Thank God for my/our primary enabler, Mental Nurse, and other members of the wonderful Madosphere.

Essentially, the sharing of images catalogued here has made what was an unspeakably bad day into a less unspeakably bad day. Now that I am coming to grips with using GIMP, I am finding some enjoyment (***shock!!! Horror!!!!***) in creating images therein, and the camaraderie involved in the sharing of these particular ones across the various websites and social networking sites really lift my indescribably despairing mood.

I’ve identified the two for which I am responsible in the link above, but here’s another one I’m going to start using as an avatar in certain places:

*plays a welcoming Final Fantasy-esque fanfare*

How are you enjoying following my secret life on the internet, mother?  I’m sure it has been an epic journey for you; it certainly has been for me.  I have met some amazing people, I have received some amazing support and encouragement, and I have discovered some not-quite-so-amazing things about myself and my life hitherto as I have gone through the psychotherapeutic process, as recorded in spectacularly epic detail on this journal (well – until recently, anyhow*).

Have you found entertainment in my tales of how your saintly brother-in-law systematically abused me throughout my childhood?  Perhaps you preferred reading of my delighted response to your choice not to believe my allusions directly to you on this subject?  Maybe the (not 100%) full and frank accounts of my hidden self-harming have been your favourite narratives?  I suppose you could also have been compelled by my descriptions of the strength and viciousness of my hallucinations.  Oh, and let’s not forget my shockingly pathetic suicide attempt back in January – that one was fun!  I would genuinely love to know what you’ve enjoyed most; it will inform and shape my writing in the future (or, rather, it won’t), so please leave a comment and let me know!

Hello other readers.  I discussed with some of you on Saturday the fact that I believe that my mother is reading my blog, a belief that I hold for a number of reasons, most notably her nonchalance when I recently asked her outright if she read my blog (which wasn’t as dangerous an invitation as it sounds; Alter Ego also writes a blog under her real name, for stupid nonsense like TV reviews and political rants).  It may not sound like a big deal, but my mother is naturally curious and also a technical novice; she would have first replied by asking what exactly a blog even was, then what I wrote about, where she could read my smattering nonsense and other such questions.  However, in response to my query, she turned her head away from me and quietly and supposedly casually murmured a couple of instances of the word ‘no’ at me.

I am in my late 20s.  I lived with my mother full-time until my mid-20s, and still see her at least weekly as it stands.  I almost always know when she is acting and to that end, her apparently indifferent composure at the mention of the word ‘blog’ was, I am convinced, feigned.  I could be wrong, but especially in light of of all the things she now knows about my diagnoses, treatment and general behaviour, I have to say that I am ‘suspicious’ in the extreme.

But I don’t mind.  I don’t care like I did a few months back, at least in part because I was seriously considering telling her the sordid lot of it in the near future anyway, and if she is reading through Confessions then it saves me verbalising the horrid, sickening words.  And anyway, I write honestly here, so I don’t see anything for which to apologise nor do I perceive that there is any need to censor myself.  No doubt ‘airing my dirty laundry in public’ is something that I should consider prohibitive to my discussions here, but then I write under a pseudonym so there is no reason not to in my view.  If Mum or any other family members are lurking here, then that is because they consciously chose to find their way here.  That’s not my problem.

So, if indeed you are here, then hello, Mum!  Welcome to the party!  <3 xxx  (This all sounds overly sarcastic, but it’s only partly so.  I actually really don’t mind that terribly much if Mum is here, reading.  I’d like her to just admit to doing so, but other than that…well, it is what it is.  Life goes on).

—

* I have five sessions on C to write about, and it could well become six, as I have been advised by a number of my fellow mentalists to actually attend the final session.  Many of you seem interested in my going ahead with the composition of these posts, rather than just summarising them, and I do aim to please when people are as nice as you all are.  It’ll just take a bit of time, and a need to remember that of course the content (unless I maniacally rush-write the whole damn lot in the next two days) will be no longer normative nor contemporary to my situation.

At about 1.30am today, I received an email from a lady at Medical Assistant Schools (MAS) claiming that her site had bestowed an award upon this blog.  I initially deemed it a hoax as it, although emailed to my address, wasn’t intended for me – its salutation did in fact refer to the author of the PTSD Combat: Winning the War Within blog.

However, out of curiosity, I followed the included link and found that the sender of the message must merely have confused her email addresses or something, as there, lo and behold, was Confessions, apparently a top 25 PTSD blog!

I have been incredibly fortunate this year to have been considered worthy by other bloggers of several awards; whilst I’m extremely grateful for them all, by far the most important to me has been the runner-up one awarded in January from Mental Nurse, as it was bestowed upon me based on voting from a number of very well respected mental health bloggers, thus perhaps making a more objective contest than some others.  I’m also flattered by the nomination and votes at Bloggers’ Choice.

The Medical Assistant School award too is a real honour because, as MAS’s website states that:

Awards candidates are selected using one main method: audience nominations.

After a list of candidates is compiled they are each scored by our panel of five judges. Each judge rates each blog across 20 different attributes providing it with a ‘subjective’ score. These ratings are combined into an aggregate, and the aggregates of the 5 judges are averaged to give the blog its final rating.

The ratings are then compared, and awards are given out to blogs in the 99% percentile (meaning the top 1% of blogs receive awards).

Top one per cent?  Really?  I can’t believe that I would be considered even remotely close to that level but whatever the case, gaining this recognition is still really cool.

I have no idea who nominated me, and I am utterly amazed that a panel of judges consider me worthy of a place on the same dizzy-heights list as the unwaveringly brilliant likes of Catatonic Kid, Faith Allen and Zebra Polka Dots.  Amazed and stunned, yes, but also blown away by my absolutely outstandingly wonderful readership and internet friends.  You all really mean an awful lot to me; your support, kinship and encouragement has seen me through many a dark day and will, I am certain, continue to do so.  I am humbled and touched beyond measure that I am considered worthy of your continued reading, never mind anything else.

Thank you.  I do love you all.

And I look forward to meeting some of you tomorrow!

Pan <3 x

On Saturday night, A and I went to see a Queen tribute band, and a particular Freddie Mercury song that they covered once again struck me as being something that could be written about me.  A suggested I do a totally random, essentially pointless but potentially fun post on the issue – what song best describes your experiences of mental health difficulties, or of your behaviour, or of your life in general?

The one to which I alluded above is The Great Pretender, a song originally performed by a band called The Platters but covered in his typically excellent fashion by Mercury in, I think, ’87.  Although it’s written from the perspective of someone pretending their lost lover is still with them, the lyrics nonetheless fit my situation.  I discussed here that I am very, very good at acting.  It exhausts me, but I am very good at it.  The song describes very well the public face that a person projects – an appearance of relative wellness, contentedness, whatever – to the world, despite screaming or weeping internally.  It also briefly makes reference to living in a dream world, another thing to which I can relate.  It sums me up to a tee.  I’m sure it’s not the only song that really fits, but it will do for now.

So here it is.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Oh yes…I’m the great pretender
Pretending I’m doing well
My need is such I pretend too much
I’m lonely but no one can tell

Oh yes I’m the great pretender
Adrift in a world of my own
I play the game but to my real shame
You’ve left me to dream all alone

Too real is this feeling of make believe
Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal

Ooh ooh yes I’m the great pretender
Just laughing and gay like a clown
I seem to be what I’m not you see
I’m wearing my heart like a crown

Pretending that you’re still around

Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal

Oh yes I’m the great pretender
Just laughing and gay like a clown
I seem to be what I’m not you see
I’m wearing my heart like a crown

Pretending that you’re

Pretending that you’re still around

In the beginning, the computer functioned normally and efficiently. Although there were some malicious attacks directed against it, its firewall initially worked well, deflecting some and making sure the worst of the others was hidden deep in the computer’s hard-drive.

