Are the voices in my head too loud for you?

It's All In The Message

I've had a downish day today - which we all know happens from time to time, but I have been aware of the causes and that is a huge help. 

I was dozing and getting over an unfortunate concoction of drugs I indulged in during the night - more later - when the dogs had a hissy fit and there was a knock at the front door.  A most beautiful bouquet was delivered to me in my bed with a card from my students at the Theological Institute. 

We are all thinking of you and hoping that you will be feeling better soon.  You are in our thoughts and prayers.  Love from all the students at TISEC.

I was so touched I really could have cried.  Whenever I have focused on not being able to be with them, teaching at our weekend residentials this year - all I could 'hear' in my head was how much I had let them down and how much my brush with my mental health must be such a disappointment and poor 'witness' to them - particulalrly of so much of what I advocate in spitituality terms. 

It was a joy to receive the flowers at a moment when I was beginning to beat myself up a little (more later) - it reminded me that I was missed and thought about; remembered.  I certainly miss them a great deal, but I am far from ready to resume teaching.

I think my first not so good day focused on my over-reaction to yesterday.  I had a great start to yestrday; targets met and I went to my CPN appointment - alone - walked in - anounced I had arrived and waited in the waiting room without hiding in the car or the loo or behind my partner or in my coat.  Excellent progreess. 

The session was really good - wide-ranging but helping me to keep working on the positive strategies for well-being.  It is just like seeing a personal trainer in a sense.  The CPN can take a good, forensic look at how I am approaching and interpreting things and help with the re-framing if I am losing a positive focus. 

I then took the big step of beginning to tell family a little more about the type of depression and the causes of it - also  the prognosis.  This feels personally important and a healing step - owning the problem as it were.  I have got as far as telling one branch of the family - but have had no reaction to speak of as yet back - it will have been a lot to take in and these things are hard to know how to respond to.  There is a lot of truth in something I read on a mental health website recently which said, expect flowers when you are in hospital with a appendicitis and silence - when you are in with mental health issues.  I must have very enlightened friends.   

More later via the blogs and personal conversations as I practicise describing what the future holds and how I am likely to feel in the longer term.  I am having to get used to seeing myself as a person with a mental health issue!  I am still me though.

The rest of the day wasn't so good.  I came home to my respite care support person.  The person comes each week to sit with me and give my partner a break.  My partner can then go out and have some personal in-fill time.  For some reason as the afternoon went on I just wound myself up and up like a tightening spring.  I have no real sense of why at the deepest level. 

The care-giver is calm, gets on with her own work and will do anything for me - cups of tea to order!  But I was in the wrong mental state at the wrong time.  I semed to regress into a fearful child-like lump.  I told myself I couldn't even get up and leave the room for the loo.  I was like a rabbit caught in the headlights.  It had nothing to do with the carer - it was entirely to do with the inner emotional energy I was projecting into the situation;  I was seizing up - and I don't really know why. 

I am still uncomfortable in a wide variety of situations and particularly around strangers - and this may have been the starting point.  I think it was also that I had wanted to talk to my partner about the session with the CPN and I was resentful that he was out and I couldn't talk to him.  I projected my negativity elsewhere.

What came out of the afternoon was that having a CPN session followed by respite isn't brilliant for any of us.  My partner hadn't really settled to an afternoon off because he also wanted to hear how things had gone.  My partner is now seeing if the respite can be changed.  That would be fantastic - the best of both worlds.  However, the knock-on effects were that I blamed myself for not making healthier choices in the afternoon; for 'allowing' myself to in some way be less than I wanted to be; for having negative thoughts about the care I was receiving etc...

I tried a new drug combi to get to sleep last night and woke every hour and felt awful.  At one point I had palpitations and was sweating.  I've had a pent up irrational fear since - the urge for flight - but I can't pin it down to any cause.  Odd.  I am less reflective on the new drug regime.  An elastoplast on the worst of my anxiety and agitation.  Time for the psyche to heal itself.

In desperation I took a sleeping pill at about 4pm and went out like a light - I woke briefly at about 11am - for flowers and breakfast and then again at about 3pm.  Not a very routinised day.  I have felt alot better since I have woken up.  But I still have this underlying anxiety about something - as yet undeciphered.  The feeling something awful is going to happen - but no one has told me what.

Apparently the phone rang at some point and Art Therapy is cancelled tomorrow.  A shame. I can finish my review and re-claim my routine though. All is not lost.

