14:03 – Seeing CPN & thinking about the future

It’s been about a week since I last posted. I haven’t felt the urge to write anything for the past few days. Nothing much has changed since the last post I wrote, just been plodding through each day trying to escape from the urges to self harm (and worse).

Yesterday however I saw new CPN again. We chatted about all the usual shit, I updated her on the status of my housing transfer application and told her I have probably annoyed the fuck out of the housing admin woman because I’ve been emailing her nearly every day telling her how bloody crazy this flat makes me feel. The housing admin woman said she needs to speak to my social worker and I left a message asking my social worker to call her but new CPN said she picked up the message and called. However the housing admin woman wasn’t there and so she could only leave a message. I would rather my social worker speak to her, she has known me a lot longer than new CPN. So really there is nothing to report about the housing transfer, hopefully next week the relevant conversations will take place and I will get another update and see if I can be awarded any more points.

New CPN was asking again yesterday about the future. “What do you want to change MCBL?” she asked. I told her I want everything to change, she told me that everything was impossible to do at once so instead to think of one thing I’d like to change. I said I hate the sight of myself, I want to lose weight. She asked if I’d ever tried before. I told her that yes, about 7 years ago I lost around 4 and a half stone (around 60lbs) by doing the Atkins diet. No/Low carb diets are frowned upon by many people but due to having PCOS and fucked up insulin it is a very effective diet for people like me. It only took me about 6 months to lose all that weight. I kept it off for about 3 years and then slowly packed it all back on again.

My body disgusts me. Rolls of fat everywhere, scars all over it, psoriasis dotted all over me, words and phrases permanently scarred on me about satan and Lucifer. The thought of anyone seeing me naked both sickens and terrifies me.

Anyway, new CPN said something which surprised me – “your determination frightens me“. I was confused and asked why. She said I have achieved so much in the past simply by really putting my mind to it and psyching myself up that she worries I could really do myself some damage if I put that same amount of effort into hurting myself. I was still a bit confused so she continued, “you have the ability to become very strong minded about a particular task, you have achieved really big things because of having that personality trait MCBL, you lost a massive amount of weight, you breezed your way through exams at school and college, you studied at degree level twice, when it has been something that you really want to do then you have let nothing stand in your way” then she stopped for a minute and then carried on to say “you have a very good personality trait there for getting things done when you find the motivation and desire to do it but that personality trait can also be very dangerous when it comes to self harm thoughts or suicidal ones” and that was why she said it frightens her.

I don’t know if any of that makes sense, it kinda did to me but then I thought if that were true then I would have overcome my agoraphobia a long time ago because I want so much to be free to travel anywhere I want again. But then I also realised that due to the intense fear and anxiety I feel when travelling I never have got to a place where I have been truly focused and psyched up to overcome it. It’s always terrified me too much. Losing weight didn’t scare me it excited me and with every pound lost I gained more motivation not less. Going to Uni and doing a degree level course didn’t scare me, it also excited me about what I could achieve for myself. But the agoraphobia – I can’t get excited about the end result because I’m so fucking scared of the panic attacks it brings.

Anyway we had a good chat for about an hour about the good and the bad things going on. She said she really wants me to turn a negative in my life into a positive. So I finally decided that losing weight, overcoming the agoraphobia and doing something that got me out of the house for a little while each day would all be positive things I could focus upon. Trying to lose weight doesn’t scare me but leaving the house and travelling anywhere do. I need to get out the house to exercise to lose weight, so I feel a bit stuck there. However I am getting better at going out and about locally and so we talked again about me seeing if there is anything starting at the small local college in August that I might like to do. And that was pretty much our entire session, I see her again next Thursday, the 31st.

I left my appointment and went straight to my parents house. I finally took my Dad’s birthday present up (only 25 days late) and lay out in their back garden sunbathing (in jeans and a long sleeved top?) and chatting to my brother for a while. Then Mum and I decided to go and get an ice cream and take the dogs to the beach. It was SO hot yesterday the dogs were constantly panting and drinking water so taking them to the beach so they could get in the cool sea water for a swim seemed to cool them down and tire them out.

