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.
Showing posts with label loneliness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loneliness. Show all posts
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, 16 August 2014
27. Darth And The Deathstar
Last week I talked about needing attention to feel loved and this week I was reminded why, in the world of adults, this is just not something any of us can expect. Firstly, I tried an experiment on Facebook. Each night that I rode home on the train I posted that I was feeling lonely. I wanted to see how many people would respond and to what extent. A bit of a mean experiment, I realise, but I thought that describing myself as lonely was an emotion that implied I was down but not so down that people should worry. On the first day I got no response. I left it a day and then posted the same thing again. Nowt! Not even my sister asked if I was ok. On the third attempt someone ‘liked’ my status! Then I threw a Facebook hissy fit and declared that despite posting three times that I was feeling lonely, I’d had no response and that they were all bastards. I was off to Twitter, I announced. And suddenly there was an outpouring. But not of sympathy or care, mostly a steady stream of sarcasm followed friendly insults. I think I was told to ‘suck it up, Princess’ as well as getting a few ‘What’s up with you?’ comments.
I hoped that perhaps this was a one off but I witnessed the same thing this week in work. My colleague Sandra came back from a few days off sick. She’d had a chest infection and was still struggling with it to the point she was wheezing heavily all the time. At one point in the day she got up to talk to our boss and could only walk very slowly. He watched her coming before commenting ‘Cor, blimey, you couldn’t sneak up on someone, could you? It sounds like Darth Vader’s coming to get me! Are you my father?’ The resulting laughter left her in a worse state and she spent the entire conversation whispering between wheezes. At the end of their short meeting he pointed to her desk and said ‘Off you go. Back to the Deathstar!’ So it would appear I’m not the only one who isn’t getting any sympathy in this world. And I can breathe, so bonus!
I hoped that perhaps this was a one off but I witnessed the same thing this week in work. My colleague Sandra came back from a few days off sick. She’d had a chest infection and was still struggling with it to the point she was wheezing heavily all the time. At one point in the day she got up to talk to our boss and could only walk very slowly. He watched her coming before commenting ‘Cor, blimey, you couldn’t sneak up on someone, could you? It sounds like Darth Vader’s coming to get me! Are you my father?’ The resulting laughter left her in a worse state and she spent the entire conversation whispering between wheezes. At the end of their short meeting he pointed to her desk and said ‘Off you go. Back to the Deathstar!’ So it would appear I’m not the only one who isn’t getting any sympathy in this world. And I can breathe, so bonus!
Saturday, 7 June 2014
17. Irrational? Me?! Screw you... Nan!!
They say that both bipolar type 1 and 2 are synonymous with irrational behaviour and feelings. I know the most common feeling I experience which is highly irrational is loneliness. I can be on a crowded train, surrounded by people and feeling happy one minute. The next minute I’ll feel I have to reach out to somebody right now or I might die of the desperate feeling that’s just slammed into me. The loneliness feels as if it’s eating me from the inside out and I know it’s irrational even when it’s happening, even when I’m desperately checking Facebook for the ten thousandth time for a comment or a sign that someone is online to talk to.
Most recently I’ve been chatting via text to a friend of mine every day. We discuss creative things we both like, writing, photography, websites, films etc. This week he told me he was going away for 2 days. He was taking his phone, he could still text but he wasn’t going to be in the place that I always imagine him when he usually texts me, he was going to be miles away. We’ve gone long periods without talking before but once I knew he was going away up North I suddenly felt extremely lonely, when in reality nothing was going to be any different.
I think this is a throw-back to the days when I was constantly depressed. I suffered due to the feeling of loneliness then too. I remember once being at a cocktail party (it wasn’t a posh one, it was one where everyone ended up showing their knickers at the end of the night). At one point I looked around and I wondered if everyone there was pretending too, if the happiness and the smiles were all plastered on, just like mine. And I felt incredibly lonely in that room full of friends.
I think what bothers me is that when I get two seconds of peace from my ever churning and changing emotions I realise that there’s no way I want to be like this. Those moments of peace are like waking from a bad dream in which all irrational feelings and odd behaviours have seemed entirely normal. It’s only upon waking from it that you realise they are far from normal, but by then you’ve probably lost a friend or two or become obsessive to the point you’ve driven someone away.
I wouldn’t mind if the doctors could tell you what’s going on in your own brain. Why it’s backfiring and conspiring against you to make you unsociable and odd to the extreme. But they can’t. They tell me it’s a chemical imbalance but they don’t even know which chemicals are playing see-saw in my brain.
So if pumping 1 in every 100 people full of battery components does the trick most of the time I guess we have to go along with it. I love the lithium and the effect it has on my tired yet busy brain. But just like the symptoms it aims to control, I find I’m totally at its mercy.
I often find I become more than a little fixated on things. I look to Facebook one hundred times a day for someone to reach out to and when I’m met with the standard ‘Like’ in response to my posts I find myself feeling even more desperate and alone.
What I want to write:
“Do you ever hate your life so much you can feel it crushing your chest? Have you ever felt so lonely you think you’re going to drown in sadness? Do you feel as if your insides are empty of everything except liquid pain sloshing about in the gaps between your ribs? No. Me neither (except I do really).”
What I actually write:
(Post a picture of me looking happy with my family).