The computer was responsive, hard-working and quick to process all tasks that it was assigned. Over time, however, with the large number of files it had in internal storage, the hard-drive became stretched to the limits. Neither did the computer have enough random access memory to adequately cope with the smooth running of normal day-to-day applications. The computer was markedly slowing down – and giving up.

The computer was taken to PC World where it was advised that its users should take it out into the “fresh air” before putting it into hibernation mode. An assurance was given that this would alleviate the computer’s problematic sluggishness. Alas, this was not to be.

The computer subsequently hired a number of consultants, one of whom advised the computer that its problems were not its problems per se, but the way it and its users thought about its problems. The consultant advised the computer that its internal pathways could easily be restored to their former position of normal functionality if the computer’s problems were merely viewed in a different light. Alas, it also was not to be.

Eventually, though, the computer was sent to a competent technician, who understood its particular types of issues well, having even done research in the field. The computer was most encouraged, though it recognised that inevitably the work done to it would be often slow, labourious and rather intricate.

In the course of the work, the technician discovered the files deeply hidden earlier in the computer’s life, and started to explore their contents. Unfortunately, these files contained viruses which, once released by the technician, spread throughout the computer’s hard-drive like wildfire. The technician attempted to install anti-virus software to kill the viruses, or at least mitigate the damage caused by them to the computer’s drive. However, the technician’s manager – and, later, the Director of the company – then dictated that the technician’s time with this particular computer was up.

Left to their own devices, the viruses, now running completely loose throughout the hard-drive, caused the computer’s operating system to behave even more erratically than it previously had, in some instances even causing it to act as though it were an entirely different operating system. The defragmentation program failed to work. Applications crashed or returned invalid data, and it became apparent that even hardware failure might become an issue.

Perhaps little more than a simple reboot would have once helped the computer to function at optimum level. Now, however, it needs a complete re-install of its operating system…and indeed, the kindest fate for it may be for it to finally display the Blue Screen of Death.

The Post-CAB One

I will write about yesterday’s gruesome appointment with the Citizens’ Advice Bureau in due course.  All the context that is required for this post is that I have added ‘Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder’ as well as clinical depression, BPD, yadda yadda yadda to my DLA form.  I was asked why by the advisor (no, I don’t think that was an acceptable question), and sent my mother out of the room whilst I explained.

The Scene – Later, At Mother’s House

Mother:  So, this thing you don’t want me to know about, this C-PTSD {curiously, she said ‘C-PTSD’ with apparent confidence, as if she’s aware of the concept.  This concerns me, as there is not really any way she could have this knowledge unless she has somehow established that that is one of my diagnoses.  I haven’t told her it is, so…hmm.  Anyway}.

Pandora:  Yes…that thing I don’t want you to know about…

M:  Oh, well, I’m not asking you to tell me what it is.

P:  Good.

[Pause]

M:  It’s to do with me, isn’t it?!

P:  [Sighs] No.

M:  Oh thank God for that.

[Pause]

M:  [Anxiously] It’s Georgie and Merv, isn’t it? {Presumably in light of all the bollocks detailed in this, and therein linked, posts}.

P:  [Laughs] Is that a serious question?

M:  [Irritably] Yes, why wouldn’t it be?!

P:  It has nothing to do with Georgie and Merv, mother.  [Thinking:  Wrong Aunt and Uncle, Mum.  Try again!]

M:  OK.  [Walks away]

P:  [Thinking: WTF?]

The curious thing is, she asked if it was Georgie and Merv, but mentioned no other members of the family at all, other than herself.  Not even V.  Why did she not pursue the issue when I said it was neither her not Georgie?  Surely, even though she knows I won’t provide her with specifics, she is curious?  When I have told her in the past that I don’t want to tell her something, she has gone on and on and on about it until I either (a) give in and tell her or (b) lose the plot, scream at her, and leave the room with her yelling obscenities in my wake.

I have a theory.  I think she knows, deep down (if I may use such cliched phrases), that what I told her about Paedo was the truth.  I hypothesise that there are four possible reasons for her not to accept it in the forefront of her mind:

1. Guilt?  She ‘failed’ to protect me from him, and cannot face the enormity of such a situation.
2. She does not want to consciously acknowledge, even though she knows it really, that he – apparently an otherwise likeable, benign figure – is guilty of such heinous acts.
3. She thinks that if she accepts that what she has been told is the truth (and the tip of the iceberg at that), then she will feel forced to confront him/cut off his cock/slander (or rather, tell the truth about) him.  This would inevitably lead to the end of the familial unit as it is, and she fears that immensely.
4. In the composition of the above I have forgotten what ’4′ was.  If it returns to my consciousness at some point I shall endeavour to add it in the comments.

The One Even More Ridiculous Than the Above One

Scene – an hour later.  Pandora is utilising her laptop for some pointless endeavour or other.

M:  [Fidgets, keeps looking at me]

P:  [Without looking up]  Whatever it is that you want to say, please just say it.

M:  Nothing, nothing.

[Pause]

M:  [Semi-hysterical] You had an abortion, didn’t you?!!!

P:  [Stares at mother in some surprise]

M:  [Practically screaming in apparent horror]  Didn’t you?!!!

P:  [Incredulous laughter] Where did you get that idea from?!

M:  Just answer the fucking question!

P:  No.

M:  Look me in the eye, Pandora, and tell me you didn’t have an abortion.

P:  [Looks mother in the eye]  No, mother, I have not, at any juncture, had an abortion.  Nor, to the best of my knowledge, have I ever been pregnant.

M:  [Sighs in apparent relief]  OK.  [Goes back to watching TV, quite contentedly].

P:  [Thinking:  WTF?]

For the sake of avoiding argument, I didn’t press this, but even if I had had an abortion, why is she so worked up about it?  I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that terminating a pregnancy is a horrendously difficult and traumatic thing for those who make the decision to do it.  From hearing the stories of others, I know that’s the case.  But if I had had an abortion, and had not involved or advised my my mother of it in any way, how could she have some sort of emotional investment in the issue?  (Of course, she would argue that she was (a) sad/upset/regretful/traumatised/whatever on my behalf and/or (b) outraged that I had neglected to tell her about it.  But I still don’t really ‘get’ it).

The One After Seeing the Traumatic TV Advertisement Against Drink-Driving

Specifically, this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Which ends with the question, “could you live with the shame?”

P:  [Flippantly, out of frustration at the damn thing having been on TV 17 times in one fucking hour]  Yes, I fucking could live with the shame!  Now fuck off!  {Of course, for the avoidance of doubt, I couldn’t really ‘live with the shame’, and would never, ever drink and drive, just like the ad advises.  But the perpetual repetition nevertheless serves to irritate considerably}.

M:  Could you really?  I certainly couldn’t.  I just couldn’t.

P:  Riiiight…..

M:  In fact, that’s the only circumstance in which I feel that I would have to kill myself.

P:  [Shrugs]  Fair enough [Returns to looking at laptop].

[Pause]

M:  Mind you, it’s easy to say that, isn’t it?

P:  Is it?

M:  The thing is, the instinct just to survive is so very strong {says the eminent philosophical biologist}.

P:  [Laughs cynically]  Really?  I don’t think so.  You’re speaking for yourself there, Mum.

M:  [Flies into rage]  Augh, don’t be so fucking stupid!  All this talk about suicide!  It’s so selfish!  Have you ever thought of me?  {Interesting and unwitting use of irony, there}.  Just get wise to yourself!  {This translates roughly as “I say, dear girl, that was a highly questionable comment you just made.  I would suggest that you reconsider your position forthwith and posit an alternative viewpoint with immeadiate effect, otherwise you may contract scabies or cholera and die in agony.”}.  [Storms out of room].

P:  [Thinking: WTF?]

She keeps my life interesting

And so it came to pass that yet another Clinton Cards-induced festival of rampant commercialism took place in the Year of our Lord 2010.

What a pile of utter wank.

