Friday

All very rough tonight. Hitting the depths. Safety net gone and not sure how to cope with that. I want an escape route but I have thrown the map away.

Phoned a helpline. They suggested I go to bed.

Something of a breakthrough

... with the ending of my sessions with D, that is. I've been musing on finding some way of registering my journey so far - and the fact that it is not finished, in terms of dealing with issues. I know I can't just turn up at the session and expect to be able to talk about it - that's not the way it goes for me. If I am anxious / upset / scared (and I am feeling all of those things now about next Monday) then I clam up. So I wanted to have something to take with me. But what?

MMP's reply to my last post sparked something off, and combined neatly with a new tool I have just encountered (while looking for new ideas for teaching). Scrapblog looks like something some pupils will enjoy (I'm thinking of extension tasks here) and I have been playing with it to record my "therapy journey". It's helping, I think, and I expect to be able to export and print off the pages (I think taking my laptop to the session is one step too far!)

It's still going to be a tough one, but I think this will help along the way.

Endings

Again, thinking about them.
I don't have good experiences with endings, for the most part. I'm keen to change this but it is a very difficult process for me - I'm so easily triggered back to panic.

So, has anyone got any ideas - or positive experiences to share - on the ending of therapeutic relationships (counselling etc)? I'm keen to plan for this to be as positive as possible but fearing it hugely.

Where I am

Am off all the meds. Sleep is lousy. Anxiety is higher than it has been; feeling queasy most of the time. However, these could be down to lack of sleep as much as being off the tablets. Not sleeping is a bummer, especially asit is accompanied by flashbacks. Sleeping tablets are helping me to (eventually) get off to sleep but I am waying around 4am most mornings.

Still no idea what to do about further therapy. Had an email from D today to say she will phone today or tomorrow to discuss what is going on. Just feel hopeless about it all. All the work I have done has got me to the stage of remembering all this - and it makes sense of so much - but I don't know how to work through what I now remember so that I can put it in the past where it belongs. I feel like I have opened a box of snakes and I have no idea how to catch them and shut the lid on them so I can put them where they belong.

The abuse I have remembered I believe happened - but it is as if it happened to another person. I'm finding it impossible to connect that memory with myself. It's like the child then was someone else entirely - which is how I feel about a lot of my childhood.

I have to find a way of accepting that this happened to me, feeling that it happened to me, and then processing and dealing with that knowledge. I don't feel I can do that without f2f support - and I don't know where to find the specialised f2f support that D feels I need. I feel hopeless, to be frank.

Decisions, decisions...

More flashbacks today. Not as vivid or as lengthy as the last ones, but still troubling.

I really don't know what to do about trying to address this. I had made my mind up (and said to D) that I wanted a break from working on things, a break from therapy, before returning (as I knew I would need to at some point) to the childhood memories and partial memories. Then things seemed to press in; D commented on the impact these things are having on my life now and said maybe now is the time to address them. I'm still not sure, though I totally respect her suggestion. As she said, it seems as if things are surfacing and they certainly are having an impact. But i don't want to go from one therapy / therapist to another. D says she does not have the experience and training needed to help me deal with these things, nor does C. I understand that. But am I ready to start all over again with someone else? Is that what I want? And where on earth would I find such a person? How could I find someone trained to address the abuse issues and the dissociation, and all the other stuff? I really don't know.

On the other hand, waiting brings its own problems. If i take a break, there is a very real danger the issues will not go away and will in fact get worse. There is an equal danger that I will push them down and deny them, leaving them to fester.

I've tried looking at some of these things with a workbook. I couldn't do it.

Someone I talked to suggested EMDR. I don't know about that either.

Ho hum.

Endings and beginnings

Musing on endings today has made me realise that I am actually starting to see the end of my therapy sessions with D as the start of something else. that's novel for me, and I am trying to nurture it. Some of the ideas that I have come up with are:

It is the start of seeing myself as capable and coping.

It is the start of providing space for myself rather than needing that space to be provided by others.

It is the start of looking after myself again rather than relying on others to look after me.

It is the start of trusting my own decisions.

Here's to new starts. I'm taking off on my bicycle and the training wheels are off. I may be a bit wobbly for a while, but I can see the road ahead.

Things are not always as you see them

Like a swan gliding along on the water, there is often much frantic paddling going on beneath the surface. The swan works hard to achieve the illusion of serenity and power.



We see through our own filters. We need to remove our glasses from time to time to see the richness and contrast - not just see it in terms of our own preferred colours.



Looking through the wrong end of binoculars gives us a perception which suggests depth - but without the bigger picture it is meaningless.



And the picture changes over time. People who appeared supportive and understanding, even friendly, can choose to withdraw that connection. They can change the opinion of others - or choose to support the status quo. It's important to compare the present with the past in order to fully understand the current situation.

