The Fault In My Stars

I go back to work a week today and naturally the anxiety is already building. I had my first full on panic attack a couple of days ago for the first time in years. I couldn't breathe, I thought I was going to faint and I was shaking. I assume it was triggered by the phone call earlier that day confirming my Occupational Health appointment on Wednesday next week. 

I know I have to go back to work some time but am I ready? God no. Will I ever be ready though? The last few weeks have given me some sanctuary from the immediate stress of the situation but the faults in my head still remain. 

I know the simple answer would be to leave and get another job but unfortunately my faulty head will still follow. The whole situation has put all the mental progress I've made back, I feel worse than I have in years. I now crumble under the tiniest amount of stress, I get anxious about leaving the house and am finding social situations difficult once again. 

Aside from the present mess that I'm in I also have to worry about what the hell my future holds. Can I ever have a well-earning job that will provide me with enough income to live a life of independence? Even if I can live independently would I even be able to cope? Living at home keeps me secure, there are people around to make sure I'm functioning.

 I know I shouldn't rely on other people to care for me but that's frankly what I need and what has kept me going to be able to have a job and undertake the activities that keep me relatively sane. ‎I guess I'm almost like a child or teenager, so long as the important decisions are made for me I can live, what to outsiders appears to be, a relatively normal life. 

Obviously moving in with Helen or some other kind of house share may one day be an option but taking on me as a house-mate would also mean taking on my days when all I want to do is hide in my room and not speak to anyone. Or the days when I'm far too over-excited, can't sleep and want to do everything at a million miles an hour? 

Where does that leave me with employment prospects if my work decide that I'm dispensable? How can I go to job interviews knowing that any potential employer runs the risk of me falling apart again, would you take that person on? All the disability equality laws in the world don't change the fact that I am essentially an unreliable employee and person. 

I guess the thing that makes me saddest is comparing how I feel now to my blogs at the start of the year, I was feeling positive about the future, I thought I had my ups and downs under some control. I knew that I would never 'recover' but I had read so many accounts of people who were on the right medication and had made changes and were living full lives. I guess the small shoots of hope that I'd allowed to grow, against my better judgement, have been viciously cut down by the dual monsters that live in my head. 

I'm scared about returning to work next week, not because I'm scared of the people or even the situations going on there, but because the thin strands of sanity and functioning that I still have hold of are in real danger of being severed. 

Love Jen

XxxX

Why (believe it or not) Bipolar Disorder really isn't that funny!

This morning I've been catching up on the mental health social media threads I follow and come across the story of the card retailer Joy and the offence it's caused with it's design "Don't get mad take Lithium".

The thing that made me angrier than the thoughtlessness of the card was Joy's response via it's Twitter account mocking anyone with Bipolar who may see the card stating "they'll like it one minute and hate it the next?" (you can see screenshots of the exchange at the top of this post - credit to The Independent ‎http://ind.pn/1Dsh1GM ). 

Now I've been in the Brighton Joy store on a number of occasions and their cards are funny, but I don't recall ever seeing any of their other cards mocking other illnesses. I can't believe that in this day and age a company can get away with such callous attitudes to mental illness. ‎There's being irrevant as they claim to be and then there's being downright insulting. 

I live with Bipolar Disorder and can assure the top bods at Joy that it is no laughing matter. Whilst I try to take my condition with the best possible humour, often making jokes at my own expense, I wouldn't‎ dream of joking about the condition generally or those suffering with it. 

I'm trying to see how Joy finds a condition that can cripple someone's life and cause serious damage to those‎ around them so funny. Perhaps I'm missing what's so hilarious about being slave to my mood condition and it's ups, downs and accosiated anxiety disorders? 

Bipolar can cause the break-up of relationships, problems with employment (as I can vouch for at the moment), hospitalisation or worst of all suicide. Joy's seeming belief that Bipolar sufferers will "like something one minute and hate it the next" is grossly innacurate. Even with my fairly rapidly cycling moods I don't change my mind or personality from minute to minute and I certainly don't change my mind about what is right and wrong on the flip of a coin! 

I hope that Joy and other retailers who think that it's acceptable to use mental illness as a platform for a cheap laugh will take note of the public response and realise that if the general public can move with the times then so should they.

Love Jen

XxxxX

Photo Therapy

Today's the first day that I'm starting to feel a little more normal again. I woke up only feeling mildly sad and panicked rather than terrified and depressed like I have been the past few days. 

The thought of going back to work is still making me feel physically sick but I'm going to have to bite the bullet when my sign-off is finished on 3rd Oct. It's not even that I dislike my job or the people I work with, until everything kicked off I genuinely loved what I did and looked foward to going in everyday. Now I just feel like everyone thinks I'm a liability and are waiting for me to trip up again. I still just don't see the way foward. 

I've been trying to use my time off wisely, amongst the watching of bad Youtube documentaries, naps, nail painting and catching up with the stack of magazines I'd accumulated; I've been trying to take my camera out as much as possible to snap the Autumn colours that are popping up all over the place. As much as I dislike Autumn as a season I do love it's colours and the misty sunshine. 

