things- in theory.

Truthfully, at the moment I couldn’t do any of them. I’m not lazy or helpless, far from it, but I am broken, malfunctioning.

Hiring a van would inevitably involve making a phonecall. Brief outgoing calls I can do- with a lot of planning and if there’s no risk that the call won’t go as predicted. I’m so easily triggered that switching is still random and chaotic, I recently had to phone the lovely people at DWP as there had been a mix-up with my DLA, it was all their fault, they had made a major error- an error that had stopped my payments for months. I called them to ask them to fix it and generally have a well-justified rant, the call started well but the call handler was unusually and unexpectedly apologetic and sympathetic so I found myself on the phone mid-conversation with no memory of what had been said and indeed not really sure why I was calling in the first place. I can’t imagine many van hire companies would be keen to enter into a contract with a woman who forgets who she is and why she’s calling.

I am a gung-ho DIYer I generally believe no home-improvement task is beyond me. In the past I have hung wallpaper, laid carpets, painted, tiled, rewired, installed, plumbed, repaired and replaced usually with satisfactory results. I’m not perfect but also not easily phased or defeated. Or at least I was. These days I’d be lucky to get as far as getting my toolbox out before forgetting what I was going to do, forgetting how to do it, not wanting to do it, engaging in a random bout of sobbing for reasons unknown or doing something completely different instead.

I have considered getting “a man in” to sort the doors and instantly dismissed it. Few situations are as obviously triggering as having an unknown male in the house, for an indeterminate period of time. Real people still make me mental; any face-to-face interaction that lasts longer than 15 minutes brings on the “personality wheel of fortune” effect, whilst most switches are subtle and only obvious to the trained eye, some aren’t so it’s a risk not worth taking. Encounters with real people still leave me confused and amnesic, their words, movements in fact their mere presence is just one trigger after another.

So I won’t be replacing those doors any time soon.

I’m frustrated that there are so many obvious signs that I’m losing the life/mental balance, particularly as I’m not, I’m winning. My victories may be small, almost imperceptible and as I tend not to talk about them in detail outside therapy nobody knows about them but they are there.

I may have no living room door but I do have a “safe place” in my head, a safe place I built somewhat hurriedly on Tuesday morning after a night of terror that had the potential to send me hurtling into another crisis. I needed to build the safe place in order to deal with the issue that had caused the night of terror in the first place. On Tuesday morning; with assistance via text from the <?> therapist I achieved something immense, something amazing and the crisis was averted.

Therapy for DID is different, I don’t talk about it much, friends often ask how it’s gone and my honest reply is often “I don’t know as I didn’t go”, very few friends know how to follow this up and I understand that. Achievements made in or as a result of therapy are often difficult to describe, I’m never going to be able to say “it was great, we talked about my anxiety, I went to Tesco and felt fine” it just doesn’t work like that. It does work though, it may work very slowly, it may work in a way that nobody other than myselves and the <?> therapist know about, but it works. It works for many reasons, not least because I put the effort in, again I don’t talk about it much but internal work is almost constant, it’s often very difficult but I don’t shy away from it.

So there may be three days worth of washing-up in the kitchen and the amount of cat hair on the living room carpet is such that very soon I shall be able to simply roll it up and discard it (I have multiple cats), I may end up going to Tesco later and buying the usual random, eclectic selection of goods in my usual fear-driven haze and still have nothing in for dinner. I may never replace those doors; the bathroom floor may well rot away completely and slugs may eat my eyes out of their sockets whilst I sleep. I don’t doubt that the external effects of mentalism will continue to frustrate and upset me but I have work to do.

It’s swings and roundabouts.

I love swings and roundabouts- especially swings.

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Swiss Army Mental

Posted in #MadParisJolly2011, alcohol, art, birthday, blogging, book, communication, diagnosis, DID, Dissociation, emotions, insight, Internal Communication, MPD, Paris, Skills, therapist, Told you it wasn't like Stephen Fucking Fry, Triggers, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 13, 2012 | 16 Comments »

Do you remember this?

Mad Paris Jolly

Well I don’t but I still love the blog post. As humorous accounts of dissociative fugue states go, I think it’s possibly one of the best I’ve ever written.

