Bertie, our tabby has been found. He disappeared on Monday and my partner discovered him while he was out delivering leaflets asking people if they wouldn't mind checking garages and sheds and generally keeping an eye out for the missing mut. By yesterday evening we were quietly optimistic. A couple of our nearest neighbours, down in the hamlet of old fisherman's cottages, were sure they had seen him during the intervening days. Another neighbour relayed the priceless information that he had woken his neigbour up by jumping on their bed in the early hours of the morning and settling to sleep. Our secret night life will out!
My partner spotted Bertie as he was returning home - hind quarters and a tail disappearing into the gorse. He called him, Bertie climbed into the car; travelled home with his front paws on my partner's forearm looking out at his estate; he was fed; and then slept all night on the bed - mostly with his legs in the air.
Bertie is staying in with Teazle our smokey grey and white moggy for a while. We suspect he may have de-camped because he was not sure about Humph - so we now need to give the two cats and Humph time to adjust fully to each other. I'm not at all surprised Bertie was at six's and seven's - he had almost a month with Teazle in a cattery. I might be tempted to get a wee bit disorientated about which house is home if I spotted a warm comfy bed and there were no objections to me being there!!!!
I am working half time just now with a view to going full time at the beginning of September. Despite my worst fears I seem to be enjoying becoming more routinised and focused! The drop in medication is a huge spur to get on and practice well-being. Another medication drop next week - and on I go. I want to be as drug free as possible by September.
I am hugely indebted to the extraordinarily professional quality of care I have been given through mental health services. I am also proud of myself, I am choosing life. One of the huge and little understood aspects of mental health is that it is the person's brain - and most usually their emotional psyche which is fractured or crushed in an episode - not their identity or their skills base.
There is a popular myth around that somehow a person with a mental health issue can, at the time they are ill, function fully if only they tried. If trying was all that was needed I would never have become ill. Another widely held assumption is that mental health issues are a sign of weakness or fragility. Well, in one sense, yes, I do buy that. When I broke my wrist last year it was damaged sufficiently that I have not regained full use of it. In that sense there is an inherent structural weakness. What is not true is to then assume that a weakness caused by illness means that it is impossible for that limb, organ or brain to compensate and function at an excellent level despite the inherent difficulty. This is of course particularly true with mental health.
Stephen Fry, an 'out' Bipolar person, has been quoted as saying he would not be him if he did not have this aspect to his personality. The same is often claimed by depressives. In the case of Borderline Personality Disorder,that is certainly true for me. My experience is that however painful, disorientataing and frankly life-threatening the condition is - ultimately it makes me fully and completely as I am. It is as much a part of me as my blue eyes.
Of course individuals are instinctively reserved around people who have a 'history of mental health problems', but this says more about the conditioning that exists in our society than it does about the actual rather than perceived needs of a person living with a mental health condition.
Some of the classic assumptions (some I have made myself during my early years in ministry) are that people living with mental health issues:
Need more support on a continuos basis than other people (= are hard work).
(Speaking for myself, there are key times when I am going into, in and coming out of relapse when more support is valued - but not at other times. I need friends - but not indulgence or too much understanding when I am well; my role is to function within society's boundaries and limitations in wellness - not manipulate them. In common with many with mental health issues I have as much desire to stand out because of my disability as I do to learn how to pole vault.)
Cannot be trusted to work, think or react consistently and professionally.
(This is based on ignorance rather than fact. In relapse most of the 'Disorders' leave the person enduring them with a sense of disaasociation and communication; touching base with reality; and sustaining relationship may be a future aim but not a prresent reality. Out of relapse, the vast majority or people with mental health issues are unknown even to their closest colleagues. They would not be easy to identify in a day to day situation any more than a person with Diabetes. They adjust and enjoy periods of wellbeing whilst respecting and taking seriously the need to monitor their condition.)
Cannot tell they are ill.
(There are some conditions where the delusion that the person is not ill is part of the taxonomy of the illness. However my own experience and those shared with me suggest that we all knew when we were ill - and could explain our relapse 'signature' so others would be able to spot our behaviour patterns perhaps even before us! Yes, this does sound scary - but usually we are talking of slight, gradual changes rather than sudden personality swings. In my case it seems as though about five triggers all have to be pretty well aligned before I have a relapse. This last one was 5 years after the previous one; the one before that was 10 years prior. Often when relapses are very much more regular than that there are other significant complicating factors - like social skills; poverty; substance abuse.)
Are best left to their own devices.
(This is the last thing we should do. If any of our friends have mental health issues they need to be surrounded by more social structure not less. At my illest I feel so disgusted with myself I could not bear to see anyone. This is negative framing and messaging which is part of my illness and not part of my everyday preferred practice. When a person is this ill it is doubly important people are around them. I could not have heard at that time how much I was valued or how sorry people were - but I know that isolation is the greatest friend of negative self-imaging.)
If I had broken my leg the flowers would come; cards and visits. Everyone would know the boundaries and have a grasp of what to ask and how to offer sympathy. It isn't so different with mental illness just imagine the plaster is round the entire person. Sitting in quiet companionship was a great healer for me. Distraction was wonderful too - funny magazines, DVDs. Like all illnesses, the world of a person with mental illness becomes very small - so it isn't news he needs to hear - or be asked how he is. He just needs to know you are there and comfortably relaxed about sticking around him in his current inner unrest. Being present gives a powerful signal sublimally that the person is worth taking trouble over.
Enough work avoidance... time to drink a coffee and get going.
Brilliant. absolutely spot on. G
Posted by: Gwen | 07/20/2008 at 06:48 AM