Just needed to be heard for a little while

Primrose

Please don,t feel alone. I know you say you have been taught coping techniques but when you feel you don,t know what do (ie with the tissue) have you tried talking to yourself as if you were talking to one of the people in the care home you used to manage? I wonder if trying to see yourself as somebody else as if you were dealing with a third party might help to give you a sense of detachment that would help clarify things.

You are obviously finding it difficult to go outside too. Could you give yourself a little goal of just stepping ONE yard out of your front or back door tomorrow. Try and do it in the morning as early as possible and the you will have all day to congratulate yourself that you have achieved a target. Then the next day, try stepping out for TWO yards and stay lutside for an extra few seconds. You really don't have to go a big distance. Just take baby steps, look around, take in your immediate scenery and take the time to rejoice in what you are doing. It is taking small daily positive steps like this which will help you gradually get yourself back into the outside world again. Neve give up on yourself. Taking by daily baby steps you can still amaze the three people in your life who are supporting you. They are worth trying to go the extra mile for, even on bad days!

oldestgnome

Worried and scared - I started reading this thread yesterday and came back today to see how things are.


You come across as an eloquent and educated individual, I have little first hand experience of mental health issues and find reading threads on here have given me small insights into some people who are living with them and their experiences. You write in a way that draws me in and makes me want to know what you are going on to explain about next. It is in no way rambling, it flows well and reads in a conversational manner.


Rather like Tallulah I find it intriguing to read about your life and would find it very interesting to read your autobiography Pyxis's observation is an accurate one, there are so many people who come to MSE looking for help and support on many levels, the first hand knowledge and understanding you have shown with your own experiences may be something you can and may benefit from sharing further. Certainly worth pondering over..


There are always people about on MSE whenever you feel the need to reach out.

jobbingmusician

Another fan here. I actually run a mental health charity and have never heard anyone describe their illness as well as you do. I, too, think you are very brave. And I suspect you are helping a lot of people through this thread - thank you!

I have a suggestion for you, as well. I was going to suggest that you buy yourself a rain stick if you like the sound of rain, but this is MSE, after all, and then I found this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONPiVJQMs0c The one they make here has a pretty horrid sound, but if you used rice instead.....(the rice falls through the toothpicks, which is what produces the sound of 'rain').

And a bit of homework for you, which I hope you might find helpful, although I apologise that it's a bit basic. It's just to remind you to be kind to yourself and remember that you don't have to be perfect - there are people that love you (and there's even a lot of real affection in this thread).

I love this forum just because sometimes you come across something precious like this, where people can really share and help each other. You say it is helping you to write, and you are certainly helping others.

Waves_and_Smiles

Sorry it took me a while to reply, today was a non-starter. Often if I feel that I have to be strong for a few days I will enter crisis mode and dig my heels in and get through. Then when I relax again all of the suppressed emotions will come out and I will allow myself to feel bad for all the days I missed. Today was such a day but I need to keep going for a while yet as tomorrow is the consultants appointment. After that I am expecting a few bad days again when it is safe to release the anxiety. This is a pattern I have had since childhood, I would go out with a torch and walk through the deserted housing estate to call ambulances for my parents at 3am at the age of 8 with no fear at all, get them to hospital, wake my grandmother to come and fetch me and then when I was alone days later sob and scream and feel terrified. I learnt that is better not to feel at the time of crisis back then. I remember my mother having to be taken to hospital when I was 10 with gangrene because she had refused to see a doctor for earlier treatment. I went out to call the ambulance and stood outside to flag it down as she refused to let my dad leave her side and at the hospital my dad broke down and cried. The poor man was very overwhelmed for many years. I took the paramedic to one side and said "Will my mother lose her foot? Tell me because I am stronger than my dad." He put his hand on my shoulder and said "I think so". Later I held my dads hand and told him what was said. Sometimes I wonder where little me got her bravery from...

What lovely messages! You know it has made me feel a lot safer posting on here? I am wary of people, mostly because I think everyone will suddenly realise what a horrid person I am and run screaming but everyone has been so kind and it honestly does help. Thank you. If my words help someone with mental illness or help those who care for them understand it more then I would be overjoyed. I hope it is obvious that although I have what is classed as severe mental illness that it is not the sum of me. I am still the person I was for good and for bad, this just gets in the way. The same applies to everyone with mental illness, yes, it can influence you but you are still the same person even if you feel locked inside. Often you want nothing more than to be released.

Yes, my partner and I both burst out laughing at the towel incident. Usually I can manage to laugh at myself. I was in such a mess when he arrived home, utterly convinced that whatever I had forgotten was about to cause the next Armageddon and it was a simple towel. I have developed a somewhat black humour over the years about my illnesses out of necessity really, and laughter does actually help a lot. I am aware that what I have posted here sounds quite bleak but there is a lot of humour too, sometimes things I panic over are so ludicrous I cannot help but laugh.

