Are the voices in my head too loud for you?

One Short, Baby Hefflelump Step at a Time - but not in circles - Circles are Dangerous

I have managed to get up and complete what are described in mental health circles in deliciously euphemistic terms as my hygeine goals.  I have started higher doses of Citalopram today which I guess will take a while to kick in, but I am hoping that I will be moving to the right dosing soon if not now.  I have been given what feels like the psychiatric equivalent of the Sacrament as well which is an extension to continue to take some more Diazapam - but in smaller doses and to be used at my discretion - oh the power.  Diazapam is wonderful for me and is a real stress buster and less harmful, as a morbidly obese person than some sedatives which apparently put weight on.  I did suggest the other day that around 1600 Diaz pills and an appointment in a year or so would be fine.  It wasn't funny and it wasn't clever - I could almost see the unspoken thought bubble in the air.  Still worth a try.

Sedatives are certainly not a good move when I am exercising and trying to remove some of my lard.  So as The Big D is addictive - smaller doses and lots of trust and flexibility about how I use them is best of best news.  I feel trusted.  The aim will be an occasional pop rather than a daily conveyor belt of the drug.  I need to begin to address the causes of the depression not just sit on it like some sort of precious golden egg which is all mine and I'd be lost without.  I can then think with the professionals about how to alleviate the triggers and patterns of behaviour which have caused this.  I must treat the anxiety and the depression as one.  In my case my anxiety is the hand brake or self-protection mechanism, but it could potentially impede the productive growth that is often achieved when I start to feel a little better and am at last ready for a full psyche excavation.  The psychiatric equivalent of four root canal treatments simultaneously without an anaesthetic.  Worth it though.  As I have felt transformation in the past I have felt like the rarest orchid blooming at Kew or a new species being discovered.  I want to claim that I am beautifully and wonderfully made once again.

At last the sleeping pills are helping to return my night sleep to a pattern which has some refreshment implicit in it and this will, in time, remove some of the physical exhaustion and fear around even bothering to bed down properly for the night - if I suspect that for most of it I will be up and tight as a spring.  I am sleeping longer and trying hard not to nap in the day unless I have had a very emotionally demanding session at the centre - or home.  The Citalopram suits me and I haven't lost my sense of humour at all during this depressive episode - and that has been a huge blessing - for me - at least.  Inner sub-personalities are returning and I am now beginning to think again and assess, argue and plan.  Yippeee. 

Read a job spec' this morning and actually felt interested and  wanted to know more.  This is an improvement on The Radio Times and the Freetoview menu.  My faculties are returning even if my concentration could do with a new motherboard.

I am very, very humbled by the amount of support I am receiving.  I am still a bit off talking on the phone for long and I am trying to prioritise.  I will be slowly replying to e-mails and such because I am still needing to conserve some energy for therapy and I am emotionally still fairly shrivelled and shriven - it is essentially confessional and a process of accepting at the deepest level unconditional nurture.  However in the weeks ahead we will be building the strategies which will help me to continue to identify potential incidents early, so that I can get interventions effectively and quickly in place.  As well we will I hope spend some time resolving issues that I have not resolved satisfactorily in the past - so that these will not have the power to act as triggers for further episodes.  This is very much like running an archeological dig - there are few signposts and some surprises once the process gets underway.  We are also going to need to think about how I release anxiety and reduce stress, I guess.  Ironically I have rarely, if ever found work stressful (more an escape) but a complex and highly demanding home life on top has taken me to the brink...  One of the things I must learn is how to articulate my needs and be assertive about how they can be reasonably met. Part of that process involves ceasing to care quite so much what other people think of me.  Why I bother so much has always defeated me rationally.  Some of the people I love the most and would do absolutely anything for are the most fallible and overtly self-aware and genuinely vulnerable, reflective, with an inner emotional maturity that I am in awe of and would be horrified if they masked or faked their true uniqueness.  I would die for them - for they hold vision, power, love and vision.  So what's the problem? 

If your a Hefflelump walk in a straight line; don't look back; less cause for anxiety and much more hope ahead.

Oh, Yo! Oh, Yo! Oh, Yo! (Wiggle hands - obligatory)

Hard to write anything much recently as I have felt very raw - as though my outer shell had been removed.  I have been enjoying quite a few sessions a week to recover - just 'be' - at the psychiatric day centre and I think as I have prodded and probed my psyche with skilled and highly professional assistance, to try and understand what's behind the presenting messages of my depression and anxiety, I had worked so hard in the days leading up to this last week that a week of taking things more gently was just the ticket.  I arrived at the centre complete with canvas, huge black box of paints and enough brushes and kitchen roll to provide an impromptu art class for 30 mixed infants - but this time it was me who was left to play for a bit - alone and for me.  It was important.  I was, for some reason, worth upsetting a busy professional environment to find a spot to paint in.  I was worth another human being taking the trouble to check I had everything I needed and that I had such support as I needed.  I was precious enought - somehow - to be awarded space that could not be eroded by anyone.

The rawness stayed for a bit in its acute form and I had a bad few days when I was very down having flipped the positivity of the painting experience into a negative view which framed it along the lines that it would be better if I was in some kind of long stay rest home for the mildly deranged where I would be no trouble to anyone and everyone could get on with their own lives in peace.  I then remembered we live in the 21st century and that our contemporary equivalent of that is Broadmoor which doesn't have quite the same appeal. 

