I wrote these melodramatic words the other day:

I shall never see C again.

Officially I am supposed to see him on Thursdays 19th and 26th August, but I shall not.  I shall never see him again.  I have pretty much decided not to go, as I’m certain it would only cause me further pain, and I think he’s put me through enough (as if I didn’t already have a fair dollop of it in my life, but let’s not wallow).

I have not written about my most recent four sessions, though I have my own records of them.  I may get to the minutiae of it all one of these days – when it seems less traumatic, perhaps, if indeed it ever will – but for now I think it’s enough to say that the last few meetings, in particular the very most recent (when the “personality disorder” bollocks that he came off with was actually outright offensive), have been pointless and circular.  Nothing has been achieved and if anything, they have been damaging in an individual kind of way, just like therapy as a conceptual process has been for quite a while now – basically, since I spoke of the longevity and severity of my experiences of child sex abuse only to be told to fuck off out of C’s hair.  How can that not be completely and utterly damaging?  He keeps banging on that he sees ‘worth’ or ‘value’ or some other such meaningless word in continuing to the bitter end, but he’s not the one that has to live with the grief and despair of the situation in which he and his targets-obsessed bosses have put me in.

I know that anything I say ‘on record’ so to speak will be regarded as confirmation of the bloody BPD bollocks, but fuck it, I don’t care.  I’m sure, despite C’s claims to the contrary, that I have got the words ‘non-compliant patient’ and ‘archetypal angry borderline’ scrawled all over my notes in red pen anyway, so what does it matter?  Once you get this fucking diagnosis it stays with you for the rest of your cunting existence whatever you may or may not do, however much you may or may not progress.  So I might as well tell the fat-catted-fat-cunted fuckers what I think anyway.

I can’t just leave him without some acknowledgement, though, so I am penning a ‘goodbye’ letter.  I want to make clear that I feel that my anger is absolutely justified (which it damn well is), but that it is only partly aimed at him, and that in the right circumstances (ie. adequate fucking time) he could have improved rather than destroyed it.  I do feel it’s important that he knows that he has destroyed it, though – I think it’s imperative that they (the Trust, the Psychology Department) understand the power that they have over vulnerable people, because it seems to be a point that whooshes blindly over their heads at the minute.  But that said, I would like C to know that, although our relationship has been irreparably damaged, I have much fondness and respect for him as an individual.

I then found myself too distressed to actually write the letter, so waited until this morning.  My mother had asked me to head round to her’s as Sarah, Suzanne and the latter’s children were in attendance; it is quite reasonably viewed that just because WWIII has split the sorority of my mother and Maisie doesn’t mean it has to split everyone else.

Helps or Hindrances?

Knowing that I would have to fight any distress whilst in their company (as opposed to lone time giving me time to ruminate and wallow) gave me the confidence to sit down and write the letter there, but my mother caught me doing so and tried to persuade me to return to see C on Thursday.  I argued vehemently against it, citing the damage I felt recent sessions had done and how I could not see future ones being any different, but she said that no matter what C may say, no matter how model a patient I have been, and no matter what my notes already state, that the Trust will find some way to corrupt the situation and deem me “non-compliant”.  Pan is teh b0Rdel1NE ev1L innit!!eleven1!!!1!11!!

Suzanne, who has a friend working in the main psychiatric hospital in the Trust, overheard the conversation, and seconded my mother.  She admitted to not being particularly familiar with complex PTSD and BPD, but stated that she felt it was important not to give them any excuse to piss about further.  She also pointed out that, if in the event that the Trust do agree to extend the psychotherapy, I wouldn’t want to damage my already damaged relationship with C any further by not returning.  I felt that this was a fair comment.

There followed a long discussion – or, perhaps more accurately, something of a monologue on Suzanne’s part – on how she “really believes” that I can get through the next few weeks, even if my crusade for extended therapy fails.  Maybe so, maybe not.  She pointed out that we have very different beliefs, but that she wanted me to know that it was still her’s that whilst I will probably always deal with at least residual mental health problems, my life and illnesses can improve.  Theoretically, I do not disagree (and indeed, I think subtle progress may already have been made – see below), but I felt like she was patronising me, and rather than express irritation or a counter-argument, I just sat there submissively and meekly nodded every so often.  On reflection – and I think I realised it at the time too – I know she was just trying to help, or to encourage me, or to cheer me up, or whatever.  So I suppose I ought to be grateful, but it did feel strange having life and pseudo-medical advice extended to me from someone who (a) admits to not having full cognisance of the core issues, and; (b) I was the elder protector of as we grew up under the watchful eyes of a paedophile (not that she seems to have been afflicted that way, given as she called her second baby after said paedophile – but anyway).

One thing she said that was true but still mildly annoying was, to paraphrase, that my fixation with the end of therapy is self-defeating.  Therapy has been useless for several weeks now – probably since about June or early July-ish – and at least in part that’s because I’ve gone into lockdown knowing that I can’t discuss what I need to discuss with C, because the time I have with him means it cannot be resolved.  Suzanne is right – it is self-defeating, at least in some ways (though in fairness to C he’d point out that the dyad is a co-construct, so any failings of recent weeks would not to his mind be solely my ‘fault’).  But what, of necessity, Suzanne does not know is a lot of why I’m in therapy in the first place.  Were she thus aware, I suspect she would understand why preventing such lockdowns as I am now experiencing is nigh on impossible.  All that said, her point is valid in a way – but I can’t just CBT myself into being grateful that I actually have 15 full days (as opposed to only having two mere weeks) before I never see C again.  If I could do that, I’d never have ended up being mental and/or in therapy in the first place.

Anyhow, apparently I need to focus “not on the time left” but “on really getting better, by whatever avenue”‘.  Apparently as a door closes, a window opens.  Notwithstanding the fact I’m too much of a pie to fit through the window in question, I don’t see any reason to agree with the sentiment, and even if I did, the transition through the window will be long and damaging in itself, I fear.  As you will know, it is my plan to seek private therapy in the wake of the disaster of that is NHS mental health services.  If I form the required therapeutic rapport with the first private therapist I see, then brilliant – but can I really expect the same luck in that regard that I had when I met C?  It will almost certainly take a lot of time, and a lot of time when you’re a depressed, confused, disconcerted mess is not always a commodity frequently at your disposal.

To continue the vein of familial do-gooding, my mother then announced – to my abject horror – that she had tried to phone C this morning.  As C does not work in his normal location on Tuesdays, I hoped for a few precious seconds that nothing had come of her attempt to contact him and that he would be unaware of it.

This was not the case.

My mother spoke to C’s secretary who said she would get hold of him and get back to my mother.  She did, with the quite predictable message that C could not comment on patients’ treatment to third parties.

“But,” my mother protested, “I don’t want to discuss the content of their sessions with him.  I want to discuss the recklessness of his decision to end her therapy at the end of this month.”

This is where things start to get interesting.  Apparently C’s secretary – let’s call her Lorraine – was stunned to hear that C is kicking me out of therapy.  She said, incredulously, “but is the decision to end things not Pandora’s?!”

My mother laughed out loud and said that no, the decision was very clearly not Pandora’s.  A stunned silence from Lorraine apparently followed.

How can Lorraine possibly be under this impression?  C receives copies of all the correspondence between Mr D-P and myself, which surely must go to her first.  Maybe my experience as a secretary when I was putting myself through university is different to that of others, but I really find it bizarre that she doesn’t know this somehow.  C wouldn’t have deliberately let her think that ending therapy was my choice…would he?!

Whatever the case, my mother went on to say that she could absolutely guarantee that if the cessation of the relationship ‘progresses’ as planned that my condition will regress markedly (true, obviously).  She told Lorraine that, in her admittedly layperson’s view, I required about another 18 months of therapy (which sounds roughly fair to me), but that even if they would allow me another six months, at least that I would be able to ‘move on’ with more confidence, trauma-resolution and social ability than I presently have.

Lorraine said that C would want to discuss this material with me, which amused me endlessly.  What has been going on for the last 700 years if not discussion of this bollocks?

Anyway…

Part of me is furious with my mother for phoning C, because he will assume that I put her up to it, which is most assuredly not true.  On the other hand, futile as I expect her efforts to be, I also know that she (and Suzanne for that matter) is/are just trying to help.

Today’s assembled adults agreed that I am seemingly a little improved from when I first had this breakdown, which is now pretty much exactly two years ago (I went off work on 5 August 2008, after battling a severe depression for several months beforehand).  This apparent improvement is, to their minds and mine, testament to the effectiveness of psychotherapy with C.  The drugs may help, but as NewVCB keeps telling me, they are only to take the edge off things – and I think that is all they really can do.

No doubt the Health Service would deem this information evidence that I no longer need therapy.  Things are not as bad as they once were = things are perfect and delightful in their (possibly ironic) black and white world of arbitary targets and lives reduced to mere figures on a database.

My view is that, if anything, a slight improvement in my condition is at the crux of continued therapy.  It proves that working with C, as an individual, has been an effective treatment for me – to a point.  I’m still very, very ill – let’s be clear on that.  However, things are a little bit better than they were – thus, does it not stand to reason that they could continue to get better were a productive treatment not continued, to the point where (a) I can go back to work and (b) I no longer need the CMHT?  And in doing so, (c) WHERE THE FUCKING HEALTH SERVICE DOESN’T HAVE TO INVEST ANY MORE OF ITS PRECIOUS FUCKING RESOURCES (read: managerial salaries) INTO MY SORRY BACKSIDE?

But we’ve been over this ground before a hundred million times, and I am boring you now surely.  Query: do any of you actually want to read the minutiae of the last four meetings with C, which I’ve shied away from writing?  Some points therein are more notable than others, but the sessions were in essence useless and merry-go-round-ish.  Nevertheless, I could rustle up a summary if you wish, unless you really want to hear all the anal details.

Still, maybe this week’s session, now that I’ve changed my mind and am intending to go to it, will be more interesting.  I’m still going to write the letter, you know.  The only difference now is that I’m going to watch him the contortions of his facial muscles as he reads it

Apologies for the delay in the third post in this series; we had something of a disrupted week last week and last night represented A’s first chance to explore these issues. In this post, we’re talking about the direct impact on him of my illnesses, history of trauma and current treatments.

A few weeks ago I despaired as to how I would ever face my uncle again. After hallucinating him and being harassed extensively by ‘They’ in the wake of dealing with my sexual abuse issues in therapy, I was convinced – as were my psychiatrist, psychologist and GP – that seeing him in person would send me over the edge. My personal concerns were twofold – one, I feared I’d end up in the throes of such a psychotic break that those around me would have no choice but to have me assessed for a section, something I still fear intensely. Perhaps more importantly, though, I was worried there was a danger that, in a completely batshit state with no control over myself, I’d throw accusations left, right and centre at or about him, and end up with the apocalyptic familial schism that I have so fervently sought to avoid by keeping quiet about things.

I knew the time would come when I had no choice but to face him; even though I am now in the fortunate position of no longer having to see him and that side of the family with the frequency that I did as a child, not ever going to their house would raise many, many eyebrows. In all probability, the extended family would simply think I was either a selfish bitch, or that I was in the throes of a mercilessly long depression or something, but whatever the case, the power of one’s mother is very strong, and to that end I knew I’d have to face it eventually. I wanted this, however, to be entirely at a time of my choosing, and on my terms.

As if! I should have known that I was shockingly naive to even think that a possibility.

I went to my mother’s house on Monday this week, as I was seeing C (who had swapped his days from his usual Thursday) on Tuesday morning (I usually stay with my mother the night before C). I was sitting there in her living room at one point minding my own business when the phone rang; it became apparent as soon as my mother picked it up that the caller was my cousin Sarah, Maisie and Paedo’s still-resident-in-Paedo’s-house-despite-being-well-into-her-40s daughter. There was nothing unusual in the call itself – Sarah is a chatterbox who rings my mother with some frequency to harp endlessly on Very Little Indeed.

However, a few seconds into the conversation, my mother started abruptly, and put the phone under her arm.

“Shit, I forgot – I meant to ask you before now, Pandora,” she whispered urgently, “but are you OK to go to their house tomorrow?”

My face fell. I didn’t say anything for a few seconds, I just looked at her in a sort of disgusted desperation.

She either failed to notice my horror or she chose to ignore it. “Well?” she pressed, irritably.

“Um…I have to see C in the morning,” I replied, clutching at straws, whilst simultaneously trying to think of a better excuse to avoid the proposed sojourn.

“Yes, yes, I know, we’re not going that early. It’s OK to go after that, I take it?”

My mind failed me and went completely blank. Defeated, I nodded meekly.

She returned the phone to her ear. “Oh, yes yes Sarah, that’s fine!” she cooed sycophantically. “We’ll see you about 11.30am tomorrow.”

My first reaction had been of horror, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt anger. She claimed to have forgotten to ask me in advance, and in her defence that’s entirely possible, but my cynicism did wonder if she had deliberately taken me off-guard to prevent me from having time to think of a decent excuse to get out of it. I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if this were the case. Either way, being put on the spot is not something I appreciate in any but the most extreme of circumstances, and I was annoyed in the extreme. I went on a mental rant on Twitter.

The consensus from my Twitter support group was simple and clear: DO NOT GO. Everyone was right, of course, and I decided to concoct a story for my mother along the lines of how I would be so “emotionally distraught” as a result of the session with C that I would be unable to face anyone (as it turned out,this wasn’t that far from the truth, but that post will come).

In the end, though, I caved in. I started to protest to my mother when I got back from C’s, and she become predictably hostile, and I figured I would rather be persecuted for weeks by ‘They’ that be persecuted by her – at the end of the day, at least I hate ‘They’ so I don’t mind being in conflict with them (even if it does one day result in my suicide). I did manage one minor win against my mother though, which was to use Disraeli (my car) as our transportation, rather than The Box (her’s). I figured this put control of when we left Paedo/Maisie’s house (Hotel California) in my hands, and furthermore that if I went really mad, that at least I would have an escape route.

Of course, this was an imperfect plan. My driving was berated the whole circa 30 miles from her house to theirs – either I was speeding (when I wasn’t), I was taking corners in too high a gear (second or third? Really, mother?) or I didn’t look over my shoulder when changing lanes on the motorway (even though I did). And so on. When I told her to leave me alone, she accused me of “having an attitude,” and that that was why she had tried to persuade me to take her car.

The hypocrisy of her little diatribe both irritated and amused me. She is an utterly crap driver these days, whereas I really think that I am relatively OK for the most part. Yet if I open my mouth in her boxy piece of shit, I get what she would describe as “the rounds of the kitchen” (a Northern Ireland rural colloquialism for a Northern Ireland urban colloquialism – “slabbering”. She grew up in the middle of nowhere, whereas I was raised on the outskirts of a city. In proper English, they each mean something akin to “harsh criticism”).

Anyhow, eventually we arrived, without me having deliberately driven us both into a wall at 100mph in a fit of pique. I turned into the gate of Hotel California and noticed Paedo was gardening. He looked up and saw us, but made little attempt to desist from his activity. This was excellent.

Even more encouraging was the fact that, when we went inside, only Maisie and Sarah were there. Normally everyone in the entire Northern hemisphere that shares a trace of genetics with Maisie is perpetually packed into her house, which even if Paedo was not guilty of anything would freak me out nearly as much. So, win number II.

