It is never too late to be what you might have been - George Eliot

ani_26

Rainbow_Bridge wrote: »

Action - cut right back to manageable hours. Learn to say 'no' again to work.

Balance between service to self and service to others is going to need to be looked at again. I am no good to anyone, if I burn out, and I was definitely off kilter this week, but we live and learn, or do we ...........

Bye for now xx.

We have to live and learn eventually?

We are indeed " no good " to anyone if we burn out, least of all, ourselves.

It has taken me a lifetime to say no.

Rainbow_Bridge wrote: »

I also had to fit in an appointment with welfare rights with friend and attend her appeal, yesterday, as support.

The whole thing was a nightmare, where she was interrogated by three persons; a lawyer, a doctor and a disability activist, for 40 minutes. They focused their whole attention on discrediting her and her witnesses evidence and completely ignored the glaring inaccuracies of the ATOS report upon which the appeal was based.

Her welfare rights representative only said a couple of sentences and when I tried to speak, I was told I could not. There was no compassion shown. and this was to a women, who attended in a wheelchair, and they had her own doctor's letter, backing up everything she said and clearly stating that she was suicidally depressed and on pschotropic medication.

A completely able-bodied person, in full control of their mental faculties would have struggled with the cross-examination she encountered.

Unfortunately the disability representative was the worst, and I couldn't help thinking that the Jewish guards in the concentration camps were often the ones that treated the Jews the harshest.

Bottom line was that she lost the appeal, I was shaking when we left, the welfare rights representative was seriously close to tears and dear friend was busy planning her exit strategy. HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE.

But c'est la vie. I have decided to release it all and let it go. We did our best and it wasn't enough. I cannot live dear friends life for her, and for my own mental sanity I am going to set some very strict boundaries, around what I do for her from now on. I can't give her the will to live, and I will love her whatever happens.

So I have survived this week and tomorrow I will re-group and stick to plan. This lady is not for turning xxxxx.

I'm sorry your friend didn't get the outcome she wanted. It makes me feel guilty in some way, and makes me realise i've been lucky. Lucky to get help from the state, eventually? How sad is that?


And no. No one can give anyone the will to live. What is the will to live?



Have a {{{{ hug }}}} :grouphug: and a cheesy hug for yourself.

ani_26

Except i get this niggling feeling it's not natural to have ocd about a heap of metal?


I don't like labels, but i suppose the world wouldn't go round without them? To my way of thinking, there's a touch of madness in us all? No. I believe there is no uniform way of thinking, and we are all different, ( of course we are.) At what point does your whole being completely break down. It can happen to anyone, and ultimately, there is only one person with the solution?

Insane people are always sure that they are fine. It is only the sane people who are willing to admit that they are crazy. Nora Ephron

In an insane world?

Rainbow_Bridge

Thanks Ani,

It felt so good releasing that last post. I feel lighter (I wonder if that will translate to the scales ).

I've nothing left to hide, I am what I am, and i'm proud of myself for having the courage to continue on this journey.

As for your car :rotfl:. Do you look like it? You know how they say that people look like their pets and choose pets with characteristics they identify with? I wonder if the same thing can be said about cars? Just joking xxx.

NewLeaf_2

Rainbow, how brave you are to let all that out. I am not a doctor so I can't even begin to know if it was any of the choices you listed or something completely different, but I can't imagine how terrified and scared you must have been, and the longing you must feel to know what happened.

You are an extremely strong lady x

Rainbow_Bridge

Thanks Newleaf x

You are right. I would love closure so I can move on, put it all behind me. I'd like definite answers to questions, and I have been searching for them.

In the absence of any of that, I suppose the alternative is going to be figuring out the best alternative xx

'I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.'
Umberto Eco

ani_26

Rainbow_Bridge wrote: »

As for your car :rotfl:. Do you look like it?

Yes. I even have matching hair.:eek:

Seriously, it has been said my car is so me, and it used to personify my character, ( those were the days.) I have a flaw in my personality? :rotfl:

You know how they say that people look like their pets and choose pets with characteristics they identify with?

I'm sure i said this in my diary, way back when? How many times do you look at an owner and their dog and muse, like dog like owner, or like owner, like dog? it's hilarious..................:rotfl::rotfl:Since i'm an old english sheepie, oh dear..................:D

Maybe i should be a labrador - soft, strong and very long?

I wonder if the same thing can be said about cars? Just joking xxx.