The feeling of rawness I experienced had almost a physical quality.  I remember a young person once telling me that a carer had rubbed her hand with an abrasive houshold substance to try and get rid of a different pigmentation present on her otherwise lighter skin - it was I suspect a birth mark - but for some reason the carer was offended by the imperfectness of the blemish.  I can't imagine what that must have felt like for the youngster, emotionally and physically.  I just felt tender to the emotional touch.  I became as tight as a ball physically, clutching onto the fabric of my clothes and the old legs going ninety to the dozen as though I was keeping time with a punk band.  No thoughts apart from I can't.  Interestingly the one thing I was pretty much forbidden to say as a child.  But that was then and now, is now...

Without my sub-personalities kicking in to remind me there are several interpretations to events and thoughts I seemed to be on a treadmill of negativity.  Medication dulled my senses apart from a passion to switch off and splat paint everywhere over large canvases. 

I am now on series 6 of West Wing. I'm also on my second sleeping bag to snuggle on the sofa as Mungo (collie x) - bored by my sleeping - didn't just unpick the seams - he removed the stuffing so I woke to a snow scene. I am a lousy seamstress at the best of times glue and what I describe as invisble stitches which are enornous uneven blanket stitches - so it has been recycled.  Reminded me of the time when my son was about 6 and had a hissy fit in the bathroom emptying 2 and a half large containers of talcum powder over the whole bathroom (large for a semi) and part of the landing - that was after he'd discover how to back up the toilet and cause several days work replacing flooring and eradicating odour.

So, I have painted three canvases in the last two weeks.  This has probably taken the place of words and blogging.  They were a bit too factual and detached rather than emotion-ful and reflective.  I've worked in acrylic paints (on canvas, not on my emotions) and my treat for getting myself to my mental health review today - normally I am sitting there sagely nodding while someone else is assessed - was to take the three pictures for framing afterwards - exercise, a trip to a shop and the healthy alternative to a Hot Chocolate and a Cream Cake at Simpsons - a Garden Centre with a difference - the tourists haven't found it. 

I very nearly didn't go to The Frame Shop who have done all my more recent work - but the last piece The Stations of the Cross based on reflections of disability, nearly lost them my custom permanently.  When Holy Week got nearer and nearer - the traditional time to reflect on The Stations and I kept calling and promises were made and not realised. I lost confidence in their ability to quite literally  deliver on time.  We found another framing shop on the way to my old favourite and decided that if we felt the formerly favoured shop were much as we remembered last time - a guy with a vivid imagination and a fantastic eye for a frame - the capacity to make the frame draw you into the subject but a rather laid back attitude about the when and where - then we would try somewhere new.  The trouble is good framers with an inspired eye are like gold dust that's if you really don't want a picture to look like a bargain from Ikea.  Today the person I have always assumed is the proprietor was about and she is a genius.  I don't know how she does it - but she can make a painting live with a good frame.  Or maybe I should say an amateurish composition look like art with the right surround.  Of course the framing cost an arm and a leg.  But I am on a roll with painting generally.  Comfort Zone.  I can put into painting what I cannot touch with words.  The three compositions I have worked on are called Scrutiny, Driftwood and Summer Blooms.

Back to the mental health review; I am making "excellent progress".  Yes, I am still raw - but medium rare now emotionally.  No, I am not doing much apart from working my way through all seven series of West Wing before I start on 24.  BUT I am better.  The moment I KNEW I was better as opposed to other people telling me I was making progress was when it was intimated that if I was painting (Scrutiny made it into a session because it was significant in terms of my recent dreams.)   Very good signs noted; the way I am currently able  - and capable of making eye contact and speak articulately - I was told I was in a better place than many other patients at the centre.  Suddenly, from nowhere a sub-personality I have heard nothing from in weeks - who has been utterly dormant - as the now familiar droning mean-machine prattles on with my droning old, self-abusing monologue inside my head - rose into action and I stopped myself saying it out loud, but maybe I should have done just that - "IF you think this is me functioning, you should meet me when I'm well".

Oh, yo! Oh, yo! Oh, yo!

Now I must stay open; listen to these lucid and sometimes literally frightening dreams and practice gently returning to the chances, and opportunities - the hopes and dreams.  Time to explore what my psyche has re-ordered; de-fragmented; prioritised and respond to where the changes need to occur.  Time to see if in the silence of the painting some of my shadow can continue to find a means of expressing itself.

Prayer is difficult at the moment.

I am unpacking a lot of my theology and spirituality almost subconsciously because I want some synthesis between my life experience and my values and beliefs.

But now - even though I am emotionally knackered - I want to work.  Get inside - and understand and reflectively evaluate.  Find the rest of me and the painting gives me a place from which to advance or retreat back.  Cream cakes, salmon and cream cheese bagels, steak sandwiches and pasta carbonara help too - stuff I don't normally 'allow' myself.

I have broken into fragments.  Now the fun starts.  I have had my time to stop.  I must now claim whatever individuality means for me from now on.  I must find the Super Glue.

John Stuart Mill:

A people, it appears, may be progressive for a certain length of time, and then stop.  When does it stop?  When it ceases to possess individuality.

No longer on our Scottish Theological Training Course as far as I know - but a great, great thinker and ethicist.  Time to progress...

Purple Ball, Paint and pressies

High spots of the last couple of days.  Firstly, still going to the hospital day centre.  Secondly, I did the first painting I have done since before Easter and I really loved doing it.  I feel like a kid who wants to take my picture in to the day centre and show the teacher!  I am intending to be grown up about this as I think it's probably showing my neediness and attention-seeking (God, still beating myself to a pulp). 