Of course, the presence of a mere small number of personnel wasn’t to last. Eventually Sarah’s daughter, Suzanne, turned up with her two young children – Marcus, the two-year-old, and the four-month old that is named after Paedo. I had been lamenting this fact to C earlier that morning (as I have lamented on many other occasions). I was scared of how I would react to the baby given its name, even though of course it is not his fault. I mean, of course it is not its fault!

Both children were asleep as we had lunch so my reactions to the baby temporarily remained to be seen, but at this point of course Paedo came in from his horticultural tasks in order to get fed. He sat directly opposite me. I was interested to note that he consistently avoided eye contact with me.

Emboldened by this apparent deference, I decided to talk to him. At first I just gabbled about inane, everyday stuff, but eventually I became so confidently snide that I started making oblique references to his behaviour around children. Nothing which would have been decipherable by the various assembled members of the clan, of course, but possibly to him. Then again, him decoding its cryptic nature assumes that he has an IQ of over five, and I really doubt that he does. Very few that have any connection to Hotel California do, even those that are on the mere fringes of the place, never mind those right in the centre of it.

My party piece came later when, when a discussion about cancer somehow arose, I was able to tell my dining companions that (according to Heal My PTSD) victims of child sexual abuse are eight times more likely to develop adult cancers than the general population.

The comment was specifically addressed at Suzanne who had been musing about the possible causes of the Big C, but I shot a surreptitious glance at Paedo to gauge his reaction to my hint at him. I was disappointed to note no discernible guilt or shock on his face, but I was nevertheless pleased at having the balls I did to make such a direct statement.

Eventually the baby started crying, and Suzanne went to address whatever need it was expressing. I absent-mindedly commented that I had not ‘met’ it yet, and was instructed by She Who Thinks I Am A Five Year Old to go and engage with it. Mainly because I was fed up sitting opposite Paedo, I acquiesced.

Suzanne had her back to me as I walked into the room, and the baby’s head was resting on her shoulder, facing me. I looked at it and nervously said ‘hello’ in that ridiculous tone that is always employed by adults when speaking to babies. To my astonishment, its fat little face seemed to light up, and it smiled a massive smile at me. Suzanne passed it to me without prompting and it sat in my arms for a long time, laughing innocently and playing with my florescent hair.

I’m not going to sit here and lie: I wasn’t overcome by some overwhelming love and spiritual awakening by holding the baby like some people claim to be, but – just as with Marcus – I didn’t dislike it, despite my general contempt for kids. I probably wouldn’t have expected to have actively been repulsed by it but for the fact it was named after Paedo, but I am pleased to note that that issue didn’t really impact upon how I felt about it.

I don’t know what to call it here [muses for some time]. OK, I think I will call it Sean. That will pretty much guarantee that if my family ever find this blog they won’t know that I’m writing about them, as they would never call one of their offspring an Irish name (some of them are sectarian bigots, on top of everything else). Yes. Sean. Marcus and his little brother Sean.

The rest of the clan began to arrive in dribs and drabs. StudentMcF, who had just graduated with a First in Psychology, turned up with her mother. Student talked about her plans to undertake a doctorate in Educational Psychology – and, perhaps surprisingly, this was the worst part of the whole day. My blood was infused with a pulsating, jealous rage and, even though she is actually quite a nice girl, I wanted reach across the table and break her neck to prevent her becoming Dr McFaul.

Mentalism has ruined my fucking life. I didn’t even get to finish my Masters degree because of it. If I hadn’t been mental, I would have been the first one to get a doctorate. I always wanted – I always intended – to do a PhD. I was fairly lazy at school and university I admit, and I recognise that that’s not terribly conducive to becoming a doctor in one’s chosen subject, but lazy or not, I’ve always done well academically because I’m intelligent. I find fault with myself daily in a million different ways, but my intellect and capacity for retaining knowledge is never, ever one of them.

I’m the smart one out of Student and me. Student is not stupid, not at all (which is a remarkable achievement given that she comes from the dubious auspices of Hotel California), but what she is first and foremost is an intensely hard worker, rather than a brainbox.

Here I am, sitting on a sofa all day, existing. The issue of identifying with my mental illnesses has been hovering about quite a bit recently, and whilst I feel that I have some sort of self-definition through that, as I tried to state the other day, that’s only part of how I see myself. My stronger life narrative is that of my intellect. I should not be existing in this sad, pathetic bubble of blankness. I should be working in Downing Street, or researching at a decent university within the area in which I am educated, or forming policy on same, or something. I should not have been sitting in a few glorified admin jobs and then sitting on a soft instead because I don’t know where the next fake fucking voice is coming from. FUCK.

*throws toys out of pram*

Anyhow, this is not meant to be one of those ranty posts about my wasted life – it’s meant to be about my day yesterday. At one point, a curious thing happened. Marcus wanted to go outside and play, so I took him – but to my considerable distaste, Paedo followed. I felt the sting of hypervigilance pervade my body and mind, and perhaps I chewed at my lip a little too much.

Paedo and Marcus started paying football (soccer to Americans), whilst I hovered about trying to figure out how I should proceed. Marcus made the decision for me, however, by insinuating that he wanted me to be the goalkeeper in this hugely life-changing, World Cup standard, epic match. So I ended up playing fucking football with the man who raped me throughout my childhood, and his great-grandson about whose welfare I had become obsessively worried.

I was acutely aware of the surrealism of this bizarre circumstance as I stood there, deliberately letting in Marcus’ goals (and saving all of Paedo’s – hahaha). As I reflect on it now, as well as that sense of strangeness, I also feel some mild self-disgust. Have I sold out to something or someone by behaving so nonchalantly around Paedo? Shouldn’t I be threatening him with justice or something? Shouldn’t I be telling him that if he so much as looks at those two children in the wrong way that I’ll personally cut off his sorry bollocks with a rusty scalpel and feed them to his beloved fucking ducks? Shouldn’t I be doing something less normal than playing football with him? Shouldn’t, wouldn’t, couldn’t, what if, why didn’t, blah blah blah, subjunctive musings ad infinitum.

Most of the rest of the day was a write-off in terms of my engagement with members of McFaul dynasty. I spend most of it in the toilet being sick or in agony with IBS. Although these issues can be psychosomatic, in this case I don’t think they were. I didn’t eat that much by Hotel California standards, but one of A’s favourite McF-similes is that Maisie is like Mrs Doyle from Father Ted. “Oh, you’ll have a wee bun, Pandora. You will. You will, you will, you will!” If you attempt to refuse, she looks appalled and eventually, physically or hypnotically, manages to force your concession. In this case, it was not so much the amount of stuff forced down my throat that sent me running so frequently to the bog, but the amount of fucking wank in which it was cooked. It’s no wonder that Maisie literally makes Jabba the Hutt look thin.

We eventually left around seven, which was a lot later than I had intended, but it hadn’t been quite the unbearable experience that I’d been predicting. Let me make this clear – I’m certainly not in any rush to go back, despite Maisie’s continual begging that A and I “get up a weekend soon”. But at least now I know I can do it, even if my social anxiety has to deal with 12 people in one room (as indeed there were at one point) on top of dealing with the nefarious demons of the past.

All that being said, a combination of the McF visit and the session with C left me in a pretty poor frame of mind after I’d left my mother off last night. I flew down the motorway back to the city at close to 100mph, just to see if I could. How reckless and borderline of me. I then sat here pointlessly doing nothing at all for a few hours, before knocking out 700 words of a blog post trying to enunciate how I felt. Because, you know, you’re supposed to put words to these alien things they call ‘emotions’. It was navel-gazing but pretentious bullshit and anyway, most of it relates to C rather than the visit to Paedo, so I’ll not share it here.

So here I am: alive, not yet psychotic and not in the best frame of mind…but surviving. It’s not ideal, but then very little in my life at present is ideal. Every cloud and all that. At least it’s not the polar worst it could be.

(NB. I know some new followers of this blog have queried how my mother could even consider taking me to see my childhood abuser. The reason is simply that she doesn’t believe – or, rather, that she has chosen not to believe – that he is guilty of any of the things of which I ‘accused’ him. Most of the story is detailed here, here and here, but feel free to ask if you need any more clarification).

A minor modicum of good news amidst the current ocean of thick, virtually un-wade-able, shit. And, indeed, my second post on benefits within a few days; how odd.

I’ve had a brief look through the archives for a contextual post to this, and cannot find one. The best I can do is the review of this session with C – in which an altercation arose over the group of Employment Support Allowance into which I had been placed – but it doesn’t really go into much detail about the overall issue.

Money Money Money

So: context. Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) is the replacement benefit for Incapacity Benefit (although as I understand it, those originally claiming IB still receive that instead). Full details on the nature of the benefit can be found on this site, but here’s a brief run-down anyway.

It’s awarded to people who cannot work due to illness or disability, so long as they no longer receive (or were not eligible to receive) Statutory Sick Pay, which one would get, usually, for the first six months of an absence from one’s job. After an initial 13 week assessment period, claimants are placed into one of two groups: the “work related activity group” or the “support group”. The former is where the majority of applicants are placed, and assumes that although their capacity to work is ‘limited’, there are certain things that they can possibly do to eventually move into employment. To this end, they make you go to tossy interviews and group meetings with Job Centre employees and other claimants to discuss what you can and can’t do. Great if you have social anxiety, obviously.

The support group of ESA does not require such interviews, though one can volunteer to participate in them should one wish to do so. I believe that eventually benefit reassessments to ensure one’s continued eligibility for this group are required, but I am not familiar with the specific timeframes.

Anyhow, the so-called doctor that I saw when assessed as to which ESA group I should be placed in decided that I had “bipolar disorder” that was apparently manageable, within reason. At that point I hadn’t really experienced more overt psychoses such as ‘They’, nor did I have the C-PTSD diagnosis, so obviously I didn’t declare those to him, but as well as having the BPD, bipolar II/clinical depression and anxiety diagnoses, I was having strong dissociative episodes which I did clearly mention.

He did not mention, at any juncture, BPD, major depression, social anxiety or dissociation in his pathetic report. I wrote to the Social Security Agency to complain, citing all of these issues, and requesting a revision of their decision. They wrote back and told me to fuck off. This was last August.

[Fuck. After saying I had no contextual posts above, I have just happened upon this post, which basically details what I've already written above. Well. I took the time to write the above, so it stays. It might save you reading the earlier rant anyway.]

Anyway, as I said, this was last August. I went to the Citizens’ Advice Bureau to discuss an appeal on the decision, and they prepared a letter to the Social Security Agency (SSA) for me, which was acknowledged a few weeks later. Then…nothing.

Hoping that they’d simply forgotten that I would have to eventually go to these daft work interviews, I didn’t chase it up. Occasionally, over the last 10 months, I mused on what might have become of my case – but I didn’t want to draw attention to things by kicking up a fuss about how slow and incompetent they were, so I continued to keep quiet.

The silence was finally broken by the SSA on Tuesday, when they remarkably and quite out of the blue called my mother (my registered carer). Thankfully they didn’t want to speak to me, but to her; their enquiries related to how often I need to be supervised to make sure I eat, don’t self-harm, don’t try to throw myself off a 40-storey building etc.

My mother responded by informing the caller that such supervision was a daily requirement due to the nature of my mentalism.

“Daily!” the man apparently enthused. “That was the key word missing in her original report!”

This is complete bollocks, according to the legislation under which I was assessed and, in particular, under the section of said legislation under which I was assessed. I can’t be arsed getting into the minutiae of it, but the relevant statute is here if you’re bored so much out of your skull that you’ve never had a skull in the first place. I was only assessed under Part 5, and should also have been assessed under Part 6, where there is a lot of wank about disconnection from reality in the case of mental illnesses. I should have raked up half a billion of their stupid points on this, but daily supervision does not seem to be as key an issue as Mum’s caller had suggested.

Anyway, the bloke told her that, as she had confirmed my need for daily surveillance supervision to ensure my continued existence, that in all probability my appeal would be successful. “In fact,” he continued, “there’s a possibility she won’t even need to go to appeal, what with this new evidence.”

‘Evidence’. If my mother’s testimony is considered ‘evidence‘ by these imbeciles, why didn’t they bloody well ask for it when I first queried the damn thing nearly a year ago? Do you have to have a PhD in Fuckwit to work for these people?

So, to today. A letter arrived for me which I had initially hoped was from Mr Director-Person, who – I note with snide interest – hasn’t bothered his bony backside to respond to my latest letter. He hasn’t even acknowledged it with a two-line paragraph as he has done with previous correspondences, and neither has his Assistant Director acknowledged my application to sit on the ‘service user’ personality disorder panel thingy-ma-bobber. Twats. But, alas, that rant is for another time; the letter was from neither Mr D-P nor his AD. It was from the SSA.

And…

I HAVE WON! Yes! I AM VICTORIOUS. Hahahahahaha! Mwhahaha!

They are not sending the matter to appeal because the decision has been changed in my favour: I have now been placed in the ESA support group instead of the stupid work group. Result! (Eventually).

Financially speaking, this means only £5 more per week in my bank account (plus a good bit of backpay for the year I’ve not received it) – but it was never about the money. It’s mainly been an issue of principle – why should seriously ill people be fucked over like this simply because there’s a few scroungers in the system? – though a secondary concern has always been that I wouldn’t be able to deal with the silly work-focused interview required in the work group, never mind work itself. This belated but satisfactory result also means that I don’t have to go through the inevitable trauma of a social security appeal, which I understand can be utterly gruelling and ghastly.

Apparently, I will still have to attend a medical, which of course is rather gruelling and ghastly in itself. But Tuesday’s Bloke appeared to suggest to my mother that this would be a mere formality, being as he is satisfied that I am actually mental. I will make sure she is with me this time, though, not to mention a hefty dose of Diazepam (though maybe not? Seeming vaguely sane might not be a good thing?).

It’s timely, given that I am about to try and renew my DLA claim and given the DLA proposals of Tuesday’s budgets. I also read on Tuesday that Kate from A Tangle of Weeds had been placed in the ESA support group, and whilst I was obviously pleased that her ESA ordeal was over, with what seems to have been the result she needed, I felt a wisp of regret that I had been denied that same thing, which I clearly need too. But no longer

However

As Kate noted in the afore-referenced post, there is a downside to all this. I mean, I’m glad of the result of course – grateful, indeed – but it must mean that I am really, really, really mental. I read somewhere recently that only about 10% of claimants are put into the support group.

Sometimes I think I’m one of the most fucked-up people alive. I write very candidly here, but there are things I haven’t, and probably never will, share(d). Dark things, disturbing things – stuff that I think could shock the un-shockable. On other days, whilst fully recognising that I struggle with mental illness, I think I’m just on the right side of cope – mad, certainly, but not necessarily at the most extreme end of the wellness-illness spectrum.

The support group decision supports the former view. Said view is my more default position, indeed, but knowing that other people agree really drives the point home.

Still, I shouldn’t – and from now on won’t – grumble on this point. I can now avoid having to worry about being forced back to work before I am ready for same, and have a quiet satisfaction in knowing that my point of principle has been upheld.

That’s nice. But how are you, Pan?