After the beach Mum and I went to the local college and had a chat with the assistant manager about my situation and how I really want to try and gain a qualification as my CPN really wants me to focus on recovery. So I told the college woman that I am not 100% better but I think that having some sort of routine would help push me in the right direction and having a course to go to would help me focus my thoughts and attention on it rather than the negatives in my life all the time. I told her I would one day like to be able to work with young people affected by mental health issues and she recommended a 15 week short course called Working in the Community where you all work as a group to plan an event in your local community – it could be a fundraising event or an event to get a group of people together who all share an interest, something like that. It’s only for 15 weeks so I’m not committing to anything that’s a year long and upon completion of it you can start the year long course in youth work. So I am going to check with my local benefits office that I can do a short course without it affecting the benefits I receive, from what I have read online it looks like it should be OK but I want to double check.

There is also a year long course I could do called towards a career in childcare where you are in college two days a week and on a placement two days a week. The placement would be in a nursery or primary school and that course leads on to child development where I could either go down the route of becoming a nursery nurse or alternatively I could go down the route of becoming a special needs teacher which also interests me.

I asked if my mental health problems would affect my ability to be on a placement and she said it would be at the discretion of the course tutor once they have spoken to someone from my care team and received a clear disclosure certificate (which I will get as I have never been in trouble with the police). So I have two courses to think about and that was my ‘homework’ done for new CPN – I think she will be happy with me for going and finding out about all my options. It was also nice to spend some time with Mum again.

And that’s all my news. That was actually a longgg post considering I had nothing much to say at the beginning! It is another lovely day outside so I need to go for a cool shower and then try and get these dogs out, thankfully they are both still fast asleep as I took them out around 4am this morning. The self harm urges are still very much here, Lucifer is still chattering away, but I’m plodding along determined to get through the weekend with no trips to a&e.

 

15:16 – Things aren’t so good

I went to see my GP yesterday. It was nice GP I saw. I went in with a list because I knew I’d forget everything I was there for. She asked what happened to my hand as I sat down and just as she asked it she opened up my file on her screen and there is a letter from the local a&e telling her exactly what I did to myself. She had a quick look at the wound and said it looked “sore but is healing OK”.

I then brought out my list and told her about the knee pain I’ve been having that only seems to be getting worse. I was honest and said I’m sleeping on a 2 seater sofa every night, I cross my legs when I’m sitting all the time and I know that I am overweight – all of which I guess aren’t helping. So she asked to have a look and feel of my knees and prescribed me a strong anti-inflammatory NSAID tablet to take three times a day. As she was looking at my legs I brought up topic #2 on my list: my psoriasis. It is getting out of control, I have little patches appearing everywhere and my elbows are persistently bad. She said we have tried all the strong steroid creams and the only thing left is for me to go and see a dermatologist because he can get me the UV light treatment that isn’t available where I live.

So that put me in a panic and I kept saying to her is there nothing else at all that we can try and she agreed to prescribe me one more cream but said she doubts it will make any difference. I told her how I just can’t travel to the big hospital, I become hysterical any time I have tried to go to any big places and I don’t even think a little sedation would help get me there any more. The agoraphobic feelings were making me anxious as fuck and I then just wanted to get out of her room and run home. She said she was going to make the referral anyway and she would “see what she could do for me” to help me get there when the appointment comes through. I know I won’t go though.

I had my mental medications to sort out as well. I have still been building the dose quite slowly, I was only on 300mg I think when I last saw Mr Psychiatrist a week or two ago. Mr Psychiatrist wants me to increase my Quetiapine by 50mg a week. Then when I was at a&e on Saturday she increased it so that’s been me on 400mg since Saturday. Now GP has increased it to 450mg and next week onto 500mg. When I was on Quetiapine the last time it was around 400-600mg that I found most effective and stayed stable longest on (if I remember correctly). So I’m hoping it will start calming the voices down a bit and slow my thoughts a little bit. I don’t want Lucifer to go though and I made that clear to my GP as well. The a&e doctor said Lucifer didn’t sound very nice but he is just fine!

