Are the voices in my head too loud for you?: 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.

Comments

Wow! the fact that you have made the decission to change the timing of your medication is a big step forward, a step in regaining control of yourself which is great. So, what does it matter how slowly or fast we travel, the fact that you ARE travelling in the right direction is great news. All I will say and continue to say is go gently.
Our love surrounds you both. Much love Gwen

Posted by: gwen | 01/27/2008 at 02:59 PM

Thank you for this.

Unless I'm advised otherwise, changing the medication time seems to have helped hugely. I no longer feel bogged down in my own narroe life-view. The dogs are mortified - they have to get off the bed and follow me about now!

Much love,
J.

Posted by: Jane W-G | 01/27/2008 at 07:08 PM

I think you are not quite right and you should still studying the matter.

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