The Final Countdown: The Eve of the End of Therapy

 C, Fighting with the NHS, Important People in My Life, Moods, Psychotherapy  18 Responses »
Aug 252010
 

Plus Bye Mum! and The Obligatory ‘I Had an Appointment’ Post.

Let’s start with the first one.

Bye Mum!

One of two things has happened as regards my last post, in which I speculated that my mother was reading this infernal bollocks that I call Confessions of a Serial Insomniac.  Either I have been suffering from a paranoid psychosis (or, in less hyperbolic terms, just paranoia) regarding all the reasons that I thought she was reading it, or she has become shockingly technically savvy over the last few months.

I went to her house this morning after an appointment with Lovely GP and, when her attention was distracted, I searched her history, cookies and Temporary Internet Files on both Firefox and Internet Explorer.  There was no evidence of any visitations to this site at all, save for one single cookie which is probably from a time I wrote a post from her PC (as it had some references to an upload, to which, of course, she would not have had access.  For the record, I thought I had deleted all reference to that session, but meh).  When I say ‘searched’, I actually mean that; I used the built-in search boxes to search for terms such as ‘serial insomniac’ or ‘confessions’, rather than really rip the piss out of her privacy by wading through each single thing.

So seemingly I stand corrected on my earlier accusations.  Mother, I apologise.  Even though you aren’t reading this and don’t know about it.  Hmm.  Sorry anyway.

The Obligatory ‘I Had an Appointment’ (Part of the) Post

I saw LGP at the unGodly hour of 8.50am.  OK, so for a normal person, that’s not that bad, but I’m still registered at my mother’s old surgery, and since I live at A’s in the main, it involved a drive to the other side of town and then a hike up the motorway for a while.

I realised with horror last night that I had failed to fill in a form for the admin staff at the surgery.  Rather than do any work themselves when they receive DLA claims in from Social Security, they write out to the applicant asking them how their disability or illness affects them.  To be honest this suits me fine as they don’t really know how being mental affects me, and of course I do, but nonetheless I’d received the form the other week and had kept putting it completion of it off, despite their request to return it promptly.  I therefore sat in LGP’s car park immediately before my appointment and scribbled all the bollocks I could think of down – psychosis, dissociation, failure to engage in everyday tasks, severe anxiety, major depression, self-harm etc.  I hope I’ve covered everything.

Anyway, the main reason I went to see LGP was to scrounge Diazepam due to the now absolutely-imminent abandonment of me by C(unt).  LGP was sympathetic towards me given C/The Trust’s unprofessionalism, and seemed to understand that I have been completely retraumatised by the experience; however, the poor sod seemed unable to do anything about it.  He asked about NewVCB, and I said that she too was horrified about what C/The Trust are doing, but that she also seems uterly powerless to do anything about it (though she did try to dissuade C from cutting the process short, but the miserable git chose to refuse to listen to her).

The last time I saw LGP he had suggested going to see the Nexus Institute in the wake of the whole disaster that my therapy with C has become.  As I noted in the post in question, by psychological association I’ve developed an aversion to the Institute due to a really antiquated encounter with some NHS assessment bitch, but nonetheless I have been thinking about the suggestion and have perhaps warmed a little to it.  My concern now is that they offer, according to C anyway, a maximum of 24 sessions, which seems hideously inadequate to me.  When LGP raised the issue again this morning, I said so to him.  I pointed out that I felt that about 15 – 20 sessions was the minimum required to open up to a new person – and that was when the relationship was a good one.

He said that his experience of patients using the Institute’s services was that they had managed to actually achieve a lot in that timeframe, therefore opining that it was at least worth a shot.  He told me that they have a waiting list as they genuinely seem to be good at what they do.

Fair enough, but I bet they have never met a cynical, snide fuck like me before.

Anyway, it was left with me telling him I would, indeed, do as I was told for once and contact them for an appointment.  I am shitting myself at the mere thought of this, so how the fuck will I feel when I actually get round to the fucking meeting?!  And my concern is also this – my relationship (or, rather, the premature cessation thereof) with C has traumatised me so severely that that’s yet another thing for a new therapist to have to deal with.  It’s not all about the sexual abuse in the first place – it never was.  Now there’s just another layer of trauma-shite to add to:

  • the sex abuse
  • the bullying
  • the whole dreadful saga with my ex that I’ve still never written about here
  • the fact that I still weep for my grandfather nearly 12 years after his death
  • V’s abject cuntery towards me
  • V’s abject cuntery towards my mother
  • V’s relatives’ abject cuntery towards me and, to a lesser extent, my mother
  • an issue I’ve never discussed here pertaining to how my mother treated me when I first manifested severe depressive symptoms as a teenager
  • general life disillusionment that, unresolved, simply leads to further crippling depressions.