On the other hand, what an opportune time to note that…

Or, rather, he was a fucking wanker, as he met his (rather regrettably late) demise in September 2007.  I wish it had been years sooner.

So, V, you raping, attempted-murdering, wife-beating, daughter-hating, piece of rotting worm-food shit, I hope you’re having a really, really crap death

See you in hell, cunt!

I’m petrified of the phone.

This is not some sort of hyperbole indicating that I find telephonic communication to be a mild irritant or inconvenience.  I’m honestly, truly terrified of it.

I decided to write this post after a discussion developed on my Facebook page between a few of us that regard the act of ‘being on the phone’ with genuine horror.  The most rudimentary of Google searches suggests that we are not at all alone.  I can’t speak for others, obviously, but my phone phobia perplexes me entirely as, certain parameters of social anxiety aside, I am not too bad with people in person.

Let me qualify that; I freak out around new people, unless I am surrounded by people I know very well.  I refuse to go out without people I know intimately, and I’m very uncomfortable around mere acquaintances, not that you’d always know it.  However, if you catch me in the right mood, and I am with the right people, you’d be stunned to know I have any mental health issues at all.  My in-laws, for example, are constantly amazed that there’s anything wrong with me, as I give the appearance of being a social animal in front of them and in front of a number of others – sometimes it’s a mask, but occasionally it’s real (hypomania?  Who knows).

The phone changes everything.  I will usually answer if A phones me, because although he doesn’t actually have the full-blown phobia that I do, he hates the device too.  Anything, therefore, that he has to say via the bloody thing is either (a) quick or (b) urgent.

I only answer to my mother about 25% of the time, and everyone else thereafter becomes pro-(or re-)gressively more likely to be ignored.  This includes my close friends such as Daniel.  If they warn me that they’re going to phone, and give me some indication as to what it is they want to discuss, I’ll usually reluctantly give in – but not always.

There is 0% chance of me answering to a number that is either unfamiliar to me or is withheld.  It just will not happen.  As far as the land-line goes, I never answer it at all as I have no way of knowing who’s on the other end.  If it’s anyone that even has half a chance of speaking to me, they’ll get me on the mobile anyway.

When I hear the accursed thing vibrating (I almost never have the sound on) for any more than the second it takes to denote a text message or an email, or when I hear the infuriatingly cheerful but simultaneously ominous sound of the land-line, I begin to feel desperately uncomfortable.  It’s hard to say exactly how things progress, but let me attempt to dissect it.

It starts with a horrible ‘butterfly’ like feeling in the pit of the stomach, progressing to a sense of heightened physical alertness in which it feels like one is aware of every cell in one’s body.  It produces goosebumps.  The struggle for breath begins, the eyes widen.  One’s heart beats so desperately that one feels it will surely explode from one’s chest.

It reminds me of what I’ve heard of the mammalian ‘fight or flight’ instinct, except in this case things definitely fall on the side of ‘flight’.  Run away.  Hide under the bed, where you can’t hear it or see it taunting you.  Be gone, phone!

In short, I suppose I am essentially describing a panic attack.  Because of a fucking phone call. It is, when you think about it, absolutely preposterous.  What’s the worst that can happen, seriously?  You answer; if the person is a tosser, you hang up.  BIG DEAL.

Making a phone call tends to be less of an issue simply because, with the rare exception of my mother and A, I almost never do it.  Phoning those two individuals is always done through my choice and is on my terms, so whilst I don’t especially relish the prospect of communicating in that way, I don’t completely dread it.  I only call other people that I know when something very urgent arises, and as for calling people I don’t know – hahaha!  No.

There has been the odd time when I’ve had no choice but to do it – for example, when I changed my name, some companies with whom I deal refused to accept emailed or written confirmation of this (which seems rather unusual to me, but anyway).  This takes several hours of preparation on my part…sometimes more if the people concerned – eg. credit card companies – have proven themselves historically to be bastards.

How to prepare?  Well, the CBT-like approach of rationalising the probable simplicity of the impending conversation does not of course work, so I have to attempt to find means to make myself calm (*cough* Diazepam *cough*).  In such circumstances, I merely hope to convey facts to the other party, but although I usually get there eventually, even with the help of my little yellow friends I end up embarrassing myself wholly in the process.  Compare this to when I went into the bank with my deed poll to change my name with them in person.  Admittedly I had to take my mother (otherwise that would’ve been a fail too, no doubt), but I nonetheless communicated effectively and succinctly when dealing with the personnel directly.  Hmm.

Reverting to the issue of phoning people I don’t know, an alternative to the ‘calm’ approach is, on extremely rare occasions, to be really angry.  I mean, real, absolute, ‘I’m-seeing-fucking-red-here’, total anger, not just ‘I’m pissed off with these wankers’.  This leads to a very dominant me, blinded by rage, demanding answers and results.  This has happened maybe twice in my life – both times when I was regularly overcharged by packs of twats who consistently ignored other communications.

Compare the Mr Director-Person letters.  Am I angry in those?  Well, yes, I am – but not with that all-consuming, overpowering rage of which I speak.  Yet I can articulate myself coherently and intelligently, if rather arrogantly, on paper.  I cannot do this on the phone.  I’m either furious beyond furious, in which case woe betide whoever answers, or I faff and babble and make a complete tit of myself, thus ensuring the very opposite of what I’d like – an even longer bloody call.

I’m trying to pinpoint a time when this started.  When I was at school, I had a rather blasé relationship with the phone; I didn’t usually go out of my way to use it, but neither did I avoid it with the determination that I now do.  Daniel would ring me quite a lot, as would a few others to whom I was then close, and I was fairly OK with that.  A certain friend – Louise – and I even used to have a very childish (potentially cruel, I now see) laugh now and then phoning those stupid chatlines (they were free for women for some reason) to wind people up.

I would always have used email in preference to the telephone where possible, but my first memories of really being troubled by using it were when I was working in a firm of solicitors just before I started my postgraduate degree…so, what?  At the age of 21, maybe?  I remember phoning in sick a few times, and being terrified that my employers would doubt the authenticity of my illness, so to avoid accusations and 20 questions, I would ring before the office opened and leave answering machine messages for them rather than speak to anyone.

In my most recent job, it began to become a real bugbear.  Again, I used email where possible anyway, not particularly concerning myself about the phone, and my first boss had enough faith in me to get the job done in whatever manner that she let me get on with doing things in my own autonomous way.  When she retired and a colleague took over, things changed.  My new boss – a lovely woman, but dreadful boss – she was hell-bent on micro-managing everything, and as a techno-phobe she decided that email was a facility akin to Guantanamo Bay, and she all but banned the use of it in favour of the bastarding phone.  The nature of my work meant that I almost always took the entire department’s flack, even when the fault was mine maybe at most 5% of the time.  I felt that I could deal with this in writing, because any letter or email that was critical of me would be very easily trumped by anything that I could write in response.  Constantly having a bunch of stupid fuckers screeching in your ear about how useless and dreadful you were, however, was not quite so easy to contend with.

When I was embroiled in a pseudo-row with the office during the absence that ultimately led to my unemployment, I told them that I accepted the need to use the phone on many occasions, but contended that under the DDA it was a reasonable adjustment for them to allow my primary means of communication to be email.  They did not agree.

However, it would be easy to blame my last workplace, but my discomfort did not entirely emanate from there; it was merely worsened.  I cannot work out exactly where or how the discomfort, then the fear, then the abject terror first came about, and I cannot work out how I will deal with the issue in the long-term.  I hate the fucking phone.  I absolutely hate it.  I don’t ever expect to like it, but I would really rather it didn’t send me running to hide under the bed every time its use becomes necessary.

In this hugely electronic world that we have come to inhabit, perhaps ultimately the phone will end up being redundant and forgotten, consigned to unread, dusty pages of technological history books.  But that state of affairs is not at all imminent, not even vaguely so, so I must hope to find a solution to this most irrational, but frankly pathological, of fears.