There’s lots I could say about that post, I could tell you how angry I am that even though fellow multiples all over the internet spotted it and correctly identified it for what it was my ‘care’ team at the time continued to be oblivious to the bleeding obvious- even when I very kindly pointed it out.

I could tell you how glad I am I wrote it as it has been read many times since and has helped immensely in seeing what was really going on for me.

I could tell you how disappointed I am that a literary agent didn’t stumble across my beautifully crafted piece, browse the blog and negotiate me a six-figure book deal with a major publishing house.

I could tell you that now I know (and I know I know) I have DID the trip to Paris makes perfect sense, even if I still don’t know who went or why.

What I want to tell you is that I didn’t go to Paris this year.

For reasons unknown I hate ‘my’ birthday and it’s clear from what happened this time last year that the birthday is a major trigger for me- Paris was just the start of a period of several intense crises, another trip to the bin and a further decline in my mental health. I daresay at some point during  my long therapeutic journey I will discover why I hate the birthday so much but it was enough this year to know that I did so that I could ready myselves to cope.

This year, the birthday passed without any major mishaps. Those of you who know me elsewhere will be aware that there was some preparation involved and I’m very grateful to you all for understanding and doing what you did. Some of you will also be aware that the birthday weekend had a number of added complications and some of you will know that I found it necessary to drink myself into a nice safe coma on two consecutive afternoons.

But I didn’t run away to Paris and I didn’t end up in the bin.

Frustratingly I’ve lost count of how many sessions I’ve had with the <?> therapist but it’s really not that many, around 16 maybe? I was going to start the next sentence with “in those 16 sessions I have made more progress than…” but I don’t need to compare it, you’ve read the blog.

In those 16 sessions- I have made progress

It’s a slow progress and sometimes it’s almost a kind of inverse progress but having spent my entire time in the MH system so far deteriorating, I’m delighted.

The bloody, painful, distressing, protracted battle with NHS Fife for the ‘right help’ was awful but I’m so glad I did it. The ‘right help’, the <?> therapist isn’t somehow magical, she just knows what she’s doing and what she’s done is help me to see that though my life is often painful and difficult, I have the skills and tools I need to keep going. Accessing these skills can be difficult, frustrating, exhausting, frightening and confusing. The right skills for the occasion aren’t always available, they are often not willing to do what they need to do, the wrong skills sometimes volunteer but they are there- all of them.

I have multiple opinions on multiplicity, having DID is hard for so many reasons and I still think if I could choose I’d choose not to have it.

I’d choose not to have needed to have it.

I’m glad I do have DID.

Only a multiple could cope with multiplicity. We have all the skills we need to do what we need to do, all the knowledge, all the experience, courage, tenacity, compassion, empathy, curiosity, humour and emotion. We are the ultimate self-contained, self-help units.

Now I have the right help and guidance I’m gaining confidence, learning about my condition, learning about myselves. I’m often uncomfortable with what I’ve learned, but knowledge is power and having spent the last two years or so feeling increasingly powerless and hopeless it feels good to get some of that power and hope back.

I checked Google calendar- it’s only been 14 sessions….

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The Right Help To Be Terrifyingly Confused

Posted in DID, mental illness, Multiple Personality Disorder, therapist, therapy, Told you it wasn't like Stephen Fucking Fry, tagged , , , , , , on April 18, 2012 | 21 Comments »

I was deemed worthy at last, funding was awarded for the long-awaited ‘right help’. I have a new therapist; her adjective is yet to be decided but she is both right and helpful. I’ve only met the <something> therapist twice but already I can see that the need to constantly explain myself, my thoughts, my symptoms, my actions, to somehow justify my ‘complexity’ has gone. I’m not complex, I am a bog-standard multiple (if such a thing exists- we are wonderful, interesting, exotic creatures) I am ‘normal’. Abnormally normal but normal all the same- I fit, my experiences aren’t wildly different from what they ‘should’ be anymore- there is some comfort in that. Just being able to speak to someone who ‘gets it’ instead of someone who looks terrified/confused/doubtful/anxious/conflicted/fascinated/horrified is, is- well it’s ‘ok’.

Whilst I can already see that the right help is both right and helpful it is also a number of other things, mainly confusing, a word that means more daunting than daunting, terrifying and uncertain.