Can a therapist trained in helping people overcome sexual abuse deal with all that bollocks as well?  And do they have any expertise in treating people fucked up the arse by the NHS and being more of a mess as a result?  (Actually, they probably do; I’m sure my situation isn’t terribly uncommon).

Of course, the long-term plan is for me to enter analysis, but at least Nexus are free (donations notwithstanding), so I shall try them first.  I just hope that the limited timeframe afforded is not going to end up with a repeat of my current therapeutic disaster…more psychotherapy-induced trauma?  Oh yes please, world – give it to me, yeah!!!

Anyway, I risk never getting to the point if I don’t stop blathering about points made a zillion times before.  I led LGP to believe* that I was having a breakdown within a breakdown over the end of things with C and begged him for Diazepam.  ”The last time I had any was May!” I pleaded.  ”Please!”

It was truly pathetic.

He checked my notes and confirmed that May was the last time I was issued with a script for the beautiful, wonderful, amazing, fabulous tablets, and noted that I am “clearly not abusing them.”  No shit, mate.  He agreed to give me some more, though I was disgusted when I left the surgery and read the prescription that he had only issued 14!  I have seven left from the previous script, so there’s 21 – that’s only a fucking week’s worth!

To be fair, he said that if I was having a really hard time, that I was to ring him and he’d let me have some more.  You can be sure that I will be “having a really hard time”.  I feel that I need to hoard them, to have a proper size of a stash – just in case.  You never know when they’ll be needed, do you?  On that note, I observed with amusement that the back of the script paper now instructs you not to heard medication, as apparently that’s stealing money from the NHS or something.  This caused me much merriment – I hoard like fuck.  Too bad.  They failed to give me what I needed, so if I’m ‘stealing’ from the fuckers (such melodrama!) then I feel like a Robin Hood character, and am glad to be involved in screwing them.  Fuck them.

LGP asked the old rote question of whether or not I would overdose on the Diazepam.  I said that I wouldn’t, and then proceeded to tell him that I’d had my stomach pumped before and had no wish to relive the heinous experience.

“But are you having suicidal thoughts?” he asked.

I laughed in his face.  ”Of course I’m having suicidal thoughts,” I chuckled.  ”My entire life revolves around suicidal ideation.  But I won’t overdose, don’t worry.  I know how to do myself in and, unless you plan really carefully, that is not an outcome facilitated by overdoses.”

He raised his eyebrows, intrigued.  ”You’ve become something of an encyclopaedia about mental health issues,” he said, smiling.

“Well, I read a suicide newsgroup, so I know a bit about suicide methods,” I admitted.

He nodded.  ”But it’s not just that,” he went on, “you’re very self-aware, aware of what’s going on with you, and you’re extremely articulate about it all.”

I couldn’t help but blush.  That was nice.  I think.

He asked if my interpersonal relationships were of a satisfactory standard, and I responded that I had the support of A, a mass group of wondrous online friends, and a number of non-online friends that were supporting me unwaveringly.  I also told him that relations with my mother are at a reasonable point, though at the time I was still paranoid about what she was or wasn’t reading.

“It’s not that I think you should be grateful for the situation you’re in,” LGP said, “of course you shouldn’t.  But at least you do have a support network, it’s better than absolutely nothing.”

I suppose it is.  I asked if I could see him in a month as support additional to NewVCB and he said that of course I could.  He then mused for a second, and when asked what he had been considering, he told me that they also have counsellors that operate in the surgery.

“However,” he said, “I don’t think it would be appropriate for you.  Firstly, your issues are clearly very complex.  And secondly, you are clearly…” he searched for the words “…at a level above that sort of therapy.”

I regarded my lovely (but, alas, ginger) doctor with interest.  Was he implying that I am more intelligent than his almost-certainly-CBT-practising staff?

Mwhahaha!

He took my blood pressure, which he felt was pretty high.  He reckons that this is generally the usual PANIC PANIC that people get themselves into when in medical appointments, as well as stress over C.  ”I suppose I should also recommend losing some weight though,” he added, clearly uncomfortably.

