2012 Continues its Shittery, But Reports of My Death are Greatly Exaggerated

 Blog News, Life, Meh, Moods  12 Responses »
Mar 222012
 

Good evening (or morning, if you prefer). It must have been about three weeks since I last posted, which is pretty much a record absence for me in the almost-three years that I’ve been writing this blog. There are some underlying reasons, I suppose, but primarily my disappearance can be attributed to the usual culprit: that of crippling, fuck you anhedonia. I haven’t been as badly afflicted by the phenomenon since I was a teenager. I mean, depression always carries this demon in its clutches, that much is a given, but it exists in degrees. The depression that has blighted my life so far this year was, initially, relatively free from anhedonia and its cousin, avolition – I blogged quite prolifically around the time of Maisie’s death, after all. I gravitated here when that happened; as it had been, Confessions became my outlet, my place to vent, my catharsis and analysis. In the last few weeks, I haven’t felt that at all.

This apathy and utter dearth of motivation have been compounded by an exhaustion of a magnitude I cannot describe. I’ve been sleeping poorly, and waking early when I do manage to find slumber for a few hours – but it’s more than just that sort of tiredness, for I’ve lived with that for many years. Every step I’ve taken recently has taken the effort that I’d imagine normals would put into a bloody marathon. My head constantly droops somewhere down in my chest – giving the unfortunate impression to the cameras and any other onlookers that I’m orally pleasuring myself – because I have not an ounce of strength to hold it up. My mind is either blank, or thinking repetitive, monotonous, lifeless thoughts. I have, on many days, literally had to tell myself what to do: “move your left foot now, Pan. Good, now move your left. No, no, fuck, sorry! Move your right. Yes, right. Good. Left now. Well done.” And my body aches with this…something. Aches aches aches. And sometimes my mind joins it: it can’t even summon the energy to feel anything with my usual levels of desperation. It currently doesn’t feel raw pain, just like my body doesn’t. It just aches.

[Coincidentally - or not? - the last time I felt tiredness on this scale was back when The Everythinger was here in August. More thrilling musings on that later...]

Perhaps ironically, therefore, I think the depression to which I alluded has abated a little. I’m confident that were I to take any of the usual diagnostic tests that I’d still be deemed ‘severely’ depressed, but, again, it’s about degrees. I do feel a bit better than I did when I last wrote. This could be the normal cyclical run of my supposed manic depression, or it could be down to Lamictal. I mentioned last time that Christine was going to ask NewVCB to increase my dosage of the aforesaid drug; however, NewVCB adamantly refused. Her rationale was something that I didn’t entirely comprehend – something along the lines of not raising the dose when I was planning to cut down on Seroquel, which I think translates as “don’t let her get too used to the stuff just yet, because she’ll need a fuckload more when we start titrating the Seroquel down.”

Why, then, has the drug possibly made a difference? The reason is that effectively the dose has increased. Confused? Well, I’m not sure if I mentioned it before or not, but since I’ve been taking 100mg of Lamictal, that has (theoretically) meant ingestion of one tablet in the morning, and one in the evening. In effect, this has meant one in the evening only – ie. 50mg daily – due to the toxicity that is the infamous Seroquel hangover. Even when I had dezombified five hours later, I simply forgot to take the damn thing. Of late, however, I’ve taken to leaving a strip of the stuff on the bedside table, in order that it is the first thing I see each afternoon morning. With the sun rising earlier, I’m waking (assuming I’ve slept, which is not always the case) earlier anyway, so the morning tablet is taken at a more appropriate time, meaning that the stuff floating around my body is more regulated and less quickly half-lifed away.

So, that’s medication. What else? Ah yes. As reported in the last post, I’d received the brown envelope that all ill or disabled people in the UK fear most: that of a social security assessment form (an ESA50, in this case). I also noted that Christine has said she’d fill it in for me. When I saw her last week, she had indeed done so, the poor, lovely woman. Bless her.

Can you spot the impending ‘but’? To my regret, there is one. To be honest, she’d really written very little about my hallucinations and delusions, referring to ‘hearing voices’ or ‘feeling paranoid’ – and that was qualified by the hideous words of ‘sometimes’ or ‘on occasion’. I hadn’t the nerve to say this to her, but I felt that this wasn’t really an accurate presentation of the issues, so when an brought it home, I modified some of the content, and added stuff in. For example, it asks something like, “are other people frightened by your behaviour?”, and she had ticked ‘no’. I don’t agree with that; I know from experience that people find experiences of those like ‘They‘ deeply disturbing and, yes, frighhtening. Even some cheery ramblings of, “oh, look, that sign’s trying to tell me I’m beautiful!” sees neighbouring eyes widen in horror and concern. And something as ostensibly simple as a panic attack can have people shifting their eyes, crossing the street and then running like the hammers from hell.

By the time I’d modified that which I felt needed alteration, of course the form looked like I was trying to make my condition sound worse simply for the purpose of getting more money, rather than attempting to present reality. I therefore asked my mother to ring the Social Security Agency (SSA) and ask for a new form. “Whilst at it,” I instructed, “ask them why I’m actually being assessed.”

She responded a few hours later advising me that they refused to tell her anything and that I’d have to ring them myself. Cue fucking panic stations galore. Asking me to use the phone, as ever, was like asking me asking me to translate War and sodding Peace or Beowulf into Sanskrit. But needs must, so after perusing the SSA’s website in painstakingly close detail in a futile attempt to obtain an email address for a relevant member of staff, I took a deep breath and called them.

Naturally, this was not a simple process. At first the robotic female who ‘answered’ my call advised me, after talking frustratingly slowly through six years of patronising explanatory shit and in doing so costing me a lot of money, that my call could “not be taken at the minute. We are sorry.” (Read: “we’re on our fag break. Fuck off”). When I called back immediately, after listening to the same initial bollocks, Robot intimated to me that my call was in a queue. How surprising. “Please continue to hold and someone will be with you as soon as possible. Or, if you prefer to call back later, our opening hours are [x, y and z].”

I did not prefer to call back later, so held. Robot repeated the soft and still enragingly slow monologue about 100 times. Why the fuck do they use that voice? Are its lulled tones supposed to hypnotise you into compliance? If so, they’ve supremely failed. The only compliance they’ve evoked in me is a willingness to comply with the invoice I’m expecting from the people I sent round to break Robot’s non-existent legs (and yes, GCHQ, that is/was a joke and is not to be taken literally, seriously or as anything other than just a joke. OK?).

The real cunt, though, was fucking Vivaldi. Fuck Vivaldi. To think once I appreciated what I then found to be the majestic chords and melodies for which he was responsible. I swear to fucking God that I nearly rang Matt Smith’s agent to inquire about TARDIS rental. A trip back to 1677 to prevent the birth of the composer seems to be the only solution to this widespread problem; it’s always Vivaldi that is played when you ring any sort of call centre, and so it proved in this case. In between Robot came the first 30 seconds of (I think) Summer. Over and over and over. It would put a sane human being into an asylum.

In the end, the call itself was very straightforward. The girl was friendly, if clueless – when asked why I was being reassessed, she said, “um…well, I think they do this every year, I’m not sure though.”

“Even for people in the support group?” I checked (interruptive spluttering and stammering not included. You can obtain these with my all-singing, all-dancing in-blog purchase function, denoted by a button displaying the word ‘Donate’, at the bottom of this post).

“The support group?” The poor cow sounded genuinely mystified. “Uh…uh, yeah, I think so.”

It was a futile effort, so I told her I’d lost the ESA50 and asked if she’d send another. She cheerfully told me that this was not a problem, that she’d get someone to do it forthwith, and – apart from checking if Mum could ring on my behalf in future (yes; I just need to give details on the form) – that was really that. A simple, inoffensive, unconfrontational discussion that still left me hyperventilating. I wish I could overcome this fucking terror. My only other serious phobia is the old formulaic one of spiders and, as a general rule, that doesn’t interrupt my daily living. Sadly, if I ever want to work again – and I do, I do so much, when I’m well enough – my farcical and excessive anxiety about phones will significantly interfere with my everyday functioning,

Why should it? Why can’t people move into the 21st century and use fucking Twitter or email for their communication needs? Fuck phones.

I can’t believe I just wrote eight paragraphs about a phone call. I become increasingly ridiculous by the day, dearest readers. Moving on, I have now been back under the watchful eyes and perked-up ears of everyone’s favourite psychotherapist, the inimitable Paul, for three sessions. I will actually discuss these in more detail, though to my abject alarm, I’ve lost the notes I kept on sessions two and three. Now, the reason for my apprehension is to do with the fact that they could easily have fallen into the wrong hands, if I am in correct in my assumption that they fell out of my bag or something. However, I will admit to also being irritated for an altogether less ethical reason: I will not be able to record these two appointments here in the fashion to which I’ve become accustomed. Fuck’s sake. This blog has taken over my life. Incidentally, that’s something that actually came up with Paul – in session two? – but I’ll leave you veritably on the edge of your seat in anticipation of that. I’m sure you’re on the brink of self-immolation because you simply can’t stand the wait any other way. Burning ‘grounds’ you, to use modern therapeutic parlance.

What else? I suppose before getting to The Big Thing that I should apologise to many people on Twitter. I dip in and out of it erratically; even if I’m sending tweets, I am not necessarily reading others’ messages, or their @s or DMs to me. I often tweet by text message, and now have a quirky little iPhone app that allows me to tweet under this identity whilst being in another account. So it’s not that I’m ignoring you; I just don’t always see you. Every so often, I log in and see a few messages to me, and sometimes reply, but I’m pathetically incapable of catching up on everything. I don’t know whether this is social anxiety, increasing apathy, an identity crisis or just my being a total knob. Whatever the case, I’m sorry.

Right, then. I live in Northern Ireland, as most of you know. People on this island like to drink alcohol – a lot. Once a year, something comes up that seems to grant them complete impunity to engage in this pursuit: St Patrick’s Day. Perhaps it wil not shock you to hear that I loathe this occasion with a fucking passion; I have a pretty low tolerance for the obnoxious behaviours that many irregular drinkers display when inebriated out of their skulls, and I can’t cope the busy-ness around the place. This year, the event fell on Saturday past. A and I went out for dinner but had to come straight home, which is not at all common for us on that evening of the week. We’re usually in our local.

Anyway, the silver lining around the cloud of St Patrick (who gives a fuck about him anyway? He sounds like a bellend to me) is that A gets the day off (or gets it off in lieu when, as in this case, it’s at a weekend). Monday was therefore free, so we went out on Sunday to make up for our inability to do so the previous evening.

Exactly 51 minutes after we’d left the house, A’s phone started ringing. When he withdrew it from his pocket, we were both perplexed to observe that the caller was my mother. Thinking she was trying to get hold of me, but that my phone had lost its signal or something, I answered it (yes, yes, phone phobia notwithstanding).

The alarm was going off. If they can’t get hold of A or me, they ring my mother first, as she’s closest to our house, and then A’s mother second. A worked out the purpose of my mother’s call, and got ready to leave. I hung up and told him I’d stay in the pub; I would only hold him back by accompanying him (he’s a much faster walker than I am), and anyway, I reckoned it was a false alarm. That used to happen all the fucking time, to the point where I’ve wondered of late how the company responsible for running the thing had managed to improve their product so vastly. So A went back himself, advising that he’d call if anything untoward had happened. Otherwise, I supposed, he’d just return.

A few minutes passed, during which I caught up on some blogs on my Google Reader. In the middle of this, though, I was interrupted by a phone call incoming from my brother-in-law. Truthfully, at my core, I knew why he was ringing – but I let myself pretend that he was calling about joining us in the bar, especially given that he and A had exchanged a few messages about the outing earlier in the day. I duly ignored him.

When my mother-in-law’s name appeared on the screen of my phone, although I again tried to ignore the ramifications of this telephonic confluence of events, I really knew the game was up. This time I answered. She told me that they’d also called her and that my brother-in-law, who was at her house as it transpired, had called the police. In return, I advised her that A had gone back to the house to check that things were in order.

I’d only just hung up when A phoned. It wouldn’t be the last discussion via this medium that day…God, I wish I believed in exposure therapy. I got a lot of potential practice with it on Sunday.

I knew as soon as I answered that he was horribly distressed. It doesn’t take a skilled conversationalist to decipher the first intake of breath before a single word is spoken; cheer, shock, thrills, anger – they and many more moods besides can be deconstructed in that split second. I’ve often heard parents say that when their kid reaches a few weeks or months old that they can tell by the ‘type’ of cry it emits that it wants x or y. Maybe this is a similar type of thing.

A’s gasp was one of shock and panic. Jesus Christ, I thought within the nanosecond left to me. Not again. We were burgled last only back in June, for fuck’s sake!

“They’ve taken the TV [42 fucking inches! In a heavily-populated terraced street!], the X-Box, the PS3, the iPad…” he was gasping. “They’ve smashed the door between the kitchen and the living room in…”

“I’m coming now,” I said. I hung up and called a taxi.