I painted another canvas this afternoon.  I have also taken a dog out for a walk each day with my partner - although yesterday was a bit of a cheat as we took Rainbow - out of harness - so free to smell - for a full tour of Pets at Home.  I fell for an orb acquarium.  He was most interested in the cat food - his crimes will out.  I am on the look out for rabbits (domestic pets - we have an abundance of wild ones when Teazle and Cuthbert - our cats are not having regular take outs) but Pets at Home don't have many in stock and the rescue pets corner had one - but he doesn't like being around other rabbits so...

It was Mungo's turn to have a run this morning and he was great.  We had bought him the toughest rubber ball we could find - and he loved chasing it and then running up and down with it in his mouth.  I don't think he has quite grasped the idea that once you have caught the thing you are herding you probably don't need to run around to keep it under control.  We realised (slow tops)what he was actually doing was herding us of course so we had fun changing direction and watching him charge off to head us off and keep us in check.  He wasn't too keen to come in and refused his recall but he suddenly spotted I had another even bigger ball waiting in the back of the car and he couldn't resist it, bounding the length of the orchard to play with it - needless to say - leaving his purple rubber ball somewhere in the undergrowth!  He'll find it soon enough on his next free run.

I felt knackered this afternoon so slept while West Wing played on.  I am struggling with negativity and anxiety - but doing as much as I can.  I spoke to someone on the phone today admittedly a stranger demanding money because I haven't sent a cheque on this month's credit card bill - but I did it. 

I will get to know who I am by trying - quite literally - to rediscover myself.  For now I am trying to play.  No analysis yet.  I want to find out what I enjoy. 

The day started feeling really shakey.  I thought I had really over shot my runway yesterday - but it got better as the day went on.  First thing in the morning I felt like one of those targets that are used on combat ranges to teach soldiers to make a direct hit.  Mostly a bad night and shooting myself up.  Amazing how I can be up a bit one minute and then as low as low can be.  Usual rather tedious stuff about inadequacy, anger and frustration.  I went to sleep at about 7am when I had finally realised that these feelings are gifts and I carefully wrapped each negative thought in the most beautiful, uneco-friendly, glittery paper and ribbon, bobbles and bows I could imagine up.  I went to sleep.  I can choose when I open gifts.

Watershed

Things are looking up.  I have received an extraordinary affirmation from someone who hardly knows me and has every reason to give depression a wide berth!  I feel good.  The best I've felt in days.  Weeks actually.

The day started rather inauspiciously.  I was so knackered after achieving my goals for yesterday that I did plan B for sleeping and rather than face the 3am 12 rounds and a knockout with my psyche telling me I am not worth the considerable space I inhabit, I saved a Diazapan until bedtime (could this be construed as a conversion?) and took that with the Voltarol (for molten lava knees).  I then took the sleeping pill when my mean-machine voice kicked in at around 3.30am.  The consequence was that I slept through until about 9am had breakfast and medication and then snuggled down and went fast asleep until well after one.  I was woken by Mungo, our collie x sitting on my head eating the cream cheese and smoked salmon bagel which had been left on my bedside table for my lunch.  (There's no expense spared in this house - a little of what you fancy...)  Needless to say a very happy dog then settled down on the pillow and went to sleep and I discovered he'd scoffed the last of the smoke salmon.  Who said life was fair?

I have made my personal hygiene goals today - so much relief all round.  I have been out for a walk and I guess covered a fair way further than yesterday.  The new trainers are a joy and are like walking on a portable bouncy castle.  My partner and I took out the two senior dogs today and after they had got over their initial excitement they walked beautifully side by side on a lead splitter.  Our cat Teazle continued to accompany us just like yesterday - and this time could be seen, unbelievably, walking between the two dogs on their splitter.  An honorary dog - or more likely two honorary cats.  I am actually looking forward to my walk tomorrow.  It physically hurts because I have the fitness level after such a serious fall and then my depression of an amorphous blob - but it will improve and the received wisdom is that the more I do and the more I focus on solutions so my anxiety will become my servant rather than my mistress.

I am planning to paint this afternoon and watch West Wing.  I have slept alot today and I feel unless I set healthy alternatives to sleep which infill - I will quickly believe the mean voice which tells me that there's no point in even attempting to get better because I will only be ill again; that I shouldn't have got ill in the first place; that I would be better put in some sort of institution where I am looked after and kept out of harm's way so that others can get on with their lives and realise their potential.  I can believe my mean voice is lying the most easily when I am distracted and doing things which are pleasurable - the CPNs and the Psychiatrist are right.  So I will paint.  Work up an abstract which says something of now because I can't really cope with much else - but I know it will help to provide some ammunition (not a good image for a pacifist) - some protection from the often powerfully persuasive mean voice.

Prayer for Today:

For the gift of life I give you thanks.

For the joy of humanity in all it's diversity, I celebrate.

For the water flushing the shore and the wind burning my face, I recognise the pulse of life itself.

For the unwanted challenge of looking into my personal darkness and learning it cannot suppress uniqueness with fearful anxiety, I troth you my soul.

Amen.

Encouragment and Celebrating St Hildegard

I am feeling as though I am back as work in progress.  This was assisted enormously by a wonderful e-mail from a friend who compared me to one of my greatest role models and heroines of all time - in a class of her own - Hildegard of Bingen.  My friend couldn't have known just what a special place this saint, alongside Hilda, has in my heart.  I was so touched when I received her e-mail that I had a little cry - but with joy - at my correspondent's generosity - and with such a sense of thanksgiving - that she had the courage and insight to see me as having some worth - though I draw a line at being compared to an A list celebrity saint - just wonderful to be appreciated and enjoyed - yes - delighted in.  The greatest boost there is. 