The confusion is painful, endless and ultimately a bit confused. I don’t think even I could come up with a nice, flowery metaphor to explain it. It is agony. Whilst each session of the right help so far has brought  relief at not being treated like a psychiatric curiosity or a problem, comfort in finally being heard and the knowledge that there is now ‘something’ there to help- there is always a period of intense sadness afterwards when I realise the <something> therapist didn’t at any point say-

“I’ve made a terrible mistake, I treat DID, I am the wrong help for you”

Of course the confusion is compounded as she might well have said it and I just don’t remember…..

I may have to invent a word that means more daunting than daunting, I’m not sure there ever could be a word that sums up the way it feels to finally be starting your life, nearly 37 years after your life officially started. Whilst  that feeling may hint at something resembling positivity, I’d argue at this stage it’s more a recognition of potential, potential.

The right help is also terrifying; I think it may even be more terrifying than no help and the wrong help. I can’t decide (see ‘confusion’ above) and I can’t put it in to words. I spent so long appearing never to need any help for anything; it’s hard to adjust to allowing help- especially help that might actually help.

Nobody can tell me how long the right help will take, nobody can even guess but I know it’s going to take a long time. I always have millions of questions; many of them don’t have answers. I think I’m supposed to do the whole ‘acceptance’ thing but it’s just not happening. I’m also supposed to just ‘be’ I’ve never been able to ‘be’ I ‘do’ I don’t ‘be’. I think at this stage I’d accept being lied to if it meant I had something tangible instead of the constant uncertainty about what comes next and “when will I be able to <insert anything from the mundane to the fanciful here> again?”

I’m exhausted, career mentalism is draining and challenging, the rewards are few and far between, the pay is terrible and my annual leave entitlement is zero.

My job is survival, out of all the jobs I’ve had (and they have, unsurprisingly been many and varied) it is without doubt the hardest. I often have nothing to show after a 24 hour shift other than the fact I am still breathing. There is nobody to recognise my ‘achievement’ other than myself.

I know she is in there somewhere.

The conditions, pay and benefits may be atrocious but there is some hope for the pension, I just have to survive long enough to accrue it.

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I Always Hated The Pantomime

Posted in bipolar, depression, diagnosis, driving, Fab Psychologist, Fantastic CPN, friends, high, hospital, insomnia, lithium, mania, manic, mental illness, NHS, psychiatrist, social worker, suicide, therapy, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 2, 2011 | 12 Comments »

Again so much I could write here, I’d have no idea where to start with an account of the time since I last blogged. Those of you who know me will know there is an awful lot I could write about. To sum up, in handy list format-

The stupid car is 157 miles away

I’ve been in two different hospitals in two different countries in a week

I didn’t get sectioned (three times)

I don’t think I am very well

I could recount all the gory details but to be honest I don’t remember that much of them, there are “highlights”, again in handy list format-

 Having to get all my appointments with my entire team rearranged as I had “discharged myself” from mental health services.

 Almost puking my own skeleton up during a 20 hour Parvolex infusion (a fitting punishment for my abject stupidity).

 Meeting my newest psychiatrist and being told a hot milky drink was the cure for that chronic, severe insomnia I talked about.

other hot milky drinks are available

The Fantastic CPN becoming the “ninja CPN” after she appeared, unseen, unexpectedly, unannounced and played the pivotal role in ensuring my most recent “episode” didn’t end in disaster.

9 hours or so in A&E (157 miles away) practising my dinosaur impressions, pacing, being stalked by security and getting into completely unwinnable, protracted arguments with mental health professionals.

I have been a monstrous consumer of resources of late, again a list-

      Ambulances

      Doctors

      Nurses

      Police

      Social workers

      Psychiatrists

      CPNs (both ninja and non-ninja)

      Hospital beds

So I haven’t exactly covered myself in glory recently. If I do a little CBT reframing of the past week or so I can come up with the following list-

 I’m still alive (in all honesty undecided if this is a positive but feel obliged to say it)

I didn’t get detained under the Mental Health Act or the Mental Health (care and treatment) (Scotland) Act.

I was again reminded that a lot of people care very much about me and will go to great lengths to help me. (thank you all for everything)

 The children appear well and happy (though I am aware I am raising the next generation of mental health service users).