I could go into my usual level of detail about this, but it’s late and I’m tired. So…

  • The cops had been when I got home, but had apparently spotted some potential culprits, so legged it after them before talking to us and examining the house.
  • Without touching anything, I managed to piece together what had happened. The burglars – or, rather, a burglar – had crawled through the tiny window we keep open for the cats; I know this because it was completely fucked. Then he (and I use the male pronoun for a reason, which I’ll detail) saw the keys hanging up, opened the back door, and let his companion in.
  • They tried, I assume, to simply open the living room door – but, as we have done since the last burglary, we had locked it before leaving the house. They smashed the poor thing in with the Dyson, which was sitting in a corner of the kitchen. Unsurprisingly, they broke that too.
  • Entering the living room would have set the alarm off, and given all that they took and the bloody mess that they’d made, it was obvious that they knew the layout of the place. They couldn’t have got away with all that they did with the alarm (which itself calls the police) curbing their time had it been any other way.
  • They shoved the smaller items, which now seemed to include my old laptop, in bags, exited through the now-open back door, and onward through the gate at the back to the entry (which they’d also used the keys to unlock).
  • They hadn’t gone upstairs. Thank fuck I’d taken my current laptop up to the office; it was safe there. Curiously, they also hadn’t taken my Kindle. It was behind the door they’d smashed in, so perhaps they didn’t see it, or perhaps they didn’t identify it as a piece of expensive electronics because it was in its case, mimicking (to a point) a normal book.
  • Before we’d left, I’d deliberately moved the Kindle and A’s iPad out of view of the window. I neurotically checked the back door was locked about seven times, as I almost always do since the last break-in. Fat lot of good my caution did us.
  • The peelers returned. We were advised that they had taken two blokes into custody (hence my use of the male pronoun in reference to these criminals), and as I detailed my theory of their entrance to the female officer, her male colleague went to look around the back entry for further clues.
  • …
  • ….
  • …..
  • I am writing this post on A’s stolen iPad.
  • …..
  • ….
  • …
  • The policeman found everything out the back!
  • It seems that when the wankers were spotted, they unceremoniously dumped everything – or perhaps not quite everything? – and ran like fuck. But they were too late :)
  • The police were here for quite a while. In short, they took statements, got the forensic people in and liaised back and forth with their station colleagues. The girl from forensics was extremely thorough – much more so than any of her colleagues we’ve previously met (bearing in mind that this is the fucking third time we’ve been burgled). Although she didn’t say much, it did appear that she had got some evidence from various things.
  • The male peeler had been around the entries of the surrounding area, and came across a small but slick, and quite evidently new, flat screen TV – in a bin. He reasonably enough supposed that it would be unlikely to have been chucked out by its owners, and thus brought it round here briefly for the forensics woman to dust. He and his colleague also revealed that other burglaries had been reported in the area that day.
  • As the cops were rounding things off, the bloke said, “just to check, you didn’t happen to have any wallets here, did you?” We responded in the negative. He nodded, but added, “any foreign currency, no?” It then occurred to me that yes – we did have a wallet in the house after all. We go to down to the Republic every so often, and there’s always leftover Euros. A has kept them in a wallet in the kitchen for months. I relayed this information to the cop as I went into the kitchen to see if it was there. It was not. The cop asked how much was in it. “At least €50, plus coins,” I told him. “There was a €50 note in it; I’m not sure if there were additional ones, but there was definitely a fifty.”
  • I watched with interest as the police exchanged satisfied glances. The wallet with the Euros had been found on the person of one of the personnel that their colleagues had in custody. A couldn’t contain his delight at this wonderful revelation; he jumped up and down screaming, “YES!!!” with the peelers standing there watching. In later conversation, the man said to me that he’s always thrilled in cases like this – both for the victims of the crime, and for officers themselves. “It’s always really nice when we manage to get a conviction,” he smiled. Indeed it must be. They don’t get very many of them for offences like this.
  • After they’d left, I ran down the street to a lovely lady, the only one in the whole area we’ve ever really spoken to, who’d offered us tea when she first realised what had happened. I wanted to let her know what had transpired, and also to apologise if we’d appeared ignorant in refusing said tea. That was weird, because I have never been in a neighbour’s house since I moved in with A, and have only ever exchanged pleasantries and cat-related anecdotes with this woman before. But I appreciated her kindness, and enjoyed the tea and cake that she was decent enough to serve me.
  • I came back and joined A in the clean-up operation. There was glass everywhere. There were strewn bags, clothes and other assorted pieces of fuck also everywhere.
  • Thankfully, the cats were both safe. Srto Gato was here when A got back, and sat down on the sofa, right in the middle of the carnage, and went to sleep. Mr Cat was, however, nowhere to be seen, and we both worried that, twisted as these fucks clearly are, they’d hurt him. He turned up about about an hour after I got home, which was a relief, though he did seem unsettled all evening. Whether he merely sensed our moods, or whether he’d borne witness to some frightening events, we are of course unable to tell.
  • Another set of cops turned up after 10pm, when things had got vaguely back to normal. They had brought the wallet, the €50s and the various Euro coins in separate evidence bags for us to identify as ours. Needless to say, we confirmed that they indeed were. The bloke said as he was leaving that he had “no doubt” that the case would come to court, though he added drolly, “and then they’ll get their 25p fine and get back to their games.” He stressed, assuming as he erroneously did that we completely lacked any knowledge of legal infrastructure, that things were out of their hands then. People can be imprisoned in Norn Iron for burglary, but it’s rare. Even when it happens, custodial sentences tend to be pretty low.
  • The worst thing in the aftermath of all this was that the house wasn’t secure; a bollocksed window and a cunted internal door require supervision. The upshot of that is that I’ve had to stay here when A’s been at work. I don’t mind that, but it does inhibit our ability to live our normal lives. Determined to buy fags before Gideon’s shite budget whacked the price of the vile things up by 37p per packet, I ran out at lunchtime today. In the half hour or so that I was gone – I dropped into a few food-ish places as well – I was panicking, panicking, panicking that the little cunts were out on bail (as they almost certainly are by now) and would break-in again as revenge for our part in their apprehension.
  • On Monday, A rang an “emergency” glass fitter and then The Everythinger (to whom I alluded millaria above). The glass people came out later that day, removed the window from its frame and stuck a temporary board up in its stead. They said they’d be back on Tuesday to fix the window itself. They weren’t. They weren’t today either. They eventually contacted A to tell him that it’ll be at least tomorrow, as they’re waiting on hinges. What double fucking glazing company runs out of hinges?! “Emergency” my arse. At least The Everythinger, who was horrified to hear we’d been burgled only months after he was here the last time for the same reason, is coming tomorrow (later today, whatever it is).
  • Hilarious incidental. The peelers speculated that the theiving scum were on a drunken bender as they went about the area pilfering what they could. As such, they nicked beer from our kitchen. In fact, the one bottle that was open seemed to have been drunk out of, thus meaning potential evidence. Anyway, the burglars were clearly pissed off, as evidenced by their smashing of a few of the bottles and dumping of other ones. This, we’re all pretty sure, is because they had they discovered that they contained Becks Non-Alcoholic beers :D Hahaha!

So, if it isn’t death, cancer scares, missing cats, depression, NHS cuntery (and the destruction of that already flawed system), a potentially impending financial desert (and the macro implications of that too), or other assorted nasties, it’s fucking burglary. Thanks, 2012. You’ve brought me the bleakest start to a new year that I can recall.

Yet, comparitively speaking, I’m OK, and thus must sound a note of optimism. Well, not optimism as such, but perhaps a little faith. Overall, I was extremely impressed with the Police Service of Northern Ireland on Sunday, and I was very touched that the lady from down the street had offered the basic but important kindness that she did. The hard work of the cops and the generosity of this sweet stranger reminded me that sometimes when you see the worst of humanity, you also see the best too.

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Thank you to Mental Healthy, their judges, nominators and sponsors for their very kind short-listing of this blog for the 2011 Mental Health Heroes awards (in the ‘Creative – Writer’ category). It’s a big honour to be featured alongside such people as the wonderful Kayla Kavanagh, her partner and carer Nigel, and the lovely Fiona Art, so thank you again :)

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Anyone want to volunteer for TWIM or TNIM? You know you want to. Email me.

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I can’t be arsed to proof-read this right now, sorry. It always mortifies me that my narratives could be error-laden, but I’m too tired to care as much as I should.

Futility

 Blog News, Life  18 Responses »
Sep 062011
 

Don’t read this if you’re in a bad mood or have an aversion to pointless, inane, self-indulgent whining.

—

Breathing. Awake – awake almost all the time. Out of bed – somehow. Eating – just. Disillusioned. Hermitting. Ruminating, especially during the wee small hours, swathed as I am in darkness, both literal and figurative, about suicide – spent all last night thinking about the film The [Golden Gate] Bridge, and kept seeing my body flying off it. Too exhausted and fed up to do anything about it, not enough money to buy petrol never mind a flight to California (jumping from GGB causes a horrid death anyhow. There are better ways to go). Avoiding laptop as if it carried Ebola (I haven’t opened it since Thursday or Friday and this is being written on my phone) – I’m positively belligerent towards the poor, innocent thing right now, which is most unusual. Weepy – again, most unlike me. Obsessed with idea that my mother will die – it fills with me with a profoundly horrified dread and deep sorrow that I cannot quantify. Very worried about her on a more rational level due to an arthritis flare-up. Triggered and disturbed by a few things I’ve seen lately. Possibly experiencing tactile hallucinations, but not sure. No other obvious psychotic symptoms. IBS, migraines and knee pain strongly in evidence. Back and neck aren’t good either. Psychosomatic, I suppose. Same nett effect as if issues were organic, though. Intoxicated by the sounds of the wind and the rain – the only positive release and escapism other than reading. Yes, reading! Shockingly I can do this, for which I give my heartfelt and eternal thanks to God(s) in whom I don’t believe. Can’t write, as this spiel of complete shit attests. Lonely but paradoxically desperately desirous of no social interaction at all. Shut down FB – more particularly, not using Twitter or G+, which means things are bad. No idea what’s going on outside my tiny little house and really, honestly, truly don’t care. An aberration for a news and current affairs junkie, surely.

I’ve been at best ambivalent and at worst actively hostile about the future of this blog lately. I go through periods where I loathe it, then others where I remember how truly important to me it is, and how markedly therapeutic it has generally been. I was going to delete the whole thing on Friday night, then again on Saturday, but must have retained some semblance of sanity because I realised (admittedly with some advice from Twitter) that I wasn’t in the correct frame of mind to make a big decision like that.

But I might take a break. Might not. Can’t say. Can’t think straight, don’t care about much, in love with the idea of complete unconsciousness, too fatigued to be angry, useful, or remotely coherent or interesting company.

Odd sense of déjà vu.

Psychiatrist in morning. Logically know this is timely and necessary, realistically dreading the living fuck out of it. Mother’s house afterwards. Unfortunately some McFauls will be there. Cannot avoid them as I need to make sure mother is OK. Hopefully there will be no Paedo though. Christine next week some time. Have so far failed to contact Nexus about renewing therapy as I promised her I would, because I’m avoiding contact with anyone (other that A, in person, and mother, by text message), regardless of reason.

Sorry this is such an unmitigated pile of hot, steaming wankshit. Thought I ought to advise those of you that inexplicably give a damn about me that I do, in fact, still exist. Thanks for comments on recent posts, tweets if you’ve sent them (I haven’t checked, sorry) and whatnot. You do mean a lot to me, I hope you all do know that – I just can’t be part of this world right now.

Much love

Pan <3 xxx

marketing

I Lied – The Mentalism is ‘Back’

 Christine, CPN, Medications, Moods, Triggers  14 Responses »
Aug 242011
 

Didn’t I sound so positive on Friday?

All that positivity about The Book, the proposed voluntary position, blah de blah. Although I seemed like (and am) a work in progress – a person notoriously uncompleted, perhaps – my apparent optimism last week did not seem to represent the words of a person in regression. It didn’t seem to be the commentary of someone whose outward skins of positivity were being painfully sliced off, little by little.

But that’s the truth of the matter.

I didn’t mean to lie. I wasn’t even truly aware at the time that I was lying. I mean, when I wrote “I might be slightly depressed…but given all that has been going on, that’s actually quite good”, I did sort of raise an eye-brow in self-referential suspicion, but I think the crux here is that if I was trying to fool anyone, it was primarily myself.

Things are not continuing to get better, as they had been for some months – and I’ve been very firmly in denial about this. The signs have been very strongly, and at times starkly acutely, in evidence for a couple of weeks now, but until Monday I was in complete denial about them. I ignored them: not consciously, but nevertheless, I believe, deliberately. When they couldn’t be ignored, I attempted to dismiss them as circumstantially appropriate, or nominally sane in some other respect, rather than doing the fucking adult thing and recognising them for what they are – clear, indubitable, glaringly-obvious-with-hindsight signs of an impending serious depression. It isn’t fully that yet, but without action and intervention now, that’s what it will become. I know (and should have known) from bitter experience that that is how this hand plays out.

Why the denial? The short answer is that I don’t really know; in the past, I’ve recognised and accepted going mental when I’ve seen it coming, so it’s hard to determine exactly why I deviated from that pattern this time around. I would hypothesise that, having tasted the pseudo-heady heights of pseudo-recovery, I didn’t want to ‘fail’ myself, to go back on all that I had seemed to have ‘achieved’, by knowing I was slowly becoming ill again. Also, and I know this is hatefully egotistical, but I often feel a sense of responsibility to others, mainly because of the relative success of this blog. I got better – -ish – and wrote about it to the world. It doesn’t look good to suddenly come back one day and say, “sorry, folks, scratch that,” does it?

Also, in this case, the problem is very likely to be attributable to my own stupid decisions. I’ll come back to that later.

I only realised how fucked I was when I spoke to Christine, my CPN, on Monday. I really can’t be bothered going into this in any detail, but essentially I told her I was experiencing the following symptoms:

  • the usual paranoia (still convinced I have schizoaffective disorder, but now also of the view that I have schizoid and/or schizotypal personality disorder, on top of the clinical depression and complex PTSD) – no better nor worse than it was the last time I saw her;
  • agoraphobia – won’t leave the house alone, don’t really want to leave it at all during the day anyway, not always at night, either (though at least then I have A to join me);
  • hideous insomnia;
  • ergo, hideous fatigue – but the levels of it are even greater than I’d expect to correlate with the level of insomnia I’m currently experiencing. I mean, I’m not exactly unused to insomnia;
  • complete and utter apathy and malaise;
  • probably some old other bollocks that I’ve forgotten.

I said to her initially that things hadn’t really changed since our last session together, and I really didn’t think that they had. The above ‘symptoms’ strike me as being part and parcel of everyday existence (to a greater or lesser extent, anyway), and it was not thinking about nor discussing them out loud that made me realise that a major depressive episode is a-callin’. It was Christine’s response to me – to what I detailed, certainly, but mostly towards me specifically.

I seemed different, apparently. I seemed ‘flat’ and disinterested. She said that the absolute confirmation of that assessment came when she asked me about writing; apparently, I spoke of this blog, and even some of my other writing ventures, with complete impassivity and detachment. In the past, she claims, there has always been a ‘spark’ about me when I’ve conversed on these matters, but in this case, I just didn’t care.