I am learning so much about so many things.

Thank you to everyone who keeps a watching eye and a thoughtful engagement with me.  It makes such a difference.

J.

Tommy

Hit my targets today.  Important to emphasize that this is metaphorical, and that I have not become violent or started attacking my partner.  On the contrary, in a state of relaxed, drug-heightened stupor, I asked him to marry me as it was the 29th.  He very gently reminded me it was still only January.  One step forward, three back. 

There was a reason for this sudden moment of romanticism from a woman who cannot remember immediately how many years she has been married or whether we married on the 6th or 7th (fortunately my partner is a wonderful soft-hearted romantic and can) - I asked my partner to marry me on 29th February and he said fortunately said yes.  I may be a month early - but my feelings were sincere this morning. 

I am still a tad fuzzy from time to time - but over all I am going slowly but surely.  Concentration is a little bit of a problem still - and my spelling - well.

I had  a wonderful blast from the past in the post today which was from a very old friend of my parents.  My Dad, had amongst other things, occasionally performed ventriloquism.  He hated doing it - and was technically OK - but not a comfortable performer in this medium.  He used a vent doll which was given the name Tommy and was dressed in a similar outfit to the one my Dad wore for informal children's shows.  Tommy was a very vivid part of my childhood as he often sat in the armchair in the front room having an airing between performances.  He was a part of my extended family of marionettes and puppets.  For me he had a distinct personality in my imagination and was a sort of imaginary playmate.

I was in my early teens when my father formerly retired from theatre through ill health and I can remember coming home one day and finding that Tommy had gone.  I only realised recently who Tommy had been sold to - although it was probably shared at the time.

Today, Tommy has been 'retired' in a new guise and will form part of a theatrical archive.  I am very much hoping we can see him one last time.  In the meantime, the post brought some smashing black and white photos of Tommy after a minor makeover, from the performer who had originally bought him from my father.  Brilliant.  I will treasure them.

I Think Therefore I am Dangerous

Rainbow and I had a great session with my OT today.  Challenging in terms of concentration and maintaining my calm - but brilliant in that I did, to all intents and purposes, manage to acheive both.  I felt tired when I returned home, but not exhausted, which is a huge bonus compared with many outings.

Now that I am feeling better for longer, my emotional effort is transferring from simply staying alive and facing another day, to actually keeping my hand on the handbrake and stopping myself from speeding up and expecting too much too quickly of myself.  It is quite a discipline to choose to stop before I am forced to stop because of agitation or exhaustion.  I am learning a new respect for my well-being.  This is counter my earliest training which was to sublimate my own needs in order to be present and facilitate the needs of others.  I am learning about personal respect for myself and feel I am very much taking baby steps with this at the moment.

Over-doing it could be construed as an act of self-sabotage in itself, couldn't it?  So I have done my big thing for the day and am now moving back into my new routine activities like blogging.

Lots of thoughts are beginning to gain life once more and whizz around in my new thought-processing head.  Although this feels a little overwhelming after such a long gap of emptiness and nothing - it is also reassuring.  My partner teased me this morning - and former parishioners will recognise the joke - (EA especially - GW tell her about it!) - "Oh, no, this doesn't mean your going to start having ideas, does it?"

Yes, I'm afraid it does.  I chose today's t-shirt to emphasize the point:

I think therefore I am dangerous.

One of my ideas is to try and get to the bottom of why I need to carry so much weight around with me.  I have an inkling it has represented an emotional protective layer to me in the past and so now maybe the time to embrace the fact that this is not how I need to 'protect' myself so forcefully in the future.  I was talking to my OT about this over our de-caf cappocinos without a pastry or cake!  At some point I need to connect once again with a dietician and look not so much a losing weight but living in a healthy way with foods that will also help maintain and improve mental and emotional balance.  If I can do this, I will, of course, coincidentally, take off a few pounds and keep them off.

I think it was the make-up idea which has started me thinking more about my physicality.  I still don't think make up will do it for me one way or another - but I could see that I would enjoy embracing a picture of myself physically which is different from the one I have as my current reality.  I need to let this swill around in the psyche for a bit.  For now I am just surprised, and a little non-plussed to have thought it!