So what’s next? In all honesty I don’t know, there are a lot of unknowns at the moment. I could make some predictions based on my knowledge to date but for fear of any of them becoming self-fulfilling prophecies I’ll resist.

I am considering re-starting Lithium therapy, this decision deserves its own post and it will get one. I had that MRI I was agonising over in my previous post, no results yet but am now also awaiting an appointment with a neurologist, these tests are mainly to rule things out, just a case (no doubt previously unheard of) of a psychiatrist being thorough. I have an appointment with the Fab Psychologist on the 13th of September, I will agonise over that nearer the time.

So yeah, I’m still here and again if rapid-cycling was an Olympic sport, I could be a real contender for the gold.

So a short post, covering a short time where an awful lot has happened, there’s a lot missing, follow me on twitter for the minute by minute account of the pantomime that is my life.

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Positive Integers

Posted in 6 year old, Anxiety, blogging, children, Eating Disorder, emotions, Fab Psychologist, insight, insomnia, mental illness, mother, parenting, recovery, sleep, the room, therapy, Twitter, tagged , , , , , , on July 28, 2011 | 16 Comments »

It’s been 8 days since I last blogged, I have spent much of the last two days castigating myself for not blogging yesterday. I had decided that in order to be a “good blogger” I had to update my blog weekly- no more, no less. As a result of this self-imposed regulation I have spent much of the past 8 days resisting the temptation to write blog posts when inspiration has struck- I didn’t want to blog too often- after all I did write, illustrate and publish two books in one week, I didn’t want to bore my audience. So yesterday when I hit the 7 day self-imposed deadline I was dismayed to find that in spite of all my scribbled notes and ideas- I had no urge to blog.

It is though I am somehow dissatisfied by the rules imposed on my life by society, principles, time and the law- I appear to have an almost constant need to impose further rules upon myself. This is evidenced in many ways and I have discovered that even abiding by the rules does not bring me fulfilment; I simply make new rules and move the goal posts even further.

I have ripped up the rule book as regards blogging so tonight I bring you the last 8 days in eight numbers- completely random numbers, in no particular order at all.

60-

The number of mg of Tamazepam I have taken in an attempt to sleep- without the nightly horror sleep has become. I witter on about sleep all the time- and I never did write that post. Sleep has always been an elusive creature for me, the only thing I have in common with Margaret Thatcher is that I do not need a lot of sleep; but I do need some. I have never slept well and I have always had trouble getting off to sleep. These days I can’t sleep at all without medication, even then I sleep briefly, wake frequently and early. My nights are filled with an unknown terror, I often wake myself screaming or shouting but retain no memory of what it was that was so horrific during the night. I wake very early every morning feeling unsettled and traumatised.

I’m not supposed to have the Tamezepam; I was prescribed it ages ago, back in the early stages of mentalism when I was still considered responsible enough to be trusted not to abuse prescription medication. I am running out, I can’t imagine the prescription will be refilled. I combine the Tamazepam with double doses of Zopiclone in pursuit of unconsciousness as opposed to actual sleep, sleep brings with it fear and fear is something I’m keen to avoid.

My own unique, personal manifestation of mentalism appears to bring with it the added joy of getting to watch myself “sleep”. It’s as though I stay up all night watching my poor shattered body struggle to stay asleep as my mind attempts to torture it. I feel sad for myself and wish I could help myself but it seems all I can do is watch until morning- very early morning.

2- 

The number of people I heard outside my open bedroom window discussing the state of my front garden. I am quite good at gardening, I used to have a beautiful garden at the front of the house and I grew veg out the back. I used to enjoy gardening and was proud of my little patches of green, my flowers and my veg. Since I became unwell and I find it takes me all my energy and motivation to wash and dry my hair, I no longer have any desire to tend to the garden- lawns and privet hedges are very quick to advertise neglect. The only attention the grass has received of late is from the rabbit- he’s a lovely rabbit but very small and there’s only so much lawn he can eat. The hedge was so big it was sucking all the light out of my living room we lived in the kind of gloom befitting a Dickensian novel- a gloom only shattered by the odd beam of sunlight, light that would sneak around the hedge and highlight all the dust hanging in the air.