I advised him that in the last year I have lost over four stone (yes, those of you that met me on Saturday – that does mean that I was even more the size of a mansion a year ago) and am continuing to lose pounds.  He was beside himself with joy (!) and kept congratulating me over and over, which was in hilarious stark contrast to the battering I took from his cunt of a colleague in December.

I left with the Diazepam script, a promise to him to contact Nexus and an agreement that we would meet again in about a month.  Ah.  Sighs.  I do like LGP.

I went to the chemist next door to get my medication, and whilst waiting looked around for other bollocks to spend money on.  I chose some Rescue Remedy, to aid the workings of the Diazepam, plus some anti-IBS stuff and Pro Plus.  Then I saw Seri-Strips, bandages etc – and I jumped on them.  I don’t feel like self-harming at the minute, but who knows what tomorrow will bring?  Better to be prepared, because it could go totally tits up after my final session with C(unt).

Which leads me to…

The Final Countdown: The Eve of the End of Therapy

So.  Here we finally are.  All my efforts to fix this dire situation have been a waste.  After 10.20am tomorrow, I will never see C again.

I look through my archives on this subject and actually find myself laughing at some of the histrionics displayed therein.  Wa wa, I can’t cope without him.  Wa wa, my life is over.  Wa wa, I’m so miserable, I can’t cope, please kill me someone please!  Tonight I feel…

…

…

…

…ambivalent.  Fine.  Asi es la vida.  I don’t care.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I am still positively full of righteous anger and indignation at the appalling way I have been treated by the Trust, and I don’t intend to just lie back down under it and let the fuckers abuse me more.  However, as regards C as an individual specifically, I really don’t feel anything much about our soon-to-be-permanent-separation.  * In this sense, my “I’m having a breakdown within a breakdown” performance to LGP was perhaps slightly exaggerated in pursuit of drugs.  Maybe I should contact Narcotics Anonymous whilst I’m in the process of contacting new therapists?!

There are two probable reasons for this.

One: I have already done most of my grieving.  About a fortnight ago – after a session itself after an unpleasant meeting with NewVCB – I was in a particularly bad state, so much so that I caused a fuss on Twitter, apparently having implied I was going to do myself in.  That was a bad day, but it was one amongst many.  I have shed millions of tears over this and whined and bitched and moaned about it here so much that it will no doubt seem like another blog once I desist from such shittery.  My pain was so real, so deep, so astoundingly visceral – and now, it’s just not.  It has apparently played itself out.

Two:  a limited number of people know this, simply as I haven’t written about any of my sessions with C in five or six weeks, but in that time my view of him has shifted almost 180 degrees.  I know that the fault in this whole sorry mess is only partially his, but he has become the fall-person for my disdain and derision.  I used to respect him greatly and I was very fond of him, and that was on top of my issues of transference and attachment.  Now, I kind of feel like he’s…I don’t know…a fly or something.  He’s there and he’s actually rather irritating and frustrating, and you feel like swiping him – but, ultimately, he’s something of an irrelevance, his existence little more than a passing inconvenience.  And that existence, in terms of my life anyhow, will cease to be in 13 or so hours.

It should have been different.  Of course it should have been different.  There is a small part of me that feels sad that I have come to view him thus, and as stated I know that it’s mostly not his fault.  But this is the reality of things as they stand; he is the figurehead for every failure I’ve ever experienced thanks to his employers.  Poor C.  But not poor C too.  Who cares?

Is this a defence mechanism?  Probably.  And it could unravel completely in the morning and I might be a suicidal, dissociated, agitated mess.  For now, though, for this one important evening, I am OK.  Surprisingly but genuinely OK.

Now.  Who likes my new logo?!

Pan x

Hi Mum!

 Important People in My Life, Meh  8 Responses »
Aug 232010
 

*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.

http://serialinsomniac.com/2010/03/14/toxic-tactless-or-traumatised-on-being-an-inadequate-daughter/

Watching Me, Watching You – On (Maybe) Being Found Out

 Blog News, Important People in My Life, Life, Moods, Traumatic Stuff, Triggers  22 Responses »
Apr 142010
 

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

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

TEH GOOD STUFFZ

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

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

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

TEH SHITE STUFFZ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FF UU CC KK ad infinitum

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

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

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

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

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

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

TEH OUTCOMEZ

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

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

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

TEH AFTERMATHZ

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

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

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

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

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

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