Downturn.

So. I left things on a high note. Mad Girl lost out in the MJA Awards to Jo Brand in the end, but Jo Brand is basically paleolithic goddess shaped satire (even if her repertoire has apparently narrowed to her weight and how henpecked her husband is) so I wasn’t too bothered.

Unfortunately, my moment of radical self-acceptance was, essentially a moment. I do still believe everything I wrote in that post; but my mental health, which has been in decline since Christmas, has taken a spectacular wrong turn which landed me in the community hospital yesterday morning.

This scares me.

* Firstly, I haven’t self-harmed with sharp things for years – let’s tick that box again.

* Standing in a waiting area with tears pouring down my face, clutching a toy owl and saying ‘I want to die’ over and over again until someone ushered me into a sterile room wasn’t on my ‘Make 2013 your year!’ plan.

* It feels like no matter how many changes I make, or how many good things happen, I always end up back here, and I’m so tired. I have so little resistance to the world anymore, as though my skin is being scraped off my bones; I am cold and scared and exposed and it’s broken me into something I remember but no longer recognise.

* The crisis team said that word with all the charm of ‘leprosy’. ‘Inpatient’. Only a possibility and one I want to avoid – I hate that I’m back at that point though, where the soothing voices and kind eyes and questions that aren’t really questions (‘So, do you think hospital would help?’) come out.

* I am now a stone underweight. People are scared to hug me. My spine can be clearly felt though my layers of clothing.

* I feel like I’m ruining all my good things. My relationship and friendships are under strain, I feel guilty, angry, frightened, desperate.

* I no longer feel like a person. I don’t know what I am anymore. Whoever I was has been scoured out from under my skin.

* Everything hurts, and I am losing hope that one day it will stop hurting. I have carried this pain in my soul for so many years, it never goes away, and gnaws a greater chasm in me each time. Everything I do, everyone I love, falls into it. I don’t know what to do.

This is really painful to write so I’m going now. I have nothing really to add.

 

 

‘Mad Girl’ up for an award!

Cor blimey, guv’nor! Phil Gladwin’s Radio 4 play ‘Mad Girl’ based partly on my experiences of psychosis is up for an award from the Medical Journalists Association! Probably won’t make the London ceremony due to snow, etc – but jolly nice to be invited all the same!

Radical self-acceptance.

Today, whatever else it has been, has also been an uber-Feminism day. How can it not be.

Instead of feeling bad about myself and listening to the Bad Oats, I proclaim that today is a day of radical self-love and acceptance. It starts here:

No, I am not beautiful. I do not wear make-up (except on special occasions, and even then I’m liable to forget). I do not wear ‘feminine’ clothes, and mostly appear as someone sartorially at home in revolutionary basements. I go out bare-faced and without artifice; even when I’ve been crying, or have the flu, or am hungover, or am having a particularly shit hair day. I have not bothered with concealer on my outbreaks of nodular acne for the last few weeks.

Because it doesn’t matter. It’s not important. It’s never been important.

I am blunt, argumentative and sarcastic. I am a writer, an artist, a musician, a photographer, a mental health services user (not necessarily related ) I am witty, compassionate, sensitive, intelligent, prone to severe depression. I am brave, I read a lot of existentialist literature, I know about wine because I like to drink a lot of it. I play four musical instruments, I make bad puns, I have travelled a foreign country even when I could only walk short distances on two crutches. My house is full of my paintings, poetry I’ve performed on stage, flyers from events that included two of my short plays.

I do not give up. Although I am exhausted, and sad, and scared, and angry at the brutality and mindlessness of our species. I take my pills, even though I hate them, and go to therapy, even though it triggers me. For me, for the love of my life, for our future together.

These are important things, and they are not related to how I look in the mirror, and they never will be.