Not fucking good. Not fucking good at all. For the first time since I met him in February 2009, I cancelled a session with C today. Admittedly, I’m physically unwell (my yearly bout of hateful tonsillitis would appear to have finally arrived), but I’m in the worst frame of mind I have been since January / February (when, if you recall, things were beyond rock bottom, resulting in a pathetic suicide attempt). The cancellation is a measurement of my utter despair.

The visceral compulsion to self-harm is so strong that it alone is driving me into minor dissociative episodes, though amazingly I have managed to fight the urges nevertheless. I really, genuinely don’t know how I managed to pull that off. Visions of my scalpel dangle seductively in front of my eyes. It reminds me of Macbeth’s infamous line, Is this a dagger which I see before me? (Act II, Scene I, Line XXXIII). Not that Macbeth stabbed himself with the dagger, of course – but he saw it and kind of lusted after it, just like I do. I want it so much, and I want to watch my own dark krovvy spurt gracefully out of me, taking my entire self with it.

So yeah – you might ergo assume that I am strongly suicidal as things stand, and you’d be right. Don’t want to exist, don’t want to be here…just want nothing. Sweet, beautiful, empty nothing. Permanent delicious unconsciousness.

It’s almost as if I feel some sort of spiritual enlightenment as regards fixating upon death. It’s like when you look at a stunning piece of art, architecture or scenery; the apparently perfect crafting and overpowering beauty is so profound that you find yourself moved to silent tears of awe.

I (kind of) face death and so, overcome by how exquisite it seems, awe is what I feel. I hate the word ‘empowering’, but that’s what it is: knowing that none of this has to continue beyond a point of my choosing is hugely empowering. And, indeed, beautiful.

Time to deviate from such laughably ornate prose. I’m also having vicious, extreme nightmares – on the occasions on which I actually fucking sleep. I can’t bear the abject desolation of insomnia (see here), but I really don’t know if such epically troubled sleep as these nightmares produce is any better. They mainly relate to severe sexual abuse, though not at the hands of Paedo, nor anyone I know. This morning I got sectioned after a severely disturbing gang rape, wherein I’d been placed in an open coffin and forced to fellate four men, who then proceeded to pour acid over me. I was actually genuinely shocked when I awoke and found myself in my bedroom, and not in the psychiatric hospital of the dream (which was another vision of complete horror, though obviously in a different way to the rape). It was an intensely vivid, video-like little film of unconsciousness, with which I am sure Dr Freud would have had a field day.

I’m not particularly prone to nightmares in general, despite my unpleasant history. I have of course had them – haven’t we all – but they’re not normally that frequent. That I have had so many powerful ones this week indicates to me that this is part of my adjustment to my increased dose of Venlafaxine. It’s compounded, also, by an unintentional decrease in Quetiapine: I have loads of 300mg tablets from an old script, but have been unable for several days to collect one for my current dose of 400mg. My mother was meant to collect it today – but naturally forgot. Hmm. It’s my responsibility, I know, but then she did offer…

Anyway, ‘today’ is now ‘tomorrow’ and what was meant to be about 500 words is now over four times that, so I shall bid you adieu.

I deal with a set of symptoms representing the diagnoses of BPD, C-PTSD, clinical depression and social anxiety on a daily basis. I fall victim to the nefarious antagonists of psychotic and dissociative episodes with more frequency than I would care for (although I must hat-tip the efficacy of Seroquel in decreasing the former, having said that). I’m occasionally and essentially without warning flung into states of exuberance that are largely uncharacteristic and rather OTT, leading to a question mark of manic depression. I’m also fairly sure I could be diagnosed with agoraphobia these days.

Me me me. I have this, I experience that. Me. I. Yours truly. Myself.

But it’s not just about me…is it?

For some time I’ve been thinking about ‘interviewing’ A on his experiences of living with a woman with mental illness. It’s of interest to me both intellectually and as a girlfriend, and I hope that it might be of interest to you, my dear readers, too – particularly if you are in, or are hoping to be in, a relationship. So I give you the first in a series I am going to call Perspectives from the Mentalist’s Partner (PMP): how through his relationship with me, A has developed a greater understanding of what mental ill health really is.

—

Q:

Let’s start at the very beginning. You knew I had a mental illness before we even met [I was diagnosed with severe clinical depression at the age of 14, and corresponded with A for nearly a year before we met when I was 19], but that didn’t completely manifest at first. When it did, you will recall that you viewed that mentalism fairly unsympathetically, though your mind has clearly been changed, as over the course of this present breakdown, you have been extremely supportive.

So I suppose I’m wondering – do you remember when you first saw evidence of my mental health problems, and how did/do you feel about that incident or period? Can you explain your reasoning for your evident lack of sympathy at the time – and what was it that modified your opinion into what it is today?

A:

It took me a very long time to realise what mental illness actually is. Sure, I was peripherally aware of depression as an issue, and you made it clear that you had suffered from it*. However, I probably wouldn’t have perceived it as a ‘mental illness’. I associated the term ‘mental illness’ with, well, very extreme conditions involving padded cells and the like. A very stereotypical view, for which I apologise to readers of this blog; however, I simply didn’t think much about it as it had not really affected me or others I knew. Granted, I’d experienced what I considered ‘depression’ at the age of 15-16, and I therefore assumed that what you suffered was some variant of that. Not at all a pleasant phenomenon, but something that would nevertheless gradually recede, with time. (In my teenage years, I think my own experience of ‘depression’ was one of those ‘growing up’ type problems, though I never have been and never will be a cheerful or optimistic type). Anyway, I am digressing.

When we first met, you seemed far from depressed. In a recent post [this], you talked of the dichotomy between Pandora and the ‘other’ you, the everyday person whose name I shall not utter here. The person I met was essentially Pandora; sociable; intellectually agile; opinionated (in a good way); lively; challenging; interesting – a person with aspirations and apparent self-confidence. Of course, we all package ourselves in similar ways, or try to, in order to impress those we wish to impress, especially in the first flower of a relationship. Sure, there may have been a bit of that, but it was certainly more than that, and indeed that part of you continues to exist now. When others meet that part of you in person, they are extremely taken aback to learn that you suffer from ‘depression’ (to use the generic term that most of us who are not informed might use).

As we got to know one another better, and the first flush of spring faded (it always does, as I know you agree), I started to see your occasional black moods. However, as I’ve said, I have not been a stranger to such in the past. ‘Depression’ was something that I felt, with time, one could ‘get over’. That will undoubtedly seem insulting to some, but it was how I felt.

I was also very much opposed to attempts to control depression through medication, believing that the solution lay in rethinking one’s approach to life (somewhat DBT-ish, you might say). I’ve never taken many pills myself, although I’ve been fortunate in my health for the most part. You’ll recall that I was no fan of you taking medication, and eventually made the drastic error of persuading you to come off Prozac**. Bad mistake. I suppose it was at that stage, several years into our relationship, as you really began to spiral downward, that it began to dawn on me that this was not something that would go away easily, without some form of concrete assistance.

My realisation grew as time passed and a pattern started to emerge. You were unable to hold down a job. You’d start one, seem to enjoy it at first, but gradually find it more and more difficult to cope, lying awake at night worrying about what might go wrong the next day or week. Of course, you were not helped in that by some of the horrendous managers you have had the misfortune to work for; still, even somebody as insensitive as I began to notice A Problem. Nonetheless, on my more cynical days I wondered whether it was just that you needed to find ‘the right’ job, and that you needed to foster a greater sense of ambition and commitment to achieving this. I have always been somewhat driven in the work sphere, if not elsewhere in life, and I suppose I expect the same in others. So, yes, at times I still thought less about illness and more about ‘what I would do’. Obviously, I couldn’t possibly know what I would do, given that I don’t suffer from mental illness. However, I didn’t always think like that at the time.

Really, then, although my realisation was dawning, I believe that it’s only in the past two years that I have really started to grasp what mental illness is, and the extent to which you are afflicted by it. Gone now is my illusion that you simply had ‘depression’ that you would ‘get over’, or that you could will yourself to cultivate a greater personal drive.

Just as an aside, thinking about my prior attitudes, I have come to believe that ‘depression’ is a horribly overused term, as in popular usage at least it can signify anything from a bad few weeks to serious clinical illness. I am not saying that those who actually understand mental health issues talk of depression in this way, but the word has become seriously devalued by its more general societal usage, whereby it can connote practically any bad feeling a person may have for a sustained period***.

Anyway, I suppose my first lesson in the seriousness of your illness, which came long before the realisations mentioned above, came from your occasional black moods. I remember in particular one Sunday evening where you did not really wish to speak or interact. You exuded a aura of bleakness, and no matter what I tried to do or say, there appeared to be nothing I could do about it. It left me wondering things like, “What have I done? Is this my fault? How can I fix this? Why is Pan behaving like this?” I didn’t know how to handle it. Your illness seems to have changed, and your black moods are subtly different now. I’m not sure I have figured out how to deal with them, from my own point of view, but I certainly know more about what to do and what not to do than I once did.

I might add that much of the understanding I have gained of your illness has come from you. As you have educated yourself about the issues, you have educated me. In that respect, Confessions of a Serial Insomniac has been a tremendous help. You write cogent, coherent, insightful and moving accounts here that you are often unable, due to the difficulty of talking about these issues, to express to me or anyone in person. I started writing ‘real life’ there for ‘in person’, falling into the dangerous delusion that the written form is somehow less real. Far from it. In fact, it allows one to be more revealing in some ways. I suspect that the closest you come to being able to communicate as you do on here, in verbal form, is when you meet C.

Anyway, next question please…

* Through our 10 months’ email correspondence prior to meeting face to face, I had shared a lot with A, including the fact that I had depression and that I took Fluoxetine (Prozac) to treat it it.
** This was during my postgraduate course – I would have been 21 or 22. I was taking, I think, 60mg daily, and initially cut it down, before I stopped taking it altogether. It was partly because I’d been feeling fairly good and fell into the trap of thinking I was ‘better’, and it was partly due to A’s encouragement. It – in part, at least – led to my second biggest psychological collapse (after the present one) to date.
*** One thing that A hasn’t mentioned here is that he has in the past said that he felt that my receiving a proper, psychiatric diagnosis was of great benefit. As I recall (and I welcome his correction(s) if I am misreporting him), he felt that saying, “I have borderline personality disorder” as opposed to “I’m depressed,” allowed one brought up with the views he had formerly held to note the presence of a real, tangible medical condition, rather than expressing their ‘having a few bad days’ erroneously. I would point out that I feel, have always felt, and that A now feels, that depression is a ‘real, tangible medical condition’. However, we are dealing with stigmatic stereotypical societal views here (how alliterative), and I would agree that most people probably do misuse and, indeed, misunderstand the term.

—

Next interview with A to follow soon…

Over the weekend and today I’ve been cracking up completely (yeah, I know, <insert standard comment about it ‘being a bit late for that’ here>), and losing pieces of what fragile sanity I have left little by little.  I posted the other day about how ‘They’ were plaguing me with their bile mantras emphasising my sluttery, and how a hallucinated Paedo kept showing up in very close proximity to me.  What I didn’t mention (and neither did I mention them to C on Thursday, simply owing to a lack of time) was the flashbacks.  Oh, the flashbacks.  Dear God, I hate them.  I would almost say they’re worse than the hallucinations.  It reminds me of my writing in this post, where I tried to put the finer points of the abuse into real, tangible words.  One of my overriding conclusions was that the abuse was not then, it is now.  How true and prophetic that statement has proven to be.

On Friday night I collapsed in the middle of the street in a tearful dysphoric panic, as fake-Paedo wouldn’t leave me and at least in part owing to his ‘presence’, I couldn’t stop reliving what he did to me.  A scooped me up and took me home, bless him, and Saturday was mostly fine (about which I was very surprised, but also immeasurably grateful).  In fact, the problems didn’t start again until early on Sunday morning – about 2 or 3am – when I was unable to sleep.

Certain things always seem notably amplified during nights of insomnia.  Things that one can just about deal with during the day are things that one is utterly incapable of fighting during the darkest recesses of night, and to that end the flashbacks and voices threatened to overwhelm me completely.  What’s more, my mood plummeted into the depths of a metaphorical abyss too; throughout all the madness of the last few weeks, I had still managed to remain in a passably alright mood, at least during the flashbacks’ and hallucinations’ temporary remissions – but this episode saw a very distinct and definite end to that.  I’m still in a very deep depression, with no interest in anything nor any concentration.  All I have done, and want to do, is sit here and stuff my face with rubbish.  These 300 words have taken me, on and off, about four hours to write, which is unspeakably pathetic.

I’ve been thinking of doing myself in again.  I won’t actually do it, in all probability, mainly because I don’t want to put A through it – but it’s certainly on my mind a lot.  It’s liberating to know that I can stop it all – the depression, the voices and visions, the panics, the delusions, the anxiety and agitation.  All it takes is a bit of careful planning – then I could be free of it permanently.  But then, on the other hand, I’m a bloody wuss too, because although I don’t believe in an afterlife, it would be just my luck if there was one, and it was populated by ‘They’, Paedo, and any other number of as-yet-unknown nebulous nasties.

‘They’ like it when I contemplate suicide.  They haven’t as yet considered the reality that it would probably be an escape for me, and therefore a Good Thing; no, they believe instead that it would be the ultimate act of self-punishment that I deserve for being a whore, a liar, an insidious, disgusting, hateful being.  They’d like me to do it painfully, of course – no clever cocktails from The Peaceful Pill Handbook or similar for me, oh no.  ‘They’ want me to drown myself, or alternatively to douse myself in petrol and self-immolate – two of my greatest, Room 101-esque fears.

I won’t do it, worry not.  To be fair to ‘They’ (how ridiculous that clause sounds!), they haven’t been babbling on about me killing myself in an unsolicited way – they only address the subject when I have been contemplating it myself.  So for now at least, I can resist them.  The rest of the time, they just shout at me and remind me how much I deserved to be raped and tortured, whether they do it directly in my head or whether it’s in a more vicarious way (Nick Clegg and Noel Edmonds are two of their latest ‘hosts’, though frankly it serves me right for bothering to watch the electoral debate and, worse again, Deal or No Deal).

Someone keeps phoning me over and over.  It’s some old sales bollocks, I know, and to that end I wouldn’t answer the calls anyway – but my irrational mind is simultaneously convinced that it’ll be ‘They’ at the end of the line, seeking another avenue to abuse me.  So I’ve put my mobile to send all calls directly to the answering machine, supposing that anyone legitimate can leave a message – though knowing my luck, someone legitimate will phone and ‘host’ ‘They’ anyway.

*** TRIGGER WARNING ***

But, as I said, the worst of the lot is the flashbacks.  They’re almost like a psychosis, in that they’re entirely sensual experiences; it’s as if it is all completely real, and happening right now.  I can hear his breath in my ear and feel him inside me, harshly thrusting into me, causing me indescribable agony.  I can see his sweat drip from his hideous chest hairs on to my own exposed (flat, as it then was) chest, I can hear his grunts.  I can feel him choking me when he forced me into fellatio and I can feel his vile, disgusting tongue flicking around my own genitals.

I feel it all physically, mentally and e-fucking-motionally (and in any other possible way, for that matter).  And I feel nauseous to my physical core, not to mention despairing and lost with every neuron that fires through and every chemical that imbalances in my traitorous brain.