Perspective is a Wonderful Thing

I am enjoying Boff's latest book although I am only just over a quarter of the way through - far too much time spent dozing and thinking - sorry - reflecting theologically on what I had just read, life, the universe and everything- and perhaps most importantly - trying to work out if we need to rush out and buy a new kitchen in the dying breaths of the post-Christmas sales.  This would, in effect, finally commit us pretty much to an imminent move - cum the summer to the new communal base.  In the end - no kitchen - at least not yet - review in a month.  We decided a kitchen is a kitchen is a kitchen - and there are more important things in life just now. 

On a community note - there will be a personal letter coming out to potential base community friends soon.

Assuming I continue more or less on my gentle progress with some regresses as and when, my first priority is to settle my late mother's estate then think.  At the moment, we will need to be in this area for the foreseeable future.  This is partly because of our son's needs, but also my partner's and mine.  Unlike England and Wales, property prices are still on the rise up here - after all we had a long way to catch up on the South to begin with.  This is particularly if you are looking for a property with a large gardon or additional land.

Our own area is getting more and more expensive by the minute with a huge investment in city cultural ammenities in Inverness and close by.  (We will soon look out over a golf links - yum, yum). 

A few years ago we could have got what we now want for a fair exchange on our present house.  Now, if we want to get land close to the city and a property it's a great deal more.  This means that for us we either have to wait a  bit and then move - or I have to be earning a reasonable wage once more.  Certainly, it would work if I returned full time to writing and painting I am sure - but I think I am a way off considering that option.  It's enough to write these rambling thoughts just now.

It's a good sign that I am looking to the future though.

I have just been munching one of the biscuits sent to me.  Thank you P.

Boff's latest offering - Essential Care: The Ethics of Human Nature is proving a timely reminder of just how bizarre western capitalist priorities are at the best of times.  I couldn't help but smile when I read the following in the publicity bumph created by the publisher:

...One of the founders of Liberation Theology, he was silenced by the Vatican, and left The Franciscan Order saying that "the future of humanity and planet earth" are more important than the future of the institutionalised church.  He is still active as a lay priest in poor communities.

(SPCK publicity leaflet, 2007)

Life appears to be moving on...

Me and My Shadow

Sorry there has been another gap in blogging.  I have had a week which has mostly been up - but when I have been down I have been really down.  I do become hugely frustrated when I can see what it is I want do get on with and acheive but seem to have neither the motivation, energy or confidence to do it.  It's rather like that brilliant Little Britain sketch where David Walliams plays a Travel Agent and says ..."The computer (my brain) says no."

Writing has become a little more difficult too - I already have very mild confusion which I will not indulge as dyslexia - over b's, d's, t's and p's and often have to sound a word out a few times before I write it.  Therefore 'drink' can be written as 'brink' and sometimes even as 'trick' - but don't get me started on the word muddle issue.  The newest addition to my infinitely varied brain programming is I am now writing words backwards without realising it until I check back and then it takes me a moment to realise what is wrong - although I immediately identify something is up.  So 'neeb' in the previous paragraph was 'been' and agent as 'tnenga'.

This isn't helped by the sense of fuzzy resignation that somehow it no longer matters on the scale of things whether I participate or not.  I am an invisible and unnecessay accessory.  That is, of course, the disassociating aspect of this illness.  (I have invested in some new t-shirts - my current favourite is I am cleverly disguised as a responsible adult).

In the above scenario I sleep badly and then bounce appointments because I have worked myself up into a frenzy of either believing there is no point in trying to associate or because I have transferred this anxiety into emotional self-flagulation and feel so bruised by my own internal dialogue that I am frigtened literally, and metaphorically of my own shadow.

I bounced my appointment with my CPN this week.  Plain stupid as I needed his input.  He's the stabilisers on my bike back to life and is helping me to take responsibility for finding effective coping strategies.  Then I bounced my occupational therapy session because it was just too much.  This was to involve the herculian task of going on a seven day outward bound course in the Cairngorms with a group of four other depressed people, a few support staff and an ex-SAS chap leading. 

(Actually that's not entirely true).

It was a pre-planned trip to the local garden centre cafe and I was to be the one who ordered our drinks and paid at the counter.  Practicing an act of independence and skills building.  I sat in the sitting room and chatted to my already long-suffering OT instead.  She was right that I had attempted at the first sign of wellness to remodel all aspects of my thinking and life and had, as a consequence, rather over done it.  I was back as a jelly-like blob.  Lesson learned.  Less is more.  Slower is good.  Hard to learn as such a driven person.

