11/12/2015

Nursing Prac - the reflection that I couldn't submit to uni

This prac has been a game changer for me.

I've always been a bit 'nursey' - black humour and can talk about gross things at mealtimes. I have endless relatives in nursing and a few of my friends are nurses but over the last three weeks I feel like I've started my induction into a whole new world. It's not just the stuff people talk about - naked bodies and bad smells, although I guess that's part of it. It's not just that I was useful and made a difference to a few people's days, although that was pretty important to me too. It's something else, that I'm finding much harder to put my finger on.

When you become a parent you are generally pretty blindsided. Although people talk about it, you hear the jokes, you know there is going to be sleepless nights and dirty nappies and you hope with gritted teeth that you are going to love the little thing when it arrives. But nothing, no amount of pet-ownership, nannying, teaching, reading or siblings can prepare you for the visceral reality of it. I remember back in the early days talking with my wise mum mates, lamenting the fact that no one prepared us and coming to the conclusion that no one told us because there is no combination of words that can make those feeling make sense. There is simply no way to warn anyone else of the horror and the joy of it all. I suspect it is this, multiplied by many, without the social approval and the vast proportion of the population that go through it, that prevents so many veterans from talking about their experiences in the way. No words can convey the fullness of the reality.

And finally, here I am, being admitted to the only club of which I have always wanted to be a member, without understanding there was a club or what membership entailed. I do look at naked bodies differently now (FYI old bottoms are strikingly similar, everything else is surprisingly unique) but I'm more interested in their skin tone and their abilities than their shape, whether I'm going to be able to manage whatever I'm doing without tearing skin that has become tissue paper fragile with age; whether they are going to be able to lean forward so I can wash their bottom without them standing; and how I can best help these people maintain their dignity in the most undignified of situations. As for the bad smells, I use the advice of my mother, wise old nurse that she is: breathe through your mouth. I am also in favour of surreptitiously chewing minty gum.

But the other part was the amazing part, bodies and dignity I always knew I could manage, but how to manage my own feelings when someone old and in pain gazes into my eyes, not knowing who I am, except that I am in a nurses role, and asks pleadingly 'when am I going to die' (I replied with 'I don't know' - that was over a week ago and she is still alive, but is rarely conscious now. She has no visitors so I never worked out where the garden-fresh roses or gardenias in the little vase near her bed came from). What can I say when people say 'I really don't know why I'm here' and you don't either, except they forgot they had the same conversation with you yesterday. And every day before that. So I concentrated on being my very own tiny-but-strong force for good - taking my time when I moisturize battered old legs to give the gentlest leg massage in the world, using two teaspoons of instant when making coffee for the lady who I know likes it extra strong and reciting any tiny snippets of any old poems that I can dredge up out of my memory (Ogden Nash is a favourite!).

For the record, in the 'reflection' I was required to do for my assessment, I did the written equivalent of mumbling about wound dressings and how I want to improve my aseptic technique. That isn't actually wrong, I do want to improve, but really, that's like asking a veteran about the war and being told that whenever he got new boots he got blisters. Important in it's own way, but missing the point.


09/11/2015

Short post: atheism, kids, diwali and my nursing studies

I'm kinda joking with that 'short' part, but considering almost all the big life issues are jammed into the post title, and some of them are somewhat contradictory it will be short. You will be pleased to know I don't have anything to say about politics today.

Have I mentioned before about how I sort of consider myself an atheist Hindu (atheist first, Hindu second)? It came about when the wise Punditji who performed our wedding ceremony telling me, when I mentioned I was an atheist, that the Hindus 'have room' for that but the Christians probably didn't. It's only relevant because I am still trying to work out how to talk about religion with my kids. There is nothing better able to to joyfully force one to consider one's own position on difficult issues than trying to explain where you stand to some bright and inquisitive school kids. In this case I was explaining to Asher why we celebrate Diwali ( AKA Deepavali and other spellings and pronunciations. translating Sanskrit into the various Indian languages and then into words that can be spoken in English is tricky). We bought some lottery tickets to give to Sanjay and his dad as Diwali gifts and a lovely candle for Sanjay's mother.