And yeah, for those of you that have been paying attention over the last 13 months, I do have an iPhone  That might be a bit of a ‘go figure’ moment for some of you, but trust me – the phone facility is by far the least used one on what is otherwise an amazing device.

So I’m weird.  Surprise surprise.  That is all.

Since I got the new laptop, I’ve been doing a bit of drawing on it. Let’s be clear about this: my drawings are really shit. I am never going to be an artist, nor do I have any such delusional aspirations. Nevertheless, it’s an outlet for expression when words don’t seem to cut it, and I suppose in that sense what I’m doing has some value – to me, anyway (I fully accept understand the irrelevance for everyone else, but then this is my blog ).

Anyway, I’m going to put a few of them up on this post for no other reason than I can.  Beware of unlikely, but possible, triggers.

This…ahem…”gem” was one I’ve just drawn on the Facebook Graffiti application.  Don’t worry, I’m not about to off myself.  It’s just a silly doodle depicting a set of thoughts that never stray too far from my mind.

(If you don’t have Flash enabled, here is a .jpg of the above).

This shite was some scribbling I did in relation to the internal conflicts I feel regarding psychotherapeutic transference:

The blackness of abject depression:

This is another scribble regarding therapy. Not so much about attachment and transference in this case, though I suppose such difficulties feature, but more about the depths of despair and nefariousness that the process brings up:

I’m not sure that the physics of this one are remotely on the acceptable side of accuracy, but the symbolism at least should be quite obvious (assuming you can make out what it is, like…):

Finally for now, a particularly un-artistic, talentless piece, but something that represents strongly how I feel about therapy and recovery:

I don’t know why I’ve really done any of these things, nor why I’ve shared them, but there you go. Things that are hard to describe in prose, despite my verbosity, seem to find their own way into the Paint programme, even if the artistry involved is dreadful

WARNING: RANT

I am going on holiday this evening. Ergo, I will be (mostly) in absentia until at least 24 May.

Unlike the preceeding hours before the last time I went on holiday, I am not in a good mood. I am, in fact, muderously livid. C is to blame (surprise surprise), even though it’s not his fault.

So, the latest on the wanky questionnaires is that either I have DID or I’m exaggerating my dissociative symptoms. He tried to dress it up, but that’s what it comes down to whatever he says.

So typical of borderlines, yes? Neurotic, attention-seeking, self-obsessed, manipulative narcissists.

Beyond that the session was thouroughly pointless. It was just more of me slagging myself off endlessly. He didn’t even bother to defend me this time, like he has been known to do, because apparently I am trying to manipulate him into doing so or something.

Some gems:

I’m a five year old fantasist trapped in a womans’ body. A pretty smart five year old, but a five year old nonetheless.

I’m an immature, pathetic, stupid waste of space. Well…not stupid. But stupid all the same. Just not stupid-stupid. But the stupid kind of stupid. Except not actually stupid, just…stupid.

[On seeing Trust headed paper being used, as intended, for rough notes] You do realise that I’m internally raging, don’t you? That exemplifies your pathetic public sector inefficiency. No wonder the Trust has no money. Such wastage. [Genuinely seething inside - proper, murderous anger].

I’m sure there was more but I can’t recall it all and anyway, I’ll write about this session properly when I get back from my travels.

My mother had called me during the session so I called her back to see what she wanted when I left. Mr Director-Person had finally responded.

My analysis of the NICE guidelines etc is apparently quite correct, but – it now emerges – the NICE guidelines don’t automatically apply in Northern Ireland. Well, that’s brilliant, isn’t it? Great job. How eminently rea-fucking-surring to know that we are safeguarded in this country as well as the rest of the UK. OUT-FUCKING-STANDING.

Blah blah blah…we are developing a PD service…we welcome “service user” (I fucking hate that term) involvement…please register your interest with this tosser at this hospital…

Readers, I will. In fact, if they do indeed accept me on board, I will turn it into a personal crusade. I will twat the system from inside the bastarding system.

Blah de blah…[C] and [NewVCB] have agreed to put you under the care of either a CPN or a mental health social worker…details to be worked out closer to the time…

Go and fuck yourselves. What is some CPN going to fucking do? Remind me it might be a good idea if I fucking washed occasionally? Attempt to patronise me with CBfuckingT?! No. No. I need psychotherapy. If I am not to receive psychotherapy, then you can all just go and die, you supercilious, self-interested bunch of despicable cunts from hell.

So that, dearest readers, is the latest. I am sure I’ll calm down a bit – but probably only when we finally reach our apartments tonight, as hanging around airports is supremely frustrating, and flying is supremely boring.

I have got a data abroad package on my phone so will probably be about occasionally on Twitter – I might even post here if you’re (un)lucky. Otherwise, thank you all for reading and thank you for your unwavering support and friendship.

Much love

Pandora x

It is exactly one year to the day since I first started writing Confessions of a Serial Insomniac. Happy birthday, blog!

My first piece of writing here was the ‘About‘ page, which still retains the same basic structure as it did on 4 May 2009, but has been modified in terms of content as circumstances have changed. My first actual post was written on 5 May, and can be found here (it’s also since become the subject of another page, as I thought it gave a lot of useful contextual information).

Confessions began life at serialinsomniac.wordpress.com. I moved to the self-hosted domain of www.serialinsomniac.com in January this year, as I wanted more control over the aesthetics of the blog. I still have a redirect from the old WP hosted blog, which will run until January 2011.

SIGNIFICANT EVENTS AND POSTS

A lot has happened in these 12 months.

2009

I started self-harming again in May (though I’ve been ‘clean’ since January this year) and was subsequently diagnosed with BPD and bipolar disorder in June (at which point my medication was changed from Citalopram to Venlafaxine). I started hearing a (benign) voice in September, whilst in October the hallucinations became malicious, in the form of ‘They’. It was also in October that I lost my job, owing to my lengthy mental illness-related absence. I completely lost my sanity over Christmas, leaving me in not quite the best frame of mind in which to see the new year. The problems were mainly related to being forced into seeing Paedo, but C’s revelations that he would be offering a curtailed number of sessions in 2010 didn’t help either.

2010

In January, I bit the bullet and did something that I’d been intent on doing for about two years – I changed my (sur)name, thus dissociating myself entirely from my aunt and uncle, Georgie and Merv, not to mention my deceased father V. The new year also saw me receive my first blog award, from the wonderful Mental Nurse, who have also been kind enough to feature me in their weekly round-up of mental health blogging (TWIM) a number of times. Despite these positive developments, I spent the entire month in a depression of epic proportions, and I tried to kill myself in the early hours of the 16th. However, shortly after that, I was allocated a new psychiatrist (Dr M, mostly known as NewVCB) who prescribed the anti-psychotic Quetiapine (brand name Seroquel) on top of Venlafaxine to curb the voices and hallucinations, and also to act as a mood stabiliser. It has really been a force for good in my life. NewVCB later agreed with my self-diagnosis of complex post-traumatic stress disorder, so I was able to add that to my arsenal of diagnoses. The C-PTSD was mostly in relation to the sexual abuse I went through as a child, the full memories of which came back to me through discussion in therapy, the extent of which I finally admitted to C some weeks later. It is an ongoing psychotherapeutic topic.

A year on from commencement of writing, the importance that this blog now has in my life was underlined by an incident in which it initially looked like my family had found my online home (which would have been a huge disaster for all concerned). I now do not think they have, but my conclusion whatever the case is that I will not be silenced.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As you might expect, there are far too many to list. I would like to thank all that read here, and in particular those of you that leave comments – your interest and support make this project worthwhile (though of course I still maintain the journal primarily for my own benefit). There are a few people that I have to single out though.