So I battle these thoughts, these feelings. I fight the voices in my head and the voices in society that would have me feel invalidated for not looking nice (and then assume I’m a brainless sex object because I look nice). I take my creativity and intelligence and use them in ways that surprise even me; I find others like me and feel that comradely bond that only marching together against injustice can provide. I have a copy of a play that Radio 4 made based partly on my struggles with psychosis on my bookcase.

These are important things.

What I say, and the things I do, and the way I make people feel, are infinitely more worthwhile than whether or not I am sporting eyeliner, or have brushed my hair, or the ill-fitting trousers I am wearing that make me look as though I am a human wind-sock, or what anybody else thinks of me.

And I am loved for who I am. I am loved for all of those things, even when I’m a difficult pain in the arse to be around because The Mentals or red wine – or indeed, a combination of both – have taken me somewhere else.  The voices without are beginning to drown out the voices within, and they do not tell me that I’m not enough, that I’m unloveable, or dull, or ugly.

They show me how much I’ve already survived, how the people I love desire my company, how I am marrying the most beautiful and talented woman in the world. They show me that bare, expressive face, that doesn’t hide its tears, or rage, or adoration; they show me that remarkable brain, saturated with words and colours and lyricism.

I am not merely enough. I am excellent.

And for as long as I live, I want to look at this face – feel the crazed, inspired workings of this mind – and smile; not the wry, bitter smile of a dignified defeat, but the smile of someone who instinctively knows they are meeting a very old friend, for the very first time.

An enigmatic and pitiless universe.

Depression is not madness, it is the realisation of the futility of owning a good heart in a pitiless world.

Or so it feels this morning, having heard about the death of the Dehli gang-rape victim.

Let’s not pretend that she died ‘peacefully’ after the atrocity committed against her body and mind.

Let’s not pretend that rape culture is exclusive to India – what happened to that 23 year-old could have happened to any woman, anywhere.

Let’s not pretend that the UK is such an advanced country that we don’t have to deal with rape anymore, when we have a 7% conviction rate.

Let’s not pretend that violence against women has gone away.

Let us become stronger, and shout louder, and raise our fists harder, and march further.

 

Wounds close, scars heal – you never always see the pain that someone feels.

As I said in my last post, Christmas and New Year is generally the time that my depression and anxiety decide to rocket through the roof. That’s not uncommon, it’s amazing how many of my fellow nutters tend to lose it more than usual around now – stress, family expectations, forced social interaction, seasonal gloom, alcohol and wonky brain chemistry collide in a spectacular shifting mental kaleidoscope.

Being an alcoholic attempting recovery at Christmas isn’t too fun, either.

The emotions surrounding this time of year are complicated, and not just by booze. Even as an eight year-old I remember sitting in the bath feeling sad about Christmas, because even then I had started to react to ‘happy’ events with unhappiness (the trauma that apparently kicked off my BPD happened when I was seven so…maybe not so surprising).

Anyway…the fact is that this time of the year is always infused with melancholy for me – I tend to slump mentally in the winter anyway, as many people do, but it’s a long story of feeling sorrowful and bitterly alone at Christmas, rather than your average ‘Oh god it’s cold and wet and I’ve had too much to drink and oh god.’ Complicated by alcoholism, because not only do I feel ashamed and guilty when I have a drink (because gods know I’m not at the stage where I won’t pick up during the holidays…or indeed, most days ending in Y), but the fact that alcohol is a depressant doesn’t make my mood any better.

One of the worst things about being mentally ill at Christmas is the fake smile. Come on, we’ve all done it. The ‘Yeah, this is great I’m totally cool and not thinking about killing myself at all‘ smile. The ‘I’m dead inside but I’m so interested in what you’re saying, great-aunt Agatha’ smile. The ‘Please stop telling me to cheer up because it’s Christmas as you don’t seem to understand that mental illness doesn’t take a fucking week off at this time of the year‘ smile.

I loathe the fake smile – I feel like I’m trying to plaster a difficult wall.