I was also relieved that I have achieved my other main goal for today.  I went out for my first walk along the shore with the wind in my face and the tide coming in for weeks.  It was chilly - more like November.  I didn't walk very far - probably no further then a third of a mile - but I knew, just as my CPN D suggested this morning, that if I can only begin to exercise regularly I will know at a deep level that I am alive.  I felt alive and mentioned, as I turned to my partner walking with me and our golden retriever, that we hadn't done this for weeks, months probably. 

A special moment was watching our black and white cat, Teazle walk with the dog all the way along the track with us and all the way back, rather like an estate agent showing off a property to a potential purchaser.  We have given ourselves so little quality time as a couple.  Too much else to juggle; too much else taking over and sublimating our needs.  Tomorrow we have another 'date' - different dog - but a longer walk.  My new trainers make me look like an ageing hippy and would suit a 17 year old in a hoodie with an ASBO - but they are very comfy so I don't care.

The best bit about the walk was coming home and going into my mum's bed-sitting room to tell her we had walked about two miles.  She saw the joke.  Still I've started.  Fun teasing her.  Now I have to begin to get some routine back into my life as this will also help to build my confidence and restore perspective.

I've had some smashing messages and as I went on line and checked my mail this afternoon for the first time in well over a week, it was very humbling to read such thoughtful and supportive input from friends, students and colleagues. I still can't read letters or answer the phone - but this is still progress.

I can't begin to say how much all this love helps. I have always considered myself rather unlovable.

Amongst the e-mails I heard from someone who I have been waiting to hear from for ages.  Contact with this person is a real test of my nerve as much as a discernment of future possibilities.  She had no idea I was ill and so I have referred her to the blogs.  She may well have a pink fit.  I can think of a time in my past when I would have! I was very much in love with a person and his behaviour unsettled me sufficiently at the time indicating some sort of stress or emotional exhaustion that I listened to some very negative advice frome some people who weren't well informed and we parted, for all the wrong, ill-advised and stereotypical reasons that reinforced my ignorance and justified my prejudices.  One day I hope I will make up for this.  Now I am in the care-full hands of others and it will take a while for me to return to fitness to work.  But I am still a bit concerned that I will be seen as a liability rather than asset but I am having to trust the process (words my husband wants on his memorial stone under his tree in his green burial site!) and believe - heart and mind -that I will be seen rather than my illness.  My anxiety certainly hasn't been reflected in the messages, love and humour others have shared with me since I have become ill.

A Prayer In Celebration Of St. Hildegard

Hildegard,

We celebrate your embracing of life;

Your constant enquiring and questioning;

Your unwillingness to simply accept;

Your delight in nature and confusion with human convention;

Your pilgrimage towards authenticity and honesty before the Divine;

Your commitment to truth and your inability to suffer fools;

Your sense of the ridiculous and delight in the playfulness of the Creator.

We stand in awe of your skills and self-ness.

We delight that you are praying for us with the Community of Saints - and we give you our thanks.

In the name of the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer Amen.

Butterfly Wings and Own Goals

I had the energy when I got home from my morning session at the psychiatric day centre to not only talk it through with my partner but also decide that I was going to begin to take some of the advice I had received at the morning session - with immediate effect.  Quite a lot of the assistance and insight is around my tendency to think catastrophically - particularly in the early hours. 

I need to develop some strategies to be much more proactive in handling these darkest parts of the day - in every sense.  Rather like setting a goal and then dividing the outcome into a series of easy to achieve stages, I am going to try and apply a not dissimilar technique to the dreaded early hours.  The goal is to return to a relaxed state and fall back to sleep.

I am often wakened suddenly with bad dreams still lingering thoughts and images.  These set my mind into a paranoia-like spiral.  Sometimes it's just that I've been jolted to by a dog barking at the local vixen seeing off a competitor or keeping her cubs in order.  Whatever I am up and alert in a second and then sleep can elude me until 7am or 8am in the morning - and then of course I want to sleep in - seriously sleep in.

The Grand Plan - Getting Back To Sleep

Stage one: remind myself what the goal is - to relax and go back to sleep.

Stage two: sit on armchair in bedroom and make sure I am warm.  Steady breathing and begin counting down from 300.  It's very difficult to focus on negative visions of the world when I have to count down and breath evenly.  If physical agitation continues or concentration breaks down, go and make a hot, milky drink and return to stage one and work on to stage two.  A biscuit I think would probably be allowed on the grounds that I usually wake at around 3am and I believe that's the time when blood sugar levels can be low.  (That's my excuse and I'm sticking too it).

Stage three: when I am relaxed enough I am to identify what it is that is distrubing me.  Take last night; a huge amount of energy went into worrying about my son and how we would manage half term in a way which made it enjoyable for him.  Then I wasted another, heaven knows how long, wondering why some of the folk I would have expected to have heard from haven't been in touch.  I know with my head just how stigmatised mental illness is in reality but I still hope with my heart that people are better informed than they used to be.  Given these 'issues' my next question will be "What can I do about this?"  Well, at 4am very little - just note the problem down and recognise it is a concern.  "Is there any evidence that this anxiety cause is as real or as important as you believe it is right now?"  Probably yes to my first subject but no to my second.

Stage four:  "Can I remember a time when I wasn't this anxious?"  Can I go there and find calmness there?  Relax.  Breath.

Stage five: Return to bed and sleep peacefully.

Of course the other alternative would be to take the pill which is supposed to help me sleep when I wake up in the early hours - but I miss out on befriending me if I do that and I remain fearful of my own shadow.  Chemicals don't resolve issues.