It also seemed to be a good time to talk about the bigger meanings of the festival, so I reminded him of the two stories I know about Diwali, both familiar to him from 'Amma tell me about Diwali' by B. Mathur. One of the stories sees the goddess coming into the home of a poor woman, working late even on a festival day, and granting her wealth. The other story, the main story, is from the Ramayana and describes people lighting lamps to welcome their banished King and Queen home after fourteen years in exile (er, that was... brief. It's a massive, intense, tragic, brilliant epic!). I was trying to think through appropriate ways to talk about the meaning of these stories as I was talking to Asher and I came to the idea that they are both about shining a light on the path of right - either in terms of personal hard work or using the ancient city of Ayodhya as a metaphor for self and the lights help to lead us to 'right action' - whatever right action looks like to us.

Which brings me, neatly, back to my nursing course. People keep asking me how my course is going; everyone from the crossing supervisor at the kids' school through to my family and my therapist mentions it and for sure sometimes it's just politeness but often people want to really know about the course and how I'm feeling about it, and wondering if I'm going to enjoy clinical nursing. I generally answer with a flippant comment about being busy, stressed or the fact that I've just finished first your again (!) and sometimes I go to say 'I should have done it years ago' but the reality is slightly more difficult to talk about. I feel like whether I enjoy it or not is almost irrelevant. I am fulfilling my dharma. I am on my path. The course is tough, tougher than my first degree and although I don't have the memory I did then I am wiser. I still agonize over my assignments. But whatever stress and drama it causes me, I am where I'm meant to be. I don't think I should have done nursing straight out of school - my dad was very well known in the field and in my 20s I wouldn't have been able to answer the 'but why didn't you study medicine' without shame. I didn't get the marks and also I wanted to distance myself from my family, not follow them into the healthcare field. So now, in my forties, with ten years of tech career, then ten years of mum-ing I am into my next phase - nursing. Maybe for ten years. And because I spent some time thinking about Diwali, and talking to my kids about the idea of a life path and dharma, next time someone asks me how my degree is going I can reply that I am on my path, without feeling awkward or being flippant or dismissive.



06/11/2015

Medication

So many times people ask me if I shouldn't 'have a rest' from my medication. These are often the same people who suggest people with depression should just remember how good they have it compared with people in Syria/current the international hotspot, or suggest that we harden up (We are the toughest people you will ever meet. We do battle with our own minds). The short answer is 'no' but it's slightly more complicated than that.

Imagine I was an asthmatic (I'm not).  Would anyone suggest I needed a rest from my preventer medication? Even if I wasn't getting symptoms or having asthma attacks no one would question the decision to be on medication, made in conjunction with the relevant health professionals. In fact, if I felt all better and started talking about stopping my preventer medication someone would remind me that without it I sometimes get really sick.

Have you ever thought an asthmatic should just toughen up and keep breathing? Have you thought they should just appreciate the oxygen they can get and stop worrying about what they can't have? Have you avoided talking about difficult subjects because you didn't want them upset, thinking it might trigger an attack? If an asthmatic needs to take some time off work or study while they get their symptoms under control how do you view it? What about if they decide they need to use a variety of approaches (medical and lifestyle) to deal with their illness? I have several friends who won't come to BBQs or bonfires on the cooler months because they say they can't breathe. I don't judge them negatively for that.

My illness isn't that different. I use meds, lifestyle and talk therapy to deal with it. When I have a major depressive episode I try to catch it as early as possible and put some things in place to help me manage while things are difficult. I try to remember, when I feel good, that my meds are preventative because when things are good it's easy to forget how bad things can get (what's that saying about forgetting pain?).

All that being said, there are many different ways to manage mental illness, and more and more research is being done on gut-brain interactions, and I am not going to criticize anyone who chooses to deal with their illness in other ways - as long as it is working for them and their loved ones!


20/10/2015

Homework



I've had a shitty week. Lots of tears and gritted teeth but a lot better after seeing the compassionate Dr S. He told me I should be writing stuff down more (I think he meant writing good stuff about myself down so I could go back to it in moments of self-loathing) but making notes for myself and diary writing have always had a whiff of make-work about them to me, so I will write here. Also, writing good stuff down about myself makes me nauseous, so I'm going to write other stuff.

