Turning 21

So today I turned 21; how do I feel? The answer is I don't feel that different to be honest. At least, not as different as I thought I would feel. Your age changing can sometimes change the way you think and feel, but the content of todays blog would not change if I was turning any age, I just feel it needs to be said.

Dr Bruce Banner turned into the hulk when he got too stressed out in the latest Avengers Assemble film, and  you clearly see the way people pussy foot around him, like he is some sort of runaway train on a broken track or a ticker on bomb that you can't turn back (thank you Mr Loaf for the quote there). This is the way some people look at me, if they know about my mental health history, and I think it is a way that other people with a mental health history are viewed; always with a little distrust. Either that or they see the scars on my arms and this triggers some sort of defense mechanism in their minds where as in reality the correct feeling should be compassion, it would be if they saw a plaster cast on my arm instead.
Don't get me wrong, I sort of understand why people do it, and I am sure most of them don't intentionally do it, but their eyes give them away. That is something I struggle to get over because I don't always think it is necessary but I am caught because at the same time I do get it. I see it everywhere, when people are getting interviewed on TV or whatever.
So much is made about the verbal and physical discrimination we as a section of society receive and rightly so, but I would take if further and say that actually for me it is the unsaid discrimination that people receive is actually worse; when people say they are cool with stuff (and I am sure the majority of them want to be) but their expressions and eyes say something totally different. It is difficult to blame people for what seems to be a gut, defensive, instinct but I guess we should be able to live in a world where we are not seen as a potential Bruce Banners' but as ourselves who may or may not struggle at times.  

Approval, acceptance and friendship

 This is my 20th blog and I must say I am a bit surprised, surprised because I have actually stuck at something, but I am more surprised that people have actually been reading it- this I did not expect. So thank you! :)
My life has changed so dramatically over the past 2 years or so, even more so in the time I have been doing this blog. So doing this has been very therapeutic for me, it is difficult to examine yourself enough to be able to tell others, and I think I have only even realised 10% of who I am and what makes me tick but I am learning. The journey of self discovery can be very long and at times very painful but I think half the battle though my eyes is knowing yourself. For me knowing why something is happening is just as important as dealing with the problem, and I believe they are both linked.

'If someone lives with approval, they learn to like themselves. If someone lives with acceptance and friendship, they learn to find love in the world.'

I think this quote sums up the three things a person needs and yearns for when you are living with a mental health condition; Approval, acceptance and friendship. Perhaps the hardest one to find in other people is approval, or certainly it feels that way. It feels that if you don't have that approval from your friends and family you cant even start to be open about how your condition makes you feel. Everyone needs that feeling before they can then get the acceptance we need to live our lives openly and honestly,we need to be honest to both ourselves and to other people to live our lives to the full and the way we need to to make ourselves better. However we still live in a world where we are not understood and we are stigmatized by other peoples snap judgement when we tell them we have mental health problems. It can take weeks and weeks to get people to understand how feel and what we need from other people to help us get better. I have been very lucky, I am very lucky to have a very supportive network of family and friends around me, but it didn't appear over night and it was very hard to open up to them and be truly honest about how I felt and continue to feel. My parents have literally picked me up from the squalor both mentally and physically so it is them that I owe the most to. There is no doubt that friendships save lives, they are often the first port of call when you need to vent. When I look back at my time at uni I realise just how lucky I was to have the friends that I make while I was there.
The most important issue we face is to come to terms with ourselves, and how we have changed due to our illness. This requires so much soul searching and it only comes with time, as our illnesses evolve we too must evolve with it. For while I hated myself and everything I was but I learned that that is who I am now, so there is no point trying to fight it. Finding light and love whilst in such a dark place can be very difficult. Finding or seeing love whilst in this place is very difficult as the darkness is blinding and overwhelming. But I have learned to find it  in the small things, in beautiful places and in the inner beauty of the people around me, but this is a slow process and can be very frustrating. But when you see the light it makes you feel a whole lot better. Trust me.