I achieved my main goals today. I went by taxi alone to the day centre, had a brilliant and insightful session.  It helps having a CPN with a sincere understanding of faith issues even when I am struggling with them a little myself.  I have come home and blogged.  My treat is a new pair of trainers which will be purchased this afternoon.  MY feel good activity just for me is to take my new pack leader out, Dido, the golden retriever, for some obedience work and a walk.  I think this will do us both good and get the endorphins going.

My ultimate goal is that I will, all being well, have a new guide dog at some point as R (guide dog) is getting older.  I am also keen to get another Newfoundland as I feel as though the heart is missing from the dog pack (the grumpiness we can do without).  The energy within the pack is well-balanced at the moment - but with a possible new guide dog - who will be submissive by nature - it would make sense to even the numbers and get a submissive Newf.  As the guide dog will be a boy - it may make sense to go for a boy Newf.  As pack leader boys seem responsive to female leaders.  All this is a long way off.  First I have to get my confidence back and encourage my dogs to build their esteem too.

Dog walk this afternoon and not to sleep until bed time are the goals for the day.

Prayer for Today

Dearest One,

It's not always a question of denying you, but more often a problem of identifiy what's going on and why.  Help me to see you in the smallest personal successes and moments of joy as well as in the greatest movements for justice and peace.  Touch me gently and with the sensitivity of a butterfly's wing in my everyday struggle to remain faithful.

Amen.

Petals and Passtimes

I am feeling as though I have just spent the last nine days on an outward bound course which I had either forgotten I had signed up to - or that some well-meaning friend had coaxed me along to because it would take me out of myself.  Much of these last days have been an absolute blur and today is the first day I have made it to the computer.  A huge effort of will over desire.  As I write my hands are shaking and my typing is slow and I am need to think twice about my spelling. (Mind you as a sixties child in primary school I was taught expressing myself was more important than learning basic grammar - I've always been linguistically creative!  I spelt before as either befour or befir probably until I was twelve.)

I was referred to a psychiatrist at our local day mental health facility nine days ago.  It's on the same site where I work as a chaplain - but because of the work I have done within a few of the in-patient facilities - I know, first hand, the extraordinary quality of much of the support patients received.  Attending the day centre, even in my acute anxiety, was a huge relief.  It was rather like going home.  I felt safe there.

My anxiety was at it's most acute at that point of referral.  Speaking out loud seemed meaningless and as though someone else was doing the talking. I felt most comfortable silent.  I was physically very agitated too.  I couldn't keep my legs still and when they stopped bouncing about my hands would start flicking or I needed to rock.  I think they are all self-comforting and calming techinques as is tapping my temples which seems to relieve tension, but also indicating levels of duress and at times they are my only means of communicating  - that and hand holding or a thumbs up or thumbs down signals.  I have always had a slight sense of being mildly autistic and at times like this I feel it much more acutely.  It's as though my actions become a self-fulfilling prophesy of isolation and worthlessness.

I felt eight days ago I would be making other people's lives a lot more uncomplicated and easy to manage if I wasn't around.  I guess I had vague notions of going to some hotel and taking an overdose - but - and don't laugh too loudly it is quite funny - I was far too anxious to work out the details and certainly didn't have the energy to do anything about anything. Far too much effort to leave the comfort of the duvet.  At that time and even now the goals I am being encouraged by the CPN to set for each day are by most standards more akin to the management of a pre-school.

My new psychiatrist I intuited was gentle and safe.  I had braced myself for a rather perfunctory ten minutes consultation and a prescription - very much my experience when we lived in the south and I had a similar bout of severe depression.  This guy had the gift for giving me space and time to calm down emotionally and attempt to balance myself - and he told me my story - effectively inviting me to correct any inaccuracies.  There were very few as my CPN at my local medical practice is a wise bird and had represented my circumstances clearly and concisely.  Yes, I left with a prescription for an increase dose of antidepressant and Diazapan to try and reduce my anxiety.  But I was utterly overwelmed by the help available;  I would see a CPN a few times a week; start OT and there was a chance I could join a writing group.  I know this is probably a sick mental health joke that only fellow depressives would understand - but I did wonder if I had overdosed and this was heaven.  I felt someone was interested in me and not just what I could do for them - or what they projected on to me.

The only anxiety I have about my new CPN who I will call D is that she is a person of faith and I am already a bit anxious about some of the assumptions she is making about where I might be in religious terms.  I sense she feels I have been 'sent' to her in some way and I feel I would be better off consigned to the compost heap for recycling.

The Diazapan and the increase in the Citolopram were very reminiscent of snuggling-up in a warm, cocoon like environment and when the Diaz' was at it's most effective all the physical symptoms of agitation were reduced and I was able to sleep - deeply and refreshingly.  When I wasn't asleep all I really wanted to do was lie on my bed with dogs and cats, and count the hours to the next dose. The agitation and anxiety kicked in badly about two to three hours before I could take the next one.  As the Diaz' wore off my darker, tormenting thougts returned in no greater intensity than before but became ever present like an unbroken record - same old complaints and criticisms.  At least I know what's coming now - at least most of the time.  Over the last few days these have been accompanied with flashbacks to memories - mostly unpleasant and brutal incidents in the past.  The Diaz' is less effective now.

I was set up with a session with CPN D based at the day centre.  I didn't like to ask if I would see the one I'd grown attached to at the surgery again.  I was thrilled he'd phoned and had an update.  Apparently I will be able to see him again at some point, but for now I guess the idea is to stabilise me and make me feel comfortable at the day centre where they can keep a close eye on my progress.  D was upbeat but gentle.  She listened hard to both my partner and I as we tried to fill her in and make sense of our story. 