Obviously A has been a source of immeasurable support and I’m fairly convinced I’d have done myself in were it not for him throughout the past year. There are no words great enough to convey my appreciation of his unwavering tolerance and care – I can only say that he is treasured and loved very much. CVM, K and Annie (internet friends that I have met or will meet) and my close friends Aaron, Daniel and Brian also deserve my gratitude.

In terms of my online friends, I owe particular thanks to Alix, Splintered Ones, Tiger, Lola, Kim, Wounded Genius, The Same Sky, Bippidee and Phil. I’d like to especially single out bourach, as it was her blog that inspired me to start this one. Thanks also to the aforementioned Mental Nurse for featuring my blather in TWIM from time to time, and for yesterday devoting a whole post (albeit a short one) to my crap

SOME STATISTICS AND TRIVIA

At the time of this writing Confessions has had 48,213 hits. The counter is only updated twice a day, so if you see any disparities (eg. the counter not updating despite you visiting several times), then that is probably why.

The overall most read post is ‘Suicide Attempt Epic Fail‘, which has presently been read 402 times. At the old URL, the most read post was ‘Signs of Childhood Sexual Abuse‘, which is still the second most read overall post with 332 hits. In both incarnations, ‘About the Author‘ has been the most popular static page, with a total hit count of 771.

The post most frequently reached through Google searches is ‘BPD vs C-PTSD‘, which with 329 hits is currently just short of being the second most read post overall.

The longest post, with over 8,000 words, is ‘A (Half-)Life in Therapy‘.

The busiest day on the blog to date was Friday 16 April 2010, when there were 614 visits. The quietest days were, unsurprisingly, last May when the blog was shiny-new. Since then my quietest period was about a week in April 2010 when the aforementioned worries about my family possibly reading the site surfaced. This was due to my efforts to hide the blog from their eyes, but of course had the knock-on effect of preventing others from reading too.

The busiest month so far was March 2010, when Confessions received a total of 10,529 hits. The quietest month was, unsurprisingly, way back in the beginning in May 2009 when there were 824 visits. Interesting point of comparison: this May is only just into its fourth day, and the hit count for it is 1,082 – half as much again in four days than were received in the whole month of May last year.

On the other hand, May 2009 was (ostensibly) my most prolific month of writing, as 23 posts were published during that period. I say ‘ostensibly’ as, as my writing here has developed, my verbosity has similarly developed and increased notably, so in reality even though I may have been writing less posts in other months, I was probably writing more words. The month with the least posts published was August 2009, where I only wrote a total of seven.

The sites that send me the most traffic are BlogSurfer, StumbleUpon and, of course, Twitter. The actual blog that refers folks here most frequently is Bippidee‘s

The most commented-on post was, perhaps slightly ironically, a password-protected post: ‘Things I Know That I Should Not Know‘ has 47 comments.

The most common search terms are variations on the blog’s title, ‘confessions of a serial insomniac‘. ‘C-PTSD‘ (and variants thereof) is currently the second most popular, with ‘i hate my therapist‘ (presumably for this), ‘letter to my therapist‘ (this) and ‘Julian Hendy‘ (this) also featuring prominently.

Some of my favourite search terms are ‘hallucinating gnomes‘ (referencing this), ‘dr bellend‘ (this), ‘dbt is patronising‘ (too many possible posts to list), ‘fuck you therapist i hate our relationship‘ (this again, I assume) and ‘arsecunt‘ (apparently this, which was otherwise fairly innocuous!). There are also a variety of searches ranging from fairly dull to outright weird that incorporate variations on the word ‘wank’ (because of this).

Including this, there are a total of 154 published posts. Including track- and pingbacks, there are 1,572 comments.

A POINTLESS YOUTUBE VIDEO TO PROVE THAT I CAN EMBED THE DAMN THINGS…AND MEH

The following song quite adequately sums up how my life has been in the year chronicled on this blog (and well before it at that)…

Click here to view the embedded video.

…not especially cheerful, I know. It hasn’t been an especially cheerful year. But still, something positive has come out of it; Confessions of a Serial Insomniac is my pride and joy. It might not be the best written blog, nor the most popular, nor useful nor helpful nor politically cor-bloody-rect in any way. But it’s mine – all mine – and I love it, follies and all.

1. Monday 19 April, 9pm
   Order prescription via the online EMIS system. Quetiapine (300mg) is due to run out by Wednesday, and even though I am seeing the psychiatrist on Wednesday, I don’t want to take chance that she will not modify the dose and that I will therefore be without the medication. Lose plot by even missing one dose.  Also order Venlafaxine (anti-depressant), Cerazette (contraceptive) and Cetirizine (anti-histamine).  These prescriptions are due to be delivered to my usual pharmacy by Wednesday afternoon at the latest.
2. Wednesday 21 April, 11.10am
   See psychiatrist. Agrees to temporarily increase dose of Quetiapine from 300mg to 400mg, and gives me a letter for GP asking him to issue a prescription for same. She also includes request for Zopiclone.
3. Wednesday 21 April, Midday
   Take medication letter to GP’s surgery. Ask receptionist to issue it to my normal pharmacy, the one discussed at (1) above. Receptionist says it would be better to issue it to pharmacy next door to surgery, as they have better communicative practices with them or something. Agree to collect it from there the following afternoon.
4. Thursday 22 April, 4pm
   Realise with horror how late I have left it to collect prescriptions from both pharmacies. Drive like a maniac the six-ish miles from my mother’s house to pharmacy beside doctor’s surgery.  Bring mother with me.
5. Thursday 22 April, 4.15pm
   Arrive. Ask for script.
6. Thursday 22 April, 4.20pm
   Called to desk by 10 year old boy, who is apparently a qualified pharmacist. He must in reality be the same age as me, but I cannot accept how this can be the case. 10 Year Old Boy tells me he has no script for me, and asks what it was for. Tell 10 Year Old Boy in hushed tones that it’s anti-psychotic and sedative medication. 10 Year Old Boy, in similarly hushed tones, agrees to check again.
7. Thursday 22 April, 4.22pm
   10 Year Old Boy returns empty-handed. Begin to panic. Mother, who accompanied me, points out other script is at other pharmacy and this can cover me. Point out that dosage was increased for a reason. 10 Year Old Boy says he will ring GP…then remembers that GP’s surgery is ‘closed’ – at least to the outside. Thursday afternoon is their admin time.
8. Thursday 22 April, 4.23pm
   Panic. Have to sit down on pharmacy chairs ordinarily devoted to accommodating the old and infirm. 10 Year Old Boy looks confused and bemused. Agrees to ring GP’s surgery on emergency line.
9. Thursday 22 April, 4.26pm
   10 Year Old boy returns, having spoken to surgery. Surgery claim prescription was sent to pharmacy detailed in (1). Ask 10 Year Old Boy how this can be. 10 Year Old Boy says that surgery claim prescription was ordered through EMIS on Monday 19 April.
10. Thursday 22 April, 4.27pm
    Resist overwhelming urge to bang head off counter. Tell 10 Year Old Boy the prescription mentioned in (9) is a different fucking script. 10 Year Old Boy looks more bemused than ever and clearly has no idea what he can do.  Eventually suggests I contact surgery on emergency line.
11. Thursday 22 April, 4.27pm and 30 seconds
    Have a shit attack at the mere thought of speaking to surgery on the phone.  Mother agrees to call them on my behalf.
12. Thursday 22 April, 4.32pm
    Mother phones surgery after wasting several minutes trying to work out the idiosyncrasies of iPhone. Surgery agree to write up script detailed at (2) and (3) then and there, and advise mother just to walk in to collect it in about 10 minutes.
13. Thursday 22 April, 4.45pm
    Head to surgery to collect script after dithering briefly in shop. Cannot face entering surgery and speaking to people, so use mother yet again. Advise mother to make sure Quetipaine 400mg is now on a repeat prescription, as the surgery have failed to note consultant’s repeats in the past.
14. Thursday 22 April, 4.48pm
    Mother emerges triumphant. Claims that receptionist has told her that both scripts – ie. Quetiapine and Zopiclone – are now on repeat. RESULT! Quite clearly the psychiatrist did not intend for the Zopiclone script to be a repeat, but I am certainly not going to protest.
15. Thursday 22 April, 4.51pm
    Return to pharmacy next door to surgery and hand them newly written prescription.  Mother looks around shop, buys a few things, then signals to me for us to leave, our quest completed.  Onward we head to pharmacy detailed at (1) for the other prescription.
16. Thursday 22 April, 5.00pm
    As mother drives home, I check bag from beside-surgery-pharmacy. Quetiapine and Zopiclone are not in it. Protest angrily to mother. Mother says to wait until we get to (1) pharmacy so as we can check under car seats, as tablet boxes must have fallen out of bag.
17. Thursday 22 April, 5.05pm
    Arrive at (1) pharmacy. Check mother’s handbag, under car seats and boot. Quetiapine and Zopiclone are not there. Resist urge to bang head off dashboard. Mother agrees to collect script (1), then return home and ring beside-surgery-pharmacy to see if prescription was left there.
18. Thursday 22 April, 5.15pm
    As I am beginning to panic at the inordinately long amount of time mother is in pharmacy, she finally emerges and returns to the car. Reports that, after an altercation with the presiding Fat Pharmacist, she has Venlafaxine, Cetirizine and Cerazette – but not original (ie. 300mg) Quetiapine prescription.  Pharmacy will not have it until Friday 23 April at 1pm, despite having received the request on Tuesday 20 April. Resist urge to walk in front of a lorry and/or bang my head off concrete bollards.
19. Thursday 22 April, 5.20pm
    Arrive home. Mother immediately phones beside-surgery-pharmacy to see if script of (2) and (3) remains there. 10 Year Old Boy answers, but is not immediately aware of whether or not prescription is in his shop.  Asks my mother to hold the line whist he checks.
20. Thursday 22 April, 5.22pm
    10 Year Old Boy returns to telephone and reports that Quetiapine/Zopiclone prescription for Pandora is indeed still in his shop’s possession.  Mother breathes audible sigh of relief and asks 10 Year Old Boy if she has time to come and get it. 10 Year Old Boy confirms that pharmacy closes at 6pm, so time does indeed remain.  Mother thanks him, rings off, and heads back to beside-surgery-pharmacy to collect script.
21. Thursday 22 April, 5.25pm
    In mother’s absence, I once again log on to EMIS to check list of repeat prescriptions. Zopiclone is indeed included (as is 400mg dose of Quetiapine). Score
22. Thursday 22 April, 5.59pm
    Mother returns (again), this time victorious. Zopiclone and Quetiapine 400mg are now in my possession!  Apparently when she purchased other goods, she just left, thinking she had all she needed.  Sales Assistant was calling out my name for ages, subsequently finding herself especially confused  given our earlier determination to obtain script.  Anyway, I am pleased to note that two months’ supply of Quetiapine has been issued.
23. Friday 23 April, 3pm
    I am back at A’s house, but in my absence, mother returns to collect remaining prescription from (1) (ie. the missing 300mg of Quetiapine, that I now intend to use as a back-up, or for when the dose is again reduced). Fat Pharmacist informs mother that he still does not have it.  Mother phones me to advise of this. We both resist urge to bang head off of steel fences, hard plastic doors, benches and cooker.

