I Told You I Was Morose...

Morose day.  It's almost like a jinx.  As soon as I say I'm feeling remotely on top of things (no over excitement please - these periods last approximately twenty minutes and to an observer I look as though I have the DTs!)  My typing speed could be matched by a seven year old I reckon!!!

Empty.  Mean voice is as non-plussed it seems for once as the rest of me.  A lot happened when I was not blogging and I went deep and became quite scared actually.  I also felt threatened and vulnerable.  Out of that period has come some more work to done (sadly not basket weaving or pottery) and I am feeling numb and speechless.  I am about to move into some new work areas and for professional confidentiality (the practitioner) and my own, I feel it is wholly inappropriate at this point to speculate either about what I feel is happening just now or talk too much about the psychiatric interventions being mooted.  I only have the rest of this month formally as a patient and then will be reviewed - so I may well be able to say a lot more then.  For now I am truthfully not adding drama, attempting manipulation or avoiding an authentic interaction with you - I am exercising choice and placing a boundary in place until what is going to happen and why is fuller, firmer and formed.

Mental illness is so stigmatised.

Cards and parcels - e-cards that make me feel for a moment like a person again have been wonderful.  The feedback comments help me tremendously.  Their immediacy help me feel I am being heard as well as trying to hold to my promise of keeping some sort of record to read back and reflect upon when I am well.

Mean voice hasn't really been replaced with anything and that has resulted in an intense listlessness and moroseness - nothing to fight?  Grief?  Don't know for sure yet.  I know I am still very angry with myself and everything is my fault - but mean voice only starts up when there's a window of opportunity and I start to get into something for one of these short, concentrated efforts.  Today I was supposed to have done twenty minutes on the treadmill - may yet - to help me sleep because I'm in this weird place; start the laundry ( I peeked at it in the basket and went back to bed); paint - couldn't be faffed.  Haven't even wanted to watch West Wing.  I nearly know the scripts by heart. 

When I wasn't asleep or wanting my partner there with me (not too happy alone today) not because of suicidal thoughts or anxiety per se - just for comfort and familiarity in the emptiness.  For once he was higher up the pack order than Mungo!!!  He feels pretty pooped too.  He is making his own journey alongside all this as well as caring for two Wallman women - notoriously stubborn and tenacious - who make his own male line look relatively humph free.  This is of course the drugs talking - and I did say relatively.

Too much time asleep.  No great thoughts.  Lots of staring into the air and fidgeting.  Very much as though I am waiting for something to happen.  Felt for much of the weekend that the medication I am on isn't working at all.  Growing feeling all week.  I seem to have one good afternoon or following day after therapy/consultation and then slip back down and into this tiny world.  I do wonder at the part my visual impairment plays in all this.

I do want to finish the painting I have just started.  It is the last composition I have set myself as a therapeutic exercise since the hospital stopped using it as a device to explore 'where I am'.  It will be a satirical piece and that makes it hard in a sense becaue my Be Perfect voice pops up and reduces my work to the daubs of a child at nursery.  I also have the shakes so badly for so much of the time that detail work is sometimes impossible.  There is a tiny, damaged voice that feels discriminated against and dismissed by the Church which is encouraging me on and has told me just how she wants the composition to be.  If I can listen to her, I may continue to make progress.

We are all so well intentioned in the Church; be nice to one another seems to be our overriding motto - and a bit about Jesus - that I do wonder if we have even the first idea how unaccountable and discriminatory we are.  The pain we cause when we patronise, exclude or dismiss.  The sheer frustration of those who are marginalised at the apparently impenetrable barriers that deny and undermine giftedness - unless - of course you play the game and keep in with the club.  The painting will be an important one.  An anger management vehicle.

I told you I was morose.  That would be almost as good on a gravestone as Spike Milligan's "I told you I was ill".  No hidden messages - my head is empty - not planning the perfect painless suicide - and I wish I could get rid of the shakes and tension/anxiety.  I think the meds are past their sell by in terms of effective intervention. 

I told you I was...

Session tomorrow.  Scared, but looking forward to meeting a person who I have seen has lovely shoes and is taking me on.  Nearly as nice as my psychiatrist's shoes.  Eye contact out of the question when we first met.  Other agenda was uppermost and I was embarrassed and ashamed to bring up some topics - and so became caught up in my own stuff and fear of how the staff would react.

I told you...

Comments

[carolynn]

Your words re the Church Jane have a pathos to them somewhat...it is years mind this weekend.
With love C

[Gwen]

Be gentle with yourself. I can hear where you are coming from and it's ok. You are making progress, so what if it is one step at a time. You are going in the right direction and everyone who love you is supporting you and there beside you. Much love G

[Jane W-G]

Gwen,

Yes, I do know that it is all progress with the top ten per cent of my head - but that doesn't mean I don't need constantly reminding! Off to the hospital in a minute - and then depending on how I feel it will either be tackling the growing pile of washing, painting or skulking back to bed. I've decided I need the rest of this academic year to regain balance; makes some difficult decisions and start to seriously work to set up a permanent community to act as a spirituality and mentoring/resource base. We need to do a lot of research and discernment. Location is key but it gives me a dream rather like The Sanctuary but with a lay and ordained religious community living around it literally and animals. One community member is very keen to start a small animal sanctuary.

Ironically S has his appointment at the hospital this afternoon - so I am staying on to wait for him with some extra OT. Hot Choc' in the computer room if I'm a very good girl.

Much love - the flowers lasted until this weekend...
Not bad eh?

J.

[Gwen]

Hope hospital appointments went well. I am constantly in awe of your progress and will continue to tell you that until you tell me to shut up or words to that effect!!!!!!Your progress is amazing however small it feels to you. Never, never give up your dreams even if they have to be adapted, things happen for a reason and something more fulfilling will emerge. Much love G