“…And how do you feel about that?”

To tell you the truth, I don’t really feel that much about it.

No, scratch that. I feel something, just the something that I feel in the majority of cases. I guess sometimes I’ve analysed a situation and how I responded it to death and back, and to be told to reward myself does begin to get a little old. I may have come on in leaps and bounds, I may be dealing with situations better (as in I’m not cutting anymore) but I can’t reward myself, it doesn’t feel right and I don’t recognise it as an achievement. Y’see, rewarding myself is difficult. I don’t even know how to go about rewarding myself, truth be told. I can chill out, go out or watch a film… but that feels like an onorous task too, on occasion. What is rewarding myself?

Is it a nibble on some chocolate, or the tub of Ben and Jerry’s I have in the freezer? Is it TV time? Is it cooking? Climbing? A cup of green tea and a book? See I enjoy all of those, but I wouldn’t necessarily class them as rewards. In fact, I can’t actually think of anything I would use as a reward, as sometimes even doing something I ‘enjoy’ (when the depression isn’t there) can become so difficult, that any enjoyment I may or may not receive, or the benefit to my mental health isn’t necessarily found.

Today in psychology, we were still addressing and preparing the ground: discussing how daily life is for me. What I do, what I think, what I eat; in preparation for actually starting the therapeutic process. It scares me how some things, such as the fatigue and way of thinking have sunk into me, sunk into my personality so much, that they’ve all become second nature to me. I go in wondering what to say: there’s nothing wrong with me, but then come out with some much needed perspective and also, I came out feeling a lot more positive than when I went in. They generally offer 18-24 sessions and I’ll be seeing her weekly, although we will discuss this at the 8 week mark. On the whole, I’m feeling positive about it. I’m also feeling very warm, as they had the heating on full blast and the windows not only were barred but double barred; I asked whether that was to keep the patients in, or keep people out!  I still maintain the building is horrible, it used to be a hospital I think. At least I’m no longer in the freezing portacabin- psychology gets the “nicer” warmer building…

Ooh, hello psychology!

I start psychology today.

It should be interesting, and hopefully helpful! I’ll see how it goes, but for now, I need to get ready!

My Body

There are times when not feeling horridly self conscious about my body would come in useful. Like, frequently, seeing as I can’t be bothered to explain why I feel so uncomfortable to the girl I’m seeing. It’s a shame, really. It kinda kills things as that takes over my mind, instead of what we’re doing at that moment in time. That and tally killing any libido I may have, not that any of you probably wanted to read any of this.

So I’ll change the subject.

This week has been fairly disasterous, uniwise. I’m sitting here planning an event for my society next week and firing off emails, researching etc and also being boxed in by books. I really need to get organised. I need to actually start doing work in the day, and not taking every single social committment by the horns! I think I’ve been out late every day this week, so I don’t want to get up, or do work in the day. I’m silently planning my agenda for this weekend and the current week: it’s reading week for the French part of my course, so I will have lots of time and therefore I can clear this mess and hopefully start revising/learning stuff. It may be early, but some of my courses are horrific work wise! You need an encyclopaedic brain knowledge of everything that’s happened in French politic between 1945 and well, whenever we stop. So far, it’s a lot about De Gaulle. He was charismatic, y’know? My french lecturer is also in love with him and Général Massou. See, I learnt like 2 things so far this year! So that’s where I disappeared to: I (shockingly) had a life. The medical ctr also lost my hospital referral, but I now have it and have an appointment to be prodded by the haematologisits later this week. I’m not looking forward to it, and have invited my mum to the appointment, forgetting one piece of info: she doesn’t know I’m on medication. That could be interesting…

Well now I need to eat and buy stuff in a non- compulsive manner. Happy Saturday!

Violated

A friend went through my phone and found my blog.

Looking at my stats, someone is reading all my posts. I don’t know if it’s them, or just pure chance but I’m feeling uneasy. I don’t know what the point of writing this is, but what I do know is that I told them not to read any more, and they said they wouldn’t.

I don’t know what to do.

