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!

3 comments:

  1. Ok delurking here. You remember Rose, Mum of Danny and Emily(wrabhit).

    Sending hugs and twinkles.

    Talk to Mind(http://www.mind.org.uk/) or the Samaritans. Change your Doctor if you must. But not because I said so.

    Learn who the real Ceri is, not the one you show to the world Live your life for that Ceri, not anyone else.

    If people have a problem with who you are, it is THEIR problem not yours!

    Bravo for writing it all down, I wish Em had. I don't really have any answers for you. I wish I did but we must each find and follow our own path.

    A link that may help
    http://www.progsoc.uts.edu.au/~wonj/me/ftstps.html

    More hugs and love. You are precious, you matter, but you have to be you, and not anyone elses image of you



    Rose (roselvin at msn dot com)

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  2. Ceriwomble, I completely get this.

    SK xx

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  3. Thank you both for the lovely comments, much appretiated.
    More than anything else I am extremely concerned that a patient can go to a doctor with suicidal thoughts and not actually be signposted to any sources of help.
    I am fairly informed and balshy, and was packed off with no help, I wonder how somebody would fair who has no idea of what to do next when confronted with the urge to harm themselves.

    ReplyDelete