Surprise surprise v.2
Posted by: outwardlyintrovert on: January 24, 2012
I need to find a more creative way of saying “things are not going well”. I will do that when things are doing better. As it happens, things are not going well. I do not know why.
I am due to start therapy soon, at long long last, which is positive and a step forward but it does make me quite nervous. If I’d've waited until I was “stable”, whatever that means, I may well have been under the Older People’s mental health services before starting therapy, so no time like the present. I’m worried about the fall-out from talking about everything. I don’t really have the time to become a full-on mentalist again, which I’m worried is going to happen. There’s a reason I block everything out – it’s so that I stay in one piece. I know that things have to get worse to get better and I think the therapy may also be partly diagnostic (as in, how much help is it going to do?) but still. Ew. I’m not very eloquent at the moment, the idea just feels ew.
I’m so behind with college work at the moment that I may as well write off this assignment and get ahead with the next, if that were possible. I feel like I’m some kind of vortex sucking the life, time, money and energy out of people to just destroy them. I don’t even think this is depression talking. It’s just rational, logical, cold-light-of-day thinking. Which is depressing in itself.
Don’t know how to end this post so, um. This is the end of the post.
The uprising of the mentalists.
Posted by: outwardlyintrovert on: January 4, 2012
As regular readers of mentalist blogs and TWIM may know by now, the wonderful Miss Littlefeet author of the Chaos and Control blog has had to password-protect her posts and discontinue updating after issues arising with the staff in her inpatient unit 
Big deep breath after that long sentence.
…
…
This brings up so much more than the experience of one individual, but rather how the NHS (and people in general) view mental health, social media and blogging. I’m struggling to put my thoughts into words but I will try my best. As it stands to the best of my knowledge, there is nothing in my writings here that I would not say to people’s faces. I make sure to not give away any identifying features of other patients, staff or people I’m associated with. I’m not telling their story – I’m telling mine. For a while now, as I start to reach out within “real life” mental health awareness and come out as a full-on mentalist, I’ve been waiting for someone to put two-and-two together and ask if this is “me”. Does expecting to be caught out writing about my mental health defeat my anonymity? No. Are all mental health bloggers liars? No.
One of the biggest benefits to me about blogging is that I can connect with other people who are also making their journey through the mental health services and recovery all over the world. Of course, there will be people on the internet who lie, or who may not portray the whole truth, perhaps. That is not specifically limited to people with mental illness. Internet old-timers will remember the story of “Kaycee Nicole”, a woman who posed as a teen writing a blog about living with cancer. That is unfortunately the nature of the internet. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person who has encountered people who offer some questionable stories in a psychiatric care facility. It would be ridiculous to assume that inpatient care should be scrapped incase someone doesn’t tell the truth. Instead, there are guidelines and subtle advice offered to inpatients to protect themselves.
When is the NHS going to join 2012 and do the same for those that use social media? Okay, we are four days into 2012 but you get the picture.
It’s a crying shame because for a lot of people, writing is how they process things. I know after an hour of staring at the little “add new post” box, typing whatever rubbish comes into my head first, I’m usually feeling a lot calmer. For some who are perhaps very vulnerable and not considered able to keep themselves safe online, by all means take protective measures. I’ve been told by a lotlotlot of mental health professionals of the DANGERS OF THE INTERNET!!!11!1!1! Not that I’m old enough and ugly enough to take the advice of a registered charity website like Rethink, rather than Google “how can I cure schizophrenia with the process of photosynthesis”. And at risk of over-egging the pudding…. the Mind report into crisis care reveals damning evidence of the lack of good acute psychiatric care when people are at risk. But rather than, y’know, try and help people who are at risk of killing themselves, let’s demonise one of the few 24-hour avenues of emotional expression, support and understanding.
I’m no MHA/MCA expert but. Boo. Boooo.
An example of what a loser I am.
Posted by: outwardlyintrovert on: January 1, 2012
I really really struggle with Christmas and New Year times, for various reasons. I saw in 2012 watching a film and eating breadsticks, trying to pretend nothing significant was happening.
But!
I was very excited because of the results of the This Week In Mentalists Award. There are so many fantastic mental health writers out there and I feel really honoured to recieve an award. Thank you so much for the votes. I’ve found lots of interesting blogs to read and lovely, lovely people to talk to as well. THIS was what I was excited about for New Years Eve. How sad am I? 
