Day 236 – The burden and the blame, bipolar in the news room
I am ill all over again and what pains me the most about this latest episode is that I have been forced to take more time off work. It devastates me to do this because to be fair it is not nice for my colleagues wo will be lumbered with the work that I should be doing.
I am an extremely lucky girl because though I blame myself for this latest lapse my colleagues are always extremely supportive.
I am too depressed to write much of a post but I hope I get over this soon for the sake of everyone else.
Day 235 – Here we go again, another week and another crash to come
I am falling apart and though I know the unravelling began four days ago, maybe even five I cannot get my head around where it all went wrong. I hate this illness, what it turns me into and what I become. There is still a small part of me that knows this might go away and could just be another temporary blip but it doesn’t feel that way now. I hate everything I do, say and am. All I write is useless, all I say is rubbish and the way I look is hideous. There are dresses but I am ashamed of what I look like while wearing them.I am sorry that I am such a dreadful blogger, so awful at keeping up to date and tweeting.
All of this could be so much more if it wasn’t for the fact that it was being done by me. I let everyone down time and time again and its just dreadful and I’m sorry. I wanted to catch up with the posts and find a way through but I’m so lost. I am ashamed and disgusted at myself, at how little able I am to cope and how quickly it gets me and takes control. I thought I could manage and keep it at bay, that this would not defeat me again but it just grips me so fast and comes out of nowhere and all of a sudden it’s back and I’m failing all over again.
I’m so sorry for being such a screw up.
Day 234 – I am sorry
I am falling apart and though I know the unravelling began four days ago, maybe even five I cannot get my head around where it all went wrong. I hate this illness, what it turns me into and what I become. There is still a small part of me that knows this might go away and could just be another temporary blip but it doesn’t feel that way now. I hate everything I do, say and am. All I write is useless, all I say is rubbish and the way I look is hideous. There are dresses but I am ashamed of what I look like while wearing them.
I am sorry that I am such a dreadful blogger, so awful at keeping up to date and tweeting. All of this could be so much more if it wasn’t for the fact that it was being done by me. I let everyone down time and time again and its just dreadful and I’m sorry. I wanted to catch up with the posts and find a way through but I’m so lost. I am ashamed and disgusted at myself, at how little able I am to cope and how quickly it gets me and takes control. I thought I could manage and keep it at bay, that this would not defeat me again but it just grips me so fast and comes out of nowhere and all of a sudden it’s back and I’m failing all over again.
I’m so sorry for being such a screw up.
Today’s dress is another from the swap shop. It is pretty impressive how many dresses came out of that event and for this particular one I must give thanks to Danielle Star. It is originally from Florence and Fred, Tesco to those who do not require a F with every dress.
Day 233 – The intriguingly slow and yet subtle indoctrination of the yoga darlings
It is the first day back at Yoga and considering how much the whole non competitive element makes me rather uncomfortable and long to be able to bend my neck around my foot and back through my shoulder, I was really looking forwards to getting back to all the weird yet wonderful hippy ways.
Admittedly I find the chanting a bit silly really and people who can do the splits make me think of movies best watched by the husbands ofa particular politician I really like all the stretching, meditation and way of breathing which makes me, me, actually be able to relax.
Day 232 – A meeting with a man
One of my best friends has a new man in her life. I met him for the first time today and in spite of lecturing the boy on the importance of being normal I managed to make a right tit of myself. After carefully cleaning, cooking and even getting the boy to do a little bit of gardening, I went up to get in the shower and all ready for their arrival.
The boy had been lectured for at least half an hour on the importance of not talking to my friend’s new man about anything controversial or conspiracy related. He had agreed and I was doing my best to settle down and disguise any of my usual crazy so that the new man would have no idea that he was sitting down for dinner with a crazy person.
Unfortunately they arrived while I was still in the shower. I dressed as quickly and conservatively as I could, as I think it is important, especially in the early stages not to try to upstage one’s friend when a new man is on the scene. I tucked the girls and the legs away and went for a boring blue but a pretty dress which was given to me by, I think, my good friend Su.
All was going well downstairs and I rushed along to meet the new man and assess the situation and just how loved up these two young love fools were. I arrived and went in for the hand shake slash hug but remembered that I still had some rubbish in my hand. Imagine if you will my utter mortification when I put the rubbish in my hand on the table only to see all too late that it was a durex wrapper.
I was perfectly blushing and managed to manoeuvre my bottom to hide the evidence but I believe he may well have seen. I am a little embarrassed but the dinner was good and the conspiracy talk was nil so fingers crossed other than the mix up with the condom wrapper the crazy was kept well enough under wraps to make for a fairly unexceptional Sunday dinner.
Day 231 – Equus – the mane event at Harborough Theatre
Equus – the mane event at Harborough Theatre
Review of Equus, Harborough Theatre, September 4
Eighteen-year-old Tom Clements plays lead character Allan Stang with psychiatrist Dr Dysart played by John Lloyd.