“You can tell we’re related by the genetic uni-brow.”
I usually try to make the posts I write funny, but at times they hide what I’m really trying to say which is ‘I’m drowning here. I need someone to reach out and save me.’ The funnier the posts, the more frequent, the more I’ll find I’m flailing and the more dependent I become on nothing more than a networking site to quell my loneliness. And so today I wrote this note to Facebook as a way of trying to break my dependency.
“You know what, Facebook? We’ve had some great times together. No, some AMAZING times. Remember the time you posted a picture of a seagull dive-bombing me on the beach in Spain and me and my friends all laughed and laughed? Ahh, good times.
“The trouble is that just lately I keep feeling like our relationship is taking a lot of effort. And I feel as though I’m the one putting in all the work, if I’m honest.
“I hate to tell you this, but I’ve started using Blogger. I’m sorry, I can see the pain on your face… book. The thing is, it just feels so easy. No short, stunted sentences or awkward jokes. I don’t have to hide behind the laughs and I don’t have to check in monotonously. Blogger just lets me talk and talk and be myself and when we’re done I just walk away. Sometimes for days.
“So I guess what I’m trying to say is… I think we need some space. I need to get my head straight. Stop looking so hurt. I know you see other people. The evidence is there for all to see, so don’t bother denying it.
“It’s over, ok? I’m sorry, but we’re done. At least until Friday when I’ll undoubtedly weaken after a glass of wine and pine for the length of your timeline like I always do.
“Just know that no matter what happens from here on in, I’ll always love you.”
Most recently I’ve been chatting via text to a friend of mine every day. We discuss creative things we both like, writing, photography, websites, films etc. This week he told me he was going away for 2 days. He was taking his phone, he could still text but he wasn’t going to be in the place that I always imagine him when he usually texts me, he was going to be miles away. We’ve gone long periods without talking before but once I knew he was going away up North I suddenly felt extremely lonely, when in reality nothing was going to be any different.
I think this is a throw-back to the days when I was constantly depressed. I suffered due to the feeling of loneliness then too. I remember once being at a cocktail party (it wasn’t a posh one, it was one where everyone ended up showing their knickers at the end of the night). At one point I looked around and I wondered if everyone there was pretending too, if the happiness and the smiles were all plastered on, just like mine. And I felt incredibly lonely in that room full of friends.
I think what bothers me is that when I get two seconds of peace from my ever churning and changing emotions I realise that there’s no way I want to be like this. Those moments of peace are like waking from a bad dream in which all irrational feelings and odd behaviours have seemed entirely normal. It’s only upon waking from it that you realise they are far from normal, but by then you’ve probably lost a friend or two or become obsessive to the point you’ve driven someone away.
I wouldn’t mind if the doctors could tell you what’s going on in your own brain. Why it’s backfiring and conspiring against you to make you unsociable and odd to the extreme. But they can’t. They tell me it’s a chemical imbalance but they don’t even know which chemicals are playing see-saw in my brain.
So if pumping 1 in every 100 people full of battery components does the trick most of the time I guess we have to go along with it. I love the lithium and the effect it has on my tired yet busy brain. But just like the symptoms it aims to control, I find I’m totally at its mercy.
I often find I become more than a little fixated on things. I look to Facebook one hundred times a day for someone to reach out to and when I’m met with the standard ‘Like’ in response to my posts I find myself feeling even more desperate and alone.
What I want to write:
“Do you ever hate your life so much you can feel it crushing your chest? Have you ever felt so lonely you think you’re going to drown in sadness? Do you feel as if your insides are empty of everything except liquid pain sloshing about in the gaps between your ribs? No. Me neither (except I do really).”
What I actually write:
(Post a picture of me looking happy with my family).
“You can tell we’re related by the genetic uni-brow.”
I usually try to make the posts I write funny, but at times they hide what I’m really trying to say which is ‘I’m drowning here. I need someone to reach out and save me.’ The funnier the posts, the more frequent, the more I’ll find I’m flailing and the more dependent I become on nothing more than a networking site to quell my loneliness. And so today I wrote this note to Facebook as a way of trying to break my dependency.
“You know what, Facebook? We’ve had some great times together. No, some AMAZING times. Remember the time you posted a picture of a seagull dive-bombing me on the beach in Spain and me and my friends all laughed and laughed? Ahh, good times.
“The trouble is that just lately I keep feeling like our relationship is taking a lot of effort. And I feel as though I’m the one putting in all the work, if I’m honest.
“I hate to tell you this, but I’ve started using Blogger. I’m sorry, I can see the pain on your face… book. The thing is, it just feels so easy. No short, stunted sentences or awkward jokes. I don’t have to hide behind the laughs and I don’t have to check in monotonously. Blogger just lets me talk and talk and be myself and when we’re done I just walk away. Sometimes for days.
“So I guess what I’m trying to say is… I think we need some space. I need to get my head straight. Stop looking so hurt. I know you see other people. The evidence is there for all to see, so don’t bother denying it.
“It’s over, ok? I’m sorry, but we’re done. At least until Friday when I’ll undoubtedly weaken after a glass of wine and pine for the length of your timeline like I always do.
“Just know that no matter what happens from here on in, I’ll always love you.”
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