Lessons to Be Learned

1. If you want something done, do it yourself. Do not ask mother because you are anxious/mental/stupid/an idiot/whatever.
2. Do not trust doctors, their administrators, nor pharmacists. You are better off killing yourself than relying on them to issue treatments to keep you alive.
3. When seeking prescriptions on the NHS, make sure you have a stress ball to hand.
4. GAAAHHH.

That is all.

EDIT: Things should be back to normal now! I’ve unpassworded everything except the four posts that were already protected before Wednesday’s crisis-esque situation.

I’ll try and explain everything in detail in another post as soon as possible. I’m away until Wednesday 14 April, though, so it’s unlikely to be before then. In the meantime, thanks for all your supportive tweets, comments, emails etc. It means a lot.

Pan x

—

Folks, due to a situation on which I cannot presently comment, I’ve had to password-protect some pages and a fair few posts. I hope that this is temporary. If you want to read that which is protected, and I trust you (sorry), please contact me.

Love and thanks to all my wonderful readers.

I’ve made a few references to the relative anonymity of this blog in recent posts (here and here) and decided I would explore it more. I know many bloggers here in the madosphere write anonymously in order that they may reveal their deepest, darkest thoughts with complete impunity; for example, Bippidee gave a very good account of her reasoning for chosen anonymity, which is along these lines, here.

It accounts for some of my motivation for anonymous writing, but it isn’t really the crux of it, to be honest. There are a few people in my real life that I allow access to this blog, which kind of disallows exploration of some of the most intimate stuff – but then, I’m not sure I’d want to share the most intimate stuff with anyone anyway, anonymously or otherwise, so that doesn’t really matter. Furthermore, I’ve been known to password protect certain posts to ‘hide’ them from real-life voyeurs who might otherwise become party to information to which they are not entitled.

In an ideal world my writing wouldn’t be anonymous at all. I don’t think anonymity adds to the stigma attached to mental illness, but I do think that complete openness about one’s experiences can only help to reduce it (if you can appreciate the subtle, but definite, distinction). I have a lot of respect for what Seaneen (the author of The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive), and Alison (of Genius Gone Wrong) are doing on their blogs, which are almost entirely identifiable with them.

However, such openness – in certain circumstances – can be profoundly inhibiting. Regardless of whether or not we all should be more open, on certain themes it can be desperately difficult to actually do so. I think one of the key things I’m thinking of here is sexual abuse.

Anyone who’s read the archives or followed the blog for a while will know that I’m quite open on the general points of what Paedo did to me when I was a child – but if you look closely, I’ve never gone into the specifics, the hideous minutiae of the various incidents. I would like to do so, but I’m too weighed down by a disgusting overwhelment (spot the made-up word) of shame and responsibility for it. I know rationally that I am not to blame, but in some ways this is the point I made above; I know that discussing specifics is maybe something that I should do, but it’s just so fucking hard. If it’s hard without you knowing who I am, how much worse would it be if you did?

Anyhow, metaphorical blocks to openness and honesty are not the main crux of my need for anonymity. The choice to write under a pseudonym is predicated upon the need for protection. Not self-protection, oh no. It’s about protecting the myriad of people that would find themselves mentioned here.

In reality, if any of the relevant personnel somehow happened upon this blog, they would know the identity of the author instantaneously. However, fortunately for them (and me), most of them (with one possible exception) are very, very unlikely to come across the online home of yours truly. Were I using my real name, though, it would be thousands of times more likely that this would happen.

It is essentially an agreed part of my psychotherapy that I anonymise references to it and specifically to C here, after this debacle. I could reveal my own identity and not reveal his, of course, given that there’s only a few in my ‘real life’ that actually even know his full name – it’s just never really come up with anyone else. For the record, C is the only person that I’m protecting here that I think could easily find the blog.

The anonymity also protects A in a sense; although I’ve allowed two of his close friends (W and G) to read it, as they are people to whom I am relatively close myself, I fear that some of his other mates and, in particular, his family coming across this site would be disastrous. Everyone knows by now that I’m mental, but it’s a small few that know about the self-harm, the dissociative episodes and the psychoses. I don’t care if A’s parents know…well, no, wait. Who am I trying to kid?! It would be mortifying if A’s parents knew the seriousness of my conditions. I know that’s something I shouldn’t think, given that I don’t (shouldn’t?) feel shame about my illnesses, but there you go; that’s the way it is. But allow me to at least retain a fickle veil of altruism: out of tact, A’s family / friends may say very little to me about the more ‘difficult’ facets of my madness, but I fear that he would have to tolerate a lot of earache, and he gets enough of that from me!