D is hoping to work through a booklet with me which is an introduction to a series of workbooks on Depression using CBT (Cognitive Behaviour Therapy).  We haven't got as far as Part 1: The Overcoming Depression Workbook yet - but I can feel my stomach churning at the prospect - mostly because it demands changes in the way I think, feel and conduct my life.  It involves facing myself and continuing the process of be-friending my inner shadow which so often bullies me and frightens me.  It involves trust too - absolute trust of others and of myself. 

The changes are implemented and will be maintained by me - and that feels a tall order just now when getting to the sitting room and stting there for a while feels exhausting.  Still, the flesh may be weak, but my heart, soul and mind is up for it.  However tempting it is to listen to the voice that goads I know that the other, multifarious sub-personalities cannot be welcomed back into their rightful places unless I am proactive in releasing the issues that cause my anxiety and seek ways of managing my depression.  It is my nasty, small-minded, mean, pinched voice that has been allowed to dominate.  My mean-voice is usually a very unimportant part of my sub-personalities and maybe the reason mean-voice has taken such a vice-like grip now is because mean-voice hasn't felt heard fully for a long time.

D gave me a copy of the workbook we would use together and the Deacon's Flower Exercise which is brilliant but I would like to adapt - both to make it more inclusive and disability friendly.  It was developed by a mental health practitioner and also a person who lives with mental illness, who also wanted to explore holistic approaches to patient care.  In one diagram provided, the centre of a large daisy is identified as 'Mental Illness'.  Rather like the game 'Loves me, loves me not' all the 'petals' are scattered around the page, but none are attached to the central part of the daisy.  Each petal covers an aspect of life:

Values and beliefs,

Hopes and Dreams,

Spirituality,

Class,

Politics,

Work,

Sexuality,

Friends,

Family,

Culture

and a blank petal.

I didn't make a copy of my response but I can remember roughly what I wrote for each 'petal'.  As I am now attending the centre three times a week I will try and remember to ask for a photocopy but my memory isn't my strong point at the moment - the cocktail of Citaloprame, Diazapan, Antihistamine (mosquitos love me - but my blood must stun them into a quick death just now), Voltarol (for the after effects of that accident a few months back - joints are like walking on molten lava) and Zopiclone at night means it's amazing I'm upright!  (Still, in a previous life when I was a theatre director I could drink quite a few colleagues into oblivion.  Interesting that since marrying a tea-totaller I haven't missed drinking and go puce after the first mouthful!  Not always the company or conversation.) 

Values and Beliefs

I focused on the idea that we are all uniquely and wonderfully made.  We all have a unique vocation to fulfill.  Belonging is more important than believeing.  Justice is what changes the world.

Hopes and Dreams

To get well.

To be fitter and more confident now my mobility is shot to bits.

To get the book published and write the next one.

To live as I am as fully me as I can be.

Spirituality

Work in progress.

Angry with pacificity of the Church.

Inclusive.

Justice centred.

Heart.

Class

Parents middle class living in a very poor working class area.  Both high achievers in their fields.

Educated and still actively learning and changing.

Politics

Left wing, pascifist, CND, Friends of the Earth, Amnesty International, Disability Rights.

Work

I wish.  Some from writing.  Some from lecturing.  Some from running a retreat space.  Some from consultancy.  Happy - balance wrong - components right.

Not enough responsibility and therefore very, very frustrated. Feel de-valued and useless.

Sexuality

Heterosexual but no real sex drive at the moment - although even through much drug induced haze I can see I have a gorgeous husband and equal first would be Raymond Blanc.

Friends

Very few locally.  Isolated and the local ones are busy professionals.  Most friends it's phone, writing, or e-mail.  Lonely.

Family

Resembles the story-lining for a new soap opera called Dysfunctional Enders.

Culture

Passionate about creative activity.  Love music, art, sculpture and theatre.

Blank Petal

Disability

Visual impairment

Thalidomide

Mental illness

I am really looking forward to the sessions with the CPN and with OT when they get going but it is the most agonising journey to get myself ready and up, and contemplating coming out and being  present and receptive somewhere other than our bedroom.  After a couple of hours at the centre - and sometimes much less - I am exhausted and often sleep for three hours flat out.

This morning is a good example.  One of my first pieces of homework has been to try and re-discover things that I enjoy doing just for me because I have lost sight of my own wants and can't really identify the subtler nuances of the me-ness of me.  I drew a complete blank during the first days after this was suggested and got no where.  Then it was reframed for me in a slightly different way.  I was to set a goal.  Think of one pro and one con regarding the goal and then divide into much smaller goals how the end goal could be achieved.  So for example I had a second bad night last night - the sleeping pill doesn't seem to work at the time of night I most need it which is the early hours when my anxiety level boils over and goes into melt down.  I have been asked to set a positive goal for each day.  Today it took until about 3pm to get going on achieving the aim.

Yesterday was alot better.  I managed to get up and shower by about 12noon and go into the sitting room and sit and watch West Wing Series II.  I didn't watch all the episodes - but I felt as though I had achieved something I wanted to do and I enjoyed it - that's a word I haven't used for a while.

Like a toddler at a party I may have overdone it a bit yesterday because today was so much harder to get going.  The night held dreams of being attacked and frightened.  When I was awake I was plagued by fears of what others must think of me - by the morning all I was up for was breakfast, pills, blue woolly hat with ear flaps down and front part pulled over my eyes and more sleep.  My goal for today was to blog again and to get back into this really very therapeutic habit. 