Dr S asked me where I thought my crazies came from and I have no doubt that for me there is a genetic and environmental component. I am not a geneticist, psychologist or neurologist. I have not seen inside anyone else's brain and I have not studied theories of the mind. I have a working knowledge of undergrad sciences, a smattering of anatomy and physiology, and I've read some pop-psychology books, including the wonderful 'Brain that Changes Itself' by N. Doidge about brain plasticity. And I know that a cigar is sometimes just a cigar. All that being said I want to explore where my crazy comes from (disclaimers: This is about me, not you. I'm not a doctor. Blah blah blah).

Lets see how far I can stretch my little marble-run analogy. At my conception genes were reconfigured and I got my own set of blueprints, part of this was the plans for an amazing marble run that would become mind. Genetics used the building blocks available, from my mother, to build the marble run. It was so complex that a marble could barely get from top to bottom - too many options, too many connections, inefficient. But genetics had a plan - it knew that after it had built this complex structure, it would start getting used, and as that happened the connections that weren't useful would start getting dismantled, or at least have blockers installed so marbles (thoughts) would take the more efficient way, thus the thing could actually work (so far this is OK, it's just my understanding of basic neuroscience). Unfortunately, in the plan for my mind, my genetics included a bunch of things that are not very helpful. Some were probably included in case they could be helpful and some are probably attached to other things that are helpful in ways that I certainly don't understand. 

For instance worrying is a useful adaptation. It allows us to plan for the future and keep ourselves safe. Anxiety and panic attacks are unhelpfully overdoing worry, and making it difficult to manage normal things, like putting on pants and getting out of the house. I have always thought that anxiety and creativity were also linked - as in, you have to be creative to make up that many scary scenarios in a mundane world - but apparently research backs up my hunch (admittedly, I haven't read the research paper, but that article makes me feel like I have a superpower!).

More unsettling than the anxiety is the depression. Why did the plan include whole sections of the marble run that for some reason colours all marbles blue and slows them right down, takes them in circles and drops the marbles off the edge of the table rather than neatly into the velvet lined box? Why weren't those bits pruned off in the early days? Worse than that, some of those blue sections were somehow encouraged by my early experiences. Some of the splits where a marble can either roll, unimpeded and cheerful, to its destination or head down the blue and tangled depressive path have had the happy option blocked. 

Triggers? For some people, healthy people, who maybe only have one tiny offshoot of 'blue' can weather life's ups and downs. They may get depressed, but there is usually a trigger - major life changes, losses, identity changes, that kind of thing. Once they recover, and they almost always do, their depression is in their past. For me the triggers are often untraceable, some tiny switch that was triggered long ago that means that random marbles will end up in the tangled mire of depression. I have major depressive disorder and my depression is always in my future as well as my past and when it is really bad it is almost impossible to live with (as a friend said to me once, urging me to get some help - you have an illness that is trying to kill you). Sometimes there are triggers for me - lifestyle factors like alcohol (specifically binge drinking), lack of exercise, toxic people, being in situations where I feel my options are curtailed or (more usually) a combination of the above can be problematic. Add normal stressors on top of those things and my thinking can go off the rails.

The next question becomes how to manage things when the marbles are travelling through a blue section, is it possible to avoid the blue sections or can I make the blue sections less blue or even unblock routes so the marbles can exit the rough parts. Sometimes I can avoid triggers (still doing 100 days sober without any problems, still having issues with exercise), often I can use CBT style thinking to interrupt my patterns and divert a marble* sometimes therapy can help divert those marbles. Medication helps massively to keep my brain chemistry in order. Hopefully this combination, including having to mess around to get a good stable medication regime going can help me get back on track and then stay there.

..... and if you made it this far you deserve a punchline - now you know why I smirk whenever I talk about losing my marbles ;-)


Question of the week: is it weird to send your therapist your blog posts?