I've said before that I find taking my camera out very helpful to my mind, when I'm trying to get a shot right I have to focus all my thoughts on the set up and what I want to be prominent in the photo. When I'm that deep in there's no room for my other invasive thoughts or worries, it's an hour or two's respite from the civil war currently raging in my brain. 

I've popped a couple of photos from Friday's photo session in Pevensey and Saturday's in Gilderidge Park at the top of the blog. Hope you like them!

Love Jen

XxxX

Things I'll Never Say

Today is the first day of my two weeks of being signed off sick by the GP. I went back yesterday and told him that I'm incredibly low at the moment and pretty much feel like I've fallen off the emotional cliff. 

This morning me and Dad had a walk in the sunshine around Pevensey Castle snapping photos of the Autumn colours ‎and I took a photo of a spider that's at the top of this page, I like how the sunshine is glinting on the web.

I was also a Lady Wot Lunches with Lydia, indulging in a final 'Rocky Horror' sundae before she leaves for Nottingham to do her PHD. Post-lunch we went to visit Alli, her new baby Michael and of course Harvey the spaniel!

Whilst it was lovely to see Alli's new addition to the family and how happy she was, in my normal self-centred manner‎ it just made me even sadder than I am already. 

Sitting feeding the tiny human being that's grown inside you and looking so happy is never going to be me. I'll never hold my child to me and whisper sweet nothings and kiss their teeny nose. I won't get to do first days at nursery, school or college.

Even if my Adenomyosis allowed me to carry a baby without miscarriage I couldn't consider allowing a child to grow up around me with my crazy, unpredictable moods and all the anger I carry around with me. Can you imagine growing up with a mother who can't be relied on to even look after herself let alone you? 

And that's before the consideration that I may pass on my broken brain and with the hell I'm going through at the moment, I wouldn't even pass that onto my worst enemy.

My mental illness is ruling out so many possibilities for me. No kids, no career prospects, heaven knows if I'll ever cope living out of home. It seeps into every aspect of my life and beyond just my life, it's affecting everyone around me. ‎I feel so guilty that I'm making life difficult for them.

I know I'm supposed to be using this time to lift my mood and try and get all the destructive thoughts out of my head but they're like sticky tar and just won't shift. 

Here's hoping cross-stitch has therapeutic properties.

Love Jen

XxxxX

My Bipolar Birthday

It's around this time last year that I was finally put on the correct treatment course for my mental illness. After seeing the Occupational Health psychologist through work who said that I should be being treated for Bipolar Disorder rather than uni-polar depression my life has changed dramatically.

If you'd asked me ‎earlier this year, I would have told you that after starting the correct tablets my life felt a hundred times better. I was feeling happy and settled for the first time in years, positive about where I was and who I was. I'd lost some of the weight that I'd put on from being on the anti-depressants, I'd reconnected with old friends, life was good. 

Unfortunately that all seems like an oasis in the desert now (and yes I did have to double check that I'd written desert rather than dessert, as that would have put an entirely different spin on the blog!). Right now the best way I can describe how my brain feels is splintered. I have random bits and bobs working on different tangents and at different speeds and none of it coming together to make any sense. 

The creative, ideas splinters are still racing off ‎all over the place, whereas what I'd regard as the important, useful splinters, those that take in and process information, remember useful stuff and assist with logical thought have been left behind stuck in cotton wool. It's like half my brain has shot off at Star Wars style light speed whereas the other is lumbering along at 1 mile an hour whilst going uphill through a thick, muddy incline. 

This whole split in half brain is a new thing for me. I'm guessing it's as a result of all the pressure and stress of what's going on at work. I've been off sick for the past week and a half and go back tomorrow. I already feel physically sick at the thought. It'll be like going straight back into a war zone whilst still suffering severe shellshock.

 I guess the thing that's been lost under all the Performance Management regulations and paperwork is that there is a person at the sharp end who is losing her grip on her mental balance alarmingly rapidly.

Love Jen

XxxX

We Wrote A Book!

I'm incredibly excited to announce that I am officially a published author! I still can't get used to saying that, and keep muttering it to myself in a slightly insane manner as I feel it rolls off the tongue rather well!

Myself and a number of other Blurt Foundation Bloggers and Writers have all contributed to 'Blurt It Out' a E-Book with our stories of living with depression. 

You can pre-order the book on a "Pay what you want" basis until it's official launch on 15th September (after this it'll cost £3.49) at this address ‎http://blurtitout.org/the-book/ . I'm really hoping that it will be popular enough to justify print copies too, I can't imagine how excited I'd be to hold a book in my hand that includes my work! 

On a serious note all the writers have worked so so hard on their stories, often sharing some very personal and heart-rending stuff so please if you can spare a few pennies to download the book then please visit the address above and nag your friends and family to do the same. It would mean the world to all of us who've contributed and help The Blurt Foundation carry on the brilliant work it does. 

Love Jen (aka published author squeeeee)

XxxX