In a sense going to the day centre had taken the place of the blog for a bit and once I had managed to get words out into the air of the consulting room, I didn't have the energy to be more reflective in blog mode once I came home.  However D, my CPN and I think this is probably going to be an invaluable record to help me understand my illness when I am well again - and even as I am going along.

So today the goal was to get up and blog.  First anxiety attack was the thought of getting out of bed.  Decided to wait until my next round of medication and then do it after that.  Very agitated but sat on the side of the bed.  Next stage choose clothes to wear.  I can't handle choices at the moment - "What would you like for supper?"  "Do you want to..."  so I used The Dog Whisperer trick and thought I am animal first, then species, then Jane.  I visualised the animal and realised it didn't matter much what I wore - polka dot bikini isn't a flattering option - but the point is that it doesn't matter what I choose.  So I was able to go to the drawers and take the first things I found.  The multicoloured tie dye t-shirt and socks with stripes and individual toes in different colours may not be to everyone's taste but...  Does it matter if it matches?  Maybe if I was doing a book signing or meeting the Primate of the Scottish Episcopal Church for lunch, but not otherwise.  Anxiety then bounced in about having to get up at all so I settled once more on our bed until the physical agitation subsided.  Stage Three; loo and teeth clean.  Difficult because the Diaz' is kicking in and making me feel like a snooze is a much more viable and inviting option.  Complete task.  Sit on bed, agitation less.  Get up and run shower.  Shower enjoyable once I'm in there.  Water soothing and warm - why can I never remember this at an earlier point and use it as a motivator?  Drying done.  Forgot deoderant.  Forgot to brush hair - but as I am not looking in the mirror just now and have only just remembered these details as I write, I still think I'm ahead on points.

Then, without stopping - straight into study and start blogging.  It's a bit of a weird life just now - but it is LIFE.

Prayer for today

Dear Befriender,

I've never been a fan of footsteps in the sand and the idea that when the road gets tough you do the hard work and carry us, I guess because I can't quite see how over-parenting enables us to realise our potential.  Can we agree you keep an eye on how things are going?  I've got to concentrate on finding a new way of walking just now and your support in this way would be appreciated.  Yours faithfully, JEWG

Faithfully Yours

I've seen my Community Psychiatric Nurse this morning.  He is so good at being a calming presence and an affirming person.  He reminds me without even needing to say the words that I need to hold on.  I kept wanting to say thank you to him and look him in the face - but I couldn't - it was as though the link between my brain's wishes and my vocal chords was tenuous in the extreme.  I can't do words out loud very well today.  It was a struggle getting to the surgery and I did it by using my blue and white bobble hat as the transitional object.  As long as I had that in my hands I would be able to make it.  I have messed up the bobble though.  My anxiety was so significant I have undone quite a lot of the strands.  I now have more of a dredlocks hat than a bobble. 

I hear the words I say and they sound as though they are coming from another person.  I look down and observe my knees jumping up and down in fidgety agitation and I don't recognise them as mine.  I know they are - but they feel detached somehow as though they are an outer casing belonging to someone else.  The illness is taking it's course I guess. 

So few words made today's consultation difficult and quite stressful for me.  I was hoping I could muster more energy - put on a bit more of a brave face.  My CPN has been intuitive, kind and practical - I wanted to show I had listened and taken note - but I don't have the energy to articulate this in words yet - my psyche is still very depleted. 

Inside my head the single voice goaded me about not being able to speak and accused me of making a mountain out of a molehill and wasting the CPN's time, NHS resources and being a tragedy queen.  "I should jolly well pull myself together".  I tried, I really did.  I realised as I sat in the waiting room and wished I could leave that I couldn't be anything other than how I am.  I desperately wanted to put on my bobble hat.  What's more I didn't have the energy to care very much what the voice in my head thought and I told her so.  She was none too pleased and had a hissy fit.  Nothing new there then.

I don't feel suicidal as such which is a huge blessing - but I would very much appreciate some relief from the constant vigilant anxiety that feels as though it can torment me - particularly at night.  I am not responding that well to the Citalopram (antidepressant) and my suspicion is that I need some careful input over dosing etc...  To try and give me some immediate relief from my agitation I have been prescribed with Diazopan.  I don't think this is the correct spelling but I can't be faffed to go and find out what the correct spelling is.  I have been given an appointment to see a Psychiatrist tomorrow with a view that I become a day patient at the Psychiatric Day Centre.  I feel relieved I am not going in as an in-patient - as a volunteer chaplain when I am well at the psychiatric hospital - I know how good the care is - so I have no worries professionally or personally - a lot of chaplains and psychologists get involved in mental health because they have personal experience of various illnesses associated with the area.  I think the in-patient facilities here are excellent.  But I have been worried that I would have to leave the dogs which I know as I write sounds a bit daft - but I find them such an inspiration just now and a great source of calming energy and unconditional support.  All they want is a slice of the bed, to be groomed, played with and loved.  In return they do not need words - just the occasional cuddle, kiss and love (a bit like my partner really).  They are brilliant and they are keeping me hopeful at a instinctive level.  They seem to intuit my need of them.

Now to rest.

A prayer I am calling

Yours Faithfully

Dear God of Darkness,

Into the torment, send courage.

Into the anguish, send perspective.

Into the blankness, send a tiny symbol of hope.

Into the agitation, send creativity.

Into the nightmares, send relief.

Into the fear, send pragmatism.

Into me,

Send what I need to be as you would have me be.

Yours faithfully.

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who has sent love, good wishes, healing vibes, encouragement and expressions of understanding.