What I don’t like is when arguments start in my head and I start to lose all concentration and end up in a complete mess with my head feeling out of control and totally bonkers. Like I’m heading towards some sort of breakdown because I can’t seem to make my thoughts flow in a logical order. That sends my noisy pickled brain into a place where self harm becomes more likely because I either have to prove things (like having bones) or I get angry and use cutting as a release or because Lucifer wants me to brand myself (like when I carved a pentagram into my skin).

Blah. Things aren’t so good right now. But I’m trying to keep them under control. I’ve also had a bit of an argument with my best friend over stupid fucking gossiping idiots and am now stressed out about that. I am stressed because I’ve now left it so long to go and see my Dad that I’ve made it feel horribly uncomfortable – I mean it was his birthday May 1st and it’s now May 17th and I still haven’t seen my parents. I have barely seen anyone. I just hide in this one little room away from the world.

I got a letter from the housing association about my application for a housing transfer. I think I’m going to have to appeal their decision as with the amount of points they awarded me I will be waiting about 10 years for a transfer. I am still waiting to hear back from the council as my application somehow ended up only with the housing association and has not yet been assessed by the council. Maybe they will have better news for me.

For now I am just trying to hang on until tomorrow when I see new CPN to vent all my craziness to her.

20:34 – 1st Session with New CPN

I had my session at 1pm today with my new CPN. It has been arranged so that a support worker meets me outside my flat beforehand and we walk to the CMHT together. I was apprehensive about it because when we met a couple of weeks ago to be introduced (see here) she seemed very keen, almost pushy, about me “exploring my creativity, furthering my education, making the most out of life” all that sort of ‘positive vibe’ shit.

However, she came into the room and saw I had pushed the seat right into the corner next to the door so she would have to sit right across the room – but she moved her chair over closer and seemed genuinely interested in how I was doing and stuff. She told me she had spoken to my social worker and knew how important the moving house stuff was to me and without me even asking she said she was going to writing a supporting letter to go in with my application. I told her my social worker had already written one but she said the second one would be a good thing for my application. So she was going to write it out after I left today and I have to pick it up Friday lunchtime and take it to the housing department. I don’t expect they would have starting reviewing my application by Friday but hopefully with two supporting letters (and my GP and Consultant Psychiatrist’s details) it will add some weight to my case.

The new CPN is OK. No actually, she is nice going by today’s impression. She seemed really keen to help me and understood where I was coming from when I described how trapped I suddenly feel here in this flat. She did ask if I had thought any more about a college course or some kind of volunteering and I told her that the night after the last time I saw her I sat and went onto the college and open university websites and also had sent a couple of emails about voluntary work. I also explained I was a bit hesitant because I see myself as unreliable and unable to commit to things when they have to be planned in advance. She said it wasn’t *me* who was unreliable, it was my illness, but she was really happy I had taken what she said on board and at least looked into what options there are.

So I told her I would like to maybe try a part time college course if I am more well come August but for now I couldn’t make any definite decisions. I also brought up with her the comments she had made a couple of weeks ago about me not having agoraphobia and how I had brought that up with the psychiatrist last week. I told her he admitted it did seem that I still have quite a problem with the thought of travelling anywhere unfamiliar and so she said maybe we could work on that a little bit, I don’t know if she means graded exposure, she didn’t really expand, to be honest the whole session pretty much revolved around this bloody housing transfer and her asking a load of questions about it all.

So, what was achieved in our first session?

• I’m getting another letter to support my housing transfer application
• I have a future ‘goal’ of perhaps starting a part time college course later in the year
• Working on my agoraphobia could be some work we could do together
• I feel as though she knows and understands me a bit better now

So I can’t complain really. She was quite nice, she took an interest in what I had to say, the session went by really quickly, we talked about the present and the future, she told me I had enough medical type people in my care team and for the few months she is here she just wants to keep encouraging me to try and claim a bit of my life back.