I hadn’t realised that I’d previously spoken about the blog with such enthusiasm to Christine, but what I did notice when she asked about it was how much I felt that I just didn’t care. This makes me feel guilty; there are hundreds of thousands (possibly millions?) of words chronicling a huge and important chunk of my life here. There are thousands of (mostly!) supportive and interesting comments. There are dozens of links in the blogroll to the writings of others that I really appreciate. It’s a big deal. I cannot reasonably be apathetic about this, yet I am. That was not the case a few weeks ago.

In talking to her, I also realised how ridiculously irritable I’ve become of late. Don’t worry – I didn’t fly off the handle at her (although when she kept looking at her watch I silently seethed), but she did ask a lot of questions and when I thought about the answers, I realised how narky I have actually been over the last few weeks. I’ve kept that to myself pretty well, but the feeling has certainly been there. I’ve been internally going completely batshit barmy over every single little bloody thing, and though I’ve always been easily irritated to some extent, the sheer intensity and frequency recently experienced is something that is only every present when I’m clinically doolally.

Other things I noticed in the course of the discussion were that I was even more hypervigilant than normal and that I’d behaved really strangely this weekend past. Christine asked me if I was getting out at all, and I said that A and I had gone out on Friday and Saturday night (though of course I advised her that I refuse to go out alone and am still petrified of crowds, and thus spend all day sitting in the house, cowering from the outside world. This concerned her because at points I had been trying to go some places, such as shops, by myself. I haven’t done that for ages). She was pleased that I’d gone out at all, but the weird thing is, on Saturday night when A went to bed, I sat up until 5am watching YouTube videos and smoking.

That might seem like a normal thing to anyone else in the world, but it’s odd behaviour for me. There are occasions when I stay up later than A, but they’re usually to write because in a cruel twist of fate, most of my ‘inspiration’ seems to come around the witching hour. This was different – I don’t know why it’s so odd that I would remain up whilst he went to bed, I don’t know why it’s so odd to listen to music videos whilst alone…but it is. It’s just not me at all.

She asked me if I had even enjoyed my late night pursuit. I laughed, and said that I’d taken no pleasure from it at all, but that I couldn’t seem to tear myself away from it. I said I was taking pleasure from almost nothing (save for writing the first chapter of The Book, not that I told her about that), all over again. A different tact, then; what about motivation for anything? Don’t be daft, Christine love, it simply doesn’t exist. Have I any social contact? Meh, occasionally I check Twitter. No, no, she meant in real life. Of course – A is there. But A is only there in the evenings, is he not? Well…yeah. What about my mother? Yes, my mother is there, I can go up to her house again now that AoE and The Everythinger are gone. Good, right?

But…I don’t want to talk. I don’t want to use my vocal chords at all: it is so much effort. Whilst I can get away with this in A’s company, it’s not possible in Mum’s; A can entertain himself quite easily with computer games or whatever, whereas my mother, at least when I’m with her, seems to need verbal social interaction in order to even breathe. Yet I’m too tired to speak. Speaking a few words seems akin to remastering the theory of relativity right now, so I dread the idea of having an entire conversation.

So, Christine mused, if I don’t want to (or literally can’t, at times) talk to anyone, am I willing to even see anyone? Well, Mum and A, yes – despite the communication problems inherent in seeing anybody. But beyond that, no. I’d rather gouge out my eyeballs with a rusty fork and stick them so far up my anus they come out in next year’s vomit than see anyone right now. I did force myself to have lunch with my oldest friend Brian about a fortnight ago, because I’d essentially ignored his text messages and Facebastard comments and so forth for ages, and knew I was being a shit friend. However, if I could have gotten out of it with any ounce of integrity left intact, I would have done so in a heartbeat. The meeting was awful; Brian is a lovely bloke, and we’ve known each other for so long that there will always be something to say, but I couldn’t feel anything other than selfish frustration that I had to be out of the house (fortunately, as ever, I think I hid it well).

And that brings me to another point. I felt hideously guilty for not enjoying lunch with Brian; I feel hideously guilty for not wanting to speak, especially to Mum because she’s so nice and she’s so lonely oftentimes; I felt guilty for complaining to Christine about not wanting to speak, because in doing so I was speaking, so she probably thought I was angry with her for ‘making’ me engage in that; I felt guilty for being irritable; I felt guilty for not being more respectful and appreciative of this blog; I then felt guilty for being narcissistic enough to think that people actually care about it; I felt guilty for thinking that almost everyone is out to get me; I felt guilty for my general issues of anhedonia and avolition, because when you think about it, life hasn’t really been too cruel to me, and I should be bloody grateful for what I have.

Christine cocked her head, and lifted her eyes to me. “Excessive guilt,” she said simply. An explanation of the term was not necessary. I am well aware that it is a symptom of a major depressive episode. Not that I felt or feel that the guilt is excessive, but she apparently did.

“OK,” she finally continued. “Your mood, your general demeanour, has definitely changed since I saw you last.” As noted, I’m not sure how, but then I can only observe myself from within. “You’re just…” …she searched for the correct terminology… “…not yourself, not the person I’m used to meeting.”

I thought about this for a moment. How can she know what ‘myself’ truly is? I see her for an hour every fortnight or three weeks, for Christ’s sake! But I forced myself to try to see things from her perspective, and realised that if my demeanour had indeed changed, then in fact surely it is her of all people that would notice. A sees me every day, Mum once a week. Any changes to them would be subtle, and only clearly observable retrospectively. An analogy would be when we got our cats as kittens. We didn’t notice them aging day to day, but when my sister-in-law – who was with us the day we took them home – saw them several months later, she very clearly noticed how much they’d grown. I suppose observable shifts in mood are a bit like that.

Indeed, I remember when I got my accursed medical notes (yes, those things that I didn’t bother doing anything useful with – fail fail fail fail fail), the letters from Psychiatry to Lovely GP would detail my mood self-reports and then their ‘objective’ assessments. Now don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t always (or even often) agree with their alleged ‘objectivity’; however, unlike many within this discipline, Christine is a no-bullshitter, and the more we talked about how things were, the more I grew to see that she was right. Things are Heading South.

So, then. What caused it?

I tried to blame it on insomnia. If I can’t sleep, then it’s inevitable that my mood is going to drop. She accepted that, to a point, but asked if I was still feeling so apathetic and (sometimes willfully) disconnected from the world when I had taken Zopiclone and ergo had had at least some sleep. I was forced to admit that I was. In all honesty, sleeping hadn’t really affected that at all.

“Ah well,” I sighed. “These things do go in circles, don’t they? I’ve never been stupid enough to believe that I wouldn’t go through another major depression. It’s always going to be a part of my life in some fashion.”

“Hmm,” she replied, uncertainly. “Maybe. But I’m just wondering…how long has it been since you sliced your Seroquel dosage in half?”

“About five weeks…” I began.

“And how long has this…this downward slide been going on? About three?”

“Um…yes, I suppose so. But it can’t be anything to do with the Seroquel, can it? I mean, I know it’s used as an anti-depressant, but I thought that was at lower doses. [NewVCB] told me that the maintenance dosage of it for depressive features is 300mg.”

“As a general rule, it is,” Christine replied. “But it doesn’t mean that the mood stabilising and anti-depressant properties aren’t applicable in higher doses – and anyhow, you seem to have a high tolerance to medication to begin with. Everyone responds differently to different doses of medication, as you know.”

I had to concede those points to her, and after debating it in my head for a couple of minutes, I was forced to recognise that the timing of my apparent descent back into madness relative to my idiotic decision to reduce my daily intake of Seroquel was highly coincidental.

“And I don’t believe in coincidences,” I added softly.

She nodded. “Neither do I. I don’t know if you know this, but in the XR version of Seroquel [the one I take], the anti-depressant properties are more potent than in the standard version [no, I didn't know this. I thought extended release was just that - so why does that have an impact on mood more so than getting the hit all at once?], so I think that further evidences the fact that there’s a connection here.”

“But,” I protested, “I have had no hallucinations at all since I reduced the dose, and that day of heightened paranoia last month was when I was still taking 600mg.”

“Even so,” she shrugged. “The depressive and anhedonic symptoms still strike me as being related.”

Maybe the psychosis remits. Maybe it only occurs in times of stress (so maybe I don’t have schizoaffective disorder, as I posited at the beginning of this post. Though I still think I do). Maybe it simply can’t be bothered right now, and will return down the line a bit along with some other nefarious attacks on my psyche, such as the hateful mental prison that is the psychiatric mixed state. Maybe it only comes at all when I’m in the midst of a full-blown mood episode (therefore, again, possibly ruling out schizoaffective disorder, and suggesting psychotic depression or bipolar disorder). I mean, when you’re terrified by hallucinations, it isn’t your first priority to start assessing what your general mood state has been at the time, so I really don’t know.

Who cares. Whatever the case, psychosis or no psychosis, I was forced to agree that it looked very likely that the reduction in Seroquel had dramatically affected my psychological well-being.

“If I were you, I’d very seriously consider going back on to the 600mg,” Christine told me.

“What, tonight?” I checked.

“Yes. And if you find that you still want to reduce it after that, discuss it with [NewVCB] in your appointment on 7th September, and she can maybe consider tapering it down or something. But for now, I really think you should go back on it until you see her. I know it’s only a fortnight, but…”

“…that’s a long time when you’re going mental,” I finished despondently, and she nodded her agreement.

“What do you think about that?” she asked.

“I reduced the Seroquel because I was sick of not being able to get up in the mornings. and then experiencing this repulsive, zombified hangover when I did. But I’d rather both of those than be mental – particularly ‘mental’ in the form of ‘depressed’. I’m just worried about the weight gain. It makes me need chocolate, which is contrary to my nature. I’ve never really had a sweet tooth, but as soon as I started taking 600mg of this stuff, I developed one that is surely unparalleled across space and time.”

“We can discuss that, if it continues,” she said. “If you can get back your interest in things, then maybe you can start taking occasional trips to the swimming pool, for example, and build it up from there. If your mood is better to begin with, things like that will seem less daunting.”

I inhaled deeply. “OK. I’ll increase it again. If this is the start of a black treacle of depression, I want to nip it in the bud before it gets out of hand. If I can. Maybe it’s already too late?”

“Possibly, but by no means definitely,” Christine replied. “You may well be able to stop this before it becomes significantly worse. And at least you have a psychiatric appointment soon, and that will help guide us from there.”

I have been back on the 600mg of Seroquel for two nights now. Obviously two nights isn’t going to make a difference, but let’s just see where we are with the depression thing. I don’t feel depressed as such – Christine, when I said that to her, once again used the adjective ‘flat’ to describe my disposition – but the curious thing about depressive episodes is that they’re not always characterised by raw despair itself; many other things can mould themselves into that horrible, amorphous shape. So, as I did in February, I’m going to use those amazingly accurate, wonderfully telling and obviously entirely diagnostically valid depression scales to see what the craic is.

Goldberg – 68
Beck – 53
Hamilton – 37
Burns – 89

Look at the fucking score on the Beck Inventory! All the others are slightly better than February, but it is a fuckload worse. By fucking miles! Either I inaccurately recorded my Beck scores when I previously did this test, or things have really fucked up, because I think I’ve been honest in my answers today. Perhaps the thing with it is that it places a lot more emphasis on behaviour and thoughts, rather than depressed feelings alone, than some of the other assessments do. But whatever the case, that isn’t good.

Perhaps one of the biggest indicators that things are not good is the fact that I collapsed on Monday night. I just blanked out – presumably I fainted – and fell, with the next thing I knew being my lying on the floor. Mum, who is trying to buy a new car, kept asking me to stand behind her at the computer as she looked up endless reams of automotive specifications, and I was so fucking exhausted that even that was an effort akin to climbing Mount Kiliman-fucking-jaro. So I apparently responded somatically, and passed out. Don’t worry; I wasn’t hurt or anything. But I do think that all factors, when detailed here together, suggest that until things start to demonstrably improve, I have to be very, very careful.

My concentration isn’t as bad as it normally is when I’m off my head, so maybe I can seek some solace in writing The Book. Yet even that seems like it has to be treated with kid-gloves, because writing can very quickly wear even the sanest person out (I’ve been writing this fucking post on and off since Monday afternoon!). Take it easy, The Eagles once sang. Good advice, that.

Those of you that read TWIM will know that on Saturday I featured, as one of the wildcards, a blog denouncing the inappropriate use of quotation marks. You might very well attempt to protest at my use of said marks in the title of this blog post, but you can’t put me on trial for hypocritical punctuation abuse just yet (at least, not for that. I’m sure there’s a multitude of errors within this post, but I’m typing on my mother’s netbook which makes things difficult and, furthermore, I’m a bit mental and can’t be arsed to proof-read this. So suck it). I put the word ‘back’ in quotes because it isn’t back; it can’t be, because it was never away. It was, and is, always there – just to greater or lesser extents that can or can’t be easily managed. ‘Back’ seemed like the most appropriate word given the apparent change in intensity, however, so there you go.

—

I’m really, really not a fan of BBC3 in the least, but BBC1 happened to repeat this programme originally broadcast on the former last night. It’s a surprisingly sensitive and interesting look at how caring for a parent with mental illness can affect a young person. If your country allows you access to the BBC iPlayer, do check it out :)

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Apropos of Nothing

 Life, Meh  15 Responses »
Aug 192011
 

Writing is a lonely profession (if indeed it can ever be turned into a ‘profession’). But that loneliness is somehow comforting in its own paced-ness, in its ability to protect one from the perils of the outside (some would say ‘real’) world. The pursuit, whilst thoroughly without guarantees and assurances, is still a safe one – published or not, you still have the pleasure of composition, and of knowing, eventually, that you have completed something that at least has potential, if to no one else but to you.

What this amounts to is this. I’m writing a book. I’m not wont to discuss it in detail on a public forum like this blog, but it is going to be mental health related. Many of you have inexplicably but kindly asked me if I would turn this very blog into a book, but that isn’t my plan at this stage, for two key reasons. One is the simple fact that the intended book’s concept is already very clear in my mind, and I don’t want to deviate from that while it’s so vivid. The second is that going through everything written here – post by post, word by almost-endless word – is one hell of a task to take on, especially when my mental health is still relatively fragile. I’d like to maybe do it some day, but not now. Sorry :(

Also, you see, in doing all the factual writing of late that I have – here, and in other arenas – I realised that I hadn’t done any creative writing since…fuck, I don’t know. Since I was at school? Maybe even since my GCSEs? That’s a horrible realisation, to know that I’ve neglected a passion of mine for such a disgustingly long period. I used to love writing fiction, and I’ve only recently realised that I miss it.