It was while I was swimming in and out of my stupor of sleep, self-pity and sloth-like behaviour (my comfort zone) that I started to attempt to think through how I felt about my drugs and my own sense as to why I was supposed to be taking them.  It struck me powerfully that the antidepressant seemed to be doing nothing to lift my mood; the anti-psychotic - to reduce anxiety - was giving me an ever-decreasing 'window' of calmness; and the sleeping pill was causing insomnia! 

Between the decision to pack a rucksack and leave my partner to enjoy a better life without me pulling him down - I planned to find a cave or similar to live in out of harm's way with Broadband access if possible - and the one where I stopped taking all the drugs immediately, I had a thought.  The thought has helped turn around recent days. 

I usually take, as suggested on the packet, my antidepressant in the morning.  It dawned on me that as I only take one a day and they are a slow release formula, to take it in the morning means that the peak of its effectiveness falls at the end of the day or in the night - depending how early I take it.  I remember reading something of the sort in the small print with the drug that you may feel your best in the evening.  You can guess what's coming, I have started taking the tablet at night and in the mornings and through most of the day feel in a much more positive frame of mind.  This combined with the other drugs gives me a more positive outlook all round and sgnificantly more mental and emotional 'space' to play with.  I am now undertaking one 'significant' activity each day if at all possible.

My base line is that I should always get up and at the very least do basic hygeine and move about the house.  The 'task' of the day is on top of that. 

Yesterday I went to my first Art Therapy session - a getting to know you time and a chance to see the art studio in the hospital.  Interestingly a space I had never seen when I was working as a volunteer assistant chaplain there.  It felt a safe space and I can go there each Friday afternoon for a short time and do pretty much what I like.  I intend to re-capture my deadened playfulness in this therapeutic environment.  On past experience that will mean I will gain from it something wholly other and as yet unanticipated.

So each day I try something - or if I feel whacked and can't try something - then I practicise the art of not beating myself to a pulp and not seeing this as an irretrievable failure; a step back.

Today's task, above and beyond blogging is to try out reading theology.  I can remember years ago a Doctrine lecturer of mine saying in passing to us as a group of Theology under-grads - how many of you read Theology for pleasure?  Have a theology text or two on your bedside table which are on the go?  I remember one chap (always a man!) put his hand up and said what he was reading at that time.  I practised invisibility - and thought: Only one or two?  It will be fascinating if any sense of my former delight in theology is ready to be re-kindled or whether I will have to resort to P.D. James and a good murder mystery in the old-fashioned style instead!

Of course I may hear in due course from the professionals that there is a very sound medical reason why I should never take my antidepressant at night - turn into an ogre after midnight; grow big hairy warts; live delusionally with the idea that you are feeling better during the day - but for now it does seem to be helping and I am now on day four of my personal trial???

Interestingly my new art therapist's homework is quite challenging.  My first 'game' is with myself.  I am to put on makeup in whatever style I think suits me best and come made up to next week's session even if I go straight out the door afterwards and wash it off.  This is a brilliant task.  Firstly I haven't looked at myself in the mirror in any formal or interested way for months.  Secondly, I have rationalised little or no make-up partly for ecological reasons and partly because being 'made up' in the past hasn't made me feel confident or otherwise.  I have always been rather ambivalent about it - and don't particularly like it on others I think..  Thirdly - and this is the corker - it helps me to face the fact that however much I long to be invisible I can never be and should never be.  So the therapists argument is - you find what works for you - but you try things you may have dismissed in the past as unhelpful too.

My intial thought on the way home was to make light of this therapeutic task and face paint rather than make myself up.  Maybe a clown or an animal.  I suddenly remembered - and it made my tummy turn over in a triple back-flip somersault - that in reality - I brush up beautifully with a touch of pancake and lippie (pancake is the theatrical term for makeup).  So one day over the coming days I am going to have fun with my face and look at what a makeover might look like.  I've no sense about how I will feel - but I think it's a great task.  I will literally face my physical self.

Bumpy Ride

It's Jp . . .

After Jane's last blog she has come down to earth again.  With a bump.

There was a high degree of elation, following the new medication, and it seemed that at last she could get going again - so she pushed herself and, because she so desperately wants to be well again, she overdid it, and drained her very meagre resources.  She has spent the last couple of days recovering.  We now know that progress must be slow, and consolidated.  You cannot run from a crawl, you need to learn to walk with a degree of certainty first.

I understand that often people who have had a hip replacement are so thrilled to be able to move freely without pain, perhaps for the first time in years, that they, too, over-exercise and actually extend the recovery period as a result.  I think that Jane's situation is somewhat similar - very small steps for some time before she can begin the giant strides.