A change of course

Yesterday I had an appointment at the hospital to get the results that I was due from when I was an inpatient a few weeks ago. I was not due to see the Neurologist untill sept 24th but I got a phone call on tuesday morning to change the day to yesterday and it just so happened that the call came just as I was walking in to see the Consultant Psychiatrist for a review. So me and most people who knew about the changed appointment assumed that because they had brought it forward, there was something neurologically wrong with me. How wrong were we! After 4 days of pannic and lack of sleep I walked in to the consulting room for him to sit me down and tell me that my scans were all clear and that what is causing me psychical pain is actually my mind, not something 'organic' as he put it.
Of course I was over the moon that nothing neurologically is wrong with me, but it was short lived because I started to think about what he had said- my mind is causing me psychical pain. Now I have not intentionally harmed myself since I came home from university. But in my eyes I have just discovered that my mind is harming me, and has been doing it to me without me controlling it for some time now. This worries me on a number of levels because I am seemingly in less control of myself and my mind than I believed I was and had been for a while. If you have read any of my pevious blogs you may well have seen that control for me is very important, control of myself, control of what I do, and control of situations I put myself in.
Forgetting the Neurology stuff for a minute I have become increasingly feeling out of control of stuff (but until now, not of myself), I worry about anything and everything and am anxious of every situation I am in when I am not at home. I am paraniod about pretty much everyone and everything around me as I said in the last blog I wrote. Yet up until yesterday I haven't felt out of control of myself, now it seems subconsciously I am, a thought I really do hate having because apart from this, I do feel in control of myself. Now I ask myself what the hell do I do now then? And the answer is at the moment I have no idea. The two Community Psychiatric Nurses that are in charge of my care and I have been discussing a number of options to explore; firstly I am to undergo a sixteen week course of Cognitive Analytical Therapy, apparently this entails a really close self examination of myself and what makes me tick, this to me sounds like a very positive but quite difficult step as I personally do not like to be so mentally exposed to anyone, like I will have to be for this to work. Secondly we are going to further discuss the idea that I have some sort of personality disorder, although I hate labelling myself or seeing others to it to me or other people, I am of the opinion that if this is caused by different things that stress me out combining together and making me feel this way. I need to know that that is definitely how my mind works (or fails to work properly). I say this because if in the future I see a big change coming in my life, and I know in advance my mind may not deal with it well, I am forewarned about it and can plan accordingly.
I would not wish anything wrong on anyone or myself but there is a part of me that really wishes the Neurologist had said there is something wrong, but that it can be cured with a pill or potion, that way it would have come and gone and life would stay the same. But because it is not and this cannot be treated or cured overnight or in a short period of time, wheels have been set in motion that I didn't expect would happen. One of my CPN's did say that this maybe the case, but I really hoped it wouldn't be that, purely because it means that I have to do so much more than that just take a pill to go back to 'normal'.

No matter how dark the moment...

Sometimes there are no words. No clever quotes to neatly sum up what has happen over the last week and a half. I haven't found any anything that come close to adequately describe the last week or so. I am getting pretty fed up of juggling anvils now, it feels like I have already fumbled and can feel certain ones slipping away from me. Due to the medication I take I have started to wake up with what feels like the worlds worst hangover. Luckily it passes after a while, but even so it does make me feel pretty rough for a couple of hours.

I have really struggled to find anything of note or anything worth writing about because I just seem to have no real energy and my mind is not working properly at the moment. By this I mean that I am having the most wierdest irrational thoughts and my general thought process is seriously off kilter, I don't mean this in the sense of wanting to hurt myself, or anyone else for that matter. I mean that I am terrified of pretty much anything and everything. When I going outside to take Yoda for a walk I get so jumpy and instead of enjoying it I find myself just getting pretty angry. It feels like I have a constant need to check for incoming or potential threats. Even though, rationally, I know they are not really there. But like I said the irrational side of my thoughts have taken over the rational side, which feels so mentally exhausting, constantly being on guard for incoming and potential threats, that realistically aren't there. For example getting into a car, not only do I get nervous that I am leaving the safety of my house but I have a genuine fear of the car itself. The idea that we could crash or whatever leaves me constantly on edge. At the moment I don't see things as they really are, instead I see everything as a potential danger or threat to me. I also feel a great level of anxiety when I leave what I deem to be a safe place purely because I am leaving the places I feel safest, then I worry about have I shut every window, door etc. And it goes on till I am back in one of my safe places.