So. Twenty-twelve. Now we’re here, we may as well have a stab at it and see what happens, hey?
I’ll update properly on the past few weeks when I don’t have a Zopiclone hangover.
That old merry-go-round.
Posted by: outwardlyintrovert on: December 14, 2011
- In: eating and me. | Food
- 1 Comment
(Eating disorder discussion – you know the score, etc. etc.)
I got a spam comment offering me free HD sex. I have to admit, if I’m going to have sex, I would like it in high definition. Why bother, otherwise? Anyway.
I was watching My Child Isn’t Perfect last night, which is a series about children and young people with mental, emotional and behavioural disorders and their families. One of the girls featured suffered with bulimia nervosa and was recieving treatment at the Maudsley CAMHS. Not a great deal was discussed about the treatment, although the extent of her disorder was detailed so in a way it was rather triggering. The programme made me sad primarily for selfish reasons – were I a few years younger, my eating disorder would be being addressed and “taken seriously”. As it happens, now I’m an adult, I shall have to have DO YOU BELIEVE I HAD A PROBLEM, NOW? engraved onto my headstone in my typical dramatic, histrionic, narcisstic fashion.
I’m really struggling with my eating at the moment. Physically, I feel quite unwell but nowhere near as bad as the anxiety levels I experience when it comes to mealtimes. I’m propping myself up with pillows in bed because of the aching muscles in my chest and stomach from purging. My family have managed to convince me to start taking some of my nutritional supplements again, but they taste absolutely horrible. Why not make them a nice flavour like…. like key lime or strawberry or hot chocolate? I feel a bit like I’m being fobbed off – bump up the supplements when my blood tests come back all over the shop and that’s that. I want to stop thinking this way. I want to stop doing this to myself.
I understand the limitations on funding for eating disorder treatment in the NHS, I do. There is very little money to be shared among very many people struggling with eating distress. But I am still frustrated. It’s not their lives that are being ran according to what the scales say that day, or how many calories they’ve eaten, or how little sleep they had from the constant cramping in their legs and feet.
Oh my life. The cramps.
I do want to get better. At the moment. I’m scared that by the time help comes, I’m not going to want to get better. If I were really ill, would I want to get better? Is there anything really wrong with me? I could do with losing just a bit more weight, after all. I probably shouldn’t've eaten that sandwich, to be honest. I just need to eat healthier, eat less fat. Less dairy, especially. I’d feel healthier, I’m sure I would.
And so it goes on, round and round and round. And round and round and round. And I want to get off now. I think.
Discharge and an incoherent rant.
Posted by: outwardlyintrovert on: December 4, 2011
Possible triggers for self harm, substance abuse, eating disorders and generally not very nice thoughts.
I have been released into the community, armed with benzodiazepines and not incredibly further forward than when I went in. My first night in my own bed involved DVDs, rum and a very poor excuse for a wound dressing. The night workers at the supermarket barely raise a brow when I arrive in the late evening at the self-checkout (how annoying is that woman’s voice?!) with various bottles and “sharps”. I don’t necessarily expect them to do anything, but seeing as nearly everyone I do know is indifferent at best towards this latest “episode”, it just makes me feel more invisible.
My team and I have come to an agreement that the aim is not treatment, per se, but management. It’s dreadful of me to say, but the term “management” makes me think of a palliative care patient. There is no treatment or hope - the vast arsenal of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic interventions have seemingly been tried, all that can be done for me now are sympathetic faces and making me as comfortable as possible while I wait to die. The poison that invaded me as a child has turned into some cancerous growth that is taking over my existence and I grieve for the person that I could’ve become, had this disease not taken it away.
I get even more upset when I think of how precarious the balance of my mind really is. I sit among people my age at college and wonder how many of them have families that need to know the protocol for having them detained under the Mental Health Act. It scares me that one day, my family will be faced with that decision, that I would have no control over what people do to me when control is the one thing I need so much. I understand now why people call it going mad. You are entering a strange land with laws and regulations that you don’t understand, in a language you don’t speak and every time you end up going down that path, you wonder if you’re going to return this time.