I will be OK, I’m sure.  I don’t know how to get through this in the next 36ish hours until I see NewVCB, my psychiatrist, but I’ve managed it for a week without any self-harm or a suicide attempt – and even though it’s getting progressively (regressively?) worse, I’m sure I’ll manage (whatever ‘manage’ means).

It’s just so hatefully exhausting, so overwhelmingly depressing and painful in every way conceivable.  I don’t know how to get out of this vicious little mess, and I therefore I wish I could turn myself off,  even if only for a little while.  There is no ‘off’ switch visible to me, though, which fills me with dread and foreboding.

I hath returned, good readers!  I hope this post finds you well and contented.

“Well and contented” would be a laughably optimistic description of my current physical and mental status, at least in some ways – but we’ll start with the good things, shall we?  I’ve had the pleasure these last few days of connecting and re-connecting with friends whilst I was on a short break.

TEH GOOD STUFFZ

I have already mentioned K on this blog; it was with great pleasure that A and I saw her (again, in my case) on Monday night, along with her boyfriend N.  We spent several hours discussing BPD, cats, our obsessive attachments to our respective therapists, K and N’s work (both together and independent of one another), the sheer inadequacy of mental health services on the NHS, politics, how K’s and my BPD impacts on N and A, and general life.

The day prior to that A and I met Annie for the first time.  I would have called her ‘A’, but that would seriously confuse issues!  Annie and I have known each other online for quite a few months now so it was great to finally meet her.  We spent a great afternoon chatting about her kids, her pets, our pets, mentalism (Annie has bipolar disorder; her aunt to whom she is close also does, as well as possible BPD), Doctor Who (does anyone else think Matt Smith is fucking awesome?  Pertwee and Baker are still my favourites, but Smith is already vying for third place with McCoy) and Postman Pat (don’t ask).

I consider myself a highly fortunate person to have met such wonderful folks online such as these two.  And I’m meeting CVM next month too.  And then there’s all the lovelies I haven’t met, primarily but not exclusively from Twitter.  <3 you all.

TEH SHITE STUFFZ

Following on from that point, last week a situation emerged wherein the support of such people as aforementioned was so profoundly welcomed.  As soon as I made others aware of the problem emerging, I received lots of supportive comments, tweets and emails, for which I am eternally grateful.

It made one thing brutally clear to me: this blog, and the people I’ve met through it in one way or another, mean more to me than nearly all of my entire family.  Family-orientated individuals may find that an outrageous and utterly callous statement, but I don’t care.  It’s true.

What happened was entirely my own fault.  I didn’t do anything consciously if that in any way mitigates my actions, but I was remiss – even reckless – in my accidental use of this online persona, one that is meant to be almost entirely disconnected from my offline one.

I had a couple of pictures on my iPhone that I wanted to share with my mother, so I simply emailed them to her using the built-in mechanism on the phone.  For those of you unfamiliar with the device, it lets you send photographs without the need to actually open your email client.  Unbeknownst to me, though, when you do this, it defaults to a particular email address of which I have three.

If you don’t know already, you can guess the rest.  When I checked my emails the next day I was horrified beyond description to see a response from my mother to the aforementioned email in my serialinsomniac.com accoount.  F.U.C.K.

A and I were due to head away for a few days that day, but I decided to call with my mother under the pretence that I needed to borrow something.  The plan was to get A to distract her whilst I went in to the PC and permanently deleted the email from her computer.  She’s not especially technical, so we reckoned we could just blame its absence (if she even queried it) on the fact that Microsoft is a pile of steaming horse manure (I’m a Linux girl ).

It was straightforward to accomplish this mission, and for a few minutes A and I breathed a mutual sigh of relief.  As if on cue, though, my mother then declared that she had forwarded the email on – to two of my cousins in the McFaul (McF) dynasty.

FF UU CC KK ad infinitum

This rendered the matter completely out of my hands.  Fuck fuck fuck.  I wasn’t so worried about one of the recipients – her being an internet novice even more than my mother – but the second person would have the potential lack of stupidity to Google the term ‘serial insomniac’ had she noticed it or cared about its relation to me.

So, my first instinct was to password the entire blog, as you can do with blogs hosted at wordpress.com (as I used to be).  However, since I now run the blog myself, this option does not exist; I assume that WP’s supposition is that you would not pay for a domain and hosting if you didn’t want people to read that which was on the domain and hosting.  Instead I looked for a plug-in (a third party application that adds further functionality to WP) that would permit passwording of the entire site, found one, and installed it straightaway.  A and I left to head to our destination, feeling that the problem was temporarily solved; all my regular readers could visit essentially as normal, random voyeurs who might be my family could not.

When I arrived I was distraught to note that the blog was totally inaccessible; the plug-in had completely fucked it up.  It wouldn’t allow you to get to a page where you could enter the password and I couldn’t even get into the administrative pages, so I couldn’t delete the damn thing.  It was stuck on an endless loop of blank-screeniness.  My original concern of having been ‘found’ was replaced with a new one – that of having lost everything.

The first few hours of our break were therefore devoted to looking for a wireless network so as A could download an iPhone FTP program and access the site directly, independently of WordPress.  I was crawling up the walls with crazy.  I don’t know how many words I’ve written during my time on this blog, but I have something like 125 posts – of up to 8,000 words each (as seen here) – chronicling, so far, one of the most difficult years of my life.  Not to mention over a thousand comments of wonderful feedback and support.

In those few hours I made the realisation that I cared more about the preservation of the blog than I did about the potential discovery of it by my family.  If all hell broke loose – well, it just did.  I didn’t (and don’t) want it to, but that is actually preferable to being silenced or hidden.

The long and the short of the story is that Lovely A rescued the blog, and I password-protected certain key posts rather than the entire thing (I’ve since removed all passwording except the original four and the family tree).  Over the next few days, I monitored closely search terms that were getting here (after initially revoking search engine access, I later asked myself why the bloody hell I should do so.  Those few days have adversely affected my stats, but onwards and upwards, eh?) and what posts were being read, to see if there were any suspect or anomalous referrals.

TEH OUTCOMEZ

In my view, some of the search terms leading here and some of the reading patterns were kind of unusual.  Disproportionate numbers seemed to be searching for “serialinsomniac.com” or “serialinsomniac”, rather than “serial insomniac” – in others words, it looked to me like someone was Googling the actual URL rather than the blog name (as if having seen the URL in an email).  This isn’t unknown in the past, but it’s not been terribly common.  In all probability, I’m being over-sensitive, but one never knows.

I’ve started making an effort to change some names.  You can see some of the key ones on this page, and others are already changed in the archives which you can look at it if you need context.  I’m abandoning many of the old initials completely so if you need clarification on who a new name refers to, you’ll need to contact me.  I’ll try to add to the ‘Emsemble’ or family tree page with names that weren’t previously included as soon as I can.

I’m also monitoring the geographical location of people finding their way here.  I’d like to assure you that if you are outside a very tiny geographical triangle of Northern Ireland that I will pay no attention whatsoever to where you are, what your IP is, etc – so normal, genuine readers should not feel discouraged from reading.  Please, please don’t stop reading and commenting!

TEH AFTERMATHZ

To the Family:  If you’re from the McFaul family (or any other part of it for that matter), with the IP tracking site I will see you and I will block your IP addresses, rendering you unable to access this website.  I don’t care if I have to pay a fortune to maintain that; you have no place here.

If you are concerned that you recognise yourself, then grow the fuck up.  Everything has been, and will continue to be, anonymised.  The lengths that I have gone to to protect you should be appreciated, not condemned.  And if you don’t want to become aware of matters about which I write then don’t fucking read what I write.  Think I’m lying about Paedo?  I don’t give a shit; what I’ve had to go through thouroughly and utterly trumps any disgust you may feel at what I’ve revealed.  Think I’m being unreasonable about how manipulate and oppressive Paedo’s missus is?  Then you’re deluding yourselves.

In short, I won’t go into a closest for you people, and I don’t care if you don’t like it.  Try and read if you want to, but I will stop you; I’m not going to be in the position where I have to try and pay lip service to you here, on my own fucking diary, as well as in ‘real life’.  This journal is my pride and joy, my own little corner to bitch and whine with impunity about my illnesses, to rant and cry about what all of my family have done to me at various points in my life, to explore the weird dynamics of therapy.  And everything else in between.  And it’s staying as it is.

To everyone else:  So I’ve joined the ranks of mentalist bloggers that have been found by real life.  I know I’m in a long-line of such people…how did you handle it?

There’s a good bit more to report than that which has been detailed, mainly in reference to the aftermath of recent discussions with C, but I’ll leave that for another post.

I’ve been absolutely shite at replying to comments, emails and even tweets recently.  I am genuinely sorry for this, and hope you don’t think it means I value each and every one of you less, because I love you people.  I do.  I know I haven’t met most of you, and I don’t even know most of your ‘real’ identities – but it doesn’t matter.  Your feedback, empathy, advice and wonderful support has meant so much to me over the last 11 and a half months.  Here’s to the next 11 and a half years.

Walking home in the rain after meeting a friend for lunch today, it occurred to me how much responsibility is in my hands to not go completely doolally and get myself locked up, or to not end up in a fugue of a notably longer duration than the mini-fugues to which I am ‘used’.

If the police are ever involved in my psychiatric life, then all hell will break loose. I will be fucked. A – and possibly a range of others too – may well be forced to give out information about this blog and the history of my mentalness. If that happens, not only will the peelers (Northern Ireland colloquialism for the cops) probably have to instigate a historical enquiry vis a vis Padeo, but they will have no choice but to contact social services about him, given his access to Marcus, Marcus’s baby brother and a couple of teenage grandchildren that hover about in his life from time to time.

It’s bad enough to have gone through sexual abuse as a child and to have to relive it all so vividly and painfully now. But now I have to be responsible for not losing my mind, when my mind dangles so precariously on a precipice somewhere between semi-sanity and complete insanity. That is not fair. Haven’t I gone through enough? How am I meant to control that which almost by definition is uncontrollable? And yet, the ramifications of not doing so are way too big – life-ruining and terrifying. I am holding it together now, but I know it is by a mere fickle thread.

And, mais oui, I’m effectively being re-traumitised with all this abuse bollocks by psychotherapy, during the middle of which C will just up sticks. How unfair can you get? I know this stuff needs to be psychologically addressed, but it can’t just be done in a few short weeks; it won’t just be OK or even vaguely manageable just like that. Of course, that assumes that I can even talk about it at some point between now and June, and that’s a very big ‘if’. I know from others – bourach and Splintered Ones, most notably – that if specific discussion of these matters comes at all, then it simply cannot be forced. So how am I meant to ever do this with C, given the short timeframe that remains of our relationship? I resent the notion of going private, even though I recognise it as all but inevitable, because I have done (or at the very least have tried to do) my duty to the stupid, hateful Trust by working since I was 16, and happily paying my national insurance to its governing Department during that time. Fuck them. It would serve them right if I never worked again simply so as I could avoid paying them a penny more.

I’m not even going to bother giving discussion of my last session with C its own post as I normally do. It was a complete waste of time; if he wants to play psychological academics, then he should have gone into full-time research, not clinical practice. Not that I mind the psychological academics per se – but I do hate an inordinate amount of time being devoted thereto when there are very real and serious matters that must be addressed now. Otherwise they never will be.

Apparently, I cling to “a tyranny of ‘shoulds’”, particularly regarding the sex abuse, meaning that I am convinced I should discuss the specifics of said rapes etc, I should resolve it in my own mind, blah blah blah blah de fucking blah blah. He thinks I hinder myself by demanding so much of myself in this way, which is probably true – but the alternative is surely even worse. As I told him, if I do not openly share this information with him, then it will remain unprocessed and unresolved. It will only continue to haunt me should that be the case.

I told him that I pretty desperately wanted to talk to him, and he said that that was encouraging – but is it? 14 weeks (or 10, if you account for the four sessions to deal with the cessation of the process) is not enough time to resolve several years of systematic child sexual abuse of almost every conceivable description, not to mention all the other issues – the bullying, the ex, and the continued unresolved shite about my father – and even mother for that matter. How can I be expected to continue to trust him in such circumstances? I mean – I do trust him, but that’s because I am deliberately trying to fool myself into not realising the relative imminence of our last sessions.

C said, to my considerable annoyance, that some people enter therapy expecting to be cured and that that’s not necessarily what it’s about (or words to that effect). I found this patronising in the extreme, especially because I have consistently told him that I don’t want or even believe in cures. What I want, and I do not think this unreasonable, is to fully explore my considerable wealth of issues with someone I trust implicitly and that is trained to explore them with me. This is in the hope that I can adequately process and in part resolve said issues, thus leading to an ability to fucking manage being mental in an everyday, vaguely normal-ish life. Oh, and this can not be achieved using the abject fuckery of either DBT or CBT, which DON’T FUCKING WORK (for me) and are not the panaceatic solutions that the NHbloodyS likes to pretend they are. So if Mr Director-Person tries fobbing me off with that old dog-dirt-coloured chestnut, he’d better be ready for the ongoing fight to step up yet another notch.

C also accused me of playing a game of mental “tug of war” with him, all because I responded to him in some really rather subtlely pass-remarkable fashion. It was a throwaway comment, but it’s not allowed to be throwaway in a psychotherapy session, is it? Everything you say, do, even bloody think (so it sometimes seems) is subject to deep analysis by the alleged science of psychology. Actually, I’m being unfair in being so bitter about that – the dark arts of psychology have helped me a little through C to date, and I do think he is skilled in them.

However, it is a character trait of mine to be unnecessarily – and quite possibly inappropriately – flippant at times. Maybe that means something in the grand scheme of things – I don’t know. But I didn’t think it fair for one particular instance of it to be singled out, especially given that I really didn’t feel I was playing any sort of games with or fighting against C that day.

And that’s really all that happened. A pointless session, just like the one prior to it had been, except on this occasion it was mainly his fault, not mine.

What else? I’m feeling alright – not great, but I’m managing. Thank you, Seroquel, my favourite drug in the entire universe (even though I simultaneously hate it too, because rather like Venlafaxine it fucks with your head if you miss or come off it). The recollections of the abuse prey on my mind, and the sense of yet another imminent abanodonment haunts my consciousness when I allow myself to think of C. IBS troubles me, as do headaches. I’m getting through Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman quite well considering my poor concentration span, and find myself nodding with her analyses at most junctures. Despite taking the drugs at the fairly tame time of 9pm, I’m rarely asleep before 2am, and rarely awake before midday as a consequence.

But for the meantime at least, I’m surviving, if only capriciously. It’s the calm before another storm, I’m sure, but I’ll take the little I get.

I often get the impression that my mother relives her experiences of domestic violence at the hands of my father vicariously through me. I don’t mean that in the sense that she necessarily has visions of me knocking seven bells out of her, or that she sees my face when she recalls violent incidents, but I do believe the contempt she ought to feel for V is projected or transferred onto me in some way (especially as she makes claims of ambivalence towards him specifically). Sometimes when she wants to insult me, she’ll make snide little comments about me resembling my father. Most of the time, though, it manifests as more generalised sorts of complaints and underhand digs.

Those of you that subscribe to my Twitter feed will have read several tweets despairing of things she said to or about me this weekend. I did my duty, and took her out on Friday night for the accursed occasion of Clinton Cards’ Day, otherwise known as Mother’s Day. Think that was a good turn? Think again, apparently.