The last proper gardening I did was last summer- it was the kind of gardening one does with a chainsaw, it saw the removal of an 8ftx10ft privet hedge- which was never replaced with any sort of boundary marker- the neighbours have yet to forgive me. I have the kind of neighbours who only cut “their side” of the hedge so I can only imagine what they thought about the state of my gardens.

When I heard those lovely locals criticising my garden I dealt with it in my usual healthy way. I was already in bed, already in pyjamas all I needed was alcohol and a healthy dose of self-flagellation- so I drank and felt ashamed, then I felt ashamed for lying in bed drinking wine at 5.20pm, then I got pissed, then I woke up two hours later with a hangover. So I have yet again entered a period of abstinence- this one will last until I know I’m not going to sit in my bed with a bottle of merlot feeling sorry for myself.

There was so much I wanted to say to the lovely locals but didn’t- I wanted to be angry and say “fuck off, mind your own business”, I wanted to be pathetic and say “I’ve not been well you know, please cut my grass”, I wanted to be political and say “you have no idea how pervasive mental illness can be”. Instead I said nothing; those lovely locals have no idea of the story behind the state that was my garden. Those lovely locals have no idea the woman that has let that garden run to seed is the same woman they would’ve called for advice on planning applications, double yellow lines, HMO applications, parks, benches, green belt and schools. They have no idea that the very thought of spending the necessary amount of time in my garden required to cut the grass would leave me feeling as exposed and vulnerable as a broken tooth. They have no idea that I was as horrified by my garden as they were.

I called a gardener to come and sort things out, I don’t know his name but I can highly recommend the first gardener that comes up on Yell.com when you put “Gardener St Andrews Fife” into the search box. My garden has been reset and I hope now to be able to “keep on top of it”. It’s not the garden it once was by any stretch of the imagination but it’s not a garden to be ashamed of either.

7- 

The number of times the call handler at BT told me today that the proximity of my router to the TV was the reason my wireless connection was either painfully slow or non-existent. I made clear to the gentleman on the phone that the router and TV had shared the same electromagnetic field for some years- the problem with the wireless had only occurred in the last 2 days. My anxiety at being on the phone was overtaken by frustration and irritation at the call-handlers inability to go off script.

I’m not sure how much the non-internet dependent understand the internet dependent. My need for a wireless connection to the internet is even more pertinent than my need for stationery- I would happily sell organs in order to obtain both. Should BT or Rymans ever decide that they will only offer goods and services in exchange for bodily tissues, I will be unperturbed. Fixing the wireless got immediate priority on the to-do list and it was even worth making a phone call for. The phone call lasted 22 minutes and it was possibly the most infuriating 22 minutes I have ever spent on the phone to Bangalore.

I eventually realised that the problem I had encountered (trying to change the channel on the router) was in fact due to Google Chrome and to my relief it’s all sorted now. I besmirched the good name of  BT all over twitter today and they apologised for my “frustration”, it wasn’t frustration it was sheer panic at facing a day without the internet. Nothing starts the day better than a cup of tea and the www- after all my day starts at a time when no-one else is around- nobody wants to chat at 4.45am in the real world.

9- 

The number of biscuits I have eaten- various biscuits, mainly digestives but with the occasional piece of shortbread or rich tea finger thrown in for variety. The 14 year old put the contents of a packet of ginger biscuits in the biscuit tin so all the biscuits taste the same- faintly ginger- we have a tin full of strawberry blonde biscuits. The number of biscuits is a good reflection on my general relationship with food at the moment- not too few and not too many. I feel a bit like I am discovering many foods for the first time and am actually deriving real pleasure from eating. I am enjoying no longer being leg chewing-off starving before I eat and I am discovering a lot about what I need and what I want. I have my bad days but the good far outweigh the bad and I feel so much better for having regular, decent amounts of food inside me.

My diet tends to be very much centered around poached eggs, mushroom risotto and various breakfast cereals (both generic and branded) but it is a million miles away from the diet I had even two weeks ago. I have noticed a tendency to starve myself whenever the going gets tough but I am noticing it and most of the time rectifying it immediately. I see no reason for this to change and I find myself looking forward to the day when I can look at my own forearms without being repulsed by how thin they are.