Changes

As those of you who have been reading here for a while will know, I don't "do" changes comfortably. I need to plan them out, get used to them, accept their inevitability - and even then, I don't deal with them well.
Changes in relationships are always hard. Especially hard, for me, are changes which involve the ending of a relationship, for whatever reason. Sometimes it feels like my therapeutic journey has been full of changes. There was R (who referred me on the secondary mental health services, quite appropriately); M (my previous care coordinator, who dropped me without notification or explanation); Dr F (who I refused to see any more); S (whose absences through ill health made things difficult at times); then D, my psychologist (a planned ending, which would have been, I believe, possible for me to deal with had it not been for the absence of other supports). Now the time comes close to change my relationship with D, my CPN.
D is moving on to "better things". She has given me plenty of warning of this, which I appreciate. She leaves at the end of January. I will be seeing her for a little while after this, for CBT work, but her role as my care coordinator and CPN will be taken over by C from the end of this month.

I'm told C is very nice, and I have no reason to doubt this. I know I have a "robust" CPA in place. I know I will continue to see D for a while, which I appreciate. I'm told that my new CMHT are aware of my need of support and this will not be removed without my agreement. However, each of these points is, at least partially, defeated by my experience and my fears.
I thought M was nice, at first. She dropped me, and, I have since found, was negative about me to other staff within BLPT. I thought I had a robust CPA in place with the previous CMHT. However, it was ignored, counted as irrelevant; the support within it refused due to lack of manpower / my needs having been met in the psychology input I have had. I thought I would continue to see S, my previous CPN, but her illness made this impossible. I thought my support from the previous CMHT would continue, but it did not; I was deemed to be unworthy of their support, despite my attempts to explain my needs.

I am, I have to say, very anxious. I'm due to meet C, with D, on Wednesday. It's planned, the first of two handover meetings. I'm scared. I'm scared my support disappearing again. I'm scared because I will be meeting someone new. I'm scared because it brings D's departure closer and I know I can trust her; I don't have that certainty with anyone else in the team yet.

I know I have to do this, but I really don't want to. I wonder how aware mental health workers are of the challenge of change for many of us with mental illness. In a world where so much feels chaotic and uncertain, where it is at times hard to make sense of things, where thinking and reasoning are difficult - the stability of relationships is crucial. I know this change can't be avoided, but the child in me wants to stamp and refuse to go along with it. I just don't "do" changes comfortably.

Beginnings and endings

Well, here it is. My first public post on a blog.

I'm not intending (at this stage) to tell you much about myself. The background I will give you is that I am a teacher, married with two daughters and a long-term sufferer from depression. There are lots more labels I could use to describe myself, but those are the first to come to mind.

I am intending to use this spot for musings on "life as it is now." Life as it is now is pretty uncomfortable at times, but enjoyable and interesting at others. Maybe this blog will help me to be as aware of the latter as I am of the former.

So, it's Monday. Unusually I am not at work. I've taken today off, sick - I badly need to recharge my batteries and have been falling apart at work for the last week. Optimistically, I am hoping that a day away will enable me to cope long term. We shall see. I've planned in activities to refresh and renew myself, though it seems very strange to be doing so. I'm filled with guilt about it despite the assurances of many others that this is clearly what I need to do.

Yesterday W and I went to a folk concert. I laughed and smiled - something I needed to do. The lineup included our favourite singers - Chris While and Julie Matthews - plus Chris' daughter Kellie, Helen Watson and Christine Collister. Highlights for me were the netball song - always a feel-good one, about how the past can be healed - and Chris and Kellie singing Broken Things, which nearly reduced me to tears. Above all, though, the enjoyment of all five singers was so infectious. Bought tickets for 6 more events, including Julie's solo tour and Chris and Kellie returning together in April.

I've been thinking about friends and friendships. I'd assumed I wasn't good at them, that I don't have friends, but recent events are conspiring to show me otherwise. Friends at work have been so supportive, so considerate and so appreciative of me - that has really helped in the middle of my current work stresses. I need to remember that and remember the comments that have been made. Friends at Church - where I have become a distant shadow in terms of attendance - have reminded me that they do care and want to help. I need to make a more determined effort to keep up with non-work friends in particular, which is hard to do when I see myself as worthless, but probably all the more important then, because they are showing me that I am worthwhile in their eyes. So I am going to put more effort into that side of my life, risk some rebuffs (which probably won't come, but which are a fear for me).

So that's some beginnings - this blog, and friendships. The ending part is harder to face up to - the ending of support from the psychologist I have been seeing for a year. That is very tough for me to deal with, and to allow to happen, and at the moment I am not sure I can do it. Not sure I know how to do it - I'll keep you posted on how it goes.