This new level of paranoia/anxiousness is coupled with myself becoming increasingly obsessive compulsive about things about things, something which never happened last time really. I keep my keys on a chain to prevent me forgetting them when we go out. Yet before I leave the house, then before I shut the front door I have to feel them in my pocket then get them out to literally see them, then I can shut the door. But I still keep checking I have them, the same goes for my wallet and my phone. It also leaves me with and excessive need to plan things, I often need to plan my day out before it starts, and then if something doesn't go to plan or the plan changes I freak out and get all tense, and sometimes upset and angry. What has brought this on I have no idea. But I see the Psychiatrist on Tuesday so hopefully he will be able to shed some light on this. Also the housing possibilities I have blogged about previously are starting to come to fruition. So it's not all doom and gloom.

However no matter how dark the moment I know things will get better again, maybe not imminently but I know for sure that everything will be alright.

Never a straight path

'Everything will be all right in the end. If it's not all right, then it's not the end' - Unknown

Suffering with a mental health condition is never a straight and easy path that you have to follow, none of us chose it, none of us wanted it and none of us like it. All we can do is do our best with the hand that we have been dealt, hoping that everything will be alright in the end. Which for most people it will be, whether they have become better, or if they suffer with an incurable condition. I think that quote sums up the attitude that I hope to have (but I know sometimes I do not). I think it is the attitude we should all try and have throughout our own journeys, because in the darkest moments it is hope we cling on to, the hope that our condition will not be the end of who we are as individuals or as collective group. I have learned over time that it does not have to be so. In my case I feel that it has deepened the levels of my friendships with people. I think this is the case because people think that talking about mental health is a really intimate thing. Which I think is both right and wrong, talking about the details is very intimate and creates a deeper understanding between those involved in the conversation. However there can be times when it does not feel intimate or good. Like when I said about ticking the box about mental health on my driving license forms. Wrongly I still felt a little bit ashamed, and like it was my fault that my driving license would most likely be revoked. Which is just wrong but that is what the nature of mental health does, because it is still very stigmatized in society but also because it is very intimate. On the whole I will answer any question anyone asks me about my condition because that is one way I try and deal with it. But not to be asked and to be assumed about is how most people come to the conclusion about me, certainly it was before I started to do this. I do not mean my immediate family or friends, but those on the outskirts, who just hear about it second hand. I do not blame them, I used to do the same I am sure of it. Some of this, I think, comes from the 'pull yourself together' attitudes that a lot of people, especially men I think, often take about it. After all, if it is all in your head then you can control it, or so people think. But being intimate and open with people soon teaches them how it actually is. 

As it goes I don't feel like I have had much luck in terms of my health but then I started to think that actually I am quite lucky in a sort of twisted sort of way, because I am in a position to speak out about this whilst many aren't and many are far more ill than me. So this entry is for those people who can't say, or don't know how to say what it is like living with psychosis and/or depression. It is at best bearable and at worst it is so bad words fail to to describe it. It can take so many different forms and people can be affected by it in different ways but it becomes your life until you get on top of it, but it can come back when you are just getting yourself sorted. You can know it is coming but are powerless to stop it, you can understand the why and how but the when and what can be so unpredictable. Explaining this fear is hard to do unless the person has been through it because words can't really explain how it feels, nothing really can. Getting people to understand that is half the battle, and the other half is down to them- whether they can understand it and still be there for you in the capacity you need them. However once finding out some people never treat you the same again. Some because they are scared, some because they are worried about you, and some because they are ignorant. This is the thing that hurts the most, sharing something so intimate and then seeing it destroy a friendship or a relationship.

10 Floors Up

I have had a lot of time to think about things over the past few days because I am in hospital due to an unexplained neurological problem that is getting worse as the weeks go by. The weird part is I am on the children's ward. Which is sort of odd since I am nearly 21. But anyway the nurses are lovely and I can have visitors when ever I like so it does have some perks and I have a nice room to myself. So I can't complain really.