* Like yesterday when I attempted my clinical skills exam - I did something wrong and need to resit, but managed to halt my catastrophising feelings of 'I swabbed a wound wrong, clearly I'm not cut out for nursing. I can't contribute to society I may as well be dead' and get back to 'drat, I have to re-sit the test on Friday')

12/10/2015

Don't Blame Autistic People, or Mental Illness, For Mass Shootings

Don't Blame Autistic People, or Mental Illness, For Mass Shootings - when I was googling trying to find information on some of MY mental health diagnoses I found a surprising amount of bullshit about how people with mental illness are awful, un-compassionate and destructive. Not good stuff to come across when you are having a mental health crisis. Trust me on this, it's pretty horrible having your worst suspicions about yourself confirmed by random strangers on the internet, people with no evidence of having any actual education on mental health issues. This post is from a blog that I have followed on-and-off for over a decade and this post obviously resonated with me.

28/09/2015

Not a Joke

Question: What did the penis say to the hairdresser?
Answer: Absolutely nothing.

It's the hair on heads we are talking about here, not genital hair, OK, so the presence or absence of a specific set of genitalia has nothing at all to do with haircuts. Right? Are you with me so far? Not too complex really. Here is another not-joke for you:

Customer: Can I have a haircut please?
Hairdresser: Have you got a penis?

See, I told you. Not funny. But a situation like this happened to my friend today, and I need to rant.

My friend has short hair, exists mostly wearing jeans and tshirts and is often covered, to a greater or lesser extent, in paint. In fact the paint is often the most memorable feature - I asked at a local cafe is they remembered my friend coming in for coffee and it was when I said "covered in paint" that their eyes lit with recognition and they said 'strong latte no sugar!' or some such. Because unsurprisingly the lovely staff at the cafe are more interested in what someone's regular coffee order is than what genitals they have.

Back to hairdresser. My friend is a woman. She doesn't like labels for herself, but the labels other people ascribe to her might include woman, girl, lesbian, queer, genderqueer, gay, gender non-binary, dyke butch, possibly boi and definitely the one she really hates, shorty (I think she is over five foot tall, but not by a whole lot). She occasionally gets mistaken for a young man. She has pretty short hair. Today she walked into a hairdresser that advertised $12 haircuts for men with very little money in her pocket and asked for a boys haircut. The hairdresser gave her a haircut but charged her for a 'ladies' haircut. She didn't have the money, was told to use her credit card, and to add insult to injury was told the business charged a $2 fee for credit card payment.

In whose world is this OK? In whose world is it OK to charge my brother with his handsome, long, curly, difficult hair (and penis) one price but my friend with her handsome, short, straight, neat  hair (and vagina) a higher price? It's not OK in my world!

The anti-discrimination board clearly states that:
Sex discrimination is against the law... ...when you get or try to get most types of goods or services – for example, from shops, banks, lawyers, government departments, the police, public transport, local councils, doctors, hospitals and other medical services, hotels, sporting venues and entertainment venues; 
from the Anti-discrimination Board of NSW sex-discrimination fact sheet 
So this behavior is not OK in NSW law, either.

(Here endeth my rant, but if this, or something like this, has happened to you and you want to make a complaint but need some not-a-lawyer support, let me know and I'll be so happy to help you out)

25/09/2015

I hate post titles! So awkward. Weirdly, I like emails to have good clear subject lines though. How about 'Therapist visit recap' - will that do?

On Wednesday I met with the psychiatrist I had been seeing during my hospital stay. I didn't get any more clarity about the vague hint of a diagnosis he gave me but there were some really good things about the visit.

I was able to be really clear with him about a few things that he'd said to me that I thought were insensitive. I wasn't accusatory, just clear about how I felt. It was difficult and awkward, but he responded really nicely, explaining why he had asked what he'd asked and acknowledging that given the topic, it had been inappropriate (sorry for being vague, but it was bad enough talking about it the first time around). I also was able to explain the things I did like about seeing him - he's a clever, sharp and insightful guy, with a good heart. The weirdest thing was saying goodbye to him. It was incredibly awkward - a wave or nod is far too casual for someone who you have sat and sobbed in front of while talking about the reasons for your self-loathing but a hug is off the cards with shrinks. Anyhow, I shook his hand, feeling weirdly male, or perhaps German, and realised, suddenly, that he was only my height, perhaps even a shade shorter. When I was in hospital and described him to someone and I remember saying that he was really tall, well over 6 feet/1.8m in my estimation. To realise he was only my height was to understand quite viscerally how differently my mind was working now, compared with when I was admitted. I still have bad days, bad hours, some times are really shit, but I feel, both literally and metaphorically, big enough to cope now.

