I’ve promised myself that I’m going to be more positive in this blog. It’s not good to keep ranting and raving and going on because I’m miserable. I’m going to focus on the positives in life and I’m going to use Tony Robbins to do it! Only because I can get free videos on YouTube and his talks usually last as long as my journey home. Bonus. See how positive I am?!
I was reading an interview with Executive Producer and Writer, Bob Lowry. He stated that he had been in therapy a lot over the years and that one therapist once said to him ‘Most people don’t wake up until they know they’re going to die.’ Ok, so this isn’t taking the cheery turn I had hoped for but I’m going to try hard to save this blog. Bear with me. Well what Tony says is similar to that way of thinking but he applies a little more to it. He states that not taking the opportunity to make the right choices for you can lead to depression and people wanting to end it all, because they’re miserable.
I think both of these statements are true. In one statement the results of impending doom can lead to a more positive outlook. In the other, positive changes early on can help to avoid a negative outcome. I expect most of us sleepwalk through life. I know I do and I put that down to the fact I wasn’t medicated for bipolar until 2 years ago. I have achieved a lot in those 2 years now that I have some clarity in my head but I know that I could have achieved more if things had gone differently. For others illness isn’t a factor but normal, everyday things can be. How many of you are putting off living your dreams while you raise your children, which could potentially take 20 years away from you while you wait. How many of us go to work every day and dream of being something else? Have you signed up to a course so you can start that degree or is money holding you back? Let’s face it, none of us ever have enough time or money and we use these obstacles as a reason for not moving forward with our dreams and desires.
Since I started this blog I’ve been reliving my dreams from my teen years of becoming a professional writer. The fact that I don’t know where to start, how to approach newspapers, can’t finish a novel to save my life, struggle with storylines in scripts and have major problems with tenses (you’ve probably noticed) isn’t going to stop me! I have a plan. I’m going to research tense and really try hard to perfect that as it affects every aspect of my writing. Then I’m going to send any articles and blog links to various appropriate papers, magazines and forums for review. It’s not a glamorous start but it’s a realistic one. And on top of it all it gives me a goal to work towards and a positive outlook on my future, which has helped with my depression a little.
https://www.facebook.com/myfamilyandjanice?ref=hl#!/AForayIntoPsychology/photos/a.252429588193012.38575.178422632260375/436848546417781/?type=1&theater
As Tony says, the key to starting to resolve issues in your life and feeling as if you’re taking some control is to take a problem and keep it realistic. We are all capable of dramatizing and catastrophising which blows our problems out of all proportions. An example of this, say you’re overweight. You may feel there’s nothing you can do about this. You justify that by saying ‘I’m big boned.’ Think about this reasoning for remaining unhappy with your weight. You’ve basically said there is nothing you can do about your situation. You can’t change your bone structure, size or weight, so you’re NEVER going to be happy about it. A better way of looking at your situation is to be realistic. You eat badly, but you don’t’ know how to change that. That’s understandable. I had no education in nutrition and a bad upbringing which left me with anxiety about hoarding food and overeating. I know changing these aspects of your life is not easy. But making a doctor’s appointment is easy. Speaking to the doctor and admitting that you just don’t know what to do to change this and would like some dietary advice is a small step in the right direction, and suddenly you’ve taken some control. This is a basic example but it does show how we over-think things and put obstacles in our own way at times.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Saturday 20 September 2014
Saturday 13 September 2014
31. Desperately Seeking Normal
So you’ll be pleased to hear that I had my psychiatrist’s appointment this week. It went as well as it usually does. I met my new doctor. They change every 6 months because they get moved from one trust to another, I guess it’s done so that they pick up as much experience as they can get. I’m sure this is good for the doctors but I’m not so sure it’s always good for the patients. Personally I feel like I never know what I’m going to get when they change. Some are nice, some can’t make a decision to save their life (or mine) and some are just plain dismissive.
I went in to my appointment wearing jeans and a smart top plus my usual make up and jewellery which was my first mistake. I look far too stable when I do that. The key to getting good NHS care is to act as nutty as you feel. Some of the people I met (and had to step over) in the waiting room had this down to a fine art. They shook, they shouted, they drank red bull after red bull to get their energy levels to peak performance. One guy read my ‘Wellbeing’ magazine over my shoulder, which was fine, personal bubble not excluding, until he started to dribble. Luckily I’m relatively fit because I found the only way to get away from him was to straddle the coffee table and edge myself down the room.