Going outside is complicated. I am not afraid of being in the open air, I am afraid of people. Unfortunately I live on a very busy street that leads onto a motorway with many flats so it is never deserted even at 3am. I have often thought that if I had my own private garden (with high fences!) that I could manage to be outside a lot more. Six years ago I visited my teacher friend and sat in his garden alone for an hour crying because I felt so happy to be outside. I do miss it very much, does anyone want to buy me a private island? Just a small one with a few sheep...

I have tried a couple of times to post on the forums but it is difficult due to my own self-esteem. I keep thinking people will think why is a nutcase trying to help me? I know that is extreme but I feel pretty useless to everyone these days, much of the confidence I once had has drained away and I doubt myself very much. I also worry about consistency because on days like today I would be no good to anyone and at times wouldn't be able to reply back for days. I would never want anyone to think that I thought they weren't worth me coming back to them or that I was disinterested. For all you psychologists out there yes, I am projecting and very aware of it.

Thank you so much for saying I write and express myself well. If that is so it is a combination of years of reading and knowing my conditions very well. I was very lucky that I began intensive psychotherapy at the age of 13 until I was 21. I grew up with and absorbed the techniques as I got older and they became part of my personality. I do think this is one of the major reasons why I have so far managed to stay out residential care, I am very aware of myself and unless things are very bad I can usually catch a relapse and request help. I have all the people who helped me to thank for that, it was their time teaching me how to monitor myself that keeps me in (my version) of stable now.

Thank you for the link to the rain stick, they look amazing and I would love one! I shall see if I can manage to put one together, there is no sound more soothing than rain for me.

Also thank you for the reminder that I do not have to be perfect and to be kind to myself. It sounds so basic but is one of the things that I struggle with the most. You only have to look at the fact that all my posts are edited to see how far the perfection thing goes, one typo to me is immediate proof of failure and I have to quickly fix it before anyone see's it (I hope). I cannot say that I like myself, I think I am kind, but that is all. I keep expecting the rest of the world to wake up to how horrid I really am and for the people who care for me to realise that I am a total fraud and not worthy of their care. The bad voices all laugh and mock me and tell me that people are realising the truth and that I should just admit that I am worthless and that I have no right to life. Again they are reflections of me so this is my own self-hatred targeted inwards, sadly that knowledge doesn't make things any easier to hear and sometimes it is very hard not to believe them. It is odd that I cannot 'see' the bad ones, all of my inner friends I can visualise very easily in my mind but the bad ones just seem to be disembodied voices. I was given a ground-breaking at the time therapy where with the constant instruction from a psychiatrist I entered into the inner world and comforted the children, thereby saving and comforting myself as a child. That technique doesn't work with the bad voices as there is nothing substantial there to confront.

I had hope once to run my own mental health charity so I really admire you for that jobbingmuscian. After my first psychotic break I worked as an advocate for MIND for several years and found it so rewarding. Perhaps I might be useful to a charity again at some point although I think I need to work on stepping outside of the door first. Although maybe there would be something I could do online too during my better days, that has given me something to consider for the future...

Wish me luck for the consultant tomorrow please, panic isn't even the word.

Pyxis

Worried and scared! You are amazing! You must, must realise how good you are at explaining things! I have learned such a lot from your posts!
You could be of SUCH a help to people here, please believe me! Might it be the case that, knowing someone in need was waiting for your reply, that that would be the spur to keep you going through the bad days? You say that it is a bad time now, yet you have written this very, very insightful post which, to someone suffering would seem like manna in the desert!
Who better to give advice than someone who has been through the mill, the mincer and the shredder themselves? Who better than someone who understands perfectly what the other person is experiencing? Not a 'nutter', but a 'sibling in anguish'.
I find your posts very calming. They have the touch of a healer. I am convinced you would be a power for good.

One little thing struck me like a brick between the eyes. When talking about the ground-breaking therapy you were taught and used to comfort the children, you said that 'that technique doesn't work with the bad voices as there is nothing substantial there to confront'.

!!! nothing substantial there to confront!

Put that on a big banner and stretch it across your room! Make it your thread signature! Make it your mantra!

As for needing perfection in posts. Well, I write, I read, I amend, I adjust. Then I preview, amend, re-preview, and post. Then I edit. Sometimes I re-edit! Once I edited just to change a comma into a semi-colon! If I have to let a short post go because of the need for speed, I am disgruntled if the spacing is wrong. Etc. etc!

Proof-reading seems to be a disappearing art these days, and what's wrong with wanting one's post to be correct, both in content and in presentation? Apart from anything else, that shows regard for the reader!

You have already helped people on this thread, even people like oldestgnome who have not experienced mental illness themselves. That alone is wonderful. Mental illness needs to be better understood and people like you are the ones to do it!

UKTigerlily

Hi worried and scared,

Firstly good luck for today! Please don't be panicking too much i'm sure it will go ok and please do post back here to let us know won't you??