There were three main insults. It started over dinner in a local restaurant, during a discussion of her refusal to strike during the Ulster Workers’ Strike. I (admittedly quite flippantly) commented that I loved a crisis, to which my mother sneered, advising me that I have “never experienced a real crisis in [my] life.”

Well, quite. As far as you are aware anyway, Mum. Or wait! Were you not made aware of certain crises through which I have gone? Let me think…dum de dum….thinking…processing…aha! YES, you fucking were made thus aware. The only reason that you have failed to capture that awareness in your psyche is that you do not think I am worthy enough of your trust for you to accept the crises about which I have told you (see the latter parts of this post and this one for some details. Of course, the sex abuse incidents are not the only crises I’ve experienced, but they probably are some of the greatest).

I sighed and quietly submitted to her, letting her bang on with whatever wank it was that she wanted to bang on about. A engaged her in conversation, but I remember drifting away from their dialogue, fixating instead on the water feature in the restaurant we were in. The soft, gentle sound of it comforted me, as did the peaceful sight of its rippling along.

Dinner progressed, and eventually ended. For some reason, as the three of us walked home, a conversation regarding BMcC, one of A’s friends, developed.

This requires a bit of context. BMcC is also mental; in fact, he is mostly completely psychotic. He has periods of lucidity, but generally he exists in a complete fantasy world that he regards completely as real. Examples include his contention that he (a republican) invented the Northern Ireland peace process by convincing Sinn Fein to engage with unionists, and that he has been stalked by Johnny ‘Mad Dog’ Adair and minions. Apparently he managed to intimidate Mad Dog and Friends into not shooting him, using the shockingly intimidating weapon of a plate. Hmm.

There are many other delusions and hallucinations of which he has spoken, but the problem is, of course, that since he genuinely believes all of this stuff, he doesn’t think there is anything wrong with him and therefore does not seek medical intervention. My mother has met BMcC on at least one occasion, and although I don’t recall him expressing any overt psychotic thinking at that point, he did exhibit aggression, some paranoia and behaviour inappropriate to the circumstance.

So, anyhow, we discussed BMcC’s probable illnesses, how when he has insight that he is quite an intelligent man and, crucially, what may have caused him to lose his marbles.

A explained that at one point, BMcC had subtlety hinted to our friend G that he had experienced some sort of trauma in his childhood. As most readers of this blog will be well aware, childhood trauma is very frequently linked with certain adult mental illnesses.

My mother’s reaction shocked even me. She said, “but if he went through something bad when he was a child he should have been over it years ago!”

Sorry, Mum, I had completely forgotten that you are an internationally acclaimed psychological philosopher. Through your own adult experience of trauma, you are of course qualified to speak with consummate authority on the effects it has on everyone else who is unfortunate enough to have gone through anything else that comes under that umbrella term.

A and I both immediately leapt to correct this ridiculous assertion. I had a copy of Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery in my bag, and fought against the urge to pull it out and scream at her to educate her ignorant, prejudiced little mind. I didn’t, of course, because then she would ask why I had such a tome. Sometimes I am tempted to tell her the full ramifications of things – but to be honest a lot of my reasoning for doing so would be to spite her, and why rock the boat over something so destructive?

Perhaps I’m hypersensitive at the minute owing to matters in psychotherapy, but for whatever reason I took this comment very personally. She had been looking at me as she said it; I’ve convinced myself that that is a highly significant fact. She wants me to know that if – and it is a major ‘if‘ to her – I did experience any trauma as a kid, that I should be over it now. It is entirely possible that I’m overreacting to this, but that’s my current line of thinking anyway.

So I ranted about this on Twitter, as obviously I couldn’t rant in front of her (though when she left the room I levied ‘V’ signs and mouthed expletives in her general direction). My dear friend Splintered Ones responded, describing my mother as ‘toxic’.

At the time, although I appreciated why that was thought, I disagreed; my mother was tactless, misinformed and willfully ignorant, yes – but surely not ‘toxic’? Whatever the case, I eventually gave up trying to deal with her and went to bed – but I couldn’t stop ruminating on her remarks and how much they had cut me to the bone. It’s irrelevant whether or not she was deliberately being so nasty; the fact is, one way or another, she was.

A told me that he felt he’d found her more backbiting and snide on other occasions, and maybe in general terms he had a point. However, I can only surmise that because therapy has recently been bringing one of my biggest traumas to the fore, that I feel any invalidation of my experiences very deeply and acutely.

Because my sleep had been so non-existent for most of that night, I slept relatively late the next morning. I was awake for a good while before I got up, and heard mumblings of A and my mother in conversation over breakfast, though I didn’t think much of it.

The morning went without significant hitch. She made one or two quietly scornful comments, but this is par for the course. If she didn’t provide such pass-remarkable commentary, I would be concerned for her health. A and I managed to escape about 1pm, and headed home.

I was still pissed off thanks to the night before, and thus a discussion between the two of us about my mother ensued. A told me that prior to my getting up they had had a conversation about my mentalism; in fairness, this mainly consisted of lamentations about the inadequacy of the Trust’s mental health services – but as you may well have guessed, my mother had one or two other choice words to offer.

On this occasion she flat-out denied my having any traumatic history to A, and accused me instead of having a deficient personality that had made me mad. Granted, the term ‘personality disorder’ can be misleading and pejorative, but I have tried to educate my mother about the realities of borderline. If she has failed to take this information on board, then that is her failing, not mine.

When Splintered Ones, in response to a tweet about this, reiterated her position that my mother was toxic, I found myself sadly agreeing.

Even if my mother refuses to believe what I have told her about Paedo, how she can deny that I’ve experienced trauma of at least some description is beyond me. The very knowledge of what my father was really like is traumatic; his willful long-term abandonment of me and decision to deny me anything in his will builds upon that. The effects of the way my first proper romance ended have been long-lasting and profound. Being bullied at school wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs. She is quite well aware of all of these things.

She would argue that Shit Happens, and one should just get over it. Objectively speaking, I can see that rationale; however, two things strike me. Firstly, unfortunately the nasty things in my history did not at all exist in isolation. If I had ‘just’ been bullied at school, for instance, maybe it would have been much easier to overcome; alas, that was not the way my life panned out. Secondly, BPD (and other psychiatric conditions with which I am diagnosed) are thought to exist in individuals with a biological predisposition to them. In effect, this means that what might seem like a relatively ‘minor’ incident to one person elicits in the ‘vulnerable’ amongst us a much deeper and prolonged reaction.

In any case, there’s a certain irrelevance in this information. The fact is, for whatever reason, I am suffering and have suffered. Should her instinct – biologically, intellectually and emotionally – not be to protect me, rather than invalidate me at every juncture? She bangs endlessly on about how ‘blood is thicker than water’ – a statement with which I disagree fundamentally, but if she believes it, why does she consider Paedo more worthy of her trust than me? He is her brother-in-law, after all; I am her daughter.

C thinks that part of my inability to verbally articulate some of the stuff that happened with Paedo is attributable to the fact that my experience of talking about it has been to have it rejected and thrown back in my face. He knows that I know he believes me, but thinks thanks to my mother’s assertion that I was a liar that I nevertheless unconsciously can’t bear the idea of such denials once more. I think he has a point.

I have always failed to live up to her expectations. I am not the child that was wanted; in a way, being fathered by my father, I never could have been. But even with that disability, I was still expected to achieve everything she wanted me to achieve, to do everything she wanted me to do, to be moulded into the exact dull type of philistine that she wanted me to be. In her tunnel-visioned eyes, I was meant to be a popular, happily married barrister with 2.4 children and a devotion to her extended family.

Instead, her not-so-precious offspring is a childfree, jobless and reclusive headcase living in sin and who wishes her extended family would disappear in a black cloud of smoke. Very well educated, maybe, but that’s about the only thing I got right – and even then, only when it suits her. “Oh, Pandora should have got her PhD – but she couldn’t be bothered.” (An assertion that ignores the serious breakdown I had whilst trying to obtain my Masters degree).

For the record, my mother is far, far from as bad a parent as many I’ve heard of, and in many ways I therefore do count myself lucky. I think my annoyance develops from the fact that she thinks she has all but done nothing wrong, that every complaint I register is simply reflective of me and not her. I really believe that that is simply not the case. I have long since given up trying to point it out, though, as I am not sure how much more criticism and bile I can cope with from her.

I know she’s horribly traumatised, and I regret that very deeply. If I could erase the atrocities levied against her by my father, I would in a heartbeat. I love my mother. She is mostly a good person, and she did not deserve any of what happened to her.

By the same token, though, I do not believe that I deserve to be punished for V’s evil.

Fuck it. I am a disappointment. I am a failure. I admit it – nay, I accept it. But it actually shouldn’t matter, should it? I am her daughter. What about the fabled experience of unconditional love that other parents so openly and happily talk about?

In response to this.  See also this update.  I have corrected a few minors errors in the author’s writing and have, as you will see, provided (italicised) annotated notes of the most rational and considered variety.  *cough*

—

Dear Pandora

Advocacy in Accessing Mental Health Services

Thank you for your letter dated 17 December 2009 about accessing our mental health services.  I am glad to note that you have developed a good therapeutic relationship with the clinical psychologist involved in your treatment[,] but am sorry that our services have not met your expectations.  [My "expectations"?  My "expec-fucking-tations"?  No, you miserable old bellend, they are not my "expectations".  They are my fucking needs and requirements!]

I have received feedback from Dr C J confirming that he saw you for the first [time] on the 19 February 2009 and [that] after three assessment interviews an agreed treatment plan was drawn up that offered weekly treatment appointments and also an assurance that an end to therapy would be identified well in advance of a contracted completion.  Dr J [he is not Dr fucking J!  He is C!  I don't care if this is an official fucking letter.  He is fucking C!] agreed with your view that some modest gains had been made during your contact with psychological services [aren't I the fucking lucky one].  He also recognised the complexity of your difficulties and so sought additional input in the form of a referral in May 2009 to [Old]VCB, Consultant Psychiatrist [that should have gone through months beforehand, after a referral from my fucking GP.  Useless twats].  I understand that you continue to be seen by the psychiatric team [yes, after more upheaval, and when they can be bothered, which is really rather infrequently].

At the time of your letter Dr J [FUCK] had made the offer of 24 additional appointments, which would bring your contact with him to an end at about the first week in June 2010, a treatment duration of about 16 months [actually, that is incorrect.  There will be 59 sessions, three of which were assessments, and four of which will be to end the process.  This gives an exact total of 52 therapy-specific sessions, which surely even in your clearly deficient brain equals a total of 12 months.  Fuck you.]. Dr J [fuck fuck fuck] expressed the hope that within these sessions, which would span approximately six months [my God, I would never have realised], [that] further work could be done that would help towards resolving, dealing with or managing your ongoing mental health difficulties.

It is clear that you have a good knowledge of the NICE guideline[s] on the treatment and management of borderline personality disorder [Hmm.  You are telling me that I know something that I know.  That was a productive use of your secretary's typing time].  Overall as the guidance states, the evidence base for individual psychological therapies in the treatment of borderline personality disorder is “relatively poor”.  Specifically, however[,] it recommends that brief therapies (under three months) should not be used.  Much of the guidance relates to provision within a specialist Personality Disorder Service.  The availability of twice weekly sessions, group psychotherapies and integrated team treatments [what the fuck?] are [sic] largely to be found within those highly specialist services [oh really, I had no idea Mr Director Important Person, thanks for clarifying].

The <Trust in question> does not have such a service [aha, and that's clearly the fault of the patient.  Nevermind the NICE guidelines saying in the absence of such a "service" that adequate generic therapy should be used.  Fuck you again], although we, along with all other local Trusts, are involved in the development of a regional approach to Personality Disorder services across Northern Ireland [wowee, I'm so profoundly impressed] and have recently interviewed for two specialist workers [two?  A whole TWO?  That's extraordinary!  Congratulations sir!].  Therefore we are planning to develop our services to people with personality disorders [I therefore assume that I can take this letter as confirmation that these "services" will be fully accessible by me...?].

As you state it is important that clients have access to a full range of mental health services appropriate to their needs.  We try [and fail] to ensure that needs are assessed in a collaborative way [hahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!] that involves both clients and mental health professionals [well, then.  That has been an epic fail!].  I would encourage you [who the fuck do you think you are, my father?  Fuck you in triplicate] to discuss these matters with the two professionals that you currently attend [yeah, because I haven't done that already.  Fuck you x4].  The Crisis Team provides mental health assessment and support outside 9am to 5pm hours in the working week, and can be accessed if appropriate through the out of hours primary care service [well, fuck me sideways with a broomstick.  I had no idea what the Crisis Team did, thanks for providing me with a lit pathway to therapeutic enlightenment.  Fuck you mark five].

Dr J [FUUUUUCK!!!] has confirmed that you have continued to attend his sessions following the writing of your letter [what was I meant to do?  Fuck a goat?  Oh wait, that's exactly what I was meant to do, right?  "The bitch is borderline, so she must be non-compliant with treatment and will instead go out and fuck anything to temporarily fulfill her emotional voids"]. I would hope [oh would you really?] that despite their finite nature you could still use the upcoming sessions to make progress.

Yours sincerely

Abject Twatfeatured Spetum-Faced Tosspot
Director of Mental Health and Disability Services

—

So.  He has succeeded in providing me with:

1. A chronology of events.  Woohoo.  Obviously the stupid mental couldn’t possibly know that she saw these individuals, nevermind know in which order she saw them, even less what they said!  Particularly when she’s an immature, manipulative borderline freak. So thank you, Mr Important Director Person, you have made my life and mental health treatment complete!
2. A commentary on the fact that I know what I know.  A tremendously useful and productive use of his time and mine; after all, I couldn’t know what I already know unless he told me, could I?
3. Um…that’s about it.

Altogether an epic success, I’m sure you’ll agree.

The letter is dated 17 February (how it took him two months to compose the above I’ll never know) and it actually arrived at Mum’s house a good while ago.  I made her read it down the phone to me, so I was aware of its content, but I only collected it the other day, and had (until now) refused to look at it.  I thought that due to its high degree of pointlessness and its utter failure to assuage my concerns, that it would upset me considerably.  After all, this is about the cessation of my relationship with C, which is an incredibly traumatic thing to contemplate.

However, when C asked about it this morning (blog to follow – big update on the beard!), I somewhat surprisingly found myself wryly amused as I reported a redacted version of its contents to him.  Therefore I’ve come home and written it up and am pleased to say that I still find it amusing rather than upsetting, probably because it doesn’t actually say anything.  OK, there’s maybe six or seven hundred words there, but it doesn’t actually – at any juncture – make any salient points at all.  It is a vacuum of a letter.  It is a nothing.  Empty space seems full relative to this page of black and white nonsense.  I’m glad it was printed on both sides of the sheet as I would have hated to see any more wood senselessly wasted on something so fruitless and silly.

Given the amount of money this moron is paid, I should really be rather angry, as well as disappointed and lost as to what to do next.  Instead, fair play to him, as he’s given me a laugh…and, in fact, some hope.  If someone with such poor (written) oratorical skills and an intellect clearly directly comparable to that of an earthworm can rise to such a lofty position within a large organisation, then my dream job is surely still within my reach.