When Dr G called my name he seemed genuinely ok. I shook his hand and he offered me a seat. Polite, friendly smile, this is all going well so far, I think. He started our meeting by asking me how I’ve been. I told him about my new job, how I’d experienced a hypo-manic episode during the first six weeks and how I was now feeling quite depressed most days and was thinking about taking a handful of pills next Friday (to be specific). He wrote these things down as if he was writing a shopping list. Carrots, chicken nuggets, suicidal tendencies.
Then he used the word that no person who DOESN’T have to live with bipolar should EVER be allowed to use on someone who is afflicted with it. He told me that ‘This is all quite NORMAL for bipolar.’ Normal. NOR-MAL. What the f**k does he know about normal and bipolar?! How can that word even apply to the life I lead? NORMAL!!!!! *Starts shrieking at the laptop as she types furiously*
*Deep breaths.*
*Licks an M&M all over like a long desired lover.*
And calm.
Then he asks me if I’ve heard any voices or seen anything strange.
‘Yes, I say,’ thinking back to the last time I heard from Janice. ‘In February.’
‘No,’ he snaps. ‘I mean in the last week.’
Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t realise that when it comes to hearing voices in your head there is a time when it really does become passé for everyone else around you to keep hearing about it! Next time I’ll keep my delusional behaviour current or I’ll keep it to myself.
It’s at this point that I dare to ask whether there is anything the NHS can do to help me through this difficult time. Do they, for example, provide some sort of counselling service for people who are feeling so low they wonder how much vodka they will need to drink before their liver finally gives out? He looks me in the eye and states that the NHS doesn’t offer anything as basic as counselling. The best he could offer was CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) but why don’t we wait until I have my next blood test for lithium levels? I think this must have been the point at which I snapped because I just remember there being a lot of snot and tears from then on. I’m not quite sure how a blood test will help him decide that I’m actually sick enough to warrant some attention here but his next suggestion just floors me.
He states that I seem to get worse when I’m feeling lonely so the other option he can suggest is that he hospitalises me. But he then tells me that I’ll only be even lonelier in a hospital. As if this is supposed to make me feel cared for in some way.
As I try desperately to calm down through the sobs I notice that my right eye has begun to twitch. The way a serial killer’s might.
So my options are, do nothing, let nature and my paring knife find their own way or go into hospital and be strapped to a bed where I’ll suffer endless loneliness and never be allowed out because my condition only ever seems to deteriorate. Brilliant. Psychiatry at its best.
Anyway, I just had to get all that off my chest. Please feel free to let me know your experiences, NHS based or otherwise. Personally I’m starting to understand why so many turn to drink and drugs.
I went in to my appointment wearing jeans and a smart top plus my usual make up and jewellery which was my first mistake. I look far too stable when I do that. The key to getting good NHS care is to act as nutty as you feel. Some of the people I met (and had to step over) in the waiting room had this down to a fine art. They shook, they shouted, they drank red bull after red bull to get their energy levels to peak performance. One guy read my ‘Wellbeing’ magazine over my shoulder, which was fine, personal bubble not excluding, until he started to dribble. Luckily I’m relatively fit because I found the only way to get away from him was to straddle the coffee table and edge myself down the room.
When Dr G called my name he seemed genuinely ok. I shook his hand and he offered me a seat. Polite, friendly smile, this is all going well so far, I think. He started our meeting by asking me how I’ve been. I told him about my new job, how I’d experienced a hypo-manic episode during the first six weeks and how I was now feeling quite depressed most days and was thinking about taking a handful of pills next Friday (to be specific). He wrote these things down as if he was writing a shopping list. Carrots, chicken nuggets, suicidal tendencies.
Then he used the word that no person who DOESN’T have to live with bipolar should EVER be allowed to use on someone who is afflicted with it. He told me that ‘This is all quite NORMAL for bipolar.’ Normal. NOR-MAL. What the f**k does he know about normal and bipolar?! How can that word even apply to the life I lead? NORMAL!!!!! *Starts shrieking at the laptop as she types furiously*
*Deep breaths.*
*Licks an M&M all over like a long desired lover.*
And calm.
Then he asks me if I’ve heard any voices or seen anything strange.
‘Yes, I say,’ thinking back to the last time I heard from Janice. ‘In February.’