Quiet is Cool

Blogging whilst watcing Gordon Ramsey cook along with the nation feels as though I have finally lost all sense of reality.  Much as I admire the quality of Ramsey's cuisine - I have to say I would be paying much more attention if we were cooking along with his kitchen assistant for the evening - Chris Moyles - who should have a TV slot to share his insights on life, the universe and everything - daily - maybe instead of the early evening news. 

Quiet day today - resting mostly and consolidating.  I checked out carefully whether I was avoiding doing things by choosing sleeping and staying in bed for much of the day.  My partner and I both agreed that I wasn't.  I was catching up and not anxious (for most of the time).  When I was - it was for a reasonable reason and I talked myself 'down' with my partner acting as thoughts midwife.

Tomorrow, as the weather is predicted to be awful -  we are probably going to play trains and paint.  Log fire and fun.

Ben Wyvis looks wonderful and the bay is visited by a variety of waterfowl.  Even in the gales the ducks still paddle on.

The cows are still in the surrounding fields so the dogs remain slightly perturbed when a few toddle over to the fence or look over the stone wall.  They are so quiet tonight I think they all have sore throats.  They should have.

I still feel good inside and when I don't I am working hard at restoring perspective.  Sunday we are testing boundaries with lunch out.  I find returning to the world tiring rather than anxiety making just now - but I haven't started to interract yet - that starts next week.  I think it's fair to say that drowsiness goes with the territory of these drugs.

All in all I remian in a position where I am feel I am making a good start.

No Pets Made It Home

The high spot of today was going out with my new Occupational Therapist.  This has been the first, proper outing in months which hasn't been either cut short or clouded by acute anxiety.  Apart from quick coffees and snatched lunches at Simpson's in Inverness with my partner before returning home and going straight to bed and taking a few days to get over it, today has been the first  experience of  going out which has not  been confined to the category of 'absolute necessity under duress'. 

Most particularly I have always been highly stressed in the hours or, on occasions, days leading up to an appointment.  Hours and hours of sleep to avoid having to do the same again or deal with my feelings about the outing.  In contrast, today has been by my current frame of reference - good; excellent even.  I just hope I can keep up the good work - and even if I can't, I can remember what this afternoon felt like - and it has been a long time since I have had such a powerful sniff of another, possible life.  I feel like Moley in Wind in the Willows. 

I chose our first outing to be to Pets at Home in the retail park near where we live.  I wasn't quite up to facing Borders which would probably be my more natural choice when well.  I love the shop, but something about it makes me feel disorientated at the best of times.  As I felt this afternoon, a large, almost empty pet shop was just about right. 

We examined the rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchilla and rescued rodents for sale and re-homing and I resisted the temptation to by one.  And no, that doesn't mean I bought three or four!  No furries returned in the car with us - and I felt as though I had coped with the 'false' signals in the moment which were encouraging me to terminate the outing and get home. 

Although I do suffer from dizziness and disassociation on these drugs - they are just side effects and when the volume of each symptom seemed to be turned up when I became a little anxious and went into the shop and couldn't find a thing, I was able to just stop, breath and regain my sense that I can change the balance of this feeling and focus on the benefits of what I was buying for the exisiting family pets rather than my own inner world which was threatening a hissy fit.  A combination, I guess of relaxation and distraction.

The OT was great.  She made sure she stayed close enough to be there if I needed her, but she pretty much let me get on with it.  I found that very liberating and her distance helped me to risk doing more than I would normally have done.  She provided a safe space and left me to explore.  I knew I could ask her to provide a life jacket, raft and oxygen if need be - but - as things panned there was no need.

I feel bushed, emotionally rather than physically, but I am working through the 'snooze barrier' by blogging and dealing with mail - both huge improvements on a couple of months ago.  I will then settle to some TV I suspect - I have, tragically, become hooked on Big Brother Celebrity Hijack.  Brian Sewell talking like a Housemaster to the housemates for a day was inspired.  He showed himself to be a good listener and a compassionate soul too.  He doesn't usually come across as a person who tolerates views which contrast with his own. 