Lucifer isn’t too sure about all this positivity talk. I felt some uncomfortable crampy feelings in my forehead as I sat listening to her, almost like someone was scratching my forehead from the inside, distracting me. When I went to the chemist after the appointment for my weekly prescription I was aware of stumbling with my words as I was talking to both the pharmacist and Lucifer and getting confused. It was something really simple, she was just trying to tell me that this was the last week of my monthly prescription so I had to get a new one next week but Lucifer kept telling me she was someone to be wary of. She was too friendly, it made him (and me) a bit suspicious of her motives so I got out of there as quickly as I could.

My new phone didn’t arrive today (grr) so I’m really hoping it comes tomorrow. I need to send my other one to the recycle place and get the money for it in my account asap but I can’t survive without a phone so I need my new one to come before I send the other one away. Tomorrow I have the addictions nurse at 4pm so can pretty much wait in all day and see if it comes. I’m seeing new CPN again next Friday, I just need to remember to go to the CMHT this Friday and pick up the letter.

1st session: Good I think

13:54 – Massive huge bridesmaid anxiety

I popped up to my Mums last night and she said she wanted to have a word with me. My cousin (my only female cousin, she’s the same age as me but I get jealous because she has the man, the great job, the baby, the house, the car, etc) -in other words we grew up together as ‘equals’ and now I feel pretty shit that at the age of 30 she has achieved so much and me, so little. Anyway, back to the point. Mum said to me that my cousin really wants me to be her bridesmaid. She is getting married in November and lives about 250 miles away from me. At the moment (when my agoraphobia is having a good day) I can travel about 60 miles of the coastal road. I cannot remember the last time I was on a motorway/highway. It must have been when I was in the back of the ambulance losing my little boy.

So I have google mapped every possible route from my house to my cousins house and I now I am panicking so bad. We always said as kids we would have each other as bridesmaid and when I was engaged she was my first choice as bridesmaid which of course she said yes to!

So here’s my problems:

• From an agoraphobic point of view I really don’t think I can do 250 miles in any form of transport.
• I have absolutely no body confidence and it will mean wearing a dress.
• My arms and legs have nasty scars – how do I hide them? My cousin is a doctor so I could maybe explain that bit to her.
• If I make a commitment now then it’s an actual commitment, not one that I can get myself into so much of a panic about that I can back out from at the last minute.
• She knows I was diagnosed with bipolar but she doesn’t know about all the voices etc that I have no control over and can randomly just fuck me up
• It’s 7 months away. I don’t know what or if I’ll have dinner tonight let alone what I’ll be doing in 7 months. I might not even be here in 7 months.
• Ah fuck, I just cannot do it, there is no point in pretending I can. It’s going to be yet another family gathering that I couldn’t attend, where my face is missing from the photo’s, a day that’s going to make me feel like shit that I couldn’t be there for her….
• Another day to remind me just how fucking useless I am in normality and yet how I can succeed so well at being fucking mental.

15:09 – A little sleep, a little clarity

I managed to get about four hours sleep then woke up and took my medication. I’ve been awake about an hour now and it’s sunny with blue skies outside. This is nice but it’s also hugely anxiety provoking because of the amount of people that are outside. My best mate phoned me last night to ask if I wanted to go for lunch with her and the kids today, I said yes but then due to being up all night I woke up to a list of missed calls. Looks like I’ve let her down again. And, as usual, I just hide the phone away rather than phoning to explain.

Other than the stomach churning anxiety my head feels a tiny bit clearer than it did last night. The voices are there but quieter, maybe taking my medication properly and getting a few hours sleep has helped a little. I have a few challenges ahead of me today – going outside when there are so many people around being the biggest challenge. But the dogs need walking and I’m quite hungry and need to buy some food in. I’m scared that over the course of the next couple of hours everything is going to go really crazy again *touch wood*

16:56 – Mother’s Day

It’s Mother’s Day here in the UK. A day that fills me with too many emotions to write down. I could go on and on for the next few hours about how much I wish I had my little boy here, a happy healthy 5 year old, bringing me a little home made card that he’s made in school. But that is just a dream.