In conclusion…FUCK YOU ONCE MORE, Mr Director Wankface Important Daft Person!

So.  After the misery of January and the earlier part of this month, I had thought that things were beginning to find more of an even keel.  That perhaps the Quetiapine / Venlafaxine ( / psychotherapy?) combination might be starting to yield some results.  My motivation is still shockingly low, but my mood is higher than it has been in quite a while.  To steal a rating scale from Bippidee, let’s assume that we can grade one’s mood from 0 – 10, where 0 equals “DIE DIE DIE DIE” and 10 does not equal happy, skippy, jumpy but instead nearly functional-ish.  I think I’d maybe reached a 4 or 5?  Not good by any stretch of the imagination, but any improvements are to be welcomed when one is at one’s utter wit’s end.  Even A commented that my mood has seemed markedly superior (not that that’s the right word) recently, so it must have been quite evident.

Alas.  These evil bastarding illnesses don’t disappear because one has a few less shit days.  I had a very productive session with C on Thursday (blog to follow, mais oui), but it left me thinking about some shit that I don’t really want to think about, mainly about the stupid fucking sex abuse (like that’s the only difficulty I’ve ever faced in my life.  Why the hell am I fixating on it?).  Moreover, my mother – I am not unconvinced deliberately – made a particularly insulting comment vis a vis same a mere few hours later (details in the forthcoming C post).  Consequently, this stuff has been swirling around in my psyche for a few days, though I thought I was handling it quite well, as my mood remained on the less-shit-than-completely-and-utterly-shit level.

Or, more accurately, it did ostensibly.  However, beneath the surface the madness bubbles smugly in its little cauldron of neurons and silly levels of dopamine and eventually, when you least expect it, it attacks.

I made the stupid decision to go on a drinking bender yesterday.  Well, I say ‘bender’, but by comparison to some piss-ups I’ve frequented, it was actually relatively subdued.  Nevertheless, one should not be consuming alcohol when taking anti-psychotics.  I’ve always ignored rules on alcohol and medication, and have never encountered any noticeable side-effects, but then all of these tablets are different in how they interact with one’s personal physiology.

Anyway, all was going well up until the point at which A and I met G, our friend about whom I blogged on the DBT philosophy post.  Not that there’s anything wrong with G; he doesn’t act as some sort of intellectual trigger or something.  No, the reason it went wrong at this point was that it is the last point of which I have any recollection.

I woke up this morning in my own bed, fully clothed.  I must confess that I wondered at the time if I’d done anything mad…but I didn’t think it would be quite as bad as it turned out to be.

My party piece had apparently been to pass flat out in the disabled toilet.  Classy, SI.  A had begun to think I’d slit my wrists in there, and ergo G asked the barwoman if she would check the toilets to see if I remained in this plane of existence.  Unfortunately I did, but was lying there, flat-out unconscious.

I have to admit that in retrospect, this seems amusing – albeit in a twisted sort of way.  Stupid cow had too much to drink and fell asleep in the pisser, chortle chortle!  But it’s really not so funny when I actually think about it.  I have never passed out owing to alcohol before – and as I say, some days gone by make yesterday look fairly tame.  What’s more, I’ve never experienced such long-term memory loss like some people do as the result of pissing it up.  A few details get lost amongst all the murdered brain cells, certainly, but not hours of material.  It’s like an entire chapter has been ripped from a book, and the only thing that I really feel I can compare it to is the amnesia from a severe dissociative episode, like some of the fugues that have been my absolute joy to behold.

The story continues.  A brought me home, not unreasonably.  And there I really, really lost it.  He doesn’t recall most of the specifics exactly, but whatever the case I lodged a barrage of completely ridiculous and unfair allegations and insults at him.  Subsequent to which I levied them at myself – I’m a fetid, disgusting slutty whore, apparently.  Well, at least I got something right during this epic rant of stupidity and vicious pointlessness.

I am reminded somewhat of the behaviour that gave rise to this post, though at least my mind has the common courtesy to allow me to remember what happened in that incident.  Last night’s events were not as serious as that, and as far as I know there was no overt psychosis involved, but nionetheless – the stream of abuse that came out of my grotesque little mouth is simply unacceptable.  More lines crossed.  More boundaries of common fucking decency transgressed.

My current self-view is that I am a evil, utterly vile, indescribably despicable bitch of Satan.  Not, as a committed atheist, that I believe in Satan’s existence, but you take my point.  Oh yeah, and the fetid whore thing still rings true.  A said that my apparently unwavering belief that I am a slut is something that needs to be discussed with C in therapy.  Well.  Quite.

Perhaps the most bizarre thing about all this is that despite my complete self-disgust and total horror at what I’ve done, I’m actually still in a (relatively) favourable frame of mind.  I’ve gone about punching myself as punishment, but I don’t feel that overwhelming need to self-harm that one does when the strength of one’s depression is crippling.  I’ve actually managed to have a relatively non-shite day with A despite his revelations about what a complete twat I was.

So anyhow, I apologised to him and then started deriding myself a la the last-but-one paragraph.  He accepted my apology and refuted my blather of self-disgust, though I am clueless as to how he can hold me in any positive regard whatsoever.  And then…this is the best of it…my appalling behaviour was rewarded with breakfast in fucking bed.  I am a lucky girl.

My assessment as to the causation of the blackout is that it must have been attributable mainly to the combination of alcohol and Quetiapine, though I do think I must have been unconsciously harbouring some major stress.  Certainly, the outbust thereafter would indicate that – the actual catalyst might have been booze, but the content of the rant strongly speaks to me of underlying and unprocessed psychological bullshit.

However, that simply isn’t an excuse.  A may defend me on the grounds that I’m “mental”, but I don’t think that – or anything else – is a valid defence.  Being mental does not give one carte blanche to scapegoat the most important people in one’s life for things in which they were and are absolutely uninvolved.  No, the only human characteristic that deems that permissible is one that is strongly in evidence in my personality: that of being an abject cunt.

Thanks, anti-psychotics.  You’re doing a fabulous job.  I’m still actively suicidal, fighting every second not to give in to my overwhelming desire to top myself, and now, as well as hearing ‘They’, I’m seeing fucking gnomes walking down the street, and strange shapes floating past my direct vision.

The gnome ignored me, like.  It just walked past, without even making eye contact.  I could have sworn it was real, but A (who was there at the time of the sighting) assures me that that is not the case.  Rational Me accepts that, I suppose, but it was so desperately convincing.  It wore a vibrantly coloured outfit consisting of a green hat (with a white bauble at the end), a red blazer and blue trousers.  A foot-high walking rainbow of sheer vibrancy.  It had a little white beard; one of those ones that sort of goes into a point underneath its chin and which was devoid of the mustache element.  It had a thin, almost gaunt, face, and walked along with its hands firmly nestled in its pockets (I resisted the urge to write “…its handses…in its pocketses” just there.  This is like something out of Lord of the fucking Rings).

The gnome didn’t look too happy, as if maybe it was having issues in its life.  I wonder to what extent its personal difficulties were compounded by its strange, etheral job of going about ‘haunting’ psychotic mentals like me.

What does it mean?  It wasn’t real, was it?  If not, why did I see it?  Why???  Previous hallucinations have, in general, had purposes – mostly nefarious, admittedly, but purposeful nevertheless.  But the gnome just walked past me.  I don’t have any particular fetish for gnomes, for Christ’s sake, and only give them any thought when the subject comes directly up, which as you might imagine is not frequently.  It is a bit of a niche interest, let’s be honest.

I saw the gnome on Thursday night.  Despite the subject matter of yesterday’s post, I hadn’t slept at all on Wednesday, stupidly having forgotten to bring my medication with me to my mother’s (where I stay the night before each Thursday morning session with C).  It could, therefore, have simply been a bizarre product of insomnia.

But I don’t think so.  I’m so completely used to insomnia lasting weeks, and it’s only after such lengthy periods of sleep deprivation in the past that I’ve become even remotely psychotic.  Irritable, lethargic and depressed yes, but not psychotic.  So surely one night alone surely couldn’t have done it.

It could be simply the change-over in anti-psychotics, I suppose, but that too seems unlikely given as, relative to the dose of Olanzapine, the dose of Quetiapine is so much higher.

Other weird stuff has been happening since the gnome was observed by me.  I keep seeing shadowy shapes slide past me, just within the range of my peripheral vision.  At first I thought it was the cats, but I ruled that out very quickly.  One or two examples of this wouldn’t remotely concern me, as there are surely a million and one everyday explanations for such nebulous sightings – but the sheer frequency of these occurrences in the last few days seems to me to be more than coincidence.

I genuinely want to cease to be.  I spent basically all the 50 minutes with C on Thursday (I’ll try and write about that tomorrow or Wednesday, not that there’s much more than “I want to die” x ad infinitum to say) yelling at him that I wanted to die, and I do; I really, really do.  And now my descent into madness seems less gradual than it previously did.  I genuinely don’t know what’s real and what’s not any more.  I fear for the future, if indeed I have one.

In the last few days the title of this blog has become something of a misnomer.  Ha – no, I’m hugely playing it down in saying that – it is a complete misnomer.  I am not anything even remotely approaching an insomniac.  I am afflicted with a severe case of hypersomnia, sleeping as I have been circa 18 hours a day.

One cannot win in this quest for a “normal” level of soporific unconsciousness.  During long, bleak nights of seemingly endless insomnia, I begged whatever higher powers may or may not exist for sleep of the magnitude that I am now experiencing.  But now I realise that this is not such a fortunate state either.  Aside from the complete and utter waste of a life that such lengthy periods of slumber represents, the unconsciousness itself is not entirely pleasant.

I crave restful, deep, peaceful sleep.  For God’s sake, I need restful, deep, peaceful sleep.  But will my mind and body play ball?  Will they fuck.

The quality of the sleep is absolutely pathetic.  Of the approximate 18 hours that I am spending in the land of nod, I would estimate that 16 or 17 are spent in that most irritating of states – the doze.  Dozing has its place, of course, but as the staple of one’s sleeping diet, it hardly allows for desired levels of daily functioning.  What’s more, because it’s not a deep sleep, it allows for dreams.

Thankfully, I have generally not been especially prone to nightmares, except as a result of medication, and indeed I could probably not say that the current dreams are nightmares as such.  But they are incredibly and grotesquely vivid and real, and I would say they even encompass more real-world awareness than one should expect when supposedly asleep.  I don’t remember them after I wake, though I recall general points of some.  All I know for certain is that they leave me disturbed, confused and in a cold sweat.

I know I shouldn’t be complaining; getting any sleep is better than none at all, especially when all my waking hours are totally consumed with the words, “I want to die” being played in a constant loop in my mind.  But it’s not fair on A that I am such non-existent company, and it’s not fair on me that I have to endure this barrage of torturous mental images daily and nightly.  Well, actually, it’s perfectly fair on me as it happens; I deserve it.  But that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I attribute the hypersomnia to two main factors.  One is that I am in the middle of a major depression anyway, and hypersomnia is well-known in that state (though of course so is insomnia).  Secondly, and perhaps even more pertinently, this could well be a reaction to Quetiapine.  One of its key side effects when one first starts taking it is sedation.  When I was first told of that, I was of course very glad.  I thought it would behave, vis a vis sleep, just like Zopiclone or something – it would knock you out overnight, but leave you mostly OK the following day.

But sadly it was not to be.  Anti-psychotics are, of course, infamous for spacing people out, not for bringing about a restful sleep and here we are; that is what it’s done to me.  I am assured it will pass, which is something to be grateful for, but of course my concern  in that regard is that then I will simply see the reinstatement of my trademark chronic insomnia.  That would be distinctly unwelcome.

So meh.  It’s either a famine or it’s a fucking feast.

Even though it’s just a litany of whining misery and suicidal self-hatred, I’ve really become rather fond of this blog. I’ve certainly put a lot of work into both its content and, since the move to a self-hosted WordPress domain, its aesthetics. I even invested money in moving it to its own domain, so that’s my committment to it. In short, despite my sometime criticism of my writing, in subtle ways I am proud of this journal, and have found it to have become a very significant part of my life.

I don’t want to stop writing. I really don’t. I want this blog to chronicle all my future negotiating of NHS (and possibly private) mental health services, all my thoughts, emotions, psychoses, episodes of all descriptions – the works vis a vis my mental illnesses. I want it for my own benefit, and I want it for others. I wish blogging had been in existence when I was a teenager, as I don’t think I would have felt quite so horribly alone back then had I been able to read that others were in exactly the same boat.

The problem is this. I am right in the midst of a major depression. I want to die. I have no energy, I have no focus, I hardly even have any thoughts beyond how much I don’t want to exist. I am consumed by my complete and utter misery. Typing a fucking Twitter message at 140 characters or less is a desperate effort, so you can imagine how profoundly difficult blogging is.

I am forcing myself to write this – and it is genuinely a physical effort that feels on a par with the gym on a bad day – because I know if I don’t write it, that the blog will progressively fall by the wayside, and that is the last thing I want. But I am not sure how much longer I can sustain any writing. Part of my all-consuming lethargy is probably attributable to the introduction of Quetiapine into my medication cocktail, but the cycle of depression had started before I started taking it, so it’s not entirely to blame. Ergo, in short, I’m concerned that even if the sedative effects of my new medication do pass soon, that I’ll still be finding it hard to write this blog.

I am not the first person to be afflicted by a major depressive episode that has a blog. How do the rest of you sustain your writing when your mood is at its lowest? Any advice would be appreciated.

A often tells me that I should describe how I feel whilst in the middle of an episode, so let me see how well I can do that:

• Suicidal ideation. I’ll not act on it in this state though – I simply do not have the energy to try to kill myself. Nevertheless, I’m completely pre-occupied with my death and how I can bring it about.
• Distracted, unmotivated. I can’t concentrate on anything. This post has been written in bits and pieces, has taken ages and is probably still disjointed and figuratively illegible.
• Emptiness. I don’t know how to describe this any better
• Worthless, listless. I have no function. I am pointless and (justifiably) disenfranchised and useless.
• Apathy. I don’t care about anything, and that includes feeling better. I can’t explain this; I feel so indescribably low and miserable, but I couldn’t care less about feeling less low and miserable. I just don’t care. I can only assume that that is because it seems like too much effort.
• Self-hate. Not as strong as it could be, though; I don’t have the energy to hate myself as much as I sometimes do. But I still do feel self-disgust. I feel worthless and horrid and fetid and disgusting.
• Lack of interest in anything. I don’t want to engage in anything that ordinarily gives me pleasure, including this writing. It has taken me absolutely ages to get to this point, and it is still requiring every last ounce of willpower that I have (which isn’t very much).
• Lethargy, exhaustion. I am utterly buggered. All I want to do is sleep. Despite my moniker on this blog, insomnia has been less of an issue (presumably) thanks to my new medication (I’m still waking at random times and finding it hard to get back to sleep, but that’s better than no sleep at all). I’m oversleeping at the moment, actually – maybe 10 or 12 hours on and off – but I am still absolutely shattered. All I want to do is sleep.
• Inability to concentrate. So forgive me if this is a bizarre entry.
• Psychotic. ‘They’ are hassling me. Not in the all-consuming way that they did in October and December, but they’re babbling on and on and on at the back of my head, with their usual ‘slut’, ‘whore’, ‘bitch’ mantras. I don’t have the energy to ignore or rail against them.
• Don’t want to talk to anyone. Self-explanatory.
• Sick of do-gooding. Ah yes, well-meaning interference…

This is going to make me sound like a miserable sod, perhaps with good reason, but I am so sick of peoples’ good intentions. I am not sick of good people’s support for me of course, but there are certain misguided manifestations of that that are driving me up the walls.