Anyway it got me thinking how feeling physically ill and mentally ill at the same time can make you feel. It is difficult because feeling mentally ill can make you feel physically ill and feeling physically ill can definitely have a big impact on your mental state. Thinking about this threw up some very odd and possibly scary thoughts for me. If we look at the two situations separately. Firstly how feeling mentally ill effects you physically. For me I have been affected in a number of ways physically due to my psychosis, firstly when I was on the anti-psychotic called Olanzapine it made me constantly hungry and as such I put on a fair bit of weight, to the extent I felt I need to join the gym to compensate for it. Perhaps a darker and more dangerous side of this coin is that the mind can actually cause you physical pain. So this made me think that the mind can affectively self harm its own body without me doing anything or without me being able to control it. This thought scares me quite a lot, especially given my past issues with these things; people self harm for a lot of reasons but to an extent, no matter how wrong or twisted it may be, your body may be doing it to self medicate in the same what that actually self harming can be a type of self medication no matter how wrong that may be. So I do not know what to think, stuck here in hospital, because I just think I could leave here with no answers to my questions and still no reason for the way I feel physically. Which I know is no ones fault but it just makes me angry and cross with myself, one for getting cross in my head with the Dr's and Nurses and two because I have lost control of yet another situation.

My physical illness makes me pretty much constantly tired and as such I have less energy to fight my psychosis, most days I can handle it but some I can't deal with both and my body and mind sort of just shut down and I cant think straight or get my words out right. Being psychically ill but not knowing what the illness is, and as such not being able to treat it, or even find out what it is, is really stressful. Each week going to the doctors and getting more results that all come back negative, which is good that what ever was tested for is not what is wrong with me but equally I just want to find out now, what ever it is, so it is one less thing I don't know. It goes further than that though, the whole two illnesses thing is just very stressful in itself without even thinking about diagnosis's and whatever. And to be honest I am just a bit fed up with the whole situation I find myself in at the moment, it is just a bit too much for me to happily handle.

The physical illness doesn't even have to be major, in fact I would say that getting the flu can be almost as bad as whatever it is I have because they both leave you drained and tired of fighting. The only difference is the longevity of the illness and the fact I don't know what mine is yet. I just find it is like trying to juggle with anvils, it is bloody hard work.      

Forward back forward back

I know it has been a few days since my last post but I have struggled to find the words for what I want to say at the moment, my mind feels a bit like scrambled egg and so it is taking a while to get anything done that needs thinking about.

So I just had an interview to get some help with getting myself set up with little flat somewhere local to me. However I thought I was going to an interview for Assisted Housing, rather than Assistance with Housing. So the two pages of questions I had prepared were totally useless and for the first five minutes or so my mind was in total disarray to say the least. And to be fair the lady doing the interview could obviously tell, so kindly let me have a minute to get my head around what she was actually offering support with. With hindsight in some ways the unexpected has turned out to be more useful than what I had been expecting.
To be fair to myself I think I dealt with the unexpected a lot better than I normally do, maybe because it was in a public place or something. I don't know. But my mind sort of compartmentalized my feelings and then they sort of all came to a head when I got back in the car afterwards.
This whole experience is not just alien but also quiet scary, I walked down the step afterwards thinking 'shit, I am actually like an adult.' Which may sound silly but if you do the uni route, from my experience, you don't really have to grow up as soon as you arrive, or at all in the first year. So all of a sudden I have/had a lot of growing up to do in the space of an hour. Which of course, sent my mind into over drive. It automatically gave me a huge sense of freedom and of moving on with my life, but I worry slightly that it will be like how I described my second attempt at uni. Just me brooding in a flat instead of a room. But then I thought that actually, although I had lots of support at uni, there is even more down here, and it is more specialized too. So when it happens it should be fine, but to be honest it isn't something I will be doing in the next month or two at least. Freedom is an awesome and empowering thing but if I get left with too much time I get lost in my own mind and that is when I start to go downhill.
This good and affirmative step did make me feel a lot better, and it still does, just not as much now, because I have found myself slightly worsening in terms of my mental health. It is not bad bad, but as you can imagine, every time I slip up I always imagine what could happen rather than what actually will happen. I have found myself getting so incredibly paranoid of everything and of nearly everyone. To the extent that the paranoia is bringing anger with it, internally I am starting to get so full of rage that it can be hard to control at times, but so far I am managing to cope well with it; using coping mechanisms of my own and ones I have been taught by my CPN's. This anger is not directed at anyone or even myself, it is just a feeling that I get when things start to go backwards rather than the forward steps I am trying to take.
I am not in full blown hallucination mode thankfully but because of everything else I am doubting whether what I hear is real or in my head, unlike last time there is, so far no real anger in what I do think is not real, it is more like hearing in on someone else's convosations. Like whispers in the air. But as it stands I am aware of all this and it is all in hand and no where near the worse levels it hit last year. What I fail to understand is why it is happening, it is seemingly so random which makes it so frustrating. The new style of support I am getting is so action orientated that I feel more of in control of it at the moment. Which can only be a good thing. My general mood is still pretty up beat but the medication I am on is making me feel a bit like a zombie, everyone comments on how red the bags are around my eyes, which I don't like, but if it keeps me sort of well, it is sort of worth it.