Now, how to get some exercise factored into my days. Any tips? I'm thinking it might be more important long term than giving up booze. I'm not feeling any clarity or goodness that the people I know who have stopped drinking talk about. On the up-side, I'm not feeling bad about it either, and it hasn't been particularly difficult or fraught.

22/09/2015

Post Discharge Follow Up Appointment

I think I'm pretty much well now. Or should that be 'managed'? I see myself as having a chronic illness that's managed but has occasional flare ups. If I'm lucky I can get treatment before the flare ups get too bad. Maybe one day I will be unlucky enough that my illness will kill me. Anyhow, my meds seem to be working pretty well and I'm coping ok with normal stresses, but sometimes, suddenly, things suck all over again...

Y'know when you've had the 'flu, and you are finally feeling better, your body has stopped aching, the exhaustion has lifted and you think you're invincible, so much energy... Then suddenly the wind is knocked out of your sails and all you can do is just find a place to crumple into a weary little heap?. I think that's what is going on for me now. Some days people ask how I'm doing and I'm all "I'M BETTER!" but a bit too bright, too intense and then without a noticeable trigger I'm suddenly all teary, having what are euphemistically called 'intrusive thoughts' that I could really do without and generally having difficulty coping.

Tomorrow I have the follow up appointment with the psychiatrist I had while in hospital. We are going to argue a bit over my diagnoses (he will give me a report that I can use with mental health professionals going forward) but it will be OK. I've about half of the things I planned to do after coming out of hospital (the two things I'm most happy about are that I've downloaded a mood tracking app and I'm using it! And I haven't lapsed with my plan to be 100 days sober).

So now I need to get stuck in to writing an assignment for uni. And no matter how stressful or triggering it is, I still have to do it.

10/09/2015

Group Therapy - R U OK DAY?

**TRIGGER WARNING - discussion of mental illness, anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts**

For those that don't know, these recent posts have been coming to you from a nice private psychiatric hospital. This came about because after fronting to my psychiatrist appointment and sitting there for my allotted time sobbing about how it was all too much and too rotten, and how it wasn't really and I hated myself for feeling this way because I knew that nothing had really changed, but my feelings had. I live with a fair amount of background anxiety and depression, and it had slid into a major depressive episode without me really realizing it. Happily, we got to it before it got to it's worst (I know how bad it gets, and this was not a 'rock bottom' scenario). Anyhow, my meds have been sorted, we have a plan for care going forward and I've had great care from the psychiatrist, psychologist and nursing staff and, despite some trepidation, I'm ready to go home tomorrow.

Why start talking about this now? Good question, thanks for asking! Today is R U OK day. I have had some wonderful people (friends, family and professionals) recognize that sometimes I am most definitely NOT OK and as a direct result I have been able to get treatment. I'm now at a point where I am more-or-less OK, and more to the point, comfortable sharing my experience. My hope is that there will be a critical mass of stories so experiences of mental illness are normalized and personalized to such an extent that getting treatment will be standard. In doing this I want to in no way diminish the horrible suffering caused by mental ill-health, I just want to remind people in pain that they have the right to seek treatment, whether they are currently coping or not.

Here is the short version: Ever since I can remember I have had periods of depression and anxiety. I started thinking about and planning suicide at eight. I had good days and bad days, good years and bad years. I got a formal diagnosis in my twenties (I went home and cried about that. For a week). I had postnatal depression after the birth of my first child (or was it just another depressive episode? I'll never know). When it I started to worry about my anxiety and depression effecting my kids I got serious about treatment and since then I've had several years of therapy and about five years of medication. Now I can add a few new medications and a short inpatient stay to that list. Going forward there will be more therapy, including DBT, a few lifestyle changes (including more exercise and 100 days dry) and of course, meds.