Telling me that I should remain in existence because I am intelligent or kind or whatever positive adjective you find appropriate does not make a blind bit of difference to how I feel. I still want to die. Wittering on about how I should have a course of CBT because getting better “can be that simple” denies the truth that CBT is a patronising load of wank, touted as a mental illness panacea by a government hell-bent on reducing costs, whatever they may say to the contrary. I still want to die. Telling me I have to “think more positively” serves frankly only to make me want to punch you in the face. I still want to die. It is not that simple.

I have a mental illness. I am not just having a bad few days; I am mentally fucking ill. Yes, I’m lucky that people care, but there are limits to that in terms of how they present their concern. Some of those that are engaging in this well-intentioned but horribly intrusive do-gooding I don’t even know well. How can they consider it appropriate to get involved in discussion of my (poor) health at all, let alone express such profound failures of understanding about the diseases with which I am afflicted?

Right now I don’t care if I get better. I just crave the comfort of unconsciousness, whether that is death or whether it is more bloody sleep. I am grateful for people’s simple understanding, and their offers to be there for me should I wish to avail of them, but their well-meaning pursuit of dialogue that goes beyond that merely serves to irritate.

I know I’m selfish and nasty and horrible for even thinking these things, and I know I should be grateful and to that end I’m sorry, but I’m so fucking miserable that I don’t care. It took me all my time to write this shit so I’m going to publish it anyway. At least it chronicles one of the bad days in an accurate, if intensely negative, fashion. Let’s see if I can manage to write up last week’s C session whilst continuing to endure this abject psychological torture. Hedge your bets now, my dears!

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen the other day that I had asked the Twitterverse how difficult it was to change one’s name by deed poll (it turns out that it’s actually very easy, if logistically something of a pain in the arse).

I have been thinking about changing my surname for ages – at least two years.  During that time I’ve been fairly to absolutely sure of the new name that I would adopt, and I think I have thought through all the ramifications of the whole thing properly.

Despite what many people think, there is no official or central register of name changes in the UK.  Theoretically, you can simply write a letter yourself stating your intention to use a new name, though that tends not to work much in practice when you involve banks and passport agencies and the like.  The lack of such a register means that you have to inform everyone yourself – preferably using certified copies of your deed poll – of your new name.

This includes passport agencies, driving licensing authorities, the health service (and specific services therein that you use), banks, credit and ‘store’ cards, insurance companies, utility companies, pension companies – the list goes on.  That’s not even considering your personal contacts.  It’s a profound logistical hassle.

But, for me, it is worth it.  I have long since hated the fact that I have links to my father via my name, as of course the man was a detestable piece of shit.  This was exacerbated after the whole kerfuffle over V’s will; I don’t want to share the same name as my American relatives either, after them virtually glorifying my ‘father’ and then stealing my bloody money.  I want to sever connections with that whole side of the family absolutely and completely, and this gesture is a symbolic way of doing so.

Furthermore, my surname is a completely shit one.  So much so that it was the brunt of endless verbal pestering when I was at school, which wasn’t exactly fun (not that that was what made me so inherently miserable there, but the name-calling and teasing certainly didn’t help).

I haven’t discussed changing my name with with C, although I probably should.  Perhaps this can be touched upon briefly tomorrow.  I did discuss it in some detail with Margaret, the CBT therapist I saw in 2008, and she felt that if I was prepared to go through the hassle of informing everyone, that changing my name could bring some “closure” [hate that word] on the many mental health issues I have that are attributable (at least in part) to V.  To be honest, I think that’s a very simplistic way of looking at it – changing my name is not going to change what he did to me, nor to my mother.  However, it’s one thing I can do to publicly acknowledge that I want no part in his legacy.  A token gesture, some might say, but I think it’s an important one.

I determined towards the end of last year that if I was going to do it, I was going to do it in 2010.  So yesterday (as intimated last night on Twitter) I took a deep breath, filled in the online deed poll application, and – after dithering a bit – hit ‘submit’.

The lack of a central register means that my name is not changed at all until I sign and date the deed poll (which should be with me by early next week), and in practice it remains unchanged until I send the certified copies to the aforementioned agencies and they update their systems, my cards, etc.  But I’ve taken the first step – and as I said, it’s a big step, in my view, as I have lived with this name for over 26 years.

I’m really nervous about what I am doing, but it’s a new start in a kind of symbolic way, and to that end I’m terribly excited too.

So up yours, V, and up yours, V’s family, for contributing to my being completely batshit mad.  Shortly I will have no links with you whatsoever other than my mother and genetics, and I cannot wait.

Let’s deal with these chronolgically and, coincidentally, in order of bad to good.

FAIL

On 17 December, I wrote to two mental health advocacy groups (Mindwise and the Northern Ireland Association for Mental Health) regarding the whole ‘you can only have 24 more sessions’ bullshit with C.  Both have now responded, and both have represented something of an epic fail.

Mindwise simply told me to discuss the matter with my consultant psychiatrist, as “they would be the ones making the decision”.  Well, I will, when I see my (new!) consultant on 20 January (over a month late, might I add).  However, as regular readers will know, Psychiatry have been one of the problems I’ve been having with the NHS during this most recent breakdown (though to be fair, this was not outlined in the letter).

Talk about passing the fucking buck.  It was simply a case of pushing responsibility onto someone else, and not wanting to tackle my case themselves.  Is it because I is borderline?  Everyone hates a borderline, innit.

Should the meeting with the psychiatrist not yield results, though, I am going to write pompously back to these tossers and demand their assistance.  Either that or the media will be learning of their incompetence and unwillingness to help a mentally ill individual, which is exactly what they exist for.

I heard from NIAMH yesterday.  Apparently, their advocacy service does not operate in my Trust area.

Forgive me, but is it not the NORTHERN FUCKING IRELAND Association for Mental Health?!  At no point does the name of the charity remotely infer that it is not operational across the entire country.  How, then, can they not operate in my Trust area?  Is it because I is borderline?  Everyone hates a borderline, innit.

In fairness, at least they did suggest some sort of action I could take.  They said I should try the Trust’s Patient Council service, who apparently deal with matters like this.

I will heed their advice, especially given that a Twitter friend had some results via the Patient Council in his area, but not until I have heard back from the Trust, who were copied in on the original letter.

POSSIBLE WIN

As you know, the advocacy letter was copied to the Chief Executive of the Trust.  Not wanting to be arsed himself, the individual in question passed my letter to the Director of Mental Health services.

This bloke wrote back to me a few weeks ago, telling me that he had requested more information and that he would be in touch once he had received same.  I have not heard more from him yet, but am hopeful that the mere act of kicking up a fuss like this and threatening to contact the politicians and the media might be enough to get some action from him.

I won’t hold my breath, of course, but I will cross my fingers.

WIN

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!  Asshole GP has backed down!

Apparently, Dr Bellend/Twatbag/Arsehole/whatever-else-I-called-him “would like to apologise” and accepts that his attitude fell short of “desirable [surely 'necessary'?] professional standards”.  Ha!  Muah-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

The letter went so far as to offer me the opportunity to meet the Practice Manager and Dr Knobjockey to further discuss the matter.  I will not accept the invitation, but I suppose it was good of them to offer it.

As I have generally been well supported by the practice (recently, at least), I won’t be a dick over this.  I’ll write back and accept Dr Fuckwit’s apology, and just hope that I won’t have to see him again.

MEH

And that, folks, is the latest news on that front.  I feel smugly satisfied about the GP letter result, but of course am rather disappointed that the advocacy charities are not actually doing anything that remotely resembles advocacy.  But we shall see how this continues to play out over the next few weeks.

Christmas and the arrival of 2010 have seen some disruption to your usual service from SI. It seemed impossible to get a chance to write on the latest C session, given as these post seem to be the most ridiculously detailed.

This post shouldn’t be overly detailed, as a lot of it was repetitive bullshit regarding the annoyances of the previous week. Nevertheless, here we go.

Upon leaving C’s company the previous week, we had agreed that we would use week 35, the last week before a break of three weeks owing to Christmas, as a session to discuss how I would manage the so-called festive season.  In reality, that bit ended up taking approximately five minutes at the end, and although it was ever so slightly more helpful than some of the nonsense he’s come off with at other breaks (“breathe!”), it was still not entirely helpful.  But then again, he’s not my guardian, is he?  Much as I would like it that way.

I say we were flogging a dead horse because the majority of the discussion centred around the same crap we had discussed over the previous week (leave a comment or get in touch if you need the password) and the week before that, ie. my anger and distress about his decision to cut short my treatment, and my general disgust about the NHS’s abject failure to adequately treat me since I first sought help for my mental health problems.  I do understand that in some ways maybe C sees exploring my reactions to this as a form of projection or transference, and maybe in some ways it is: perhaps I feel so rejected and aggrieved because that’s how I was meant to feel about my father, uncle, ex, etc etc.

However, it endlessly frustrates me that I cannot just simply be angry because I have been so horribly fucked about by the health service.  Again, in this session, C reiterated that the 24 week limit (starting from tomorrow) was his decision; he said he was “not a robot” controlled by the NHS.

It completely contradicts all the stuff he says about my right to be annoyed and about how BPD should really be treated, and we went round and round in circles on how I could not reconcile his two contrasting views, and about how he either couldn’t or wouldn’t explain it properly.

I also, having decided as a result of the preceding week that he hated me, went to find out whether or not this was indeed the case.

I said, “if I ask you a question, will you promise not to answer with a question?”

He shifted uncomfortably, then admitted that he was unsure as to whether or not this was achievable.

I asked him anyway, on the proviso that if I thought he was “blagging” his way through his answer I would pull him up on it.

He did come off with the form bullshit such as, “why is it important for you to know that?” and whatnot, but I was pleased when he finally admitted that he too had found the preceding week “frustrating”.  So he is a human after all!

He said that I had been “very angry” with him, which I thought was unfair.  I told him that I genuinely hadn’t been angry with him, merely the system, until he confessed to having been the one that decided on the time limit.

“But you were angry with me then,” he pointed out.

“Yes,” I said.  “You had seemed so supportive of me prior to that; you agreed that my situation was wholly unfair.  Then you completely contradicted that by admitting to this arbitrary limit crap.”

And so back we went to flagellating that deceased equine.  More questioning demands from me, more bullet-dodging from him, no progress from either of us.

He had asked me in week 34 to seriously consider whether or not to continue with therapy, as I “had” to agree to the time limit as part of the contract (which strikes me as being quite unreasonable, as contracts are meant to be negotiated rather than forced in this type of setting).  Apparently if I don’t accept the limit, I cannot continue treatment.

“On that note,” I told him, “I am prepared to accept it, but only if you accept – because this works both ways – that I am going to fight it.”

He asked what I meant by ‘fighting’ it, prompting me to withdraw a copy of the letter to the advocacy groups out of my pocket.

“It’s only fair that you read that, given that you’re going to be involved,” I told him, handing the document over.  He took it and began reading.

I sat there and watched him reading it for a minute or two, then stood up and walked to the window, knowing perfectly well that he would almost certainly comment on this, as he had done two weeks previously.  Indeed, he didn’t disappoint.

“I’m wondering why you got up, SI…” he pondered, as he continued reading the letter.

“It’s not reflective of anything,” I spat cynically.  “I’m not denying my hurt or failing to face up to my problems.  I’m simply looking out the window whilst you are occupied with reading that.  Am I not allowed to get up, C?”

He shrugged and muttered something along the lines of that I was, in fact, allowed to get up, then continued reading in silence.

He eventually looked up and said, encouragingly, “it’s a good letter.  Who all are you going to send it to?”

I told him about the advocacy groups, Mindwise and the NI Association for Mental Health.

I was astonished – and delighted – when he then proceeded to actively encourage me to also send it to both the Chief Executive of my Trust, and the head of the mental health directorate of same.  In the end, he forgot to give me the person’s name, but as it turns out it’s been passed to him anyway (more details on how the letter has progressed in a future post).

C said, “you’ve also made reference there to people I think are in England – perhaps it would also be worth adding information about provision for personality disorders in other Northern Ireland Trusts.”

I asked him what such provision existed, knowing that people with the most serious PDs are in fact sent to specialist units in England as there are no facilities to treat them here at all.

C said a self-harm team exists in one of the other Trusts here.  “Although not everyone who self-harms has BPD, and not everyone with BPD self-harms, they would probably see a disproportionately high rate of people with your diagnosis,” he said.  “No such team exists in this Trust at the minute.  There’s discussion ongoing about making the existing team a regional, cross-Trust one, but it hasn’t yet come to anything.”

He talked on for a few minutes about plans our Trust has for action on personality disorders, and how they don’t seem to much be coming to fruition.  But the best part of the session was when he asked me if he could have a copy of the letter.

“I think it would be good for my line managers to know how you feel about all this,” he said.  He went on to say something (I don’t recall what) indicating that there might be some benefit to me in this, but was very quick to point out that it was my choice as to whether or not he did take a copy for them.  I readily agreed, of course, delighting in his apparent desire to act as my advocate to the bureaucrats above him.

Now, of course, I am convinced that he took the letter so he and his twatfaced bosses of evil can formulate some plan of self-defence in advance of hearing from the advocacy groups.  It was not in my interest at all – merely their own.  No doubt over the next few weeks we’ll see which way it actually is.

Eventually – I don’t remember how – I said that he must get sick of his job, what with all the whinging he would have to listen to.  “I accused you of being a sadist a few weeks back,” I said.  “Now I think you’re a mashochist.”

He accused me (sympathetically, to be fair to him) of splitting, which on reflection makes me slightly irritated, but at the time I agreed and called myself all the names of the day for employing this “silly psychological process.”

C leapt to my defence.  He said he knew that I had long since known I was guilty of splitting, but that it’s now “emotional for [me]“, not just something I recognise intellectually.  And it is OK, I do not need to berate myself for it, because I have suffered serious traumas, apparently, that have caused this defence mechanism (which is not silly, he contends) to develop.

On that note, as I recall it anyhow, we moved on to the discussion about the dreaded Christmas.

C’s advice was basically to get the fuck out if I felt anxious or overwhelmed.  I said that was easy to say, but he didn’t have to listen to my mother’s wrath if I did so.

He advised me to talk to her in advance, but I protested against this as well.  “When I told her about what happened with my uncle, she said I made it up to avoid going to his house,” I reminded C.  “So how can I justify my anxiety?”

“Blame your crowd phobia,” C said.  “She can’t be critical of that, can she?  There will be a crowd there, won’t there?

“Yes,” I replied.  “And they’re all part of the problem – it’s not all about my history with my uncle.  I have nothing in common with them and it’s a weird matriarchal set-up, where about 18 different generations all live under the same roof.  They’re freaks.”

He said, “are there children living there?”