And I’m resentful and bitter and angry. When I eventually sleep, I am tortured by nightmares. When I’m awake, I’m back on the merry-go-round of cut/drink/purge/cut/drink/purge to just escape the chaos in my head. The sound of the phone ringing sets my heart pounding, someone coming up behind me makes me scream, I can feel thin layers of grains or seeds, some irritant, under the skin on my face. I can see it. I want to claw off the flesh and wash it away.
I don’t think I’m going to return from this one. I don’t know whether what’s happening in my head or what’s happened in reality is the scarier thing.
The power of words.
Posted by: outwardlyintrovert on: November 24, 2011
- In: eating and me. | Food | Hospital | Recovery (?)
- 1 Comment
*eating disorder number trigger – as if you haven’t read the DSM criterion for eating disorders..*
I’m too tired to write about how things are going while in the epicbinoflooniness. As an interesting aside, I’ve never experienced mania from the perspective of someone on the outside. I can virtually cut off and they will continue at high speed, rapidly changing from subject to subject with no obvious link between the two. It’s an experience.
Today I had a check-up by the GP and as I got sent for the standard blood test, I noticed on the form that the reason given was bulimia. The doctor said it was because using other words wouldn’t do any good and that facing what things really are is what starts recovery.
Up until now, it’s always been “poor nutrition”, “repeated vomiting” or some vague term. But seeing the word “bulimia” written just makes me want to cry. Partly because it’s very crap and partly because someone’s acknowledged that, at least regarding my eating, I’m not just a time-waster or attention-seeking or “an emotional woman” or not sick enough to be actually sick because my BMI is over 17.5 or a crazyborderline.
I’m poorly and someone’s noticed and I want to cry. Weird.
A crisis.
Posted by: outwardlyintrovert on: November 21, 2011
“Crisis team” sounds rather grandiose, doesn’t it? It sounds like a group of sweaty, burly, self-sacrificing embodiments of human kindness, responding to major natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, rebuilding homes and hand-feeding tiny children.
Actually, a “crisis team” tells you to go for a walk and have a bath when you’ve decided to end your life.
Maybe crisis care services in the NHS are actually exhibiting signs of acute mania, demonstrated by symptoms of grandiose, delusional behaviour.
…. and I’m in the crazypeoplehousecentre again. Balls.
A mess.
Posted by: outwardlyintrovert on: November 16, 2011
Not sure how to fix this mess. All I do is drink, purge, cut, exercise, starve, sleep. Rinse and repeat.
I don’t want to go into hospital or into a crisis centre or whatever because I’m scared of males at the moment but I can’t tell my care team that. Being in a mixed-gender environment 24/7 where I couldn’t self harm or drink would tip me over the edge. I don’t know how this episode is going to end. There’s no point in ringing the crisis team because I don’t know what’s wrong and I don’t know how to fix it and I don’t know if I want to fix it because I’m so bloody tired now.
My hamster is alive and that’s good and so are my cats and I bought some toy turtles to cheer myself up. I’ve deleted Facebook and stopped answering my phone because human interaction is painful. I’m seriously considering dropping out of college.
And my stash of alcohol has run out.
Swingy swing.
Posted by: outwardlyintrovert on: November 2, 2011
I can’t answer my phone.
I can’t think of responses when people talk to me.
I can’t sleep at night but I can’t stay awake during the day.
I can’t find a reason of why I feel so bad, except for the fact I’m alive.
I’m angry.
I’m irritable.
I have no emotion.
I have too many emotions.
My bank account is almost empty and I can’t remember spending the money.
I can’t remember how I’ve ruined friendships with people.
I can’t remember what I’ve done to anyone. or with anyone.
I sat on the floor of the corridor in college and wondered how my tutors would explain to my group that I’d committed suicide.
So I’ll get put back on antidepressants to kick me out of depression and they will kick me back up to mania and I will spend too much money and wear too little and not think before I act and end up in A+E because of a half-hearted suicide attempt or just because I thought it was funny and interesting to cut pieces out of my flesh to see whether there really is blue electric sparks in my bones.
Am I bipolar? Do I have borderline personality disorder? Or was I just born wrong?
Why would I want to live when this is the pattern of my life?
My self-importance knows no bounds.
Posted by: outwardlyintrovert on: October 27, 2011
I’ve added a “Requests” page. I would explain it here but then I would just be repeating what’s on said page….
Have a looky!
Shiny Awards