Probably.................................................:D

ani_26

You are right. I would love closure so I can move on, put it all behind me. I'd like definite answers to questions, and I have been searching for them.

In the absence of any of that, I suppose the alternative is going to be figuring out the best alternative xx

I doubt, for some people, it's ever possible to have closure. Closure, in itself, is an enigma.

'I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.'
Umberto Eco

And that is where the problems begin. :rotfl:

Rainbow_Bridge

Stop making me laugh Ani, I am splitting my trousers, wait until I have my stretch pants on.

Dare I ask what colour your car is?

ani_26

Rainbow_Bridge wrote: »

Stop making me laugh Ani, I am splitting my trousers, wait until I have my stretch pants on.

Dare I ask what colour your car is?

Purple?........................................................:rotfl::rotfl:

ani_26

Rainbow_Bridge wrote: »

I am going to type out my story now, because I think it will help me to put things in context, and this is a tiny wee corner of a vast internet and I am not hurting anyone by doing so.

Two years ago, I got really hyper and couldn’t sleep for about a week, I then imagined that I had been offered a job at £100.00 an hour with a £50,000 company car thrown in. I told my husband, and he believed me, even chose the car. He said later that I had never lied about anything before, or had any mental health problems, the job was plausible in that it involved unravelling derivatives, which was similar to something that I had dabbled in, in my previous job, so why wouldn’t he have believed me?

I went to Austin Reed’s, spent £1700.00 on suitable clothing and after another night of no sleep, I dressed up in the morning for a car to come and take me to my new job.

It never came, and that day I had a truly awful, complete mental collapse, which culminated with me believing that I was demon possessed. I was nearly killed twice. Once when I felt something shove me in the back, and I flew in front of a car, and another time when I was crossing over a bridge and it was as though the wind picked me up. I had to cling on to the side of the bridge to stop myself going over it. Completely weird.

I ended up being taken to the local doctor’s where he diagnosed me with the manic phase of manic depression and phoned the psychiatric hospital for an emergency admittance. The hospital was full and on ascertaining that I could be watched full time, at home, I was given chlorpromazine, the equivalent of a pharmacological lobotomy, and sent home, with their number.

DH and MIL called the psychiatric hospital a couple of times during the next week, as I deteriorated further, and were just told to keep upping the dose, and watching me.

After a week, I woke up, with the most terrible headache, I felt like I had been smashed in the back of the head with a baseball bat, a number of times, I couldn’t move my neck, I was having seizures, vomiting and my temperature was very high.

Next thing I know I am being tested in a general hospital for encephalitis/viral menangitis. After they had completed the battery of tests, including MRI scan, I am visited by a female psychiatrist, and another doctor and they tell me that, though I have a temperature and raised white blood cell count, they do not think that I have Meningitis/Encephalitis.

They have a form in their hand, and questions for me to answer, to assess whether I need to be sectioned for psychiatric care, though I tell them I am quite happy to be admitted.

I get every question right, and they conclude that I am not mentally ill, but that I had an acute stress attack, and that I should come off the chloropromazine and learn to deal with stress better.

Queue, the end of my dealings with the medical profession, and after I weaned myself off the drug, I have taken nothing since.

The problem is I was left with the feeling, ‘what the hell happened’? The foundation of everything that I believed in had crumbled. For the same set of symptoms people have been variously diagnosed:-

A-Mental Breakdown
B-Manic Depressive – Bi-Polar
C-Acute Stress Reaction - PTSD
D-Kundalani Experience
E-Viral Meningitis/Infection (They never entirely ruled that out)
F-Schizophrenia.
G-Sleep Deprivation

I was signed off work for a couple of months, and just slept, and then I have gradually put the pieces together again, in the hope of building a stronger foundation this time, and I have questioned everything and been prepared to admit that I was probably wrong about most things.

There is still a lot of work to be done, but I am learning to be very kind and loving and understanding of myself. I have accepted my demons and befriended them, and I am trying to enjoy the journey now that I feel I am on more stable ground, having clawed myself out of the quicksand.

Yep, I’m still here, and I am genuinely grateful for that, but it's been very, very tough xxx.

When you are that person, in that place, you are not a person, at all. Not even a human being. It's frightening or should i say unbelievable, to look back. You are almost an alien, inhabiting another planet. It's easier to see, when you come out of that place? But how easy it is to return?