The other big one is how I explain this stuff to my kids? At 9 and 6 my two boys know there is something going on, and I respect them too much to lie to them. At the same time I definitely don't want to upset them so I explained, just two nights before I came in to hospital, that I was sick. I told them that last time I was sick it was my tummy, and I went in to hospital and when my belly was well enough I came home. This time it was my thinking and feeling that was the problem so I was going to a hospital that would help me get my thinking and feeling back to normal. They seemed OK about it at the time and they have been OK about it since - a lot more understanding than most adults, to be fair. In fact the little one got a lift home with a friend the other day and she told me he had been explaining things to her kids in the car. He said "Mum's brain is Out Of Control" (complete with whatever arm movements signified an out-of-control brain to an imaginative six year old). I think he nailed it.

Now, go look at a website like Black Dog Institute or Beyond Blue and read and learn something new (no matter who you are I PROMISE you can learn something from these sites) and then consider what you are going to do. Are you going to get yourself some help? Could you ask a friend or family member if they are OK? Can you afford to donate to one of these organizations? Or are you just going to smile at someone on the train or walking through the shops tomorrow?




30/08/2015

Mental illness (nope, I don't have mental health at the moment)

I've been thinking a lot about ideas around accepting help, asking for help contrasted with autonomy and self-reliance in the context of mental illness. In my own self-critical way I told myself to shut-up and deal with the fact I need help, that to get it I need to ask for it, I don't need to 'prove' I need it and receiving help is difficult and weird but I'm going to have to get used to it. Thinking about this, and thinking about the process of getting better made me draw some analogies with the equivalent process when recovering from physical illness or injury. I used physical illness and recovery as a metaphor for mental illness with a friend and it seemed to be useful, so I thought I'd flesh out those ideas a bit.

In the acute stage of, say, a sprained ankle you need to take meds (anti-inflammatories, pain meds), rest and elevate the ankle, use ice and compression. You will probably need some help with what healthcare professionals call 'activities of daily living' (ADLs) because you can't and shouldn't use that ankle to hobble around to look after yourself. In the acute stage of mental illness you may need meds (which might be different to your usual meds), you need to rest (sometimes resting your thinking and feeling parts requires meds. A chemical compression bandage, if you will) and sometimes you need help with ADLs. You may be able to walk ok but the part that needs rest is the thinking and feeling part, so making decisions, sometimes even simple everyday decision like which tshirt to wear or what to have on your toast, become totally overwhelming.

In order to help a friend in this situation don't just offer to make them toast, say 'I'd like to make you toast, is Vegemite ok or would you prefer honey?' BUT if they say they don't want toast you MUST respect their autonomy (or make the toast but reassure them you won't be offended if they don't eat it - it's like the great post on consent and cups of tea)

Even when these things are possible they might take a lot longer than normal (so don't expect your depressed friend to turn up anywhere on time, and don't give them a hard time for being late, they have almost certainly already done that for themselves).

At some point the acute stage morphs into the recovery stage. With physical injuries this is the point where, if you have sort help from a medical professional, the physio might have given you a bunch of exercises to do. What questions should you ask the physio? How often should I do the exercises, will it hurt or will there just be some discomfort? When should I start to feel better and get full function back? How long will it take me to heal? What are the SMART goals of treatment? What is the long term prognosis?  These questions can and should be asked of mental health professionals. For sure these questions are more difficult in the field of mental health than physical injuries and ailments but it's really important that if you have a therapist you are on the same page with respect to these things. If you aren't recieving treatment and/or don't have a therapist it's just as important to try to work out where you want to be. A psychologist/psychiatrist/therapist may give you specific exercises - what is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) but a series of mental exercises. If you doubt this stuff works, or can work for you (which is pretty normal for depressed people) look up the research. If that is too difficult/personal/scary/etc look up brain plasticity (I liked 'The Brain that Changes Itself' by Norman Doidge) and pense on the fact that brains are incredibly powerful - if you can re-wire your brain after massive trauma then we can probably do some of the re-wiring necessary to be able to live and manage our mental illnesses.