I was horrified.  He was obviously wondering if anyone else is presently at risk from Paedo.

“Now you’re angry with me for putting the baby and all the other generations in danger.  I’m sorry,” I raced, in a bizarre panic.

C looked at me, his eyes wide-open.  “Where did that come from?” he enquired, surprised.

“Oh, you’re not angry with me?  Then I’m using you as a board for my anger at myself, am I?”

“OK, you’ve lost me,” he admitted.  “Just…just remember – get out.  Talk to your mother in advance, blame your crowd phobia if you have to, but if you feel yourself becoming tense, get out of there, even if only for a few minutes.  Allow yourself to be anxious about this.  How could you not be?”

And that, folks, was really that.  Of course, you know how ridiculously awful Christmas turned out to be, but I did remove myself from the others when I went so horribly mental, so I suppose I did at least follow the advice given.

As I was leaving, I wished him a Merry Christmas.  He said, admittedly cautiously, “you too,” causing me to laugh bitterly.  I think he knew that it was inevitable that the season would be utterly shite.

So, the three week gap is due to be over tomorrow.  Of course, I am convinced that C is dead again; either that or therapy will be cancelled due to the stupid, horrible, pointless fucking snow, and I need him so desperately at the minute.  Though I have not heard anything about a cancellation today, and I suppose I would have expected an advanced notification were the snow to fuck everything up on the monumental scale that it has in Britain.

The last time he was on holiday, in August, I didn’t miss him that much.  But this time I have, and I need him to help me pick up the pieces of the last few weeks.

Wasn’t it 1992 that the Queen said was her annus horribilis?  Well, let’s fast forward 17 years to now, New Year’s Eve, 2009. This year has turned out to be the annus horribilis of your humble narrator – mostly. I’ve been on the brink of sectioning on a number of occasions, the brink of suicide on others, I’ve developed serious psychoses, I’ve been twatted by the system and I lost my job.  Yet, there are a few glimmers of non-shit somewhere in there.

To that end, here, for your dubious delectation, is the good, the bad and the ugly (well, the bad and good anyway) of the last 12 months in the world of this PsychoFreakBitch…

THE BAD

Being Mental

Perhaps rather obvious, but yeah, being mental hasn’t been a great deal of fun.  I know I’ve argued that if I could flick that figurative switch to the sanity setting I wouldn’t do so, and I still hold to that, but nevertheless, the panics, depressions, mixed states, psychoses and frantic states are not exactly things that I enjoy.

As you know, faithful, darling readers, I have been mental for many years – my first diagnosis was in 1998, but in reality I did have some manifestations of madness well before that juncture.  However, 2009 was by far the worst year for it, as I think most of those close to me would attest.  The dysphorias, the exceptional levels of anxiety and the psychoses, all having existed before, have been exacerbated so considerably during the last 12 months.  I’m not sure why; maybe it is the intensity of psychotherapy, maybe it’s medication, maybe it’s simply the ‘proper’ development of BPD and/or bipolar disorder, given as they tend to manifest most strongly in one’s 20s, maybe it’s another psychiatric illness altogether.  Maybe it’s nothing more than coincidence.  Either way, it is.

Specific Issues on Mentalism

–> Psychoses

Tom was alright, but ‘They’ have been a hideous bloody curse.  Even with the anti-psychotic, ‘They’ are almost ever-present, though their severity was mostly reduced with said medication.  The worst manifestations of ‘They’ were when they tried to get me to kill myself and, worse again, when they wanted me to kill Marcus on Christmas Day.

Of course, the psychotic symptoms were not limited to hearing voices.  The shapes continued amok throughout 2009, though in retrospect I think I can say that I maybe noticed some abatement of their severity when I started taking Olanzapine.  However, I also developed new hallucinations, such as music, knocking and whimpering.  And I hallucinated my erstwhile stalker once.  Fuckin’ A.

Oh, and let’s not forget the delusions – A was in collusion with GCHQ, the sun and signs were watching and/or communicating with me, ‘They’ steal the thoughts from my mind, my cousin ScumFan was a drug dealer, A was not A but A’s sister, yadda yadda.

–> Dissociation

This has been pretty fucking annoying and at times highly disturbing.  There have been a number of times that I have found myself in dissociative fugue states – being in random places some distance from home, having no idea how or why I got there.  I need not explain the potential implications of these (admittedly relatively minor) fugues to my readership.

Of course, it does not take a fugue to make a dissociative episode.  Despite my ability to write 3,000 or more words on my sessions with C, my psychotherapist, it is not infrequent for me to dissociate parts of these meetings, particularly (unsurprisingly) when we are tackling something difficult together.  Several of the fugues have been in the wake of sessions with C.

I’ve also found myself in amnesiac states during or after arguments or highly stressful events, and of course I have the standard BPD features of depersonalisation and derealisation – forms of dissociation, I believe – on a frequent basis.

Although I’ve experienced depersonalisation and derealisation for years, I’ve only knowingly experienced full dissociative episodes – ie. proper periods of amnesia, losing time – in the last year.  Well…maybe it began in 2008, but it would mostly have been in 2009.

However, I only remember the rape and other parts of the sexual abuse in flashbacks, for example, and in discussion with C we have found that I have many ‘symptoms’ characteristic of someone who dissociated something traumatic in childhood.  The suggestion has been that, given the strength and quantity of these symptoms, there may be more than I don’t consciously remember.  I hate the idea for its own sake, obviously, but I hate it even more by virtue of the fact that it is not recalled (if indeed it did happen); it leaves me with a distinct lack of control over how I now react to triggers.  Perhaps that can be addressed in therapy over time (if therapy even fucking continues over time).

–>  Self-Harm

Is self-harm even bad?  Sometimes I really do wonder.  As a way to cope, it works.  As a way to fascinate (by virtue of watching the beautiful krovvy), it works.  As a way to seek absolution, it works (albeit temporarily).

Still, it serves as a permanent record of a very horrible year of my life, and I suppose in that way it could be considered a bad thing.  It’s something that, as of this writing, I feel quite nonchalantly about, but who’s to say in 10 years or something, I won’t look at my scars and feel triggered back into mentalism from which I may have found some relief?

I’m classing this as a bad thing of this year because, prior to 2009, I hadn’t engaged in any serious self-harm for years.  2009 saw it return on a relatively frequent basis.

Losing My Job

In reality, I was nowhere near as upset about this as I should have been, but one thing I really do detest is being in the hateful position of being dependent on the state for my living.  I had always dreamed of a career (not just a job) and the opportunity to use my intellect in a meaningful fashion.  I did not want to end up being a dolescum, and this is still something that I am hoping to change in seeking treatment for my madness.

So I suppose that is the worst part of losing my job; I now am officially everything that I never wanted to be in my adult life.  It’s also awkward from the perspective of my developing my career; having to explain a gap in employment of whatever length and an incapability dismissal will not be a lot of fun.

Trouble with the NHS

It all started with all the trouble with getting an appointment with, and then sustaining appointments with, the VCB.  Then C waded into the quagmire with his ‘I can only offer you 24 more sessions’ bullshit.  As you know, of course, I am fighting this.

Then there was Dr Arsehole just before Christmas (about whom I will write in the next ‘C’ installment), and the latest is that I have an appointment with Psychiatry on 20 January (more than a month after I was meant to have my most recent review appointment)…but not with VCB!  No, readers, apparently I am seeing ‘Dr M’.  What in the fuck..?  I might not like VCB, but at least I had got to know her to some extent.  But now they’re fucking me about again.  Arsecunt.

Christmas

It was fucking God-awful dreadful.  Enough said.

C

Not C himself; of course I don’t know the man in any realistic way, but my sense of him is positive.  OK, he does wind me up sometimes, and it is not at all unknown for him to actually anger me, but generally I am very fond of the man, regardless of whether or not that is simply a case of transference.  However, psychotherapy is not a fun process.  It’s not fun at all.  In fact, I believe firmly that it has made me more mental than I already was.

It therefore seems ridiculous to continue with it, but there’s method in the madness…

THE GOOD

C

‘Him again?  You just said he was a bad thing in this year!’

Yeah, I did, but he’s also been one of the most fabulous things.  Aside from my absolutely obsessive attachment to him, which I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have were I not very fond of him in a non-transferential sense, I believe the therapy is good for me, and is working.  Yes, it has made me more mental, but I believe this is a temporary state.

In being forced to (re)live some of the most horrible things about my past and, to a lesser extent, my present and potential future, it seems inevitable to me that my conditions would be exacerbated.  I had to get worse before I get better.  That was what I expected well before I commenced therapy with C, and that is still my belief.

Additionally, and this is probably related to the transference issues, C is the only person to whom I will talk completely openly.  For a long time, I would literally discuss many (not all) things with him, but it is only in the last couple of months that I really have stopped abstracting things.  I’ve now let my guard down and allow myself to be vulnerable around him, and I trust him.  That kind of relationship, however strangely asymmetrical, is a big achievement for me, and I think if it is allowed to continue as it should that it will pay dividends in terms of my mental health.

Diagnoses

Some people hate them.  There are a number of other mental health bloggers for whom I have the utmost respect that consider diagnoses ‘diagnonsense’.  I do get where they’re coming from, but I am grateful for mine.

It helps me to be able to attribute certain symptoms to an actual illness.  Now I’m not saying I use the conditions as excuses, but they do explain some erratic and bizarre behaviour, and I find that rather comforting.  Furthermore, in saying I have certain illnesses, it makes my range of symptoms part of something, rather than just a nebulous bunch of ‘things’; quantifying it in this way makes it seem more real, I am convinced, to others.  Just throwing the term ‘depression’ out makes it sound like a cop-out (NB. please note that this is not my view of real depression at all – I just think that some people, ignorant of mental health issues, view the word this way.  They believe that “I have depression” equals “I’m depressed,”, which of course those of us who have been there know to be a fallacy).

One further positive I’d add about the diagnoses is that they have enabled me to connect with others that have the same (or similar) disorders.  I will be eternally grateful for that, and for the support and kinship those individuals have given me (see more on this below).

Turkey

Our holiday to Turkey back in September was probably the happiest time of this year.  As I wrote at the time, I felt entirely contented throughout our stay, and indeed we enjoyed it so much that we are returning to a resort close to the one from 2009 again in May 2010.  I will never forget the crystal clear waters, the warmth of the locals and the sheer relaxation of lying about in secluded coves.  Whilst reading Social Factors in the Personality Disorders: A Biopsychosocial Approach to Etiology and Treatment, of course.  I mean, obviously!!!

This Blog

I will always be thankful that I started writing this blog, and indeed that I kept writing this blog.  My initial hope was that it might help me to identify triggers, but to be honest in that regard it hasn’t been as successful as I might have liked.  It has, however, given me a focus – writing is an activity that, despite the sometime difficulty of it, is something that I enjoy, and can direct my energy towards.  It also serves as a chronicle of what has been an extremely difficult period in my life, but one that is also likely to be a highly formative one too, if I don’t end up offing myself.  I’ve found it fascinating to rediscover diaries I kept in the past, and no doubt I shall find the same with this – though I hope that I will still be maintaining this journal well into the future.

I’ve been ever so grateful for the wonderful feedback I’ve been given on this blog too.  Some people find my writing style engaging, which is a huge compliment; others find solace in the fact that they are not alone, as what I’ve written correlates with their experiences and/or feelings; yet others seem to be grateful to learn directly what everyday life, therapy or whatever with my various diagnoses is like.

On a similar note, the blog has enabled me to meet so many people with whom I have found affinity.

Twitter

By far the best thing I have done this year was join Twitter (I’ve met many brilliant people through the account allied to this blog, but even more again through my ‘main’, slightly less anonymous, account).  I have met so many wonderful people – both mentals and non-mentals – through this service that I could not possibly thank them all here, much as I’d like to.  The support, friendship, empathy and, frankly, in some cases love that I have been shown has been a source of immeasurable help, more than the personnel concerned will ever know.

–>  Thank Yous – Twitter

CVM*
K*
@bourach
@woundedgenius / @behindthecouch
@notbovvered
@fromthesamesky
@error505
@an_other
@kimshannon
@helentaustin
@benpolar

* Both of whom I now consider ‘real life’ friends – I have met K and communicate with her most days; I haven’t met CVM, but again communicate with her most days and certainly will meet her when finances and circumstances allow the travel.  I love them both.

The above is far from an exhaustive list, but there are others that I cannot mention to protect either their or my anonymity.  Some to whom I am incredibly grateful are not even aware of the fact that I write this blog.  That does not mean I value them less, however.

–> Thank Yous – Blogging Buddies

Some of the above-named individuals of course keep blogs, but they are not people I met originally through this medium.  The following are.  Thank you to:

Alix Rites
Crazy Mermaid
Borderline Case
The Prozac Queen
Pumpkin
Vanessa
NiroZ (no longer blogging, alas)

Again this is not an exhaustive list.

It is my honestly held belief that were it not for the aforementioned individuals – both the Twitter friends and blogging mates – I would either have killed myself or been horribly sectioned this year.  So thank you to all of you listed, to many not listed, and extra special thanks to a select few – I hope you know who you are.

Friends

Of course, real life friends have been of immense value to me this year too.  I haven’t been fortunate enough to see my best friend D an awful lot, but we’ve have corresponded via email and communicated via the hated telephonic device, so of course I am very grateful for his support.  In spite of an acrimonious break-up of a serious relationship, not to mention other problems, D has still been there for me through all of this sorry year, and for that I am significantly in his debt.

B has also been very supportive.  It’s not that we tend to go into great detail about issues of concern, but he’s just there, and that means a lot.  In particular, like D, his ability to provide a metaphorical shoulder to cry on whilst dealing with significant difficulties in his own personal life is testament to his integrity and the strength of his friendship.

AC has also been great; as well as actually giving a shit and supporting me through mental illness, AC has also been there just for those ordinary, everyday things that friends do together – the theatre, lunch, whatever.  I also must hat-tip DL for this too.

Honourable mentions to A’s friends and family too.  Even though they’re (mostly) not conversant with the finer points of my mentalism, they nonetheless have been a source of fun and comfort.

And of course a re-acknowledgement of CVM and K

A

Saving the best for last.  He’s seen it all, and it all ain’t pretty.  Yet he is still there.  Still loving, still comforting, still supporting, still protecting, still fighting the corner, still providing, still entertaining, still staying sane.

There are no words.  ‘Thank you’ seems so woefully inadequate, but it is all I have.  I just want to make it publically known that I will always owe a debt of gratitude to A for everything he has put up with this year.

AND FINALLY…

This post might lead you to believe that there was more good than bad this year, and I suppose in the most objective of senses that may be true.  This is why something like CBT will never work therapy-wise for me; it doesn’t matter how much evidence there is or is not for a belief – the belief is still held.  The reasons for the belief need to be explored fully and processed.  But I digress.  My point: 2009 was an absolutely fucking shit year, and I will be glad to see the end of it.

But I have hope.  A small glimmer thereof, but a glimmer nonetheless.  Not of a miraculous cure, but of some stability maybe.  With the help of C (I hope) and the love and support of my fabulous friends, both those in the physical world and those online, there might just be a path to stability somewhere down the line.

Happy New Year folks.  If ‘happy’ is ambitious, then at least I wish you peace and something approaching sanity in 2010.

Yours ever

SI x