just a quick update

Hi to everyone who reads this,

I have set up a new facebook account to give a more day to day insight into my psychosis, as I only ever really blog when something big happens but what I have learnt is that it can be the little things that make the difference. so if you are interested add me on: http://www.facebook.com/sam.ashdown.581

Cheers,

Sam

Is everything ok?

'In some cases an accurate diagnosis may suggest an intervention to limit the damage that bad judgments and choices often cause' - D.Kahneman

I saw this line in the first page of a book I bought now that thanks to the new glasses I can actually read again, and for some reason it struck a cord within me and I couldn't get it out of my head. I think there are two key phrases in the quote that relate to mental health. Firstly 'accurate diagnosis' according to my Psychiatrist I am pretty straight forward in terms of my Psychosis, it is what it is and that is it, so to speak. But if being prone to Psychosis is caused by something like a personality disorder it becomes less straight forward. So it depends if we are looking at the cause or just the diagnosis because personally I don't think you can come to the conclusion on one without talking the other into account. The cause leads to a diagnosis, and the diagnosis is formed on the basis of the cause. So in terms of mental health, finding the root cause seems to be just as important as getting the diagnosis, because without knowing the triggers the fact you know the diagnosis means squat, then it will just happen again and again. I have been lucky this time  because I know what my triggers and first symptoms are so I can try and stop it getting to the point it did last time where I ended up in hospital.
The other phrase is 'limit the damage that bad judgments and choices often cause'. I wonder how many people can sit and say that their mental health issue what ever it is, was not partly caused or made worse by bad choices or judgments. I know mine was, even looking back before the psychosis back to when I was at school there was damage done both to me and by me that still seriously influences the way I act and behave today, and the psychosis just magnifies my faults in my life choices and also the bad choices and actions of others. Looking closer to the present to my first attempt at my first year of uni bad choices after the Christmas holiday played a serious part in causing my Psychosis. I made some bad judgments throughout  both attempts at my first year. During my second attempt I made choices that effected whether or not I could make it through the year, those choices meant I couldn't. Having said that the choices made were based on many factors such as my fear of going out on my own, and not managing to participate in things to the extent I wanted to. They were not just off the cuff choices. I owed it to myself and my parents to go back for a second attempt and I don't count that as a bad judgment, but what I do count as a bad judgment was not attempting to go to more lectures or social events as hard as I found them.
As Kahneman says intervention is key, and on both occasions intervention by my parents and my friends saved me. But there are those who don't get the intervention because they still can't talk openly about their condition, be they bankers, students or teachers. I don't necessarily think that intervention has to be by a health care professional immediately, the first step is, if you are worried about someone, ask them if they are ok. Simple as that. The times people ask me that, and actually sound like they care makes everything seem ok. Maybe like I am sometimes, that person is dying to be asked if they are ok, just for the chance to talk about stuff.