So, The Book will be a fictional narrative. Whether it’ll turn out to be a novel, a novella or a short (as if!) story, I don’t yet know, but I don’t really mind whatever the case may be. I also don’t really care if anyone is willing to publish it or not; I mean, it would be lovely if someone did, that much is self-evident – but I’m doing primarily for my own pleasure. I had genuinely forgotten what escapism and what joy comes from such a simple pass time, and I’m revelling in it at the minute.

So I haven’t written much here this week, since the idea for The Book came to me. It isn’t just The Book that is keeping me away, though the other factors are still within the literary realm – I’ve been reading voraciously, planning a few pieces of non-fictional writing, and even the odd non-writing bit of so-called creativity too.

I just thought I should post something, drivelsome and dull as this is, to show you that I’m still alive, and that I’m doing relatively well. Since I cut back on the Seroquel, I haven’t been sleeping well (unsurprisingly) and have had to resort to take Zopiclone on many nights. The new neighbours and their screamer are not assisting in my quest for slumber (they keep the strangest hours, especially for a family, that I’ve ever encountered. They arrive home, child in tow, about 11.30pm, then proceed to talk half the night on the phone, child still in tow. What the fuck?). However, beyond that, I’m OK. Things aren’t amazing, and I might be slightly depressed – but I’m managing, and given everything that’s happened over the last three years, at the moment I really think that that’s good enough.

And it is three years. It’s just over three years now since I left my own little office for the last time. I noted above that writing is lonely, and it is. But having your own office, glamorous as it may sound, is lonely too, yet it doesn’t have any of the advantages that working from a laptop on your own sofa does. Nonetheless, I miss it in some ways: at least the people who worked in the offices bordering mine were, generally, good people, and were I feeling a bit lost, I could normally wander in next door and have a quick chat with them, before returning to my own quiet domain. I can’t do that when I’m sitting here typing all day.

To that end, as well as writing The Book, I’m applying for a voluntary job. I think I might have mentioned this before, but I’m finally going to do it, and whilst I’m extremely nervous, I’m also quite excited about its potential as well. I haven’t put in the application yet, but I plan to this week…and then we’ll see. At present, I’m only going to offer the organisation a few hours a week, but for the type of position I’m hoping to get, I suspect that for the moment that’s more than adequate. If not, and if it works out, and if I even get it for that matter, I might be willing to increase the hours a little bit further down the line.

I don’t know why any of you like this blog, but since some apparently do (thank you!), please be assured that none of this means I’m winding it down or anything. I’m trying to plan the final posts on Paul, and a few other bits and pieces, so you can’t get rid of me that easily :) I just won’t promise that I’ll post once a week or more, as I usually try to do. We’ll see how it goes. But Confessions will remain, so worry not :) This is very far from ‘goodbye’; it’s simply a boring “here’s where I’m at right now” update.

What else? The Everythinger is gone (YAY!), I’m seeing Christine on Monday, NewVCB at the start of September, and I’m probably going to re-contact Nexus some time next month to re-embark on therapy. Part of me dreads that for what I assume are obvious reasons, but mostly I feel reassured and hopeful about the potential of it, given how useful my last course with Paul was. I’m back into something of a routine now that both Aunt of Evil and The Everythinger are gone, A seems a little less stressed at work than he had been, and I’m relieved that both Daniel and CVM are both alive and well and that the stupid riots in England appear to be over.

And that’s about it really. That’s what’s been happening in Pan’s world of late. I hope your existence has been more interesting but at least equally stable, and that you’re all well and happy :)

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Pointless Rant of Utter Pointlessness

 Life, Meh, Moods, Triggers  8 Responses »
Aug 012011
 

Will to live = - 465,927 Life Points.

Abilities of written communication as of this moment in time = - 2,852,937,563,828,445,643 Writing Points.

Decision to go ahead and write a post anyway = + 28,426,384,722,044 Stupid Points.

Wrote the below in the midst of an exhaustive fit of pique:

—

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH.

The Everythinger is a really decent man, and it’s not his fault that I am completely and utterly fed up, but this whole house decoration business is doing my head in. If I have to see B&fuckingQ one more time, I will scream. No, literally: I will actually scream. My formerly held ambivalence towards the place has transmogrified into a demon of bitter resentment.

I know of people who have their houses decorated every year or so. How is this possible? There are no circumstances under which the alleged feasibility of that could compute in my brain. How could you do this on an even occasional basis without putting a bullet in your head? The disruption of routine (such as it is, in my case), the constant presence of someone in your house, the constant trips to the aforementioned shop of doom and woe, the movement of furniture and its intrusion into places of comfort, the fucking smell (admittedly faint in these days of modern technology), the constant “would you like another coffee?”s…gah. Even writing about it makes me shudder. For someone who is mentally healthy, surely this a stress that hardly seems worth it (and yes, for what it’s worth, the apparently sane A is cracking up too). For someone with as much batshittery in her belfry as me, it’s remarkably demanding.

I dissociated a bit on the way back from B&Q this evening. That’s the first time in a very long time, and isn’t a particularly good sign. It didn’t develop into a full-on how the fuck did I get here mode, like it has so many times in the past, but I did notice myself losing a few seconds here and there (or rather I didn’t, but you know what I mean). I know we all do from time to time when driving, but this was different from normal ‘highway hypnosis’ – my experiences of both that phenomenon and more atypical dissociation have taught me the difference between the two, though it’s hard to quantify the distinction in words. Perhaps mentalists develop a sixth sense for mentalist issues over time? Perhaps I am just doing my usual thing of making something out of nothing, or over-pathologising, or any of the other lovely things I could easily be accused of.

People will no doubt read this and say, “get a grip – this is a normal and ordinary life event! God, you are so frightfully immature!” I suppose it is and I suppose I am, and it’s quite probable that I am suffering from a normal, if (I would wager) severe, form of everyday stress. I think, and hope, that’s all it is. But, as noted, everyday stress in those with pre-existing insanity is at best a dubious state.

Ah well. That’s all terribly boring, but then you must be used to that from this blog by now, surely? I don’t think I’m about to be binned or anything. I’m fed up, unspeakably tired and really rather irritable, but I think that’s all reactive to circumstance, rather thank some sort of mental health crisis.

—

Actually, now (half an hour or so after the above) I’m feeling a little less bollocks, which is particularly curious given that we have just had to move a nightmare amount of stuff out of and around the over-cluttered kitchen. I have an apparent phobia of reorganising things, let’s not forget – and yet I feel more energised and slightly less irritable than I did.

One of the tidier bits of my kitchen right now.

One of the tidier bits of my kitchen right now. It is upside down.

That could be very, very temporary, however. A new family have moved in next door and they have a child, who is – I would guess – about 18 months old. Now, as well you know good readers, I’m not a huge fan of those to whom I will diplomatically refer as little people – however, were they to adequately modulate the noise that they emit, then even I can be tolerant. That, alas, is not the nature of young children (and yeah, I know it’s not their fault, I know I was that age once, yadda yadda yadda. I’ve heard it all before and I have all the childfree responses, so…). Anyway, as I type the wee boy is screeching the entire street of houses down. It’s one of those high-pitched, guttural, throat-agonising screams that children seem capable of producing with gay abandon, yet which would leave someone over five with a 10 week long case of laryngitis. These walls are paper thin. There is no way I can cope with this in the short-term, never mind for anything longer than that.

Will we have to stop swearing for fear of offending the parents’ sensibilities? Are we still allowed to have sex in case we wake the child? Will the Everythinger pottering about cause him upset? What if he gets a scratch and the cats are blamed and have to be put to sleep?

Paul thought that I didn’t like kids because I was forced to grow up too quickly, or whatever it was that was related to my experiences of child sex abuse. I think I don’t like kids because I don’t like kids.

And yeah, the irony of my having thrown all my fucking toys out of the pram in the preceding paragraphs whilst then moaning about children crying is not lost on me. I’m a hypocrite. I’ve never denied it, have I? So meh. My blog, my rants.

(Of course, there is a deeper issue here. I’ve often considered posting my views on whether it would be wise for me to procreate, even if I did like children, even if I loved everything about them, even if they brought me unparalleled joy. Does anyone care or would I be wasting my time?)

Anyway, A has just said, “thank Christ we’re leaving.” Though earlier he said, “if we’re this stressed over getting the house, how can we even contemplate moving?” And, as I continue to type, we are having a conversation about it in which he’s just reminded me that moving is the second most stressful thing a person can do in their life (after divorce, I believe), and that maybe it’s the wrong time to seriously consider it. Plus he’s not in the best frame of mind himself at the minute; he’s under a lot of stress at work, and is suffering from that general life disillusionment which befalls us all at some point in our existences, to greater or lesser extents. Maybe the burglary affected us both more than we realised. Maybe it’s just life, which is often a sucky thing in general. Who knows. Who cares. It is.

The original point of this post was to update the blog with reference to the my most recent meetings with Christine, but it’s nearly 800 words long and I’ve decided to make a conscious effort not to write 4,000 words every time I put fingers to keys, so even though this is nothing but a meandering, idiotic, probably offensive and irritating pile of pointless, ranting, steaming manure, it is getting published now. I’ll write about Christine tomorrow whilst the Everythinger does everything.

The child has shut up. And I think I feel better for ranting.

Maybe it will all be OK.

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How Do You Work Full-Time When You’re a Mentally Ill Seroquel-Gobbler?

 Life, Medications, Random Mental Health Related Philosophising, Work  25 Responses »
Jul 262011
 

Seroquel has tended to dictate that I sleep until at least 10.30am each day, and often much later. When I say ‘sleep’, I don’t necessarily mean that literally, because of course Seroquel regrettably loses its soporific effects over time, and I have an apparent predisposition to insomnia anyway; however, one way or another, the hangover effects of the drug leave me in a zombified stupor the whole of each morning.

Seroquel may dictate that I don’t do anything at all in its wake, but unfortunately of late circumstance has demanded the polar opposite. You may recall that A and I were burgled (for the second time) about a month ago. Two requirements arose out of this: one was the need to urgently repair the damage caused by the tossbags responsible (that being the broken back gate and the door between the kitchen and living room) and the second was, in respect of our probable desire to move, to get the house into some sort of cosmetic order. A and I live in perpetual mess and don’t really give a shit what the house looks like ordinarily. Of course maintenance of a house is a general chore to anybody, but I appear to have a specific phobia of it. Not that I’m using that as an excuse to get out of it, mind you, because I wouldn’t fucking do it whether I had said fear or not. (At least I’m honest, yes?).

Anyway, A’s father and step-mother have a mate who’s good around the house. He paints, tiles, joins, does minor structural work, blah blah de blah fucking blah blah. He’s trusted, being a family friend, and he charges reasonable rates. Excellent. Brilliant. Amazing.

Does that sound sarcastic? It is, to an extent, but seriously – we’re very lucky to have this connection, because of course it would be just our luck, were we to seek out a similar sort of individual via classified ads or something, that the person contacted would be an unscrupulous wanker with a criminal record the length of one of my more…um…exploratory posts on this blog (that’s c. 4,000 – 5,000 words, for current readers fortunate enough to be uninitiated). Furthermore, the bloke in question is a nice bloke; he’s fairly easy to chat to and seems to do a good job.

However. Fuck me but I’ll be glad to see the back of him.

I have a routine. An inane and, perhaps paradoxically, fairly un-regimented one, admittedly, but something that suits me nevertheless. I get up when Seroquel allows me to get up. Then I write, read or occasionally watch the pointless but inexplicably addictive rolling *ahem* news (read: sensationalised bullwank) on BBC News 24. I sound like a work-shy fucker, I know, but even in these not-so-heady days of pseudo-”recovery”, this is genuinely all I am capable of. I don’t like lying in half the day, and I don’t do it through choice. I do it because the medication forces me to do it. In turn, the threat of potentially dangerous psychosis forces me to take the medication.

Our builder-joiner-decorater-Everythinger, and his penchant for showing up at eight in the bloody morning, has screwed up this seemingly idle but oddly workable routine on an epic scale. I haven’t felt this chronically and soul-destroyingly fatigued since I was plagued with literally months on end of insomnia. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that it takes me back to when I was still at work full-time and plagued with literally months on end of insomnia (God, that’s a vile memory. I would lie in bed, awake, all night – every night, for months. I’d get up at 7am and almost throw coffee beans down my throat. Then I’d go to work for 8am, stay there to 6pm in a futile effort to wear myself out, come home, stare blindly at the TV for a few hours, then repeat the whole hideous cycle for another day, and another day, and another day. And this was before my 2008 breakdown came a-callin’. How the fuck did I do that every day?).

It’s the Seroquel’s fault, of course. I would probably be tired if I wasn’t taking it, but I don’t think I’d be so completely devoid of any atom of energy whatsoever. It’s the drug that demands that I rest (if you can call existing in a stupefied Seroquel hangover ‘rest’) so much, and when I don’t do its bidding, it punishes me, like some embittered monarch lashing out at a traitor.

Anyway, whilst I’m on the themes of Seroquel and working both, herein lies a huge issue. Last month, Differently left the following comment on my rant about knobend MP Philip Davies (who, incidentally, was one of the ones to question the Murdochs and Rebecca Rebecka Rebeckah Rebekah Wade Grant-Mitchell Brooks over the News of the Screws phone-hacking allegations – how the hell did Parliament let him on that committee?):

…realistically I’m unsure that I’ll ever be able to work full time, since a combination of my experiences and the meds I take mean that managing 2 weeks at 10-4 left me looking physically unwell, pale and tired and feeling horrendous, thereby meaning that I hope to work part-time…

Seaneen, who is presently working full-time, has also alluded recently to how much Seroquel has inhibited her at work in the mornings (and she has, as a consequence, withdrawn from it).