3- 

The number of things I have rewired. I have replaced the sockets and the light switch in the  6 year olds soon to be  bedroom. I have no idea how long I have been working on this room- the preparation and painting has been a painful protracted affair and there is still much to do. I have never liked decorating, mainly because I am very bad at it and partly because it draws my attention to the state my house is in. I have promised the 6 year old that he will be in it for the end of the summer holidays (20 days to go) and I have no doubt he will be but he may well be in it without a blind, door or furniture and without the coving I will need to put up to disguise the horribly inaccurate paint line between the walls and the ceiling. Every day the room renovation throws up a new problem- today’s is that I cannot get B&Q to deliver the coving and the door I need, I can’t fit these items in the stupid car so for today have given up trying to procure them at all. The room is now a standing issue on the daily to do list- annotated by my attempts to persuade myself to make progress-

I have yet to actually list all the outstanding items, preferring to take a haphazard approach and just hoping that I will hit the target eventually. The room is now a vision in metallic blue and “sky”, the (chosen by the 6 year old) bright red blind sits on the floor, mocking me and my fear of being able to cut it correctly and accurately. I have been told by many that I will get “a real sense of achievement” when it’s done- I wont, I will just be relieved and delay even further the decorating that needs done in the 14 year olds room.

17- 

The number of years I have been a Mama, my eldest child turned 17 last week. I don’t feel old enough to be the Mama to a 17 year old but at the same time I feel very old. Parenting the 17 year old has been a tremendous challenge from day 1, I am told I have done a good job but in common with most mothers I don’t doubt for a second that I could’ve done things better. In those 17 years I have learned a lot and at the same time remain that unsure, self-doubting creature I was before I even considered embarking on motherhood. I will be a Mama for the rest of my life, 17 years is not a long time in the grand scheme of things- but in 17 years a Mama can find an awful lot of reasons to pick holes in her performance. I was relieved to see that the 17 year old is well and happy; in fact he seems happier than he has for around two years. I am trying to see this as a good thing I have achieved now as opposed to a lot of bad things I have achieved in the last two years. Motherhood is very difficult and it’s very easy to get things wrong, it is a continuous learning curve and there are no prizes for just having done it for a certain period of time. It is the ultimate dynamic role and I often find it difficult to keep up, it’s a role that deserves a post of its own so I will leave it there for now.

200- 

The number of times I am tweeting per day on average at the moment. Twitter has become more conversational for me lately so a lot of those tweets are exchanges between me and others- a lot of them are my continued stream of consciousness. Twitter has become the ultimate recording device for me- it allows me to retrace my steps I have a permanent record of what I’ve said and done and where I’ve been. I have days when I use it less if I am occupied by another task and days when I use it more but I always make sure I check in regularly both for my own benefit and to stop my followers from worrying about me. I spend a lot of time thinking about twitter and its ramifications for me, fellow mentalists and the world as a whole- there is an article  published by SRN where I talk about it some more. I am impressed that the author managed to obtain such succinct comments from my pages long response to her interview questions about what is clearly one of my very favourite topics.

1- 

The number of major breakthroughs I had in therapy. I have being seeing the Fab Psychologist since January- every two weeks. Every two weeks I would go to the local hospital for 11.30am on a Tuesday having spent at least the previous two weeks dreading that hour. That hour, every two weeks felt like emotional evisceration. I have largely spent most of my therapy hours like this and stuck to my old mantra of “leave them smiling and they will think you are fine”. I don’t know what it was but something made me keep going back. I have an almost infinite list of reasons why I don’t like therapy- they range from the valid- “I don’t like to talk about myself” to the invalid- “she moved the furniture” but there is a strange pull I cannot define. I’m not sure if I have made any progress since January, I’m not sure I really tried; perhaps just going back was trying enough?

This week it was different in a way I have not yet managed to put into words- in spite of numerous attempts. I came away from that hour feeling unsettled but curious, scared but optimistic I even think there was a point where I was looking forward to my next session, that feeling has since vanished and been replaced by the usual dread- but I will go.

I feel as though I am finally on that journey everyone has been talking about for so long, I am experiencing the same mix of fear and excitement that I would experience embarking on any journey. I don’t know what my destination is and so I have the added fear the unknown. I fear that my journey will be interrupted at some point and I fear that my journey may be too arduous and I will simply give up. My theme of late has been “feel the fear and do it anyway” so I will carry on, there are no rules on this journey but it is almost certain there will be lots of blogging.

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