I haven’t had to wriggle my face into those particular awful contortions so much this year because I have a genuine reason to be ecstatic and joyful and although my anxiety is terrible right now, I’m not as depressed as I usually am at Christmas. But I know how it feels to be sad at the ‘most wonderful time of the year’ and knowing that no one will understand if you just want to hide away with your real feelings until it’s all over. No more forced cheer, false laughter or rigor mortis-style grin.

I’ve also had to go back on my medication after three weeks because not being on it actually wasn’t working out as well as I’d hoped, and I’m fucked off about that in the extreme.

This has been a post-Christmas rambling downer post.

Merry Annual Anxiety Clusterfuck, folks!

Here I am, at home for Christmas; having braved our flooded public transport system, wrapped everything, written out all the little tags, decorated the tree with festive owls (yes, owls) and already gained a hangover from a celebratory party last night (Although the reason for celebration must, for the moment, remain a mystery…)

Life is very Borderline at the moment, and I can safely say that now I have my shiny new diagnosis of Bitch Ass Crazy Motherfuckers Syndrome.  I don’t know if anyone else does this, but as soon as something wonderful happens to me, I obsess over the things that could go wrong – I torture myself with visions of the future, terrified of losing whatever it is that has made me happy. At the moment my anxiety is through the roof, and I am having to work really hard at calming myself down enough to get perspective on the fact that nothing bad has actually happened.

This is a pretty classic attack of the Brain Eels; not helped by the fact that I often feel depressed at this time of year. Recently, though, my bleak periods have tended towards the slightly psychotic, becoming convinced that something terrible is going to happen, and reacting by having a series of mini breakdowns full of crying, irrational anger and paralysing, breathless panic. I recently became so terrified of something happening to someone I love that I completely froze up, lost my grip on the glass I was holding and smashed it on the floor. I stood there, unable to move for several minutes, trying to control my breathing and talking to myself as though trying to calm a nervous horse.

So…although things are really extraordinarily good, I am having to constantly talk myself out of panic attacks because my battered brain, conditioned by years of having good things taken away from me, cannot grasp that it might all actually be okay, that I can be happy, that the world isn’t completely evil and unsafe and full of terrible people.

Well, that’s what therapy’s for, I suppose.

I am missing The Missus dreadfully. It’s a particular agony to be missing your special someone at Christmas, I haven’t been in love like this before so I’m also trying to process new and scary emotions my stunted coping strategies are finding overwhelming. I now understand why love is also absolutely fucking frightening as well as being starshine and rainbows, and that makes me terrified and furious.

All in all, I’m not exactly inhabiting the festive spirit at the moment, much as I’d like to be. But I’m hopeful that 2013 will be an amazing year full of good things, and one of those good things will be treatment and recovery from this crippling fear and sadness.

Have a wonderful holiday, everybody. xxx

Eviction II – see you in Hell.

A hellish twelve hours. A Borderline Abandonment Fear meltdown of pretty epic proportions.

I am cold, exhausted, hungry and lonely. I have been up all night crying, and now have swollen, painful eyes, an aching jaw and am totally unable to get warm. I am deeply sad and angry because up until yesterday I was doing really well, and have now, in the space of a few hours, managed to destroy my happiness, upset my partner, wreck myself physically (I have had no sleep whatsoever), and knock my self-esteem down back to where it was – somewhere only earthworms could view it.

I am so upset about this because I really was making good progress; sensible, moderate drinking, positive thoughts, healthy eating – working on my hatred of myself and practicing self-acceptance, I was really feeling things begin to shift into a happier place. But therapy and counselling also, bizarrely, seem to make the episodes I do have much worse. Popular opinion is that this is because really focusing on the things that trigger me and trying to change my thoughts about them will naturally bring up all my resistance to recovery.

And of course, as soon as I start feeling good about myself, liking myself more and feeling like I deserve good things in my life, I get a knock at the door, and before I can shut it again, Twin is breezing past me and making herself comfortable in my chair. She showed up last night, whispering things under the closed door, but was still there casually turning bacon in the pan when I got up this morning.