I had been thinking, much to my chagrin, that part-time employment was becoming my own only realistic option as far as future return to work goes, but I kept trying to tell myself that eventually that wouldn’t be the case, that eventually I could back to working full-time. But this exhaustion-debacle with the Everythinger has left me seriously questioning that feigned optimism.

I cannot function without devoting most of the morning to a complete state of bleugh. I just can’t. Not whilst 600 daily milligrams of Quetiapine addles my entire system. So, if I continue to take the stuff – certainly at this dosage – there is no way in hell that I could work full-time. It is simply impossible.

I keep looking at other people (especially, to my personal feminist frustration, other women) – randoms in the pub, the street, whatever – and I silently ask them, how – how?! - can you possibly work eight hours a day, five days a week? How is that even remotely physically feasible? And then I remember that I too did this – for years, some of it whilst doing a sodding postgraduate degree – and I shake my head in stunned disbelief. How did I do that? How was that even approaching possible? Was I an imposter in my own body? (I do love a bit of ((self-directed)) Capgras). I am certainly not that person now. Was I ever that person, really? Who was I then? Who am I now? How did it all change? (And, you might ask, who fucking cares, Pan?).

Those that are masochistic enough to regularly read this blog may be remember that, at my last psychiatric review, I asked NewVCB if I could consider reducing my dosage of Quetiapine. You may also recall that she was potentially amenable to this, citing a maintenance dose of 300mg.

This could help, and I might notice the difference more markedly after coming down from such a high dose, but my recollection of taking 300mg in the past was that it was still very – if not quite, as currently, absolutely and unequivocally - debilitating the next morning. Besides, I’m not convinced that 300mg adequately functioned on the psychotic features of my illness. It sated some of the voices a little I suppose, but it was only when I started ingesting a daily whack of 400mg upwards that they actually shut the fuck up (and random, probably stress-related delusions are notwithstanding).

So, herein lies my dilemma. You all know I don’t buy into anti-psychiatry ideals and (conspiracy?) theories. Seroquel works. I know I whinge about weight gain and have launched a virtual diatribe against the stuff in this post, but it has truly made my life better. As long as I have my get-over-the-hangover routine, I am fine. Venlafaxine at a high dose has worked wonders – well, quasi-wonders, anyway – in terms of my mood; Quetiapine has probably aided in that too, but the key issue with it is that I am almost entirely without psychosis at the minute, and have been (bar that one episode the other week, as linked to in the previous paragraph) for aaaaaaaaaaages.

But, much as I don’t want to be normal in what seems to be the standard, societally accepted version of the word, I want to be able to do the things I always wanted to do. In other words, I want to work. A career – not a job, a career - was all I ever really wanted. Thus far, mentalism has denied me a career, but has periodically at least allowed me to have jobs, which may have – in another place and time – led to careers. Is being mental now going to rob me of both possibilities? Will I be a dolescum forever? Are part-time workers actually commonly sought by employers? Besides which, why is it fair that A works full-time (fuck knows how he does it) and I don’t?

Bah. I don’t know. It looks to me like I have a choice between relative sanity and full-time work. Please don’t tell me to kick the Seroquel, by the way. It isn’t going to happen, at least not in the short to medium term. I’d rather not live with a bunch of nefarious fucktards telling me to kill myself (or, worse, others); I’d rather not live with Paedo following me about the place; I’d rather not have to make sense of contemptuously vicious peccaries and stupid fucking gnomes randomly harassing me; I’d rather not live convinced that cameras are watching my every bloody move. Waaah waah waah, whinge whinge whinge, ad infinitum.

We could argue the toss about the true roots of psychosis all we might like – Paul of course held (and, presumably, holds) that psychosis is an entirely logical response to severe trauma, and he may well have a point – but I don’t think I’m ever going to go all R D Laing/Robert Whitaker on this. At the risk of being infuriatingly repetitive, Seroquel, for me at least, works. It does exactly what it’s indicated to do. (Or, as I mistyped, tindicated to do. Geddit?!!!?1?!!!?11????!!eleven?!?! It does exactly what it says on the tin? Tindicate? No? Meh. Sorry. Humour ain’t my strong point).

So, sanity or full-time work. Full-time work or sanity. Why is nothing ever simple or easy in this enforced existence that the fabled they (not my ’They’ ;) ) smugly refer to as ‘life’? Why do we always have to make choices, to compromise, to ‘make do’?

Am I an immature little brat for being irate that mutual exclusivity exists in this context? (Actually, don’t answer that).

Anyway, enough.

(And yeah, by the way, I have sold out and stuck PayPal begging buttons on some posts and on the sidebar. What can I say? I’m a slave to a capitalist world, a traitor to my fellow benefit claimants, a betrayer of my lefty principles, a self-serving money-whore of evil, a rabiator of [insert hated multi-national conglomerate of your choice here] proportions, a twat, a dick, a __________, a &%$(“($, a…yeah, you get the idea. A few of you also did ask about it, in my defence ;) ).

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Day of Ridiculous Paranoia and Panic

 Moods, Traumatic Stuff, Triggers  14 Responses »
Jul 142011
 

OK. I privatised two posts, but am feeling a little calmer – and therefore less paranoid – so have decided to post them here in summary, and with a brief update.

Post One: Night Terror

Published c. 1.30pm. Hidden c. 2pm.

I’m going to publish this utter rubbish, but don’t be surprised if it quickly disappears or gains a password…

—

  • 11.30pm: Go to bed. After a number of nights of insomnia, for once can’t keep eyes open to concentrate on book. Sleep.
  • 4am: Waken. Completely. Dick around with phone for a minute or two. Become bored. Pick up Kindle and see that this morning’s Guardian has already been delivered. Read it.
  • 4.30am: In an effort not to wake A, keep trying not to laugh at Rupert Murdoch’s deserved and long-time-coming misfortune. Grauniad has devoted thousands of words and an entire section to this.
  • 4.35am: Complete Rupert Murdoch section of Grauniad. Go to next section. Do not pass ‘go’, do not collect £200.
  • 4.35am and 10 seconds: Freak out. Picture of GCHQ building in Cheltenham is staring back at me from Kindle screen.
  • 4.36am – c. 4.39am: Read GCHQ piece with growing trepidation. Article is actually about whether GCHQ, MIs 5 and 6 should face greater scrutiny from MPs and peers.
  • 4.39am and 30 seconds: Start having heart palpitations. GCHQ is complaining they do not have enough “internet specialists”. Try to rationalise that this means they’re not watching me; according to this article, they simply don’t have the manpower. Fail to thus rationalise. That this is in the media means they’ll soon have more relevant workers to spy on me.
  • 4.41am: Hide under bedclothes, convinced that the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee have kicked this story off as they’ve found out that GCHQ are after me and need more people to keep tabs on me. Further convince self that ISC has put out this story to lull me into a false sense of security.
  • 4.42am – c. 5.00am: Scour bedroom with eyes, trying to find evidence of government (or, indeed, any other) cameras. Do not find any.
  • 5am: Get up and go into bathroom to try to pull self together. Find disgusting and fairly unique-looking spider in the bath. Freak out even more. Scared of spiders anyway, but this is shaped oddly; it has a long, elongated body, rather than a round one. Could spider actually be a tiny hidden camera?
  • 5.01am: Spider doesn’t seem to be a camera because fucker is clearly alive. Surprise myself by having ability to stand there watching it slowly circle towards, and eventually into and down, the plughole – rather than the more common practice of screaming the house down.
  • 5.03am: Return to bed. Spend what must be nearly an hour arguing with myself about GCHQ. I say I’m paranoid and narcissistic. Story about GCHQ is just a normal politics scoop about the funding and accountability of government agencies. Someone, however, laughs scornfully, and tells me I’m doomed. Cannot work out whether this is ‘me’ being irrational and completely self-obsessed, or if it’s someone ‘else’. Not reminiscent of ‘They‘, Tom, peccaries, gnomes or Paedo. Is female. Probably just me countering myself. Not sure.
  • c. 6am: Suddenly don’t care whether GCHQ are watching or not. Stick two fingers up to room around me and without speaking advise GCHQ, if they’re there, that I am just going to go about daily life anyway. Pick up Kindle again, deliberately ignore rest of Grauniad, read book instead.
  • c. 7am: Suddenly pass out into deep sleep.
  • c. 8.20am: Re-awaken. Converse with A, only giving fleeting thought to cameras/GCHQ.
  • c. 8.30am to present: Get up, eat, do some stupid puzzles to wake mind up, wonder why I became so terrified during the night, accuse self of narcissism, don’t believe GCHQ have cameras watching me (at least not to crippling extent of the early hours). Debate whether or not to discuss this with Christine tomorrow. Do not want to change medication or end up in bin.

    Conclude incident in the night was mere paranoia without logical basis precipitated by FuckBitch Aunt of Evil’s presence, and my uncertainty about her intended movements. Decide this is some bizarre, psychotic form of transference. Am transferring AoE’s unpredictability and sheer fucking nosiness about me onto GCHQ, because I know GCHQ technically can (though probably don’t) read/listen to/see me/my stuff. Very unlikely that AoE has the requisite surveillance knowledge or equipment to do so.

    Decide, therefore, that episode was a one-off, mainly caused by AoE but also partly catalysed by sleep deprivation. My sleep patterns – or insomnia patterns – go in cycles. This is period of the latter. Am reminded that I named this blog what I did for a reason. Mood is still OK, so a brief bout of evil/insomnia-induced mentalness can’t be that bad…right?

    Given the above, decide to hide information from Christine. Don’t need bin nor stronger anti-psychotics. Need AoE to go away (which she will on Tuesday, yay!) and Zopiclone (of which I have plenty).

So. Yay. Good. All is fine. I only wrote this for posterity, not because I’m concerned. Sorry for the crap writing, but it’s partly due to (a) the stream of consciousness bullshit that I wrote ‘live’ on my phone as events progressed and (b) I can’t be arsed switching on the laptop or PC, so am still writing this from via the iOS WordPress application.

I’ll try and catch on more therapy reviews next week. For now, it seems this bollocks is my only blogging contribution this week. Probably a good thing if I’m being this narcissistic ;)

Post Two: I Am Actually Going Mad

Written c. 3.30pm. Not published.

This is new. I cannot recall paranoia on this level. I am absolutely petrified, to the point where I’m shaking, hiding in a corner and throwing up.

Worries:

  1. Mother is dead;
  2. Aunt of Evil is going to come here and confront me;
  3. GCHQ;
  4. Burglars, rapists, GBHers and murderers;
  5. Debt – creditors are going to put me in prison;
  6. A will also die on the way home from work;
  7. But I can’t go out in the car to collect him or see if mother is OK because I will have an accident;
  8. Stupid decision to publish last post because if the people discussed therein find it, then they will bin me;
  9. Christine tomorrow in case she bins me because all of a sudden I’m really, really not sane.

Tried trich to calm down. Didn’t work. I don’t want to cut but I’m scared, I need some sort of release. I am going to try Valium, but that won’t stop my current persecution complex; it’ll only numb my response to it. I thought that maybe splurging out shit here would be cathartic but it only fuels my perception that everyone is out to get me.

I keep hearing noises outside and am convinced that it’s someone coming to get me. It’s not. It’s people going about their bloody business. But is it though?

Oh God.

I’ve turned up the TV so as I don’t hear them but my concern there is that then they know that I’m in here and if I don’t let them in by legitimate means then they will get in by other methods.

What has happened? I was so fucking well for a while there and no one was out to get me. Now I’m not and they are (well, I retain some insight that says they’re not, but I can’t believe it). It feels like a psychotic mixed episode. I don’t want this. Why has it happened?

I hope my previous assertion that this has been induced by insomnia was correct but I don’t believe that right now.

My IBS is out of control today so I might not even be able to run away should I need to do so. Not that I do, I know. But yet I might. Fuck, I don’t know.

Don’t know what else to say. This is not good. I’m such a fucking idiot.

Now

  • Mother is not dead. I stupidly advised her that I was mental, but luckily she hasn’t shot over here to see if she can make me saner, because I assured her that A would be home soon.
  • No one has tried to force entry.
  • AoE is staying with my mother, and is therefore not (nor has been) here.
  • A could be dead, but I seriously doubt it.
  • GCHQ have no interest in me. Why do I keep thinking that they do? If they happen to come across any of this, I bet they’re laughing their bollocks off.
  • I am not particularly behind in paying my creditors. A little, but not enough to be of major concern yet. I’ve already considered bankruptcy if it comes to that.
  • I could be murdered, raped, GBHed or burgled, but hopefully the statistics are presently in my favour. I mean, two of those have happened several times already; could I really be that statistically unlucky?
  • There are no voices but my own.
  • IBS continues, but that’s a several-times-daily thing that I should not have taken out of context.
  • I am mortified about all of this but am going to publish this post as a warning to myself.
  • I am very grateful for the support afforded to me on Twitter today. Thank you.
  • I am fine now. Please don’t worry about me :)

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Agoraphobic Persecutory Delusions of Familial Evil and Seroquel. Etc.

 Christine, CPN, Life, NewVCB, Psychiatry  11 Responses »
Jul 082011
 

In the absence of Paul – I know I’m still catching up on writing about my final few sessions with him, but they did in fact finish about three weeks ago – I’ve been seeing Christine at fortnightly intervals. The last appointment was last week.

Although things have been generally going OK, as testified by this blog throughout recent months, over the last week or so they’ve taken a slight downwards turn. As things stand, I can manage it;I suppose it could perhaps be a mild depression (by my standards – I think that probably equates to moderate by official scales? [EDIT: I am correct, apparently. I just took this test again and scored 52, which is within the bracket of 'moderate to severe' depression. Well, it's better than having gotten 82 back in February, I suppose..!]), but we’ll see.

I guessed that the whitecoats would claim that my mood dip was reactive, for the following reasons:

  1. the cessation of the treatment with Paul;
  2. the burglary; and
  3. the fact (as yet unmentioned on this journal) that FuckBitch Queen of All Levels of Hell Aunt of Evil arrived in the country on Wednesday morning (more on this anon).