Tomorrow I am painting - and then on Saturday - on the advice of a close relative - my partner and I are going out to play.  No idea what we are going to do - that will be part of the fun.  My partner has an idea of a trip to a gallery as he would like to see some paintings through my eyes.  I would love him to start painting.  We have a beautiful painting of his which he did as a boy and I suspect if he started again he would be very good - partly because he has a good eye for composition as a photographer and the fact that he is colour blind will simply make his work more interesting and ecourage the viewer to think about what he has created.  He remains I think, unconvinced by this line of argument!  He loves his photography.  Maybe painting would be too slow.

I haven't any idea as yet regarding what we might go out and do.  I am working on a one day at a time scenario - so I can contemplate possibilities while I am painting tomorrow.  I am choosing between two titles for a painting - Message in a Bottle or Movement.

My neice has suggested that I try selling my paintings on e bay - which sounds a good idea if I could.  She is very entrepreneurial and I will think about this when I feel better.

Now to surf for some t-shirts - I am running out of slogans!

Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

I was pointed to a brilliant website earlier.  Google: chicken cross road.  There's a website of Awkward's Sillies offers world gurus' imagined responses to the question: Why did the chicken cross the road.  The imagined reply for Freud is worthy of a T-shirt slogan.

J.

Growing a New Pair of Legs

Today has got better as it has gone on.  I can't begin to express what a delight it is to write so positively.

The night wasn't so good.  I was having a very powerful, lucid dream when I was startled awake by our cat, Bertie, who had come in through the bedroom window,  and had decided to use me as a bridge to get to the bedside table to drink my milk!  I shot out of bed; cat flying; mortified that his midnight snack had been interupted;  I was immediately on red alert because the dream had been powerful and I had momentarily confused the dream with reality.  Classically, I then couldn't 'come down' and spent the next four hours going through my repertoire of insomniac activities.  Nothing 'took'. 

By the time I went back to sleep, it seemed like seconds before I was gently being woken and reminded that I had an appointment with my CPN at 10am.  I was, to say the least, feak and weeble, and I couldn't face getting up.  The surgery were brilliant and re-scheduled me for an afternoon appointment.  It was an excellent session, although I had trouble not climbing on to the examination couch  and just drifting off into a relaxed afternoon snooze - the power of the drugs.  I'll adjust.  I left with restored perspective - not to mention help on to the next stage- plan for the week ahead.  I wore my favourite hoodie on purpose - it has the slogan:  I am blissfully unaware of my surroundings.  I felt it was appreciated.

I accept there are up's and down's and that there will be for some time to come, but I do think this new drug regime has hit the spot even if we might need to tweak it a bit at some point.

I'd planned to start a painting when I came home this afternoon - but instead I made a cup of tea (listen to the woman brag - a cup of tea indeed - all by herself - what next?!  She'll be making decisions if we don't watch her) and decided to blog.

Recovery feels slow and for someone who naturally likes to get things done and dusted, this is taking a little getting used to, but I do know at a gut level that this time it is very, very important; the emotional recovery is in real time; I can neither rush it nor force it. 

Rather like a person who has never been able to walk suddenly having an operation which enabled them to learn, I, in a fair less dramatic, but nevertheless real sense, am experiencing for, perhaps the first time in my life, what it feels like to be anxiety free.  It's wonderful, but also a little unreal.  I feel as though I am in a bubble and that as I now increase the amount I do I am sure I will test the consistency and thickness of this drug 'force-field' as well as have it blasted or damaged from time to time!  Of course this 'state' is, at the moment pretty much entirely drug induced.  Even so it will hopefully give some time for my psyche to heal.

I am in the process of making some tough decisions.  It is crucial that until I feel significantly better that I make my re-connections in ways that build my confidence and do not drain my emotional energy.  I won't return to mental health chaplaincy in a hands on way until I am not only well, but also have had a reasonable period without a relapse.  I will have to negotiate probably whether it is appropriate or possible to continue this ministry.

We have also decided it is very important that I take the professional advice that has been offered and that I don't re-open The Sanctuary this year until such times as I am signed off properly.  This coheres absolutely with my own sense of what is professional, client-orientated, safe and accountable.  I should not be in a position where I exercise professional skills and insights when I am emotionally fragile myself.  This is inappropriate and even potentially abusive within the confidential relationship.  It is hard to accept my own level of need.  But this is right and proper.

We are still happy for those who have already used The Sanctuary to use it on a self-catering basis as and when, but I will not be available to meet with people one to one; feed or socialise.  This boundary is there so that I can recover.  No one would ask a person who had never walked to run a marathon a few months after she had discovered what legs were for.  This is about making progress - and starting with the only person I can truly 'grow' in the deepest sense and that is me.