Err so now what?

I recently finished my course of free counselling at Brightview in Eastbourne, unfortunately due to huge demand (as they say in Top Gun “the list is long and distinguished”) they can only offer 8 sessions per person as Brightview is a charity and receives no NHS funds. I’ve also recently discharged myself from my Psychiatrist as all he seemed to be able to tell me was keep taking the meds and lose some weight because apparently the lighter you are, the happier you are (what a great message to be sending out!), the plan was to discharge me at my next appointment anyway so I felt the appointment could have been given to someone in genuine need of urgent help.

When I first saw him I was really impressed, he spent ages listening to my symptoms before giving me a diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder with OCD. But in the later sessions he hadn’t been as interested, telling me to drink coffee and try not to fall asleep when I complained of my exhaustion (despite the fact that coffee ramps up my anxiety and leaves me headachey and nauseous) and ignored my accounts of the hallucinations I experience at night that disturb my sleep.

The counselling helped to uncover some things that I’d forgotten, or subdued that may have all been small triggers for the state I’m in today or for other problems that I have. For example being groped intimately by one of my classmates in the first couple of weeks of secondary school has probably contributed to my fear of intimacy with people (hence 6 years of singledom!); actually I just realised that today is the 6^th anniversary of me and Adi breaking up – there’s an irony! Losing Nat and blaming myself for not keeping a closer eye on her has led to my constant anxiety about bad things happening to friends and family members. So now that the counselling and psychiatrist input has finished I am once again adrift.

Because Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is quite a difficult condition (well done me for being awkward) to live with and treat it means that treatment options are few and far between. The counselling I was having at Brightview was what’s known as ‘Person Centred Counselling” which basically means letting me rant and rave with the counsellor asking questions to help identify underlying themes and events that might have caused you to feel the way you do.

The recommended treatment for BPD is what’s known as Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT), the NHS Choices website has this to say 

–Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT)

Dialectical behaviour therapy (DBT) is a type of therapy specifically designed to treat people with BPD.

DBT is based on the idea that two important factors contribute towards BPD:

you are particularly emotionally vulnerable – for example, low levels of stress make you feel extremely anxious

you grew up in an environment where your emotions were dismissed by those around you – for example, a parent may have told you that you had no right to feel sad or you were just "being silly" if you complained of feelings of anxiety or stress

These two factors may cause you to fall into a vicious cycle – you experience intense and upsetting emotions, yet feel guilty and worthless for having these emotions. Because of your upbringing, you think having these emotions makes you a bad person. These thoughts then lead to further upsetting emotions. 

The goal of DBT is to break this cycle by introducing two important concepts:

validation: accepting your emotions are valid, real and acceptable

dialectics: a school of philosophy that says most things in life are rarely "black or white" and that it's important to be open to ideas and opinions that contradict your own

The DBT therapist will use both concepts to try to bring about positive changes in your behaviour.

For example, the therapist could accept (validate) that feelings of intense sadness cause you toself-harm, and that behaving in such a way does not make you a terrible and worthless person.

However, the therapist would then attempt to challenge the assumption that self-harming is the only way to cope with feelings of sadness.

The ultimate goal of DBT is to help you "break free" of seeing the world, your relationships and your life in a very narrow, rigid way that leads you to engage in harmful and self-destructive behaviour.

DBT usually involves weekly individual and group sessions, and you'll be given an out-of-hours contact number to call if your symptoms get worse.

DBT is based on teamwork. You'll be expected to work with your therapist and the other people in your group sessions. In turn, the therapists work together as a team.

DBT has proved particularly effective in treating women with BPD who have a history of self-harming and suicidal behaviour. It's been recommended by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as the first treatment for these women to try.