I do protect my friends through my anonymity here, in a tangential sense at least. For example, my best friend D is a very well respected business journalist – I can’t imagine that in his cut-throat industry and sector of employment being the best friend of a known and certified nutjob would go down that well. My second closest friend B, when afforded the opportunity, turned down the opportunity to read the material here, as I suspect he was worried about how much of it would disturb him (bloody normals!).

But most of all, those that I need to protect are my family. As you probably know by now, I really don’t hold that many of them in particularly high regard, but that’s mostly irrelevant as, despite our significant differences over the years, I love my mother very much. Her family – her illusions about certain members of her family – are all she really has left in this sorry world. OK, she has me, and of course she has a wide circle of friends too – but she, unlike me, strongly subscribes to the idea that blood is thicker than water, and to that end my aunts and uncles and their various descendants are of supreme importance to her.

My mother is mostly unaware of how serious things have been, and I want to keep it that way whilst still being able to discuss them openly in some sort of supportive arena. She knows I’ve heard voices / seen things, she knows that I’ve cut myself and she knows that I experience periods of dissociation – but she has no idea as to how serious these incidents have actually been. Why not tell her? She’s my mother after all, she’s meant to be the most supportive person in the world to me. That matters not, because she would worry. It is as simple as that. I suppose it’s self-evident to say that she worries as things are – how could she not – but she does not need the additional and profound concern that would be caused were I to divulge exactly how grave things can often be.

There’s a few further strands to this, of course. Mum is well aware of some of my disdain for my family, especially her sister in America (Georgie) and to a lesser extent, the McFs. However, with the exception of Georgie, I maintain a pretence of relative tolerance towards the rest of them, as I have no wish to argue with my mother over their respective characters. Here on the blog I can bitch and whine and rant about the bastards all I like, with almost absolute impunity. In this sense, my reasoning for anonymity does more closely align with that of some other bloggers – ie. that one’s deepest, most disturbing thought processes can be discussed with no comeuppance.

Finally, of course, is the issue of Paedo. Partly I don’t want my mother to read about him because she is happy in her illusion that he is a decent person, even though she has been made well aware of that of which he is guilty. Moreover, though, if my name were connected with the revelations on this blog – well, the implications for Paedo are enormous. I don’t want him to be prosecuted, as I don’t believe it would achieve anything whatsoever. Even if I did, I simply cannot ruin the family unit to which he belongs. They may piss me off, but they don’t deserve such a hideous, life-ruining shock as this would be. Certainly my mother doesn’t, and despite all that she has done (or perhaps not done), I believe that she would take my side in any battle with the McFs; even if my revelations ruined their lives, I do not believe that they, in a hundred-million years, would ever believe the truth.

So there you go. I cannot be ‘me’ here, because I cannot ruin my family, a family that I mostly don’t even like especially. Hey-ho. What I can be made to be, however, is a more personal entity than someone who writes under the handle of ‘Serial Insomniac’. I am a serial insomniac, and I do ‘confess’ on this blog, but I am more than just that; I’m a person. A real, living, breathing person.

Thanks to the 45 of you that voted in the poll that was at the link in the last paragraph. Here are the results.

As you can (hopefully) see, the single most popular vote at 31% was to keep the moniker of “SI” despite the fact that, as alluded to by Differently, Lost and Sanity, quite often that acronym is linked with “suicidal ideation” or, more frequently, “self-injury” (though to be honest I quite enjoyed that inherent ambiguity). However, that means that the majority – 69% – voted for something other than “SI”.

As I said in the original post pertaining to this, the title of the blog is, was and will continue to be Confessions of a Serial Insomniac. However, if you’d like, you can now refer to the specific author of it as Pandora.

It was the most popular choice amongst the suggested names (at 24%), and while I like the metaphor of my evil insidiousness being released on the world as in the allegory of ‘Pandora’s Box’, allow me a rare moment of sentimentality – as Fatally Doubting and Faithful Reader pointed out, at the end of all the horrors Pandora released, that most fabled of concepts, of human emotions – hope – also finally emerged from the ether.

In the last post, Nick from Careless in the Community made the comment that he wanted to think of a name for me that wasn’t “SI”. I also had a discussion with C on Thursday (blog to follow when I can be arsed) about how I’d built up an entire online alter-ego via this blog.

To both ends I wonder if the moniker of “SI” isn’t too impersonal. For reasons I will go into in more detail on another occasion, I have to blog anonymously, at least for the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, I wondered if I could invent a more personal sounding journalling identity.

My intention is not exactly to abandon the handle of Serial Insomniac of course; that’s still and always will be the name of the blog. But the writer could be called something different, perhaps – Lola Snow, for example, is the author of the Marine Snow blog, Ophelia is the author of Writing Myself Sane. Their names are distinct from the names of their blogs, whereas at present mine is not. On the other hand, changing my name as an author may simply confuse issues; after all, I’ve been known as SI to my readership for over nine months. But then I was known by my original surname for over 26 years, and am now trying to get used to my new one. What do you think?

Anyway, I’ve done a little short-list of possible pseudonyms:

Clara – simply because I quite like it. But it means ‘bright’ which would be laughably ironic.

Elora – again, I quite like it. Used it for a role-playing character in Call of Cthulhu once. Means ‘silent’, which by virtue of this blog I most certainly am not – but where it actually counts, I do often feel as if I am. The whole C-cessation of therapy saga, the whole maternal denial of the sexual abuse. I am indeed voiceless.

Elysia – from Greek and Roman mythology. Refers to elysium, which is the realm of the dead, and specifically means ‘blissful’. Your humble narrator is not ‘blissful’, clearly. However, that realm of the dead most assuredly could be so in her dark and suicidal eyes. The name reminds me slightly of the Dylan Thomas poem, Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night (see here), the ‘good night’ of course being death. The blissful elysium. The good night. Yes indeedy.

Lorena (or Lorina) – ‘sorrowful’. ‘Mournful’. Who knew first names for such beautiful misery existed? This provides me with much pleasure. I find this one nicely evocative too.

Pandora – I can’t easily dissociate it from the Adrian Mole books, but then I loved them, so that’s OK. Everyone else will probably be familiar with the Pandora whose curiosity led her to open a box, thus unleashing evil across the world. I feel like I do this everyday, with every word I speak or type, and it is ultimately my own selfishness that drives it.

Perdita – invented by Shakespeare. I don’t like its diminutive, Perdy, but Perdita itself is fine with me (though A claims to hate it). It means ‘lost’ or ‘forgotten’. I am certainly ‘lost’ in the metaphorical sense; I have no idea where I’ve come from in life and even less of where I’m going. I feel ‘forgotten’ by the system, and even to some extent by a few people that ought to care more than they apparently do.

So that’s the short-list. I don’t have a strong preference, so I’m going to let you, my dearest readers, vote for your preferred choice of pseudonym. I can’t guarantee that I’ll end up following your advice, though I’ll at least strongly consider it as you lot can be decisive, a characteristic that is wholly absent in me.

The realm of SI has temporarily become a democracy. Exercise your egalitarian right to be heard! It will make your life better to do so, yeah! Oh look, a flying pig…

EDIT: The poll has now closed. Stay tuned for the results!

I know some of you follow the insightful and informative Mental Nurse blog, written by…er…mental nurses. As regular readers of it will know, each Saturday (usually) they publish a review of that week’s musings in the mental health blogosphere, terming their summation ‘This Week in Mentalists’. I was featured once, with the child sex abuse post, catapulting it to the most read spot on my blog.

Anyway, at the end of the year Mental Nurse let their readership vote on the best blogs in given categories, and this year’s winners and runners-up have just been announced. No, yours truly has not won anything, as in I have not come first or owt like that…but this blog did come joint third in the Personality Disorder category.