My head was good on Friday then shit again yesterday. That shit-ness seems to have spilled into today. Or maybe it’s just because of what day it is. I am going up to my parents house at 6pm for dinner, I’ve bought Mum a card, a book and a bouquet of flowers. I didn’t have much money this week to do anything big to mark the day.

I’ve also bought a card for my best friend and signed it from her two little ones. Even though she isn’t with her ex he should still make sure he gets her a card like she does for him when it’s Fathers Day! But alas he doesn’t, so I do. Maybe her Mum will have already got one but I’m sure she won’t mind having two!

I did plan on going out to hers before going to my parents but I’m having some real issues with it still being daylight and people still being outside and I don’t feel I can face the outside world. I spoke to my Mum on the phone last night and told her how bad things are at the moment, how horribly paranoid and anxious I feel all the time. She suggested that she comes down every day at lunch time and takes the dogs out for me and checks in with me to see how I’m doing. Whilst this feels helpful, I don’t want to have to resort to my Mum coming down every day to ensure her 30 year old daughter can get out of bed that day! I know that really this is her way of trying to keep an eye on me because she knows I’m not going to any of my appointments but I can’t help but feel if I let her help with one thing then it will be too easy to let her help with a second thing and then a third and so on and so on until the agoraphobia kicks back in fully reinforced that I am indeed shit and unable to do anything by myself.

I wanted to write more but I’m starting to feel really anxious so I think I’ll just leave it here for now.

15:22 – So I fucked something else up…

I got a letter today to tell me that as I’ve missed my last three appointments with my counsellor I will not be offered any further appointments but I can contact them any time if I want to restart. This is the counsellor at the drug and alcohol place who was doing bereavement counselling with me. Yes the counselling that I wrote about needing so badly and feeling good that someone was finally going to do it with me, unlike the CMHT who just bang on and on about fucking safety plans, crisis plans and risk assessments. The counsellor is nice, she really is, but how do I explain to her that its not that I don’t want to go and see her, I just can’t. The outside world terrifies me at the moment. I don’t even have the words to try and describe it.

So I am sad that the counselling is finished, especially as I was just getting to the point of starting to trust her and open up to her, but like everything I have to go and fuck it up. Talking about my little one and all the feelings I have surrounding the loss was starting to become helpful. I know I can contact them any time in the future and resume the sessions but that just doesn’t seem likely any longer.

I also got a letter from my CPN offering me another appointment on March 20th which is the same day I am supposed to see the psychiatrist. I know I’m not going to go to either of them and yet I can’t seem to phone and tell them this. Which makes me feel bad as I am wasting their time and someone else could have those appointments. I also know I kinda need to see the psychiatrist to go about increasing my Quetiapine again but ugh I just can’t. I also need to see my GP within the next week to get my next lot of 4 weekly prescriptions sorted but I don’t feel as though I’m going to be able to do that either right now. I can see what’s going to happen here, I’m going to run out of medication and lose my appointments with my CPN and psychiatrist, I’m going to be left on my own with nothing other than a completely mental head.

I truly feel trapped in this horrendous paranoia that I can’t escape from. And I have tried, I went out on Tuesday when I last posted, I forced myself to shower then take the dogs out whilst it was still light outside and the anxiety was awful. I only managed about 2 or 3 minutes of being outside before I was trying to get back to the house. But nature called and the dog was doing the toilet and so I had to stand there and wait, all I could feel was nauseous panic creeping up on me. I kept trying to tell myself that it was going to be OK and that I would be back in the house in just a few more minutes. I was trying to be self-soothing. I was trying to remain calm. But there were people, mostly school kids walking home from school and their chatter was so fucking loud it was hurting my head.  I couldn’t hear the soothing voice inside me any more just chatter that got louder and louder until it turned into a chant that was bursting my fucking eardrums “we see you, we see you, We See You, We See You, WE SEE YOU, WE SEE YOU” and I had to turn and run. Running in front of all these school kids, looking like a paranoid anxious mess, flustered and rubbing my hands on my head, eyes dashing from side to side trying to find a way out of it all… I was a mess. As soon as I got back indoors my three locks were put on the door and I just sat and cried with the duvet wrapped round me.