The sexual scenes were made all the more intense by the size of the theatre and the proximity of the audience to the action.
The play’s workshop setting and props were outshone by the professionalism of the actors in a performance which took two years to perfect.Same old story just another sorry
I am falling apart and though I know the unravelling began four days ago, maybe even five I cannot get my head around where it all went wrong. I hate this illness, what it turns me into and what I become. There is still a small part of me that knows this might go away and could just be another temporary blip but it doesn’t feel that way now. I hate everything I do, say and am. All I write is useless, all I say is rubbish and the way I look is hideous. There are dresses but I am ashamed of what I look like while wearing them.
I am sorry that I am such a dreadful blogger, so awful at keeping up to date and tweeting. All of this could be so much more if it wasn’t for the fact that it was being done by me. I let everyone down time and time again and its just dreadful and I’m sorry. I wanted to catch up with the posts and find a way through but I’m so lost. I am ashamed and disgusted at myself, at how little able I am to cope and how quickly it gets me and takes control. I thought I could manage and keep it at bay, that this would not defeat me again but it just grips me so fast and comes out of nowhere and all of a sudden it’s back and I’m failing all over again.
I’m so sorry for being such a screw up.
Day 230 – Some perspective on my own problems
On July 29, flash floods and landslides caused by monsoon rains hit northwestern part of Pakistan. Within two days, nearly 980,000 people had been left homeless or displaced. Three weeks on, the flooding has spread to all the four provinces of Pakistan, about 1,500 people have lost their lives, 20 million have been displaced and 3.5million children stand the risk of contracting waterborne diseases. Cases of cholera have already been diagnosed in the flood-hit areas.
Among those affected are some 1.5 million Afghan refugees who have taken shelter in Pakistan over the past three decades and more than 700,000 people displaced by the War on Terror in the Swat Valley and other areas last year.
Pakistan is an agricultural country, the flooding swept away 558,000 hectares of crop land. At least 10,000 cows have drowned. With the heavy loss of fields, the country will face an acute food shortage not only this year but also the next.
The economy which relies heavily on the export of agricultural goods will also be hit hard, at a time when the government needs all the revenue it can get to rehabilitate the millions displaced.
Pakistan is Asia’s third-largest wheat producer, according to an estimate by Pakistan’s National Farmers’ Association, up to 500,000 tonnes of wheat stocked by farmers has been washed away. The country is world’s fourth biggest cotton producer, the flooding has destroyed up to two million bales of cotton, around 300,000 tonnes of rice have also been lost.
The report features interviews with Salman Siddiqui, senior reporter at Express Tribune, Pakistan and Saad Khalique, vice-president of Faith Foundation, a Karachi-based charity helping flood victims in the Sindh province.
Audio link below
http://www.sheffieldlive.org/2010/08/pakistan-floods-a-nation-left-marooned/
Sheffield City Council has set up donation points at the Town Hall and Howden House. You can also make a donation to DEC by calling 0370 60 60 900 or visiting the website.
If you would like to donate to Faith Foundation, you can get in touch with them on 00-92-21-99250265 and 00-92-300-8246829. You can find them on Facebook for more details of the work they have done so far.
The report was aired on Communities Live on August 13, 2010.
- Today’s dress is from Miss Selfridge and is on loan from a girl called Georgey Routen. She was a very nice work experience girl we had in last week who raised an impressive amount of £1,000 for an eating disorder charity by jumping out of a plane.
Day 229 – The conventions of counsel
The world of therapy has always struck me as a strange one. I cannot deny that it has helped me more than any drug but still it is all a bit odd. On the face of it we pay someone to listen to our problems, not to judge us but to just listen. When my sister died and my mother suggested I see a bereavement councillor I did so with cynicism etched all over my face. The poor woman did what she could to break me open and have me talk about it but I was a teenage girl and decided to treat the whole experience as a Dear Deirdre session. I learnt to defect all her enquiries about death by coming back with dilemmas about love triangles, my first love and a friend who had left me wounded after daring to buy my dress in a different colour. The others were admittedly trivial problems, though I still haven’t forgiven the friend in question for the latter, particularly as it suited her better.
Over the years I have seen a string of therapists, councillors, bereavement officers and trainers of the mind. The last was hilarious, on one occasion he made me meditate over a wine gum, but to be fair to him it worked and in the end I attended the sixth session sans dressing gown. An impressive feat for a girl who had decided she wanted nothing more to do with the outside world.
Through all of the sessions I have had the one thing that troubles me about therapy is the need to talk about the self. You come in you sit down and you never know anything about the person in front of you. They keep themselves detached because it is their job too but there is something that feels so wrong about troubling someone with your troubles when you do not even know if they had a nice day.
They are saints they truly are these people who listen to our ills. Often when I am upset and talking about one problem or another I look at the situation from above and just wish I could scream at myself to shut up. I cannot imagine how hard it is to have to sit and absorb some of the terrible things these people must hear every day. I do not know how they can bear to take it all in without showing repulsion. There are things I have admitted to therapists over time that have been painful even to say and yet there has only ever been one who has made me feel guilty about my past.