Accessing DBT is another challenge altogether. DBT is a very specific treatment so practitioners under the NHS are very few and far between. The only real place to find it is through private therapists and unfortunately I don’t think the rabbits would appreciate having their hutch remortgaged! A quick search for general counselling and therapy in the Eastbourne area throws up a massive blank. All the therapists that we have are private and charge £40 for 50 minutes! There is a free counselling service in Hastings but again that only offers 5 sessions, I believe I need ongoing support as it’s day to day things that cause me problems rather than just things in my past.

Case in point being a nasty incident with Estelle on Sunday where she jumped out of my arms as I was putting her in the hutch and hurt her leg, screaming in pain (the most awful sound I have ever heard). I had a full on meltdown which I’m still suffering with 3 days later. Thankfully Stelly only seems to have bruised herself and is starting to move around again, my only real concern now is her dirty bottom from where she has had an upset stomach and been peeing where she sits (a stress reaction I’m guessing).

So at the moment treatment-wise I’ve pretty much been cast adrift to fend for myself with my ups and downs, crazy ideas and brain flips. Here’s hoping that by some miracle the NHS suddenly decides to fund some help in the local area and I can get on the list.

Love Jen

XxxX

Ps Only I could shoehorn in a Top Gun quote to a blog about my mental health!

The Art Of Winning

Today I’ve been thinking about winning, I’m not quite sure why it’s popped into my head (fear not I am not having a crazed Charlie Sheen “winning” moment, I have no Tiger Blood on me officer!) but I’ve been thinking about what winning means to different people.

The obvious first answer to that is the winning of a prize be it in something you’ve worked hard to excel in such as a sport or an award that others have nominated you in to recognise the quality of your work. Another one would be winning something through luck such as the lottery, or the time I won Southern FM Party In The Park Pit Passes *nostalgic tear* . Wins can be life changing in so many different ways,  they could mean that you’re top of your profession or that you’ll never have to worry about finance ever again and can go on that holiday you’ve always dreamt of.

I think everyday life is full of small opportunities to win, I don’t mean spending a spare £1 on a scratch card on the way home from work because your day can’t get any worse (guilty!) but small achievements that can be made every day. After my blog earlier this week confessing to the tough time I’m having at the moment I had so much support coming my way from texts to tweets to Facebook messages. It reminded me how many people I have around me, like a team, and what do teams do? Why they work together to win!

It made me think about the day to day wins that people have, my friend Kay considered every day that she still walked this earth as a win because it meant that she was kicking her cancer’s arse (and boy did she kick it’s arse hard and repeatedly, I will write a blog about her, full of silly stories and lovely photos when I’m ready), someone giving up smoking or alcohol wins every time they don’t have that cigarette or drink, people have won every time they feel the love of their family or friends. I win every time I drag myself into work on one of my really bad days. I win when I chat to my friends. I win when I’m sat in the sunshine watching the girls play on the grass ( a particular achievement is when they look at me without glaring or wearing looks of utter disapproval!), I win when I look forward to things I have coming up; RIAT, The Killers, Lady GaGa, Airbourne (a tour would also be nice 30STM *cough*) and at a most basic level I win when I don’t give in to self-harm or worse.

Life isn’t always about the ‘big wins’ it’s about the little, every day wins that I often overlook when my illness tries to take over. Luckily for me I have a dream team of friends and family around the world to help me fight on.

Be scared brain demons, be very fucking scared.

Love JenX

XxxX

 

F is for Failure

Last night I realised that it’s a mere 2 months, 61 days,  1464 hours, 87840 minutes (you get the idea) until I turn 30. And no as you may have guessed I’m not coping, not one bit. The thought of reaching the milestone just reminds me of what a waste I’ve made of my life so far and how little, if anything, I’ve achieved. Basically my life at the moment involves, sleeping, eating, sleeping, eating with occasional trips to the bunny hutch and dragging myself to work when I can sum up the energy to leave my bed. Instead of my previous ‘highs’ when I was on less meds I now go between rock bottom and less rock bottom, never any better than that. What is there to celebrate in that?