‘No,’ he snaps. ‘I mean in the last week.’
Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t realise that when it comes to hearing voices in your head there is a time when it really does become passé for everyone else around you to keep hearing about it! Next time I’ll keep my delusional behaviour current or I’ll keep it to myself.
It’s at this point that I dare to ask whether there is anything the NHS can do to help me through this difficult time. Do they, for example, provide some sort of counselling service for people who are feeling so low they wonder how much vodka they will need to drink before their liver finally gives out? He looks me in the eye and states that the NHS doesn’t offer anything as basic as counselling. The best he could offer was CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) but why don’t we wait until I have my next blood test for lithium levels? I think this must have been the point at which I snapped because I just remember there being a lot of snot and tears from then on. I’m not quite sure how a blood test will help him decide that I’m actually sick enough to warrant some attention here but his next suggestion just floors me.
He states that I seem to get worse when I’m feeling lonely so the other option he can suggest is that he hospitalises me. But he then tells me that I’ll only be even lonelier in a hospital. As if this is supposed to make me feel cared for in some way.
As I try desperately to calm down through the sobs I notice that my right eye has begun to twitch. The way a serial killer’s might.
So my options are, do nothing, let nature and my paring knife find their own way or go into hospital and be strapped to a bed where I’ll suffer endless loneliness and never be allowed out because my condition only ever seems to deteriorate. Brilliant. Psychiatry at its best.
Anyway, I just had to get all that off my chest. Please feel free to let me know your experiences, NHS based or otherwise. Personally I’m starting to understand why so many turn to drink and drugs.
Saturday 6 September 2014
30. Pretending To Be Me
More and more lately I’ve been feeling the effects of depression in between the moments of feeling nothing at all. I’m acting a little bit like a pregnant woman right now. I can go from nought to snot inducing crying phase in sixty seconds. And in those moments that’s when the world turns into a dark place. All my fears come rising to the surface, all my pain comes to call and my mind throws things at me which make me feel entirely worthless.
It’s at times like these that I wonder whether I can keep going with all this bipolar nonsense. It’s not as if having an understanding of this condition makes it any easier to live with. It’s not as if talking provides a cure. I’ve come to the realisation lately that there has never been a true moment of clarity in my entire life where I’ve known that the decisions I’m making are mine and mine alone and that I’ll stick with them. I’ve never been happy because from one week to the next something inside me keeps changing the rules. It’s like playing a game that you’re never going to win. And not a cool game like Super Mario or, during the speedier times, Sonic. No, it’s like playing Monopoly over and over again. Or as my husband calls it, Monotony. There is no winning. There’s just hard choices and times when you’re functional and have money and property then times when you can’t function and find you’ve lost everything. But just like the pieces on that board, you’re pretty much alone the whole time.
And the loneliness. Oh how I love that feeling. Not being able to connect to others because you can’t even bring yourself to like what you are. Well thanks for that one, Universe! And what’s the alternative? A ten minute session once every 3-6 months with a trainee psychiatrist, carrying on as best you can, pretending that you are the person you present to everyone, or giving in to it and becoming the insane, vibrating, paranoid, debilitated by OCD fruitcake who needs around the clock care that you know lives just a centimetre or so beneath your skin. There have been so many times in my life when I’ve thought about giving in to that but I’m not sure that giving up would be any better. It seems to me it would take less work to give up than to keep going and from what I understand there are drugs like Diazepam on tap in hospital, which is an incentive, but I’m not sure there’s any coming back from that state. No coming back and no way out.
So I live the lie. The one in which I work to the best of my ability, the one in which I embrace my fate, take my pills every day, wonder quietly about whether I will ever actually make a decision I can live with forever and tell people that I wish there was a cure for bipolar. But even that’s a lie. I don’t wish there was a cure. I wish there was a way to balance the chemicals in my brain so that I was always productive, creative, full of energy and able to do everything in life with ease. I want to be in a permanent state of hypo-mania. Sometimes I wonder whether my constant desire to have the things I can’t reach is born of those times when I’m in a hypo-manic state.
I’m reminded of Tennyson’s poem, ‘In Memoriam A.H.H.’ in which he states ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’. And in contrast, Hunter S. Thompson’s quote ‘You can’t miss what you never had.’ That is my life all over, it seems. The polarity of these two statements mirrors the polarity of my entire existence.
Let me explain.
