Monday, 21 May 2012

Braindump! - Update

I am sitting here, having had a fairly major panic attack and hysteria episode one step from self harming, still quite close if I'm honest.
I have a doctor's appointment in the am, to discuss my mental health and that I think I need more  support, and possibly assessment by a psyche professional. I figure I'm not sleeping right now so I guess I could write down what's up and maybe it could help with tomorrow.
There's no reason why I can't share it with you guys.
I feel completely petrified of being abandoned all the time, anyone who I care about either has or in my mind will abandon me when they find out what a terrible person I am.
In the pursuit of trying to alleviate this I have been known to let people walk all over me, to cause great physical and mental distress to myself and sometimes lie to try to provide support to everyone in my life so that they do not abandon me.
This is because I feel empty all the time, I feel that I am not worth anything and that my life when not filled with other people ultimately is grotesque and completely devoid of meaning.
I feel as though I have no internal validation and therefore I must always be validated externally, continually. The ideal, though I can never attain it is to be held in good esteem by every single person I meet in my life, for the entire of my life.
To do this I act recklessly, I overstretch myself financially, I binge eat continually, hardly eating sometimes while eating to excess at others, I binge socialise and I run myself into the ground continually to seek approval. I start to fall apart if I meet two opposing opinions on what I should be doing and I start to internalise this which can lead to self harm or an alarming lack of self care on occasion.
I try to be everyone, I try to be a counsellor, a mother, a daughter a friend, a sister, a lover, a companion with everything that is in me, to complete these task to perfection is the overwhelming aim of my life, what else could there be?
I get very upset, because I CAN'T be everyone, if I dress in black I am invariably upsetting someone, as I would be if I put my hair up or wore jeans, slight preferences become very important things to be achieved within my mind, if I can't do them I am failing in some massive way.
This leads to me feeling extremely upset, if I cope I am failing, if I self harm I am failing, if I play games I am failing, I can never be good enough for everyone.
I have been known to self harm, I am very prone to thoughts of harming myself or suicidal thoughts, though because of the aforesaid need to please I manage to overcome these in the main because I feel I can't fail in that way, I feel I do not have enough control over myself to even be free to self injure, or indeed do this with food, this I believe is part of why I binge eat, it is a form of self harm and control, wildly flailing from one extreme to the next.
While talking about flailing, I often flail into very deep pits of hysterical crying and critical thinking, they used to be very common, and now are monthly/quarterly but they last anything from 4 hours to a week now, I have learnt to ride them out in the main and to talk about them, but I feel suicidal and like self harming, it used to be catastrophic, especially for my relationships as people often tried to fix what was wrong and couldn't see why I was so upset. It was a very long time before I realised it was a cycle, I always thought it was about something wrong in my life and when I couldn't think what was wrong I would normally be able to find something. Now I know it's an acute anxiety attack and that it will fade with time.
I tend to latch onto people and form very close attachments where they quickly become the centre of my world and I lose my sense of self, everything becomes about pleasing them and this becomes very difficult to square up with the rest of my world.
My sleep pattern is all over, because my self care and boundaries are total rubbish I tend to let my awake/sleep pattern slide all over, I fit my schedule around others and sleep when I can.
I tend to make choices about my life by amalgamating what everyone else wants for me, this can be exacerbated by whoever I have talked to most at the time and trying to please them. Things tend to be unsustainable in the long term and fall apart, leading to paralysing fear of completing a task I have failed at, of phoning up to pay a bill I am behind on etc. I am so scared of confrontation and failure that I will make things worse in an attempt to avoid facing it.
Right, I'm sure this isn't anywhere near all of the crap that is wrong with me but now I am going to get a drink and go to bed because I have the Doctor's in the am, am very tired and also dehydrated and nauseous, when I get fraught with emotion I have to strongly fight the urge to throw up to steady my nerves, mixed with the overproduction of acid that happens when I'm feeling naff and it all goes a bit wrong really.
Anyways, night guys.
I shall try to take this with me tomorrow
Ceri-Womble x

EDIT: In all the excitement I forgot that when I get started on a task I find it very difficult to complete as I go completely overboard. The other week I cleaned my sink as the start of a new leaf. I started at midnight with soaking it with a bleach mixture, finished at about half 2 and then started again as soon as I got up for about 4-5 hours because it wasn't right. I was so upset it wasn't perfect that I was close to tears and filed, sanded and buffed it. I do this whenever I try to do something properly, I go overboard and can't cope when things aren't perfect.
The sink still worries me because it's yet another part of my life I can't control!

- UPDATE -
I went to the doctor's, she can't do anything to change my medication, she suggested a local charity that may be able to help me but have a waiting list of a year, and said she would refer me to someone who does assessments at my local surgery (a gateway worker or something). As it happened, later that day the local counselling place I had been on the waiting list for for a month or so phoned up with a first appointment for Monday.
Still, it doesn't really help that I go to my Doctor, having obviously been up and crying all night (she was visibly shocked at my appearance) and was offered nothing by way of additional help, after asking for it because I was in crisis.
This is ridiculous, what on earth am I meant to do? It was only coincidence that the counselling people came through on the same day for Pete's sake, and no offer of any increase or change in medication despite saying I had once again felt suicidal/like self harming.
Me-thinks it might be time to change GP!

On the upside I am feeling much better now, though I have gone through 1 day of horrendous headache and one of a migraine before feeling better. I have wonderful friends and supportive family who have helped me through but not everyone has these amazing people to support them! Minimum intervention can't always work!

Monday, 7 May 2012

Hey strangers

Hey, I'm having a bit of a rest, to be honest my personal timeline is a bit of a blur and I'm not even sure how I'd start to catch you all up.
I've been out, to the theatre, to comedy, to pubs, to coffee shops, all over!!!
I'm very happy with everything I've been up to and the wonderful friends I have found. I am even starting to trust people again, I still feel a little as if if I stop concentrating on what I'm doing I'll drop everything and everything will fall away again.
But that's just my stupid brain trying to see patterns because I'm a human being.
There are still a million things I'm not doing well enough, but I suppose if I had done everything and my life was in a nice grinding loop (MMO ref there...) then I'd not actually have to do stuff at all, have no urge to make things better. I just have to get a bit less freaked out by the fact I'm always a fingertip away from falling down the cliff and instead know that if I fall it's not the end of the world really and I can just carry on and make it all up as I go along if I like!
Equally though I'm learning to give myself time and rest etc. though I'm still not very good at that.

So I am writing this down while I'm feeling a little like I've had 5 mins to think.
Also, if I look like I'm making this up it's because I am!
Regardless of the fact that some people look down on social media and don't see its value, I have now got exactly that, a social network of like minded people who are real!
AMAZING HUH?!
Much love everyone!