Shhhh....what was that??

Thank you all for the lovely birthday messages and Ecards !!  :)

In the end we stayed in and ordered a Thai takeaway. It was quite good and came with a free bottle of wine. It was nice treat.
Back on a diet now. My brother's wedding is on 10th December. I don't want to be the fattest relative in the photo ;)

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Haven't been taking my back-up pills for a few weeks now. Feeling I can cope fine without them, but I may need to take them for a while for another reason- I'm hearing stuff again.

What I'm hearing is fairly ordinary stuff. In a way this makes it more difficult- if you're hearing weirdy spooky voices and whispers or lions roaring under your bed, you can just tell yourself 'No way was that real!' and tell it to shut the F*** up. But it isn't that easy if what you're hearing is cats meowing- when Scooter is fast asleep; or Luvbug coming home from work in the middle of the day, like I heard him do today, except when I went to greet him he wasn't there.

Over the last week I have heard cats coming in and out of the catflap while Scoot is asleep next to me (we've checked; no strays coming in). I've heard a cat meowing downstairs while I've been upstairs in the bath, but Scooter is asleep down there and Luvbug is with him.  I've heard chairs being moved, dragged across the kitchen floor, yet they remain in their original spot. I've heard the oven on, then gone to investigate, thinking that I must have forgotten I was cooking something... but no, when I get there the noise of the fan stops. I've heard kitchen utensils moving and cupboards being closed, and invisible mail noisily comes through the letterbox.

It's all normal stuff so I have to go and investigate, make sure. If it were ghouls I could just tell them they don't exist, and so f*** outta here will ya, and all from the comfort of my chair or bed! Trust me to get the hallucinations that make 'sense'. Bleagh.

Getting on my nerves now, like a noisy neighbour. So, I took one of my back-up little blue pills tonight.

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Everything else is fine-
Scooter's great, Mum's doing better than in ages, and Luvbug may have work booked right up to the end of term :)   -funny how bad things come all at once, and then you seem to get a break everywhere at the same time too!

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I'm trying to design a lino cut to make my Christmas cards from this year. Coming up with the design is harder than I ever imagined it would be! If I have your address you'll be on the list to get one um, eventually! If you've moved since last Xmas let me know your new address!

-Are any of you out there getting organised card-wise?

A Beautiful Mind

It's been like a roller-coaster, these last few weeks.

First, there was my partner investing in a franchise, then meeting Julie (nerve wracking before, wonderful during!!) the trip to Lincoln, then home for Easter, then to Mum's for a few days... and for a couple of days this week I completely crashed!

It began Tuesday, while I was still at mum's; I felt myself really slipping downwards. I said I was tired, made a few excuses and took some time out up in her spare room, catching some sleep. We got home that night and I took one of my "emergency blue pills". These are trifluoperazone, for when the bi-polar zig-zag pushes me a little too far either up or down.

Wednesday night I sat up, on a diet of diazepam and chocolate muffins :)

Thursday morning I felt better, but gradually wore down through the day. So I took another catnap. Then I had an email from an old school friend, Josephine, asking to come up. I explained how I felt, and she said that I needed "a dose of silliness" and prescribed herself and her 10 year old daughter, who promptly arrived Friday morning :)

I didn't feel up to it, and wanted to defer for a few days, but focused on what nice things I could get for them to eat. I made a chicken and bacon pie and Luvbug bought banoffee pie and doughnuts. In the afternoon, with full tummies, we all went off to a garden centre and chose plants for our respective gardens.

I have no idea where this one came from. Then in an email Julie very kindly suggested that maybe it was the number of things I'd had all at once- this labrynthitis virus that I'm still fighting, a trip away from home, worrying about Fluffy, worrying about my partner, .... all sorts of things. Yes, I suppose so.

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Scary bits............

Photo taken from my back, upstairs window a couple of years ago... it was a great storm!

It's hard to descibe how it feels but imagine your brain telling you that you have too much stimulation around you, and so you have to go and lie down for a few hours in a quiet spot. The longer it takes to go and do that, the worse it gets, until it becomes a physical pain, like a belt tied tightly around your forehead. The inner tension slips down to your chest and feels like an empty vacuum. You start to go "zombie-fied", when even finishing a sentence is mentally exhausting and painful. Sleep, sleep, rest. Then try to distract yourself when you wake up, don't just lie there. Do something till you have to rest again. Takes a bit of willpower to get up and do that though.