First place in the category went to the very worthy winner of Genius Gone Wrong, whose blog I follow and whose comments I have had the honour of having here. Second place was Becoming Hannah, and my fellow third-placed contender was Writing in the Margins of My Mind. I shall look forward to reading these blogs, plus other mental health blogs that were featured as winners.

Thank you to all who voted for this blog. It was an honour to even be mentioned as a possible contender, never mind to be actually placed. I really do feel very honoured.

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

First Signs are a UK-based charitable organisation devoted to the prevention, or at least the minimisation of, self-harm.  Whilst as regular readers of this blog will know, I don’t really see the big issue with (controlled) self-harm, I can and do admire the work that FS are undertaking.  If nothing else, at least they’re raising awareness on the issue – why people self-harm, that most people who do it aren’t dangerous to normals and so on.

However, as you can see from the title this isn’t a post espousing the worthwhile cause of this user-led charity.  I am writing in response to this supposed distraction technique.  Yes, folks, they are arguing that bringing yourself off is a viable alternative to cutting or burning yourself.  Riiiiight.

I read a lot of articles on psychiatry and psychology, much to the detriment of my Twitter followers (not so much on the account allied to this blog), but I rarely feel the need to respond to them.  However, I just find this article so ridiculous that in this case I felt compelled to do so.

The first thing that struck me about the piece was that FS had devoted the entire thing to masturbation.  I mean, even if you do accept that wanking is a credible alternative to self-harm, it’s not the only distraction technique that exists out there.  When C and I first discussed the stupid DBT bullshit way back in week 12 of our therapy, some of the stuff in the material he gave me was devoted to distracting oneself – and, as it happens, masturbation was mentioned (to which I responded with an ‘LOL’ which I know is really rather puerile)…but the difference was, it was only mentioned in passing, as one technique amongst dozens available.  No 1,300 word article on this topic per se was deemed to be required.

Personally, I think distraction techniques are all bollocks, but that’s not really the point.  The point is, to what extent is masturbation really a viable alternative to self-injury?

FS pose this question:

When you’re urging to hurt yourself, aren’t you looking for a release, and some relief from the emotional distress you’re having trouble coping with?

This basically forms the central tenet of their entire argument as far as I can see.  In fact, looking again at the article, it seems to be their only tenet.  What a convincing argument they must have if they only have one major thread to their point.

That said, OK – successfully orgasming undoubtedly does relieve tension, and no doubt endorphins are released upon climax just as they are in cutting.  But for goodness sake, how obvious is it that it is an entirely different type of release?!

I wrote about the satisfaction, if that’s the correct term, that I get from self-harm in this post a few weeks ago.  I suppose my main point was that bloodletting is beautiful because one feels, temporarily, that they are watching their own evil flow away along with their blood.

Which, to be objective, is the only point I really made – but it feeds into the idea that many people will injure themselves as some sort of ritualistic punishment for their perceived inherent evil, or for the self-disgust they feel.  I know I have been known to cut for this reason.

Why, then, would I allow myself the satisfaction of a pleasurable activity?  If I am a bad person, I need some obvious form of punishment, not a reward, whether that’s sexual or otherwise.  Now, satisfaction is undoubtedly garnered from the ‘punishment’ of cutting – but it’s not a premeditated satisfaction (masturbation is in my view, even if a sexual urge comes on one quickly, because it usually has a clear objective that one is trying to meet).  And in any case, the satisfaction is, primarily, mental, not physical (which is all masturbation, unless conducted mutually with a partner, can ever be).  You are satisfied because you have done what needed to be done to this bad individual; you have hurt them.

Of course, that’s only one aspect of self-harm.  One other major function of it is to reorientate oneself when going doolally or, as FS admit, to release some psychic pain in the same circumstances.

Now let me get this straight.  When I am going off my head in a mixed state or panic attack, am I seriously going to sit down and analyse distraction techniques (this is why I think they are all complete arse, as discussed here, for example, or there’s always this epic rant specifically about methods of distraction)?!  In particular, am I going to think, “Christ, life is so fucking terrible right now…an orgasm would make it better”?  Well, maybe it would actually, in an ephemeral sort of way, but would that really be forefront in my mind?  The idea, as any one who’s experienced such a state will appreciate, is ludicrous.

All one can think about when going mental is the mentalism.  The ‘decision’ to harm, if it can be termed that as it is not always conscious, is almost innate.  OK, so sexuality is innate too, but there the comparisons end.  Perhaps the reason for the visceral nature of self-harm in these circumstances is simply that its effects are instantaneous (my mantra to C: “it’s quick and it works”).  Even if we (erroneously) were to agree that an orgasm can have exactly the same physiological effects as self-harm, time (for most women but I reckon to some extent blokes too) is required.  One does not feel like they have time when one is going mental.

Another issue that escapes them, and my aforementioned post on blood being beautiful ties in with this, is that cutting isn’t always about pain or distraction; sometimes it’s about blood.  Personally speaking, I love watching the blood.  Occasionally I cut only to watch the blood and how it flows.  Again, if we make the false assumption that orgasm release = cutting release, where is anything tactile or tangible from that?  FS do state that “…masturbation doesn’t cause any physical problems..,” and in doing so of course acknowledge that cutting can and does of course have physical consequences – but, as I said, they miss the point that that can be exactly why it is done in the first place.

Above all, what antagonises me most about this article is how it trivialises the issue of self-injury.  Now, I don’t think it’s a big deal if done under controlled circumstances, but neither do I think it can simply be equated as having similar physical and mental properties as something that most people have done in their lives and that is seen, rightly or wrongly, as something to be sniggered about at the back of a classroom.

FS state several times in the article that they fully recognise that self-harm is a serious issue, and to be fair they wouldn’t exist in the first place if they didn’t think so.  Nevertheless, singling out masturbation as a distraction technique in this fashion strikes me as counting it as some sort of panacea in a path to recovery from self-harm.  That probably wasn’t their aim, and what they have written was clearly with the best of intentions, but it has sadly worked out as over-simplified and utterly ineffective.

It may seem like I’m saying, “fuck distraction techniques, self-harm for the win!” in this and other posts – I am not.  This may be what I think for myself, but I would not advocate such for anyone else.  One thing FS got right in this article was to remember that everyone is different, and so other cutters / burners / whateverers may find a range of distractions, including this one, effective.  To that end may I reiterate that I admire the work that First Signs do; I applaud their very existence.

But wanking is never going to be a viable alternative to the scalpel for me.  Sorry folks.

Come to Turkey, and drink some of this:

I was totally manic yesterday, and no doubt this Turkish coffee will induce more of the same, but it’s just so good. A asked me at the airport yesterday if I was on drugs, such was my mania. Then he laughed at me. People around us were looking at me as if I was a freak. Which to be fair I was (am).

A said I should blog about it, but I was way too restless to do that. I’m in a good mood today (!) but not manic, so it’s hard to describe. Anyway, I’m sitting in a Turkish coffee shop writing this on my phone, so it’s not the ideal medium to communicate it anyway. I will try to do so at another juncture, though.

I didn’t get publishing the draft post about Lovely GP and C and the aftermath of the psychiatric disaster of Tuesday, because even plane safe phones weren’t allowed to be switched on during the flight (what the fuck?). But I’ll get there.

For now, though, I’m going to concentrate on trying to enjoy my holiday. A and I are both in relaxed and good moods, which is a ridiculously unusual occurrence (we estimate the last time this happened was when we were in Lanzarote in May 2008). So we had better take advantage of it.

I’m still avoiding packing, and it’s almost 10.30pm.  Below is the latest time-waster.

This is an analysis of some of the language I’ve used on the blog.  It’s only of recent posts (ie. those available on the first ((main)) page, as far as I can tell), and it filters out common words and letters (meaning no allusions to A or C, despite them being two of the most commonly referenced aspects of my life here), but I thought it was interesting nevertheless.

I really am going to pack now.