Appointment With Christine

I guessed correctly. It didn’t come as massive shock to the system when Christine carefully opined that it was “hardly surprising” that I “wasn’t at” myself. In my view, my moods are, by and large, non-reactive (I’ve always maintained, and I continue to maintain, that my particular blend of clinical depression is melancholic rather than atypical), but I can see why she came to the conclusion she did. I’m not saying the above has not affected my mental status at all, but I think this goes in cycles too. Interestingly, NewVCB seemed to primarily agree with me, but I’ll get to her later.

I was with Christine for quite a while, though not quite as long as the last time I saw her. In a supposedly surreptitious fashion, she kept glancing at her watch, which mildly irritated me, but I do appreciate that she has other people to see. Anyhow. We discussed how I’m feeling in the wake of the end of therapy (fine, though I’m not sure she was convinced of that, given that she kept bleating on what a “big deal” it apparently was for me), how I’d dealt with the burglary (relatively well) and medication.

Seroquel has been a wonderful drug for me. It really has made my life a lot better. However, predictably for an anti-psychotic, it has sent my appetite completely out of control, and a lot of weight I’d lost has piled right back on. It wasn’t always like this, though; I’ve been taking Seroquel for about a year and a half now, and it’s only since the dosage was increased to 600mg daily that this has happened. I did a fair bit of whinging about it to Christine.

The long and the short of it was that I should discuss the issue with NewVCB (well, I’d never have thought of that…), but – reasonably enough – Christine thinks that this would be the wrong time to reduce my dose of the stuff. I agreed that I’d like to retain this level of relative stability for several more months before I’d seriously consider reducing it, particularly if there are likely to be stressful events hovering about.

She kept emphasising how important it was that I remained free from psychosis. In light of our last meeting, where she said that NewVCB was reconsidering my previous diagnosis of BPD, I am now wondering if they think that I actually have some sort of specifically psychotic illness – Christine, at least, puts very heavy emphasis on that side of things. She’s worried that if I started reducing my intake of Seroquel that all the voices and visions would come flooding back. Her concern troubles me, because when she heard that I had suffered from command hallucinations and hadn’t been sectioned (or voluntarily admitted) at any point in my life, she was utterly stunned. So if I go mental again, if ‘They‘ come back or some other(s) turn up, will she recommend the bin for me?

Am I Still Proper Mental?

She asked me if I was still free from the voices, and I was pleased to respond in the affirmative. But then she asked me about possible delusional thinking. I denied any, but I must have shifted my eyes suspiciously because she kept probing me about it. I admitted, then, that yeah – I might just have a little bit of paranoia hovering about. Might. Just maybe. Perhaps.

In an admission of narcissism that shocks even me, I blathered on about how GCHQ read this blog, and about how people still have cameras up watching me. The funny thing about the cameras is that they go wherever I go. Yeah, I am really that important!

Naturally, Christine enquired as to the strength of these alleged delusions. I said that I rationally knew they were a load of bollocks, but that…well, that I still had the fear that the “paranoia” was grounded in at least some truth. For example, I have a friend, William, who’s a policeman. None of us know exactly what it is that he does, because it’s some shady, cloak-and-dagger, national security-esque thing that requires his utmost discretion and a solemn vow never to speak about it in detail to anyone. What he has told us, though, is that the amount the security services know about people, their movements, their online habits, etc is truly shocking. He also confirmed that yes, they probably are scouring insignificant online bullshit like this blog – though he contends that it’s probably based on keyword searches, patterns and the like, rather than some agent sitting in a dimly-lit room in Cheltenham reading every word that people like me are typing.

You see? As the old adage goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not watching you.

I told Christine about all this, and of course she pointed out that, given that this is a public blog, it probably could be read by GCHQ and their kin. However, she picked up on William’s point that it’s unlikely to be in any detail, unless something suspect comes up. She laughingly asked if I had somehow threatened national security in my writing of this blog, and I had to concede that I haven’t. She sorted of tilted her head as if to say “I told you so,” and then started quizzing me about the cameras.

“I know the cameras aren’t there,” I said, exasperated with myself, “but I just can’t shake off this stupid irrational belief that they are.” I’m a walking conta-fucking-diction.

As I said to her, in a way having this kind of insight is almost worse than being completely under the control of a delusion. Not that I’m saying the latter is nice – far fucking from it. But when you know that your beliefs are (potentially) psychotic (is it even psychotic at all in that case?), then you have the added pressure of arguing with yourself about the damn thing all the time. You might as well have one of those tossers that doesn’t believe in mental illness with you at all times, telling you to “wise up” and “pull yourself together”. The rational, ‘well’ side of my mind isn’t particularly sympathetic to the sicker part.

The upshot of the conversation, though, was that the “paranoia” isn’t too intrusive. It doesn’t stop me from doing things I want to do (no, anhedonia, avolition and agoraphobia are the culprits there), and most of the time it’s operating at a fairly peripheral level rather than being right in the middle of my conscious mind. Christine seemed mostly satisfied with this, though I suspect she’ll be coming back to this issue at each session for the next foreseeable future.

Rant: Aunt of Evil is on this Landmass!

We then moved on to an issue about which I was, according to her, “very angry”. I thought I’d been speaking perfectly reasonably and rationally, but Christine did not concur. The topic in question was the arrival of Aunt of Evil in this country. Those of you that have been reading this in the long term may realise that this means that this is the third time the stupid fucking bitch has been here in less than two and a half years. If you’re not so intimately acquainted with this blog, or indeed if you’re a normal human being who doesn’t have a photographic memory for bullshit, I have a long running dispute with the woman and her immediate family. They reside in the USA, and frankly their existence in Ireland makes me wish that air travel had never been invented (other than for the flight that sent them across the pond in the first place, that is).

The story of my feud with Aunt of Evil, Georgie, is a protracted and convoluted one that I’ve never discussed fully here – not because I have a problem with any of you knowing about it, but simply because other people’s familial dramas are really not that interesting. Indeed, most of it is not that interesting even to me, so I’m not going to waste my time or bandwidth or put myself at even greater risk of repetitive strain injury by detailing it all. You can see contextual posts here, here, here and here. There’s probably more, but those links should give enough information, and I can’t be arsed going through any more archives.

Now, of course given my history with Aunt of Evil and her spawn, I am not going anywhere near any of them. In that way, their presence doesn’t particularly bother me – but what does is that I know that (a) Aunt of Evil (AoE) has a skewed perception of why it is that I loathe her, and have no time for her family and (b) I will be talked about between them all, behind my back, despite my express fucking instructions to my mother – and to AoE herself – that I am not a suitable subject for their conversation.

My ma told me the other week that AoE has been going around whinging that V, the deceased lump of shite that forcefully donated his sperm in order to facilitate my conception, “has achieved something in death that he didn’t in life – the breaking up of the family.”

This fucking enraged me. AoE has always been a wanker, and I’ve never liked her. However, given that she purports to be a Christian and should therefore have a corresponding set of morals, I did expect her to at least behave honourably when V snuffed it. I did not expect V himself to behave thus, in life or in death, so her contention is completely erroneous. V was a cunt. I expected him to behave like a cunt. I did not expect her, her offspring and her offspring’s mate, to be have like cunts. And they did.

What is so fucking difficult to understand about that? It’s not fucking about V. It’s about them. Simple.

I advised my mother in no uncertain terms to appraise AoE of the above – but I don’t think that she will. My mother is lovely, but she is, in this instance, also a hypocrite. She agrees with my position on AoE and her twatpack, yet she has quite happily arranged to see them, have them stay with her, etc etc. In fairness to her, she has this idea that [cue best EastEnders-esque put-on accent] faaaahhhmmmlaayyy is one of the most important things that an individual can have on this Earth. I respect her view, but I fundamentally disagree with it. One of our friends, G (of intellectual fame, waaaaaaaay back in 2009), put it best:

Family is genetics; friendship is earned.

Quite. I don’t get this societal obsession with family for its own sake. If the people concerned are nice, if you have something in common with them, if they’re a laugh, whatever – fine. If not, why bother? Seriously. I don’t understand it. What ties do you have to such people other than DNA?

I so wish I could show you my cousin’s wife’s blog, so that you could have a laugh (or, indeed, recoil in repulsion) at her utterly nauseating nice-middle-class-ism, and pictures of the nice house that they bought with the money that should have gone to my mother and me (tangential point of amusement: she has 23 blog ‘fans’ on Fuckbook. I’m not exactly some bigshot on the hateful service myself, but at least I have over 670. Mwhahahahaha! :D ). I see from said blog that she’s up the duff again. I wonder how they’re funding that brat Gift from God?

No, no, no – I’m not bitter or anything ;)

Aaaaaaaanyway, I gave Christine a redacted version of the story, and as I said, I thought I’d been fairly calm and reasonable in my narration thereof. It certainly wasn’t a rant like the last few paragraphs here were! However, when I’d finished, she said, “you’re clearly angry about this.”

Well…yeah. I sort of am. I then proceeded to rant a good bit about V, justifying my view that he was a knobend of Rupert Murdoch proportions by referencing his actions towards my mother during the joke that was their marriage. I said that I was furious with AoE for believing that my problem with her and her family was about him because, as noted, no one expected V not to be a dick.

She was curious as to why I care about what someone I can’t stand thinks of me, which was a fair question. The answer is that it’s not so much about what AoE thinks of me – she still “loves” me according to My Mother the Messenger, but I really couldn’t care less whether she adored or despised me – but, rather, about her consistent and unwavering failure to accept responsibility for her actions. She still thinks that what she and her family did is right. It was legally permissible, I’ll give her that. It was, however, ethically repugnant.

None of this, of course, even acknowledges my more general, more long-lasting disdain for AoE. She is self-righteous, patronising and a Queen proselythiser (she’s one of the key reasons that I had such a profound and blanket hatred of Christians until I met lovely people like Phil Groom and bourach). Once, when she asked Mum why I didn’t like her, my mother – bless her – was honest, and told her exactly that. AoE affected to be shocked by this information, but honestly – on this side of the Atlantic there is no one in this shittily sprawling dynasty of mine, including my mother and the other Bible bashers like Suzanne, that strongly disagrees with my stance on that.

Back to the Fucking Point, Pan…

To get back to the original point of this post, Christine feels that it is a positive thing that I am avoiding these people; I know my limits, apparently, and “not everybody does, you know.” Nevertheless, given my levels of resentment, anger and general frustration towards them, she also thinks that this is a massive stressor for me. Perhaps it must seem that way – the rant above would appear to be clear and present testament to that – but I actually don’t think it is. I’m staying out of their way, and as long as my mother does not provide me with a running commentary on all the inevitable back-biting, I am happy to sit here at A’s in my blissful ignorance until they all sod away off again.

The appointment was basically left with her saying that if my mood dips any further before I see her again (next Friday), I can contact her, presumably to arrange an emergency appointment. NewVCB (after this week) is off for about 408 years – Christine says that all the consultants just disappear over the summer – so it’s good to at least have some professional support, especially when I don’t have Paul to bleat to. I better not go really mental though, because if it were to come to the bit and some SHO or other had to assess me, he or she would inevitably take advice from Christine as the only present person within the CMHT that knows me. And as I noted above, Christine is stunned I’ve never been binned.

So. I must retain a modicum of sanity at least until NewVCB is back from her summer gallivanting.

Speaking of her…

Appointment with NewVCB

This is Friday (albeit only into its early hours). I saw NewVCB first thing on Wednesday morning (9.30am) and felt that the appointment went fairly well. I told her that things weren’t quite as positive as the last time I’d seen her (which I didn’t record here at all, because I was in and out within minutes, and all was deemed to be well), but also said that I was happy to leave my medication as it was, and that if the downer got worse or, indeed, if it lengthily prevailed, then we could possibly reconsider this at a future appointment. She seemed to think this was a fairly sensible course of action.

I did raise the weight gain on my current dosage of Seroquel issue with her however, whilst stressing that I didn’t want to reduce the dose right now. She agreed that this was something we could think about over the coming months; according to her, a standard maintenance dose of the stuff is usually 300mg. That said, I wouldn’t like to whack the dose in half at any point, even if life was absolutely fucking amazing, so if that’s where we ultimately want to return to, then I’d have to insist that we slowly taper it down. She’s not stupid, though, so I’m sure she’d agree with that.

I told her that I was worried that, if we go ahead and do this at some point, the voices would return. “At the end of the day,” I said, “I’d rather carry some extra weight that be persecuted by ‘They’.” She nodded her assent to this, and added that in a case like mine – where the mental illness may remit at times, but usually returns in some fashion – it would be fine to have xmg as a maintenance dose, but that it would at times be necessary to whack it back up.

It sounds odd, but I was quite pleased by this statement. I took it as recognition on NewVCB’s part that my mental health problems are chronic and recurrent, and not necessarily the reactive issues that Christine had perhaps suggested (though I’d add that I don’t think that Christine thinks it’s all reactive – just that that, to her, is probably part of it, and maybe it is). This isn’t me saying, “yay, it’s all biological,” because clearly it isn’t (even if it was then that would be pretty shit – therapy would be an utter waste of time, would it not?); would I be so fucked up were it not for the ‘trauma’ I experienced? Probably not to this degree. But I’ve always maintained that I hold to a biopsychosocial model of mentalism, and she seems to concur with that.

Of course, therapy has helped me a lot, hence the ‘psychosocial’ bit. But, as I am forever banging on, I don’t believe in cures. Therapy – and medication for that matter – may help to reduce both the severity and frequency of episodes, but that doesn’t mean that the whole sorry business is dead and buried.

Anyhow, this led onto a conversation about suicidal ideation. Christine is usually concerned when I say something like, “but of course I still have suicidal thoughts, how could I not?” NewVCB, on the other hand, says she wouldn’t even believe me if I went in one day and said that I absolutely wasn’t suicidal in the least. As she says, the horrific intensity of my preoccupation with ending my life that I’ve often experienced will not always be present, but she believes – in the short to medium term, at least – that there will be probably always be some level of it.

That’s a pretty poor prognosis, I suppose, but I’d rather she was honest with me. I’ve always respected her for her candour, and even if she’s not painting the rosiest picture in creation, better that than false hope and lies.

She said that I should use this period of relative stability to think about what I can do when things go tits up again. Well, I’ve thought about it, and I haven’t a fucking clue. One thing NewVCB suggested was that I should keep the idea with me, for the next time I’m standing on the edge of some cliff with a bottle of gin and 20 packets of Zopiclone, that I have come back from the absolute brink (remember the 4th October plan, anyone?) and that therefore I don’t need to take the jump. “Use this period as a reminder when you’re that low again,” she instructed. “You can, and you have, recovered from very severe suicidality.”