Tis better to have loved and lost. Tis better to have experienced a period of hypomanic behaviour during which you were productive, creative, happy, wild and carefree than never to have experienced one at all. Then, when you lose that feeling, despite feeling as if your wings have been clipped and the ensuing depression which takes over and the reminder that you once had a hell of a lot more control over your life, this is still a better state to be in, than to NEVER have experienced this state.
You can’t miss what you never had. You never experience hypo-mania, you never know that there is any other way of feeling than the normal range of emotions you go through. Your life is generally calm and collected with no dire need for excitement, no possibility of hallucinations and no desire to leave your life as it is and start a new one in a commune in LA.
So you can see which statement I feel more of an affinity with. Because let’s face it, it really IS worse to have experienced something amazing and then have it taken away from you, despite the fact that state also comes with hallucinations and other such novelties.
So will I ever be happy? Will I ever be content with my lot in life? It would appear this is something I should put to the latest trainee psychiatrist and see what they think. I’m sure they’ll have the answer I seek!
It’s at times like these that I wonder whether I can keep going with all this bipolar nonsense. It’s not as if having an understanding of this condition makes it any easier to live with. It’s not as if talking provides a cure. I’ve come to the realisation lately that there has never been a true moment of clarity in my entire life where I’ve known that the decisions I’m making are mine and mine alone and that I’ll stick with them. I’ve never been happy because from one week to the next something inside me keeps changing the rules. It’s like playing a game that you’re never going to win. And not a cool game like Super Mario or, during the speedier times, Sonic. No, it’s like playing Monopoly over and over again. Or as my husband calls it, Monotony. There is no winning. There’s just hard choices and times when you’re functional and have money and property then times when you can’t function and find you’ve lost everything. But just like the pieces on that board, you’re pretty much alone the whole time.
And the loneliness. Oh how I love that feeling. Not being able to connect to others because you can’t even bring yourself to like what you are. Well thanks for that one, Universe! And what’s the alternative? A ten minute session once every 3-6 months with a trainee psychiatrist, carrying on as best you can, pretending that you are the person you present to everyone, or giving in to it and becoming the insane, vibrating, paranoid, debilitated by OCD fruitcake who needs around the clock care that you know lives just a centimetre or so beneath your skin. There have been so many times in my life when I’ve thought about giving in to that but I’m not sure that giving up would be any better. It seems to me it would take less work to give up than to keep going and from what I understand there are drugs like Diazepam on tap in hospital, which is an incentive, but I’m not sure there’s any coming back from that state. No coming back and no way out.
So I live the lie. The one in which I work to the best of my ability, the one in which I embrace my fate, take my pills every day, wonder quietly about whether I will ever actually make a decision I can live with forever and tell people that I wish there was a cure for bipolar. But even that’s a lie. I don’t wish there was a cure. I wish there was a way to balance the chemicals in my brain so that I was always productive, creative, full of energy and able to do everything in life with ease. I want to be in a permanent state of hypo-mania. Sometimes I wonder whether my constant desire to have the things I can’t reach is born of those times when I’m in a hypo-manic state.
I’m reminded of Tennyson’s poem, ‘In Memoriam A.H.H.’ in which he states ‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’. And in contrast, Hunter S. Thompson’s quote ‘You can’t miss what you never had.’ That is my life all over, it seems. The polarity of these two statements mirrors the polarity of my entire existence.
Let me explain.
Tis better to have loved and lost. Tis better to have experienced a period of hypomanic behaviour during which you were productive, creative, happy, wild and carefree than never to have experienced one at all. Then, when you lose that feeling, despite feeling as if your wings have been clipped and the ensuing depression which takes over and the reminder that you once had a hell of a lot more control over your life, this is still a better state to be in, than to NEVER have experienced this state.
You can’t miss what you never had. You never experience hypo-mania, you never know that there is any other way of feeling than the normal range of emotions you go through. Your life is generally calm and collected with no dire need for excitement, no possibility of hallucinations and no desire to leave your life as it is and start a new one in a commune in LA.
So you can see which statement I feel more of an affinity with. Because let’s face it, it really IS worse to have experienced something amazing and then have it taken away from you, despite the fact that state also comes with hallucinations and other such novelties.
So will I ever be happy? Will I ever be content with my lot in life? It would appear this is something I should put to the latest trainee psychiatrist and see what they think. I’m sure they’ll have the answer I seek!
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