Yesterday I had to go to the pharmacy and pick up my prescription. As usual I waited until just before closing time and ran along the street for it. On my way back home I bumped into male friend, I started making excuses to him that I had to come home to have a shower, I was about to make dinner, I was probably going out soon… anything so that he didn’t ask to come round. He did text me later though to ask if I was OK as I seemed a bit “off”. I didn’t reply.

The paranoia feels like it’s taking over everything. The anxiety has not been as bad as this in a long time. It’s almost as bad as it was when my agoraphobia made me completely housebound. And I worked hard to get to a point where I could deal with some anxiety, where I could calm myself down a bit, but now it just doesn’t seem to work at all. My head is constantly swimming through voices, chants and unintelligible chit chat.

I just feel confused and scared. I don’t know why it’s all starting again, it really makes me think that I’m never going to get ‘better’.

03:47 – Fuck Off Insomnia

Oh my God. Why can’t I sleep? I’ve been lying in bed for three hours just tossing and turning until I finally got fed up and came back through to watch TV. There is nothing on the TV at this time of night/morning, it’s all repeats of things I’ve seen before. I don’t know if I’m worrying about seeing this guy tomorrow, I guess I won’t be fully relieved until I’ve handed over his money and deleted his phone number.

But I’m sure it’s not the guy or the money keeping me awake, I’m sure it’s a baby. Every time I go to nod off I hear crying, that little but strong cry of a newborn. But there is no baby, no matter where I look. I hear it and follow it’s cry but then it just disappears. It’s my crazy mind playing tricks with me, cruel tricks at that.

One of the worst feelings is not knowing for definite what’s real and what’s fake. I hear and see things that I’m sure other people can’t. If they could hear and see what I see and hear then they would walk about looking like confused zombies most of the time. That’s how I feel as though I look anyway.

My arm really hurts, it’s covered in bruises as well as a cut that I probably should have gone to A&E about, but I couldn’t face it. It’s not massive, it will just be yet another scar. I’m watching a program right now about holidays, I so wish I didn’t have agoraphobia I’d love to be lying on a nice hot beach just now, dipping myself in the water every so often and have enough concentration to read a book on a sun lounger. The last time I went abroad I think I was 22 or 23 and that was just for a city break. So it’s been about 7 years anyway.

Oh I’m rambling here. I’m just trying to see if typing in the dark will make me any more sleepy but apparently not, I think it’s time to find the most boring book that I own and see if that sends me into a world of zzz’s.

23:08 – CPN and some honesty

I saw my CPN today and decided it was time to be honest with her. I’d already told my psychologist about the “substance misuse” but today I just reeled out the list of all the substances I have consumed in the past couple of weeks. She said she was glad that I had been honest with her and asked me if I wanted to be referred to the addictions team. I said no. I don’t have an addiction, I’m just going through a ‘blanking everything out’ phase.

We talked about starting graded exposure work again in the New Year as I really need to do something about it. I was in the car today and there were all these adverts for things like ice skating and a big carnival through in the city about an hour away from me and I would love to go (cos I’m a big kid really!) and I hate that agoraphobia has taken away at least the last six years of going to things like that. I can’t remember the last time I went to a shopping centre or anything, I think it was 2006 and that was during graded exposure work so god knows how long it’s been a part of my mentalness.

CPN asked how I was feeling about Christmas and I told her the truth – that I hate it. Christmas is really for kids and the excitement in their little faces and watching them laugh all day long (then puke from too much chocolate) – and it fucking hurts every single year that I don’t have that. I should have a little boy almost five years old opening presents under a packed tree. I should be leaving a carrot and glass of milk out for Santa. And it hurts to the deepest part of my heart that I don’t have that.

So she said maybe it would be an idea to go straight from my friend’s house on Christmas morning to my parents so I’m constantly in company and don’t have as much time to sit and think and upset myself and no doubt end up in some sort of crisis. Maybe she is right, I’ll see how I feel on the day.

As I was leaving the mental’s building I bumped into my psychologist. Her bump is so big and obvious now I didn’t know where to look. I felt like I was going to be sick as a wave of anxiety went right through me. We had a brief chat and talked about having my next CPA meeting in January. Then I asked to see my social worker for a moment to wish her a happy Christmas.