Spot on: I have. However, I know from bitter experience that the mind of a person at that kind of hideously low ebb does not think like this. Well, the omni-present rational narrator in my head would certainly say, “but look, remember how well you did in mid-2011?” but the depressed side is always going to dominate that with responses such as, “yeah, but that was then, this is different. I can’t recover this time,” or even “so what? I don’t want to recover anyway.” You might very well think that both of these (and other possible) responses are thoroughly illogical, but that’s how severe depression works I’m afraid. Indeed, continuing my standing-at-the-abyss scenario, I could look down over the cliff, knowing that The Rational Narrator was right and that everything else was a crock of shit. And it wouldn’t make an iota of bloody difference.

Still, she has a point, and I’ll try to do as she says. One thing I have now that I didn’t have when I had a major crash-and-burn in the past is this blog; one crucial thing about it is that for the first time I have a proper record of something that approximates recovery, or at least a road to relative wellness. Perhaps those positive words, penned (typed) by my very own hand, could make a difference? I’m not convinced of it, but you never know.

We spent some time discussing this journal actually. NewVCB alluded to it in the context of it being one of the things that had helped me when I felt at my worst, but was careful to remind me of the dangers of becoming too immersed in the online and mentalist world, rather than in the supposedly real and sane one.

I laughed, and told her that since I’ve been feeling better, the amount of visitors here has gone way down. I still get about 200 hits on days on which I don’t post and often over double that when I do. This is far more than I ever could have expected when I embarked on this narcissistic but cathartic pursuit, and don’t get me wrong – I’m grateful to and for every person that takes an interest in this bollocks. Compared to my hits when I was posting my most morbid, morose material, though, things are definitely much less popular. I don’t mind that – I just thing it’s an interesting statistic.

In any case, I assured her that I think I’ve achieved a good balance between being here, being Pandora, and being there, being me, in the “real world”. She asked me if I was getting out much.

Ha! As if. I’ll go out alone for little errands, such as buying milk or something, if I’m feeling game. Otherwise I won’t leave the house without A, or at least without the promise of meeting someone I know well. Even then, there’s some difficulties.

I was due to meet Brian, one of my close friends, on Monday evening. Realising, however, that I would actually have to go out and, shock horror, talk to Brian, I backed out and made a frankly idiotic excuse to avoid him. (Contrast this with my intended meeting with Aaron on Wednesday, which I was going to until fate intervened. I bring this up because never, never, never ever ever ever, have Aaron and I been able meet based on our original arrangements. Something always comes up. Famine or feast, eh?).

I admitted to NewVCB that I’m sometimes genuinely scared of seeing my/our friends. Naturally she asked why, and naturally I said that I didn’t know.

She said, to paraphrase, that I need to really take some time to work out the specifics of this social and agoraphobia. I agree that the roots of it need to be uncovered, but I thought that was what therapy was for. Oh, wait. The NHS won’t fucking give me therapy, and Nexus deals with sexual abuse issues rather than this sort of fuckwittery. So basically I’m screwed.

Maybe I’ll try and look at this through writing in a future post here. I can’t seem to get the thoughts that need to be…er…thought…into my my head with any modicum of coherence, and sometimes writing about thoughts can be more revelatory than thoughts in themselves.

And that was pretty much it. Since NewVCB is on holiday now for a good while, she said she’d see me again towards the end of August or start of September. That’s a little longer a gap than I usually have between my appointments with her, but not too much so. And it’s still a fuck of a lot better than the erratic scheduling her predecessor afforded me.

Meh and Blah and Yadda and Etc and Such

If you’re still reading this, you really must have a strong interest in self-flagellatory pursuits  - but seriously, thank you. I don’t know if anyone has the lack of wit to care about me, but if you are thus afflicted, please don’t worry. I’m OK. Really, I’m mostly OK. People have downers, whether they’re mental or not. It could be a mild ‘episode’, it could be the start of something more serious, or it could be just one of those things that happens from time to time. Indeed, I’m feeling a good bit better than I was on, say, Wednesday, so it’s probably nothing much – I mentioned it to Christine and NewVCB on a ‘just in case’ basis, I suppose. I’ll be fine.

As you might imagine, sleep is an issue for someone whose blog is entitled Confessions of a Serial Insomniac. Generally, one of the most positive side effects of Seroquel has been its soporific effects, but the downside of same is the hangover the stuff gives you the following day.

The fact, therefore, that I’d been up really early from Monday to Thursday inclusive is probably not insignificant. After the burglary, we had to replace the two doors that the robbing cunts smashed through; one was in a room that has a second (undamaged) door that we also decided to change for the sake of aesthetic consistency. The bloke we got to to do the work arrived each morning bright and early, and I had to be up to greet him, make the obligatory cups of tea and share the obligatory cigarettes. It hasn’t been a particularly unpleasant effort – he’s a nice man – but it has resulted in severe fatigue. That, in turn, can be a major issue vis a vis mentalism.

Next week sees Northern Ireland’s Lovely Loyalist Love-in, the Twelfth (or, as one council is trying to politically correctly re-market it, “Orangefest”), come to pass. I have nothing particularly against the occasion despite my unionist-nationalist ambivalence (although, of course, I do loathe the contingent of wankers that set about causing trouble around this time of year – utter cunts), but neither do I care for it either. There are two days’ holidays, though, which from a practical point of view means that our door-hanger – soon-to-be our painter and decorator – can’t come out next week. So, in this way, Orangeism has done me a favour. It will allow me and my Seroquel-addled mind to rest.

Anyway, this is the abrupt end of this stupidly but predictably long post. Cheerio.

marketing

Illness

 Life, Moods  16 Responses »
Apr 192011
 

I am sick – again! This week’s misery makes last week’s, horrible as it was at the time, seem like a walk in the bloody park. There are many symptoms, but the most pressing ones are the horrifically frequent diarrhoea bouts and an agonising pain in my tail bone. Secondarily, I have a lot of abdominal, joints and muscle pain, nausea and occasional vomiting. I can’t get comfortable no matter what I do and, of course, I can’t get any fucking sleep. I lay awake all night last night just living with this misery. It sucks.

I mean, I know it isn’t serious, but it is draining me of every possible resource – activity, cognition, ability to eat and drink (thus perpetuating the drainage cycle), psychomotor function, etc etc etc. I’m still managing to read bits and pieces here and there, but my concentration is royally screwed as well, as you might expect.

Unlike last week, when the onset of whatever it is took place early on Monday thus ruining my plans for the day, this week I did go to my session with Paul (nearly having a serious car accident in the process, but that’s for another day) – but afterwards, the illness hit me with a bloody vengeance. The session had been fairly intense (posts on the last three sessions to come – yes, I know, I know), but I seriously doubt that this is psychosomatic. My body just hates me, and wants to punish my consciousness with a crappy immune system.

I’m also riddled with a non-specific, low-level anxiety. I don’t have any particular reason to be anxious, but I’m petrified of leaving the house (not that I could do so if I wanted to anyway) or seeing anyone or even hearing from anyone at present. I don’t know whether it’s that agitation or the physical malady that is making me shake and shiver so much. Indeed, I don’t know whether it’s related to the physical malady or whether it’s just there because it wants to punish my consciousness too.

When I was at school, probably between my second and fifth years (ages c. 13 – 16), every day I went into school with moderate level nausea and anxiety. It wasn’t all-pervasive, I suppose, but it was always enough to bother me. In that case, the physical issues probably were psychosomatic owing to my general misery and isolation at the time, but that doesn’t make them any less physically real. When I get sick now, I wonder how I did that for all those years. I missed a lot of school, but even when I was there, I was still ill. Up and down those infernal staircases, struggling desperately not because I was overweight, but because I was wholly encumbered with exhaustion and anxiety-laced breathlessness. Always wondering if I could make it to the next landing in case I needed to throw my guts up – better to do it in a toilet, if I can find one, than in a busy corridor. Forcing a smile as a walked past a peer, or a face full of indifference as I walked past a bully, when in reality I was petrified and wanted to run into the toilet, curl up in a ball and if not die, then at least not be there (I’d now use the term ‘dissociate’, but I was only peripherally aware of then, and didn’t understand its function as a psychological phenomenon).

And the tailbone thing that’s troubling me now – there was some of that when I was in sixth form too (though I suspect this is not the same as that was). As I stood up or sat down, it felt like my skeleton was literally being pulled apart, like you might expect to experience when ensconced on an iron maiden. It was horrendous, and yet I pulled myself up with all my might without giving anything away, always wearing that omniscient fake smile.

How did I do that? I can barely make it out of bed now with lesser complaints (this week’s illness is greater in magnitude overall than that ever-present dull misery of my teenage years, but some of the specific symptoms are not as great). If I can’t do it as an adult, how did I do it as an extremely troubled adolescent, who – although she had a couple of wonderful and close friends – was, in wide terms, pretty much consigned to a life of enforced acting and disturbed, lonely silence?

I feel sorry for my teenage self. She shouldn’t have had to endure such chronic hardship and torment, both in physical and psychological terms. And I feel sorry for her predecessor – myself, the child – who shouldn’t have had to endure the various circumstances that led, in part, to the teenager’s distress.

Frankly, right now I feel sorry for my-now-self – but that’s because I’m sick. It doesn’t do much for my mood, of course, but when this illness passes I’ll be back on the up – or at least that’s the hope. My former selves didn’t have the assurances and comfort of such relative immediacy.

—

Side note: at least I can now be fairly sure than taking Venlafaxine at 300mg hasn’t started to induce a hypomania in me. I was worried about that. No, if it had, I doubt I’d be so fucking shattered; one needs much less sleep to feel rested when hypomanic, even when ill. I have had maybe an hour or two’s sleep in the past 24 hours and I sure as fuck needed more for any sort of even normal-by-my-dire-standards normal functioning.

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Side note II: this stupid fucking disease or virus or whatever it is could hardly have come at a worse time, because (a) it’s going to be A’s and my eighth anniversary in a few days and (b) we have friends coming home at the end of the week from England and the USA. People we don’t see often, as you may imagine. I just hope to fuck it clears itself up in time.

—

Side note III: we booked a holiday to Fuerteventura this evening :D We’re going for 10 days at the end of May. The timing is highly fortuitous, as it means we can get out of ScumFan McFaul’s 21st birthday. I like ScumFan, as it happens, but both Paul and NewVCB (and, I’m guessing, Christine too, should it come up with her) have forbidden me from seeing Paedo. Even under such orders, I would still have gone to the event if we had not been going away at the time. Practical advantages aside, though, I’m just genuinely looking forward to it anyway. A is very stressed at work at the minute, and needs to get away and I can always do with a bit of hopefully-non-mentalist time that is purely devoted to relaxation.

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Side note IV: in case I don’t write anything more this week, whether due to apathy or sickness or other factors: HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, A :D It’s been an honour and a privilege to spend the last eight years with you. Seven years ago we were in San Francisco celebrating our first anniversary. I have such happy memories of that fortnight, and it only seems like yesterday – how time flies. I have so many happy memories of times since too, and just regret that my issues have indirectly but inevitably affected you. Your support, though, has been amazing. Eternal thanks and love <3 xxxxx

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Side note V: I can’t be arsed to proofread this owing to the fucking disease, so sorry for the probable errors strewn throughout this self-indulgent and pointless prose.

Missing a Dose of Venlafaxine, and Inevitable Post-Consultant Blah

 Medications, NewVCB, Psychiatry  16 Responses »
Apr 082011
 

When I first started writing this blog nearly two years ago, I was – as the title suggests – plagued by almost continuous insomnia. It is a truly dreadful affliction, but it’s surprising how much the human body and, to a lesser extent, the mind, learn to adapt to it. I remember when I was still at work, about three years ago maybe; I would lie awake all night, often for a number of respective daily cycles, getting a maximum of ten minutes’ sleep if I was lucky – and then I’d get up early, frustrated, and be in the office before 8am. Very often I stayed until after 6pm, sometimes without a lunch hour or even a tea break. It fucked with my head undoubtedly, but I still managed to undertake the duties of my position competently and courteously.

However, since I was prescribed Seroquel* last January, sleep has been much less elusive, to the point where I partly regret naming the blog what I did – though it’s established under this moniker, so I have no intention of changing it. Seroquel does tend to lose its soporific effects over time, but as my dose has increased on several occasions, I’ve been more immune to that than many that take it. I’m presently taking 600mg daily, and have been since October-ish. It’s a pretty hefty dose by UK standards, and so far although I often have difficulty in falling asleep, I usually get there eventually. The trade-off for both the management of psychosis and getting some rest is that one has a horrible, drowsy drug-induced hangover the next day, but it’s a balance I’m prepared to accept.

[* Please note that I use the terms Seroquel and Effexor interchangeably with Quetiapine and Venlafaxine in this post. For some reason, I've got into the habit of calling the former by its brand name, despite more typically using the generic medication terms, as I do with the latter in this case.]

So when, on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, I was still wide awake at 3am, I was puzzled. I was at my mother’s house, and mused briefly on whether it was being out of my normal bed, but I dismissed this fairly quickly as I usually stay with her one night a week, and am therefore not exactly unfamiliar with the sleeping quarters to which I am allocated.

Then it dawned on me: I had forgotten to take my medication.

I was beyond furious with myself. After this bizarre incident last year, I know what missing both Venlafaxine and Quetiapine means, and it is not fucking good. I mean, on that particular day I ended up quite hypomanic, but it wasn’t all so pleasant; I have this gruesome memory of lying in a toilet cubicle in Newcastle, shaking my tits off, struggling to breathe, alternating between hot and cold flushes, desperately trying to throw up and being so consumed by ‘head-zaps’ and dizziness that I thought I might die. Even though I thought I was already dead. So yeah. I’ve had better times.

At about 6am I got up, still not having slept, and took the Venlafaxine. I decided to omit the Quetiapine in case its sedative properties caused me to end up passing out, especially as I knew I had to see NewVCB at 9.30am.