Speaking to a friend we got to discussing the idea of counselling and how rare it is to find one that works for you. The trouble with this form of treatment is that there has to be an absolute trust between the two of you. You must be able to walk in the door, spill all your secrets and when you leave know you have left them in a sacred space, a sort of secret safe. Though the counselling is costly and at some stage I will have to cut back it is a lifeline for me and a world where the weight of the week can be left behind.
When I think about where I was just ten weeks ago and where I am now I am astounded at the difference it has made. Ten weeks ago lithium was on the cards and even hospitalisation. I have come back from a place where the s word was the only option to a time where I can pick up the phone when the poorly comes to call and try when I can to close the door.
It is for this reason that I am frustrated how rare this service still is. Even when a councillor can be provided on the Never next health service it can come far too late for those in need of an ear right away. Without it I may well have been writing this post from a closed ward or a hospital wing or maybe even not at all. If we could find a way to make it so council was available for all with heart ache and head trouble how wonderful that would be. If all the hurt could be heard perhaps these hearts could be mended. If the head was allowed to unload the mind could be stopped from turning in on itself.
Counselling may be indulgent but if it works it should surely be available for all and not just those who can afford?
- Today’s dress was a donation from the lovely Sinead Kenny. It is beautiful and I feel rather like a ballerina except without the poise, figure or talent. It may be a little too different for Harborough however as both the dress and I receive some rather unkind glances. Ah well at least I am not dressed in leggings or slippers better suited to a home than the streets. Perhaps I am a little moody today.
Day 228 – The Cinderella service left with sweet soot all to save our souls
The signs are starting to stack up against me and it is becoming clear that the longer they build the harder it will be when they tumble. The tears are beginning to fall, beds are becoming harder to leave and heaven slowly begins to beckon.
The sadness is closing in as the summer starts to fade and unless a barrier can be made it’s all bleak from here.
With my head filled with such thoughts as these I was forced to concede that the time had come to make the call. My long history of mini meltdowns mean that over time I have memorised the six digits that lead me from the gate of hell to the double doors of the doctor.
I am scared because the council is going away and with me starting to sink reinforcements are needed. For once I arrive at the doctors optimistic about what they will be able to do. They always say to come as soon as it closes in and here I am. The problem is however is that thanks to cuts it turns out that they are limited in what they can do.
My own GP is away and instead I speak to a Doctor who knows not my past or my present but only the scribbles on the screen. My counsel sent out a letter to my GP and the psychiatrist I see but this man knows nothing of her. I tell him she will be going away for two weeks and that I am scared because I don’t want another crash.
Sadly mental health services have been stripped back even further at the surgery and they no longer even have councillors on site. I don’t know what I was expecting but all I know is that it was more than what I was offered. The best they can do these days is to refer those in need to a charitable service just around the corner. Though I know this service is good and the councillors there are trained it angers me to think this is all that is left here.
Even if I was to go to this service I know from experience that it can be months before an assessment is made. Putting aside my own problems I cannot understand how it is that national insurance contributions are not even being used towards on site counselling. My town is a big place and the surgery has thousands on its books. How can there be nothing here for the hundreds among them, thousands perhaps who at one time will need somebody to listen for longer than ten minutes.
I do not blame the doctors or the surgery for this. What after all can they do but work with the resources they have been given. When I have been sick in the past my GP has moved hell and high water to get me seen and cared for. Though I have had to go private for my own counsel they have done their best where possible to help. I imagine they grow sick of the sight of my face but they never show it and even when I ignore their advice abandon the tablets and wait till I am on the edge before making the call, they still make the time to see me and do all they can.
It is the Government and the treasury that I blame. While the doctors and the nurses are doing their best to save lives and minds, all they are concerned with is saving the pennies. I hate them, I really do despise them and their short-sighted approach to the health system. Three years ago when I got to the stage of suggestions of hospitalisation when I went to ask for help we were told by the psychiatrist that mental health services have always been known as The Cinderella Service. Is this because giving money to someone who is screaming in distress does not make for a good photo opportunity. Is it because people are scared by those with mental health issues because of sensationalist and insensitive media coverage? Or is it because a lot of the time people with mental health problems are when ill not as able to put up a fight? I am not sure but one day I hope I am well enough to put up the fight, to campaign and to be the Fairy God Mother that gives the Cinderella service even a little wave of the wand.
If there is any area of the health service that needs a bit of fairy dust it is one where the problem is so ignored that it is being sourced out like the nation’s plastic to be buried and hidden away. Please don’t let this happen it needs to be at the surface as the further down they plant it the larger it will be allowed to grow.
- Today’s dress is another from my very own Fairy Godmother who comes to my rescue time and time again. It is originally from Next and comes with a very nice belt. I wore it in the end with a pair of purple courts which complimented the colours. I had a sulk as though it is rather covering some idiot whistled at me on my way back from the surgery. In a mood and looking for someone to blame I told him to bugger off.