‘Still banging on about how you love yourself unconditionally? I’ve watched you do that in the mirror, it’s sad…you don’t believe it.’

‘It takes time.’ I find myself looking down at the floor, because she’s right.

‘I’ve seen you make yourself cry doing it. It’s okay, you don’t have to put yourself through this self-love therapy bullshit when it’s not going to work.’

‘It’s normal to have…problems with it at first.’

‘Normal for people like you, you mean. It’s ridiculous and pathetic; I’ve seen you with your stupid affirmations and your talking and your mindfulness – and I know that you’re still terrified. Of course you are, you’re going to fail at it, like you fail at everything else.’

*To myself* ‘You’re a lot more distinct and opposing at the moment, Twin, you’re not even pretending you have my best interests at heart anymore, why is that?’

She doesn’t reply, and picks at her nails as though they are the most fascinating thing in the world.

‘It’s because you’re on your way out, isn’t it?’

‘I’m not ‘on my way out’, you idiot, that implies you might succeed.’

‘You’re scared.’

Her face twists in anger. ‘Not half as scared as you’re about to be.’

I just wait, in silence. Maybe I’m too exhausted to resist. I just wait and think.

‘I need to count some things off my fingers here, Twin.’

‘Shoot.’

‘You make me terrified that people will abandon me, you make me hate my appearance, you make me believe I don’t deserve love, you drag me back into behaviour you know will ruin my life, you make me think about suicide, you make me ignore all my accomplishments and focus on my flaws until I am convinced I have done nothing but fail, you tell me my partner will leave me because I’m ugly and impossible to love, and laugh at me when I believe her when she says the opposite. You create fear and paranoia where there is no danger, you systematically undermine and destroy everything that makes me happy. ‘

‘And?’

‘I’m kind of curious, exactly what more is there you can actually do to me.’

A long silence winds through us.

‘I can make your life hell.’

‘Already accomplished. Really, you can tick that box.’

‘I can ruin the best thing in your life.’

‘My creativity? My relationship? No, see…I don’t think you actually can. I don’t think you actually have all the power I thought you had all these years…I think I can ruin it by listening to you.’

‘Oh my, we really are making progress, aren’t we? Psychotherapist’s pet.’

‘Listen. You have systematically broken me into something that doesn’t even feel much like a person anymore; I don’t know who I am, what I have to give…You’re right, in some ways I don’t even know if it is worth saving myself, I don’t what there is left to save…but if I keep listening to you I’m never going to find out, I’m not going to get the chance. I’ll be dead…listening to you is going to kill me.’

She shrugs. ‘What are your options? Are you going to kill me? You think you can do that?’

‘I don’t think I need to. I think I just…don’t have to look at you anymore.’

‘I’ll make you.’ She is very cold and quiet and full of menace. ‘I will make you look at me.’

We watch each other. I feel shattered, afraid and deeply sad. Her face is still as death; all animation has flown. After a long while I say,

‘I don’t think I’m going to call you Twin anymore.’

‘You can’t do that. This is just another silly attempt at control.’

‘I’m going to call you the Bad Oats*’

Her fists clench and unclench. ‘You have been crying for over six hours and you think you are stronger than me today? You really want to fight me, seriously? Come on, then! Come on! Now!’

I drop my aching head and stare at the carpet. ‘I’m not going to fight you anymore, it makes me too unhappy. Fighting you isn’t working…I know it’s what you want. That’s why you’re not going to get it.’

‘What do you think is going to happen? Who do you think you’ll be without me?’

The seconds flow by. There is a great heaviness at my centre; a dead star sitting in my ribs.

‘I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going to happen.’

And we sit across from each other until the sky shifts into a new colour.  She mutters to herself, pulling her fingers through her hair, as I gaze out of the window.

*The Good Oats and the Bad Oats are manifestations of the split minds of an anxious priest, the Quite Reverend Mightily Oats; a character in the Discworld novel Carpe Jugulum.