Everybody says it, few people do it but WRITE DOWN* YOUR QUESTIONS. Doing this can be really hard when you are in the black pit of despair or when you are so anxious that you are worried about being able to keep breathing, so cut yourself some slack if you can't manage it. You could also enlist the help of a friend to do this. In fact, I have a few close friends and all of us suffer to a greater or lesser extend from mental illness. When we sense someone might be struggling we will often offer to help them make a list. Along the same lines, take a pen and paper to your appointment and try to write a few things down. Even if you ask the therapist what you should write down, it means when you walk out and suddenly realize you have very little memory of what just went on you will have something written to research or just jog your memory. Memory and cognition can be affected by mental illness, and I'm not just talking fear of impending doom or sense of self here. When I'm sick it takes me longer to process stuff, even simple stuff, and there are lots of things I don't remember so keep the pen and paper handy and don't beat yourself up when things don't go as planned.

Where does this get us? Like other illness and injury, there are steps you can take to get better, but healing often takes longer than you want it to. Even after you get back to a functional state you might find you get tired or overwhelmed more easily. As before, cut yourself some slack and surround yourself with people you feel supported but not smothered by. There IS treatment for mental illness. You can get better, even if you don't think you ever will. I have depression and anxiety and the symptoms have ebbed and flowed since my childhood. Sometimes I'm fine and sometimes I'm most definitely Not Fine. If I had proactive about treatment younger I might be better now at managing my 'twins' - the Black Dog and the Monster - but maybe not. Either way I am much better at calling for help now than ever before, I'm much better at allowing myself to heal, I'm still terrified by relapses and with this current relapse I'm trying to work on what might trigger these major episodes so I can avoid, to some extent, things spiraling out of control.

If you, or someone you love, is suffering with mental illness please work on getting some help  <3 p="">

21/08/2015

Group Therapy #1

JUMP.

Oh crap, Here I am. First group therapy session. I spoke briefly to the nice psychologist E yesterday for the first time. She encouraged me to come, and here I am. She promised she wouldn't make me, or anyone, speak if they don't want to so I'm scrawling busily on a piece of paper. Busy. Maybe it's just something to do with my anxious self, I'll have to try it next time I'm at a party, instead of the ever-filling glass of wine. Crap. 
I wonder if the guy next to me can read my writing. I wonder what he thinks. I'm scribbling away before we even start and I hope I'm not making anyone else feel uncomfortable. I would be uncomfortable with someone else writing. It is like having someone in the group texting. Consciously I know everyone here is far more worried about themselves, but still, what is the etiquette?. Since I tend to since I feel like I take over in group settings, I'm going to concentrate on holding back and I'm going to use writing to help me fill the space left by talking, left by amusing people, left by emoting messily all over the place.
Nice psychologist E has asked everyone to introduce themselves. Name only, thank gods. I've got this. She started around the other side of the room, will I participate? I pitch my voice low and clear. My professional voice. It carries but is still quiet. That part went OK but I'll keep writing. Now she's explaining that the group topic is 'Values' and she's going through the ground rules. Normal stuff - confidentiality, respect, no mobile phones. Easy. Now Values. What are they, where do they come from, what stops us living according to our values, she's writing on the whiteboard.... TRIGGER.

Then Nice psychologist E started talking about about the fact we tend to beat ourselves up over.... I couldn't really hear her words any more, just the buzzing in my head, tears pricking, her kind voice saying that we are too hard on ourselves. Not me, I need to harden up, I cried in the gentlest of group therapy sessions. Then tears started to really flow the sobs were on their way, I fled. Seeing only the carpet in front of my feet (I'm good at that). Abandoning my shoes which I'd slid off and kicked decorously under my chair ten minutes earlier. 

01/05/2015

Reading for Pleasure

My littlest one, not quite 6 years old, just came downstairs to tell me something.

He and his brother are meant to be asleep, but the big brother wanted to finish a book, probably one he's read multiple times, so the light was on. I think the little guy must have been bored because he came down to tell me.... wait for it.... He had read a book.

He's only just gotten the hang of reading, he's just practicing matching the sounds with words, and the words with meaning. This is actually the first time ever he has read for pleasure! I hugged him excitedly and welcomed him into the world of reading-for-pleasure, explaining how wonderful and powerful it was, and told him that my favourite activity in the whole world was actually just reading for pleasure. I'm so happy!