 

Last summer I wrote a blog “Time for a re-boot” of my manifesto for how I was going to improve everything in the year I had until the big 3-0. Have I achieved any of these? What do you think? To refresh our memories my goals were thus –

Diet - I eat like crap, I really do, there's no hiding it. I'd lost weight last year but have put 6 kilos of it back on since the start of this year comfort eating because I've been so damn miserable. Although this goal isn't about aesthetics, if I lose weight then great, this is about looking after my body. Ditto with exercising, when I worked at the library I was walking around all day every day whereas now I'm on my butt all day every day. And being brutally honest it makes me feel sluggish and quite gross really. So I intend to try walking home from work and (with Helen's er encouragement) get off my arse and do something at least one day of each weekend. 

Learn a new craft. I love my photography, jewellery making, drawing, sewing and cross-stitching - surely adding another one on top of that can only make me happier?

Go to the places I keep threatening to go. If I had a £ for every time I said "I really want to go to The British Library/National Portrait Gallery/Tate Britain etc" I'd be able to afford that trip to America! Plus for the most part they're free, all it'll cost is a train fare and my time. 

So beginning with the obvious one of diet that’s completely gone to pot. I’ve fallen off the wagon, dragged it down the ravine with me and ended up in a blazing heap at the bottom. Let’s just say I’ve managed a whole new world of fat. Comfort eating is my life at the moment, in a way I guess knowing how unhealthy it is is some kind of nice-tasting self-harm/slow suicide. When I last saw the psychiatrist he pretty much said that being less fat and lazy would help all my problems, I didn’t like to point out that eating is my alternative to cutting myself, far less messy and scar-prone. And how the hell am I supposed to get the energy up to go on some kind of route march when all I do in my spare time is sleep because I need it? I ache all the time which I assume is through lack of movement, and yes I feel disgusting and spend plenty of time fat-shaming myself to save trolls/the media time. If it helps at all I don’t go to the psychiatrist any more so I’m a teeny bit less of a drain on NHS resources!  I saw a programme the other day featuring a lady with Borderline Personality Disorder and she complained of the same all-consuming exhaustion making her unable to get up and move, it’s a symptom of the condition that the exercise-Nazis tend to overlook. So I have in fact managed to get even fatter since last summer, maybe that can be listed as some form of achievement?

 

Learning a new craft hasn’t really taken off, more because I’ve been busy with projects from crafts I already know, so I can’t really call this one a failure as I’ve been being kept out of mischief with cross-stitching and invite-making for my party (more of that later).

 

Days out etc, that hasn’t really happened. I miss going to London so badly, I still haven’t made it to the portrait gallery or the library. Helen and I were supposed to go last week but then the Westminster attacks happened and Helen didn’t want to go (personally I would rather stand up to bullies but it’s understandable), funnily enough it proved my point that whenever I look forward to something it never happens. I’d been excitedly planning the trip for weeks. I know it’s pretty selfish to blame a terror attack on my bad luck with planned fun times but still, it does add up. I’ve been lucky enough to go to a few gigs (Deap Vally, Green Day and The Kaiser Chiefs, I had Pretty Reckless tickets too but then my laparoscopy happened and I couldn’t go – oh look more planned fun cancelled!) so I can count them as leaving the house at least! At least we’ve had a summer-full of crap on YouTube XD

 

So no as you may have guessed I’m not in a good place and in the words of My Chemical Romance “I’m not ok”. I feel like I’ve failed at life quite frankly, a waste of a human shell. This shell could have been given to someone who would do some good in the world, be an achiever, have a fully functioning brain, be attractive and intelligent. I’m attempting to make light of my birthday by planning a party, making invites as an excuse to get some drawing in. I want to have an Alice In Wonderland theme but don’t have the get up and go to make a start on the decorations or the party favours (despite buying a pack of 20 keyrings for an idea I had). I have the perfect image in my mind of photo props, decorations etc but no inclination to make it happen.

 

Story of my life really

 

Love Jen

XxxX