This time the flunk brought with it the more disturbing, hallucinary symptoms. I saw shadowy shapes running past the window, heard what sounded like a group of people chattering behind me, and the non-auditory but "sensory" things, these are the scariest- feeling someone walking into the room, turning to say hello and no one is there. Or feeling watched. Or not being able to get out of bed because of that child-like conviction that SOMETHING is on the stairs.

I always tell myself it isn't real, it isn't true, and make myself walk past it. Or occasionally run. But what makes it difficult is that it doesn't come when I am feeling at my worst. It comes when I am calm and thinking that the ill phase has gone or is passing- so these things take me by surprise. Just as I am pootling about my day, I see or hear or sense something that isn't there, and it is always threatening, mocking or evil....... never mind. Another week and I'll be clear, I'm sure. Just have to pace myself now.

I watched A Beautiful Mind again the other week. That film always gives me courage. Look at what John Nash lives with, and look at what he's achieved. He doesn't have bi-polar, he has schizophrenia, but he copes by just letting the hallucinations be, and just ignoring them. My mind doesn't play anything like the tricks his does, but then my brain can't do anything like the maths he does either :)
But his story always gives me a bit of strength: to know you can have a normal, even successful life despite having a mind that does odd things at times. I find myself thinking, well if he can do it, so can I.

I realise that some people will see my decision to post about this as a little risky. And yes, I have lost at least one friend over this thing. But the only way to counteract people's fear of this is to say exactly what it is and what it does. If people can't cope with that, ok, I'll understand if you want to keep away. I'm not hiding it though. I'm not sure I can. So the more people understand the inner workings of it, the better.

Also, maybe someone out there has the same but can't put it into words. They can point at the screen and say to their loved ones, "Look, read this."

Back!

Old archway squashed between modern buildings, Limerick, taken Tuesday afternoon, 23/10/07.

Well we got back from Ireland yesterday, and it was all fine.

Better than fine, actually, it was lovely.

Once there, I didn't suffer from nerves or butterflies or dread. On previous visits it has been so bad that I have counted the hours till we could set off back to the airport for home. I'm amazed by the difference this time.

It wasn't plain sailing all the way. I felt so panicked at the airport. I was in tears more than once. Had to take one of my blue pills.... I didn't want to go through check-in. I tried to find ways, in my mind, of getting home again from the airport, and telling my partner to go on without me. Maybe I could call my friend, the one in Enfield, and ask if she can meet me if I can get to her by Tube. Or maybe I could take the Tube to Liverpool Street station and a train home from there. It would take 3, maybe 4 hours, no- on a Sunday, after all, it would be more. But I'd be home. I'd be safe. I could get back into my bed and curl up, coccooned.

But I kept thinking of how awful I would feel about myself afterwards, in the days to follow.

Surely I should push against this, make myself do it..... I hadn't had the strength to do so before. I've never been able to join in. I loathe get-togethers, groups....

Seagulls by Limerick Castle.

I don't know why there was such a difference this time, once I was there. I felt completely comfortable, not scared or fazed by the people or situations at all. Didn't have to think twice about anything. Just went with the flow. Is that what it's like to be "normal"?

So maybe the only answer is that I am a little better, mental-health-wise, than in previous years.

Whether this is true or not, there is still some good news in this. I did it. Horray!

Bit difficult, this...but does it matter?

Another writing assignment due in this Friday, and I am utterly stumped.

Truth is, I've been very low for a week, now.

I resisted for a long time, but in the end I've had to start taking my "supplementary pills". These are little blue ones I take on top of the antidepressants for "times of especial anxiety or disturbance". Not sure what they mean by "disturbance". Perhaps for when my neighbours put their noisy "music" on (God, I'm showing my age).

The reason I resisted is that they dumb your head down a bit. Push your thoughts into a lower gear. So that they stop spiralling, spinning, merging, bubbling. They don't exactly help you write.

Hey ho.

Found this in my email this morning. It's from a newsletter that tells me I can "unsubscribe" at any time. That's decent of them, since I've never heard of them. Think I get what it says though. Wonder if it will be helpful.........

BY THE BY: FORGET EASE

When something feels "difficult" or "hard," that is not a signal you should not proceed ... Instead of deciding a lack of ease is an indication of what you shouldn't do, next time you notice something feeling hard, stop. Tell yourself you don't know what this means. It may not mean anything more then you need to eat lunch or take a short break. Instead of interpretating, notice what "difficult" feels like as information at it's most basic level: perhaps you notice a sensation of heaviness or of sleepiness or even a vast rush of energy or an inability to sit still.

What if you simply noticed sensation without labeling anything--no feelings, no shoulds or shouldn'ts.

What if you stayed there, bringing your mind back to what you are experiencing without any filter.

What if?