I sat with a coffee and watched the sun rise. As I did, it began to start. I could have blamed it ‘merely’ on insomnia at first, but as time wore on, it became clear that it was to do with missing the tablets. Not for the first nor last time that day, I cursed my idiocy in forgetting to take the damn things.

At 8.30am, I went to my mother’s room, where fortunately she lay awake. I explained that I was mental and did not feel in enough control of myself to be able to drive to the hospital, and asked if she would take me. She agreed and duly arose.

All the time it was getting progressively worse. I nearly fell over with the unquantifiable dizziness at one point and several times I was surprised that I didn’t faint. I was shivering. I was hypervigilant, jumping out of my own skin at even the most subtle noises. I was restless and agitated. Suspicious and ‘zappy’. Nauseated and sore.

By the time we got to the hospital I could hardly stand. In fact, when NewVCB came to get me from the waiting room, I had to drag myself along the wall all the way as I followed her to her office (getting a few looks as I went – but what do they expect? It’s a psychiatric service for God’s sake!). As I sat down, I just went completelybluegh at her. “I’m fine, really I’m fine – just not today. I forgot the tablets last night, and I’m going out of my mind.”

She swung into action, telling me how to manage having missed the stuff. Apparently I was to go home and take 150mg straight away (I neglected to mention that I had already taken the full 300mg. For some reason, I am still scared of doing something even remotely opposed to her advice, even though I know that she’s nice). Then I was to take a Diazpeam or two, as required, before taking the second 150mg as usual. I was not to take any of the Seroquel until the normal time.

As the minutes passed, I was feeling worse and worse. I hadn’t noticed I was clawing constantly and fervently at my skin until NewVCB pointed it out to me. She said she was reminded of a man she’d see a few years ago who’d been stable when she’d last seen him, but was literally clawing off his face the next time she met him. He had missed three doses of Venlafaxine.

She asked about the symptoms I was experiencing, and I told her it was beyond description. She asked me to try anyway, so I did. I said I felt like I was being attacked from the inside. My muscles felt as if they were on fire; I needed to pace or hop about to mitigate this, but as soon as I tried to my head was overwrought with dizziness and I felt faint. I said that I was incredibly cold one second, but sweating my arse off the next. I tried to describe the head-zaps but couldn’t – the best I could do was to say that it felt like a million minuscule guns were shooting something toxic into my brain, from inside my brain. I tingled. I shook. I was agitated. I felt sick. In terms of mentalism, I was paranoid and filled with a feeling of unspecific dread. Reading that back, and remembering what yesterday was actually  like, it actually reminds me a good bit of akathasia. How odd that one can feel that as a side-effect of not taking a drug…as well as a side effect of taking said drug! (It’s normally seen as a side-effect to anti-psychotics, but has apparently been observed in some that take Venlafaxine).

“It’s the Effexor, not the Seroquel,” NewVCB said, certainty lacing her tone. I have just checked it out, and indeed I must have seemed like a textbook case to her yesterday. I had almost every symptom of it in remarkable abundance. She reiterated the need to go home and “straight away” take half of the missed dose. Since I’d already taken the full dose, albeit 10 hours too fucking late, I hoped that this would indeed lead to a reduction fairly quickly in the horror story that I was living through. It took its time as it turned out, but I’ll come to that.

NewVCB said she realised that given the circumstances it would be difficult to discuss the general state of things, but I’m generally OK at seeing what some arsehole manager somewhere would call ‘the bigger picture’, so despite my physical discomfort, I instigated a conversation with her on how matters had been since our previous meeting.

Firstly, given her intention to ultimately increase my dosage of Venlafaxine to 375mg daily (God forbid I ever miss a dose of that), I have been ‘invited’ (yeah, it’s going to be such a laugh, isn’t it? RSVPiss off) for an ECG on Wednesday 13th April. Other than that, I didn’t really have much on which to update her – other than that matters with Paul are due to come to (a hopefully temporary) end in less than six weeks.

I told her that luckily Paul had advised me that I could simply return to Nexus a few months after last seeing him, and that he would intend to simply pick up my file when my second application had gone through the system. “However,” I said, “that means – I don’t know – eight, ten weeks with no therapist, so I was wondering if I could continue to see Christine during that time? I know we’d both intended for her intervention to be pretty short-term, but I really think it would be helpful to have some support during those months.”

NewVCB was nodding her head vigorously. “Yes, absolutely,” she assured me. “I’ll talk to her about that this week.”

She paused, then continued by telling me that she wanted Christine to discuss practical matters with me. The term ‘practical matters’ reignited a subtle fear somewhere in my mind – it always reminds me of those types of therapy that I utterly despise, such as C- and DBT. However, NewVCB surely knows me better than that; she would know that I cannot abide anything that I even vaguely perceive as patronising, and to that end, I (hope that) I can trust her not to make the ‘practical matters’ with Christine to be some wank of this ilk.

She asked me how things had been with Paul in general, and I advised that I thought the work had been very productive overall. I tried to explain what we’d been doing but it’s hard to put it into succinct terms, so I ended up saying that he was basically trying to convince me that everything that’s happened wasn’t my fault.

“Despite working for who he does, though, he doesn’t just focus on sex abuse, which is good,” I said. “Certainly, that is a big issue, but it isn’t the only one.”

“And that’s part of the reason why 26 weeks is often enough for Nexus clients,” she opined. “You get a lot of people there that have maybe one or two incidents of abuse, or have much fewer defensive mechanisms or complex issues than you, and so in a relatively short period you’ll often find that they can resolve many of their difficulties. Unfortunately that’s not the case with you – but then, as they’re essentially a self-referral organisation, it means that as Paul says, you can return.

“How have the last few weeks been with him?” she continued.

“Introspective,” I replied. “I don’t think it’s been useless, but I’ve found myself sitting there in silence a lot, thinking about things rather than verbalising them.”

“Do you think you shut down when you know there’s an ending coming?”

It did sound that way, certainly. However, unless it’s very unconscious, it hasn’t been the reason for my recent long silences – all that has happened is that a lot of strong shit has been brought into the room, and I’ve been sitting there experiencing it, rather than talking about it. I’ll try and write about these sessions shortly.

“At an unconscious level, maybe a bit,” I ventured, finally. “However, I don’t think that’s really the case. I still expect the next six weeks with Paul to be productive, unlike the last six months with C were.”

To my amazement, she said, “therapy on the NHS can be pretty questionable.”

Obviously I know this, but I did not expect a consultant psychiatrist to say it to a patient’s face. I cocked my head in query at her.

“Well, you know…” she shrugged. “Finances, bureaucracy, targets. Sometimes voluntary and private sector organisations provide a much better service.” She laughed lightly. “You of all people know what we’re like..!”

Still clawing away at myself, I managed to laugh a little myself. Oh yes, NewVCB. I know what you’re like alright. Except that I don’t like including ‘you’ in my general derisive view, because you’re alright. It’s the sprawling mass of red tape and management-speak bollocks that you’re part of that I hate.

She went on to question me on things more generally. Mood? Awful at the time, thanks to the Venlafaxine withdrawal, but overall actually fairly reasonable. Anxious and stressed at times, but not completely pre-occupied with bringing about my own demise nor unable to get out of bed. Trying to live a little, rather than just hanging on to mere survival by a thin thread of second-by-second-ness.

Voices? Nothing much. Whispers occasionally, but no real commands and comparably little hassle. Delusions? It’s not a delusion but GCHQ and related organisations are still reading my blog, Twitter and Facebook messages. Why is it not a delusional? Because I know people who are involved in such agencies and am aware that they do this. But do they actively do it to you? Yes. Well, does it stop you from writing what you want to write? No, I stick to fingers up at their unseen faces and think, ‘if you don’t like it, you can sod off’.

She laughed. “OK. I think that you’re maybe reading a little too much into their motives, if they have any, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering you unduly.”

“Not really.” Pause. “Seroquel really is a wonderful drug, you know.”

“It certainly seems to have worked for you.”

“Paul’s not a believer in the medical model. He thinks mental illnesses are social issues. I don’t agree; medication has been instrumental in making me feel a bit better.”

She shrugged. “Whatever works is what’s important. Medication, therapy, no medication, no therapy, whatever. A combination of both seems to have made a real difference in your case.”

At this point, she turned and looked me straight in the eye. “Compared to the girl I met here last January,” she said, “you’re almost a different person. I know progress is slow, but take it from me – it’s evident. There will be times when things are bad again – it’s the nature of the beast – but overall, I really think you’re moving forward.”

I found myself smiling slightly, and I agreed. “I don’t know whether it’s a combination of the therapy and the drugs, or just the latter,” I told her, “but one way or another, I think things have improved, yes.”

There was little remaining to be said. Yet again, she advised me to go off and dose up on my missed dose. I apologised for “being stupid enough to forget it,” but she said that it happens to everyone from time to time, and that at least it might encourage me not to do it again! As I was walking out the door, she said – surprising me again – “bye, Pandora, it was nice to see you.”

NewVCB has generally been a pleasant and helpful woman to work with, but she’s never before actually given me any compliments, however vague that one may have been. It was a weird but nonetheless appreciated gesture.

Not that my body cared. I stumbled back to where I’d come from to collect my waiting mother, then went into a spin of dizziness and fell out the front door. Fortunately, the rail for wheelchair users prevented me falling flat on the concrete and splitting my face into 22 pieces.

The journey from the hospital to my mother’s house is a short one, but the motion of the car sent my withdrawal symptoms out of control. When we got back to the house I retched several times (being unsuccessful in my attempts to vomit, given that I had a completely empty stomach), then stood at the back door smoking and jumping about in an attempt to curb the physical agitation. Apparently I was also babbling endlessly on about some stupid nonsense with barely a pause for breath; I remember a little of that, but not a lot. My mother, who was going to the doctor’s surgery to have her monthly blood checks, decided that she had better take me with her. Originally she had instructed me to return to bed after seeing NewVCB, but upon seeing me so mental, she decided that it wasn’t a good idea to leave me alone.

I went with her without complaint, but it just got worse and worse. I didn’t go into the surgery, as I feared that if one of the GPs came out and saw me, they’d see how mad I was and try to bin me (realistically, I know now that that was highly unlikely, but it’s still a good thing I didn’t go in as I’m fairly sure I could have upset other patients with my evident insanity. I was even fucking drooling by this stage.). I sat in the car, audibly moaning from time to time, dissociating in some places, being miserable in all.

When my mother returned, she offered to take me home again, but I demurred. I didn’t want to stay out, but I didn’t want to go home either. I didn’t want anything. I didn’t even want the paradisical escape of unconsciousness – just nothing. I know that makes absolutely no sense at all, but there aren’t words to describe what I’m discussing (or if there are, they – like so many wonderful concepts – are foreign terms that are not at all easily translatable to English). I only existed in the moment, and anything beyond it was out of reach.

My mother had to go to the bloody golf club, so I accompanied her. I was scared of running into some of the pretentious fuckwits that permeate the place, thus mortifying my mother, but fortunately she has a tendency to hide in deserted offices when there anyway. I sat. I tilted my head to the left, I tilted it to the right. I stood and paced a bit. I sat again. I stretched. I moaned. I spaced out. I shook. I flushed. I sweated. I froze. I stood. Sat. Moved. Wiggled my fingers and toes, stretched my leg muscles. I banged my head off the wall once in an attempt to stop the ‘zaps’. My mother asked me to desist. I did. I sat. I felt my eyes dart from left to right. Up and down. I scrunched up my face and shook my head speedily. I clawed at myself. I punched my muscles. I bit my lip.

And so on and so on and so on.

However, towards the end of my mother’s tenure behind the golf club computer, it subsided a little. Encouraged, I dared to look at my iPhone; I’ve got quite into geocaching recently (assuming someone’s with me, obviously, as I can still hardly go outside alone) and wondered were there any caches in the near vicinity. As it turned out, there was one right across the road. I said so to my mother, prompting her to ask if I wanted to look for it. Had it not been across the road, given my fucked-up state there was no way I’d have bothered, but I figured since I was already there…

The fresh air seemed to have some positive impact upon my condition – or maybe the medicine was simply starting to makes its mark by that point, who knows. In the end, I was able to have lunch with my mother in the town, although I picked through a lot of it.

The hot/cold flushes remained with me all day. I wrapped myself in a blanket on the sofa, but the next minute I’d throw it off again. Only to pull it back 10 seconds later. The zapping significantly reduced as time went on, but didn’t go away entirely – the same was true of the agitation and akathasia-like restlessness. I didn’t have to get up/sit down every five minutes, but I would have to alternate between lying down and sitting up. Overall, although I felt better than I had, the afternoon and evening were still quite wretched; however, I determined that I would stick things out and go to bed at 11pm, a fairly normal time, rather than oversleep.

I did so, and passed out within minutes – with one of the most peaceful night’s slumber I’ve had in ages (though not before I found a fucking packet of fucking Zopiclone sitting on the fucking bedside table that I had failed to fucking spot the previous fucking evening. In a furious rage at the sod’s law involved I threw them at the wall, but upon getting into bed I was able to roll my eyes a little and see the humourous side of this frustrating turn of events). I suppose I had been awake without a single second’s interruption for about 40 hours, so a good sleep was deserved.

When I woke up today, I was still exhausted – but I felt half-human again. Thank Christ. Of course, being half-human leads to half-human thoughts, or at least the thoughts of a half-human who’s a mental anyway. I mulled over NewVCB’s positive words about my mental health progress, and started panicking that this meant that she was imminently planning to discharge me. Here we go again: rationally, I doubt that this is likely, but since it’s actually physically possible, I am now convinced it’s going to happen.

Rather than sit and obsess about this all day, though, I let my tiredness consume me, and went back to sleep. Having been unable to drive yesterday due to being mad, I finally came back to A’s this evening, where I was distracted firstly by taking him out for a coffee and, secondly, by writing this post.

Both last night and tonight, as soon as my phone alarm went off, I dutifully whipped the pillbox out of my bag and knocked the fucking tablets back right away. I have no intention of letting yesterday’s awfulness happen ever again.

I’m tired again now, and have written over 3,700 words for a post that could have been done in 10% of that. So I shall bid you good evening, lovely people. For those of you that do – keep taking your tablets! x

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