About half an hour after I got home my buzzer started beeping. I didn’t answer it as I thought it would be my male friend and wasn’t in the mood for company as I still have some sort of stomach bug and am running to the loo every five minutes. Sorry, too much information I know. Anyway, I then hear a walkie-talkie and a person saying “there’s no answer” and look out the window to see two police officers standing outside. So I go into complete panic mode and think that CPN has phoned the police and told them I’ve been misusing substances and sent them to my flat but as it turned out they had the wrong address and were looking for my neighbour.

I have heard people say before that you only feel paranoid if you have something to hide (which is bullshit) but today it definitely applied. I felt panic and guilt and quickly got rid of the tiny bit of cannabis I had at home. I think if I’m completely honest with myself I am developing a bit of a problem; not a physical addiction but a psychological association with smoking a spliff to feel semi-normal. It blanks things out, it makes me feel a little dissociated, it makes my emotions seem less intense and the voices a little quieter.

My moods have been particularly low the past week or so, I’ve had a lot of suicidal thoughts and urges to self harm but have managed to resist them all. Instead I actually listened to what CPN had to say and have decided that my New Year’s resolution is going to be learning helpful behaviours. Getting high isn’t helpful in the long run, I’m intelligent enough to realise that, and I also know that I can’t tell how helpful the Olanzapine actually is whilst I’m smoking it, so maybe it’s time to quit playing about with drugs and make 2012 a turning point.

I want my life back and most importantly my freedom. I want to be able to drive anywhere I desire, go to festivals and concerts again, go through to the city for the day and do some shopping, live a normal-ish life. I have the volunteer support worker training starting in February and I am determined I will get to the location a couple of hours away each weekend and complete the course.

Next year can’t be any worse than this year or last, they say third time lucky so maybe next year is going to be my year of luck. Where they find a good dose of medication for me, where I can stay out of hospital for the year, where I learn to get my life back a bit.

I so want to be positive, I’m trying my hardest but I know it’s going to be a long and scary journey. But it will be worth it in the end, won’t it?

12:52 – Just a little catch up

I haven’t written anything in the past few days so thought I’d just pop by and say hello. That’s really about all I have to say for myself. I have a chest infection and am feeling pretty crappy, just want to laze around and see how long I can go between each delightful coughing attack. I started feeling quite run down over the weekend and I think this is it hitting it’s worst so hopefully I’ll be back to ‘normal’ in a few days.

The new finches Jack and Victor are settling in well. They’ve been out for a few flies around the bedroom and don’t try and peck me when I lift them up so all is good

I had an appointment with the psychologist yesterday and found it quite hard at times to concentrate as one voice was telling me over and over to look at her stomach and see what I don’t deserve (her pregnant stomach) so I would deliberately stare out the window or look her straight in the eye which just made the voice laugh and laugh at me – I told her they get louder than her sometimes as a way of excusing myself for all the times I probably appeared as though I wasn’t listening to a word she was saying. We are looking at mindfulness again and I have to practice taking 15 minutes out each day to do something in a mindful rather than mindless way.

I also went to the rape crisis place yesterday as due to my hospital admissions I hadn’t handed my application form back into them. Mine has gone a bit back to front, I got my ‘interview’ first and filled in the application form over the weekend there. So it looks like training is going to start around the last week in February, I’m not even allowing myself to panic about it, if I want it badly enough I know I will get there even if I’m kicking and screaming.

And that’s about all I have to say. I am popping down to the rape crisis today to hand in my disclosure form and as soon as that is back and they can see I’m not too much of a nutter on paper, then I can get involved with general admin duties until the support worker training starts. I’m still feeling really enthusiastic about getting involved with their organisation and can’t wait until I do my first real session with a client.

Now I have two doggies giving me the puppy dog eyes because they want their lunch time walk so I better be off. Think it will be another lazy day ahead I’m feeling pretty rotten and sleeping on and off in front of the tv seems to be the best cure!