“Leaps and bounds”

I was discharged from therapy today, in light of me starting psychology on monday. I’m quite glad really, I wasn’t entirely sure how much longer we’d be able to spin out the checking in occasionally act for. It was useful at the start, but more recently it’s become a chore.
So, I told her the good news and we sort of reviewed what we’d done over the past 9 months or so, and she said that I’d come on very well from when she first met me; it’s gone from finding coping strategies to well, things that can be more useful in the long term. I also received the spiel of ‘if you ever need a rereferral don’t hesitate to ask; it’s not like you can never access services again’. How promising that sounds! I am hoping that after psychology I’ll be able to say goodbye to services; well it’s more of a certainty for one year to say the least. But we won’t talk about that yet!

3 months?

More like 3 working days to tell me….

It has been decided by those at the CMHT Psychology dept that I won’t have to wait for therapy, sooo that means my first appointment is next Monday. Yeeeeyyyy

One day

… The psychiatrist will try and diagnose me with something I actually have.

Until then, he can stop trying to diagnose me as having bipolar.

Yeah, that went well, as you can tell?

He kept asking me about my reproductive system and saying that sodium valporate is bad… I have no need for this knowledge, apart from in a general knowledge quiz because I DO NOT HAVE/AM NOT BIPOLAR.

The day of reckoning

I’m seeing the Psychiatrist later, after last week’s muck up.

I don’t know what to say, that hasn’t already been said. Whatever I say needs to keep me on Citalopram, but I don’t know how to say that really, things aren’t so great. Not awful, but not er, well. I had my first risk assessment in so long the other day, by the Psychologist Lady. I’d forgotten how uck they are, and how they try and break into the thoughts you don’t want to tell. All the notes are interdisciplinary, so I’ll soon have sold my life to him anyway.

I hate him. Hate is a strong word, and I hardly ever use it, but I actually dislike this man from the pit of my stomach.

I have to tell him about that highness I had; can’t wait. I got all prepared last week, and I’m sure I had good words to explain everything. Now, speaking and sentences are a struggle. I can’t remember words that express things the way I want to express things. I can explain in a monotone no humour added way, but that’s boring and not me. I want to happily lace my words with humour, bile or sarcasm, situation dependent.

I guess I should go to lectures really, instead of hiding in my room away from the world…

And so,

A three month wait for therapy begins.

*twiddles thumbs*

I don’t know how to explain how I’m feeling. There’s just something hanging over me, I’m on the brink of tears, yet the tears never come. I’m worn out. Totally worn into the ground. I’m getting over physical ills, but it all just feels so impossible. To walk anywhere, to do anything. I can still contribute, I can still try and get a grip; getting a grip is what I am trying to do: my eating went down the pan, so now to rectify this. I’m not exercising enough… I recognise this. But the fatness is returning. My podge. The difficulty in recalling everything, be it words, foreign or otherwise; what I just said, where I’m meant to be. It’s all blurry.

A friend is working herself into the ground and having panic attacks. I’m worried about her, she’s the girl I used to be before all this. I can’t let ‘this’ turn into what’s happened to me. I’m trying to help, trying to advise, sending her links to some resources I used in therapy first time round, therapy for the phobia. All seems such a long time ago. I know it’s only a case of 3 and a half years, but that still seems so long to me. And then the fact that this may have been going on for longer that than unofficially, well, it kind of blows my mind. I’m scared of the future. If this is the past, what will the future hold? I mean, I just can’t imagine this world, the same but different… the same, but actually being able to fulfil my goals and stuff. Like I can keep going like this, and I can still do okay, but I want to do better than okay. I want to do WELL because that I know I can do. I know that I can do better than just passing; I know that I can get 60%s, 70%s when I’m feeling good, when I can work properly, when everything goes okay. But when? When can I rely on this to happen? I can hope, and I can try, but sometimes I have to admit defeat. Go back to bed because I’m too ill to work, like happened yesterday. The pain and the dizzyness got to me, so I stayed in bed for longer, skipped lectures and went back to bed. I had plans, plans to shift work and to learn, but they got pushed by the wayside: the list may be getting under control, but it’s still there. I’m turning into my friend now: wanting to get the list gone as soon as it forms, but I know, and I preach that taking it easy is necessary, but it seems to get lost in the wires of my head sometimes.

There’s always something to be done, always something to hang over, something or someone that reminds me of something, or some place that just… evokes… that brings it all back to me. The past, the present, and the future. I don’t think this made sense but my head feels less foggier.