A new cross arrived in the post from my foster daughter which was timely and so right as I had given mine away a few years ago to a person in need.  E-cards have provided me with games I can play and do well at - good distractions.  I have found a programme on children's programming I love about a pink elephant which is narrated by Stephen Fry.  Magazines have arrived by post which I will enjoy hugely when I am reading again (although The New Stateman may challenge my political sensibilities it is much more likely to make me smile) and best of all - I know I am not alone.

Blue Bobble Hat With Ear Flaps

My depression at the moment feels as agonising as pulling teeth.  Very different from my last bout six years ago which I still have little memory of.  A lot of the time when I was severely depressed I blanked - a part from the fact that I used to get very agitated if anyone interupted me during the afternoon showing of Diagnosis Murder on BBC 1!  What makes it more excruciating this time is that I am much more aware - and so I can't switch my head off and just 'blank'.  Sleep is the only relief and I try and sleep as much as I can - not always easy though with the bangs and crashes of my particular slice of reality!

I continue to wear my blue and white nordic woollen hat with ear flaps.  My family are being brilliant and know that I cannot speak out loud much just now - an occasional whisper - or a short chat - and then I feel as though I have used up all the available emotional energy in the 'heart battery' and don't feel up to talking any more.  My woolly hat has become a visual signal that I am struggling a bit and I am able to pull the front and ear flaps down in such a way that I can block out all visual stimulus and limit my hearing.  When I do this I seem to be able to still my body and stop the physical symptoms of foot and hand tapping - severe anxiety.  I must look like a morbidly obese garden gnome - but it works.  A sort of waking sleep.

My family are great at understanding my silence and the use of the hat.  My partner has a matching one and often slips it on as he enters our bedroom and sees mine in place.  I love this symbol of solidarity.  My son has an equally fetching number in burgundy - so sometimes we all sit together in a line on the bed with our hats on and ear flaps down.  That feels so affirming and accepting of my current reality - and mine of theirs.  It is difficult for us all.

I've had a couple of days where I haven't been able to speak about anything other than thank yous and about dogs.  My current equivalent of Diagnosis Murder is The Dog Whisperer.  I am so trying to come to terms with my Newfie's death - and learn.

At the moment I am too anxious to go anywhere outside our bedroom and my study.  Today is a good day as I have made it into the study.  Most of the time I sit or lie on our bed with the TV on or I sit on the decking outside my bedroom door and stare at the sea.  I love the sea.

I am finding that grooming the dogs often lifts my mood temporarily and means I can communitcate for a short time after I have completed the task.  The dogs love this too as they get oodles of attention and it helps us bond in a slightly different dynamic now that Jess has died.

I am missing the different nuances and voices that usually tossle, flounce and inform my inner reality.  I feel two-dimensional just now.  A cardboard cut out of my former self who is uncomfortable being propped up anywhere other than in the most womb-like of environments.  I can't read anything much now and even writing this blog will probably mean I go back to bed and sleep for a couple of hours when I've finished.  I don't have a comment on this.  It's just how it is and I am at a point where I can't accept quite that this is how it has to be in all its humuiliating and soul-diminishing glory but I haven't the energy emotionally to do anything about it.

I am having very lucid dreams and often wake myself up with a start and in a panic.  I seem to have lost my sense of smell a bit too - something I use a lot as a visually-impaired person - except waking from dreams - when I am convinced there is a fire or a person attacking or some horrible thing about to happen.  The nights are long.  I am taking no exercise and lounging about all day - so I guess it's no surprise that my sleep patterns are all over the place.  Again I have no sense of wanting or being able to heave myself out of my current stupor and do something about this.  Having a shower is a momentous undertaking and takes half a morning to work up to - if at all.

I have coped pretty poorly with the night anxiety and find after a day with the TV in the background - it doesn't work at night.  Neither does music or the radio.  Relaxation tapes wash over at the moment.  I tend to breath and pray.

I often feel trapped at night but also too scared to do anything about it.  Weird and disconcerting for someone who is usually proactive and capable of re-framing into the positive.  I am learning patience by default.  In depression all I have is the moment and I am able in this episode to live it and to some extent, I am sure, even remember it.  This is a gift and a curse.  It may help me in time to befriend the feelings and parts of me my depression taps into.  It may not.  For now I have the moment - and for once I can't escape into a project - or distract myself with hard work - or offer myself to others as a resource.  For now I must be with my own inner stranger.  Sometimes she is a painful, demanding companion.  Often she is silent.  Whichever she is for now ever-present and I have not dis-owned her, blanked her - or pushed her away.  She is as important a part of me as my creative, engaged, life-loving self.  She is a part of that too.

Voice in the Night

Come unto me for your burden is heavy.

Don't look at me like that - with disbelief in your eyes.

Come unto me:

Your burden is heavy.

My love is here.

Look inside

Into your fear

Offer a little reassurance.

Come on you can do it.

Not enough to overwhelm

but just enough to admit

how intolerable it feels sometimes to be you

and how unfair it is

that I offer insightful answers

which you sometimes choose not to hear.

Deep breaths.

Aim to get back to the same.

The same is better than worse.

Come unto me.

No, I will not carry the weight,

It is yours

You can balance it well enough.

I will offer you reassurance.

Stay

with the now.

The burden is not the future or the past.

The burden is the untameable present,

the inescapable reality that you are what you are  most fully in this precious moment.

Don't still when you cannot, use the anxiety:

Make it your protection.

Go darker when you are blinded by the light - and make the darkness your most reassuring companion.

Go inwards when the outside is fearful - and befriend.

You and I can sit, lie and tap out the reassurance you need until you start to feel it as real.

But can we watch a little less day time TV?