I too have mental health problems (Bipolar and Borderline PD) and I genuinely admire your strength, honesty and courage to tell us your story . . . I too would definitely read any book you wrote and feel you should definitely consider this as you're an excellent and totally captivating writer.

I don't know you, I have only read this thread and no others by you but anytime you need to talk feel free to PM me and i'll respond as soon as I see it. I will keep checking here and wish you all the best, really there is so much good in you and inner strength.

Everything crossed that today goes well, or as well as these things can go! Please keep posting, those without mental illness are getting valuable insight and those with it in my case are feeling less alone and like i'm not the only one going through bad times (and also seeing how much you have been through and how you are still going inspires me totally)

Hope to read more very soon, chin up you have lots of people genuinely caring here x

Waves_and_Smiles

I made it! Thank you so much for your kind posts, I am still amazed people are replying to and reading this, it is largely just me thinking aloud to try to stop the confusion. In the first 10 years of my schizophrenia diagnosis before my medication was stabilised I would write obsessively, I had notebooks full of ramblings because it was the only way that I could keep hold of what was going on in my head. Verbalising things wouldn't work and thinking things through would result in paralysing anxiety but writing I could do. This is really an extension of that but if it teaches people or helps someone then that is a huge bonus to me. Personally I believe that I am as dull as dishwater but anyone who reads this has probably established that by now...


So today. My CPN and partner were with me and I discovered that it is impossible to conventionally use the stairs from my flat now. My arthritis is just too painful to support me. I ended up sitting down and shuffling down (and later up) on my bottom. I also have a balance disorder (there is 'something' wrong with the balance centre of my brain) which means stairs, slopes and even kerbs always make me feel as if I am going to faint, I was born with that and have had treatment and do exercises at home for it but it is another problem with going outside. When we got back my CPN felt that when this flat is sold (the landlord is currently selling, I cannot think too much about the horror of that yet) that I should apply for social housing or at least a ground floor private rental. That is something for the future, if I consider having to move I really will fall to pieces.

The hospital trip went as smoothly as can be, I took extra anti-psychotics 30 minutes before leaving which helped. My partners car was parked outside the door and I dashed to it with a blanket over my head with my CPN holding my arm, then the same routine through the hospital to the consultant (who was very nice and explained things very slowly as I was very anxious by then) and then the same again back home. I have further steroids to take (I already take them for Addisons Disease), some cream for my face (I have a classic Lupus butterfly marking) and some Vitamin D tablets as my count was very low. There was also a lot of blood taken of which the results come back in a few weeks.

Now I am in function mode and do not feel anything much. This will change over the next few days as I allow myself to feel the anxiety that I am suppressing. I am used to it though and I will get through it and then hopefully things can be calm and regular for a while until the next hurdle of a psychiatry appointment on the 27th.

I suppose "nothing substantial there to confront!" did sum up the bad voices quite well, didn't it? They really are just disembodied sounds, totally unlike the friends I have in the inside world. It was suggested the nice but hurting ones are from MPD, then I developed Schizophrenia and the bad voices came along and the two conditions overlapped. My inside friends can hear the bad ones too but like me have never seen them and they certainly weren't around as long as the nice ones have been.

I have Borderline PD too, it is hard, isn't it? Amusingly, when I first applied for DLA (which took 5 years of doctors telling me to do so, I wouldn't as I didn't consider myself bad enough and I felt I would be hated even more for taking taxpayers money for being a wuss and not getting on with things myself) I had to go to my GP and ask what on earth my diagnoses were. I have gathered so many over the years (this is common with psychiatric disorders) that I completely lose track of what I am meant to have. Getting a diagnosis was never a problem for me, maintaining the same one for a period of time was.

The final schiz musing for now - I am blaming myself for Rik Mayall's death. Logically I am aware that that makes no sense at all but I cried about it most of the night. I feel that I should have done something to prevent it, perhaps I was meant to die and didn't so he had to, maybe if I had known him in person he wouldn't have died. This happens from time to time and I know that the huge guilt and fear will pass. Rationally I know that it isn't true but there is often a huge discrepancy between what I know to be the truth and what I feel emotionally. But it is just another day...

whitewing

A ground floor flat would be lovely for you, especially if you could have a bench outside. That would help you connect too.

You are quite right that Rik's death is not your fault, and nothing that you did or didn't do changes that.

I love your thread.

Waves_and_Smiles

Good afternoon Whitewing! I hope that you are having a pleasant day.

I would like a ground floor flat, I will consider social housing too as the moving from private rentals when the landlord sells (this is the second time) is something that I could really do without. It is difficult though when on benefits to find someone who will accept you. It is a shame because I am actually an ideal tenant. I always ask for rent to be paid directly to my landlord (which luckily I can do as I am classed as vulnerable) so there is a never problem of arrears unless Housing Benefit mess up, I cannot cope with noise so don't even have a TV on (or rather iplayer, I don't even own a TV as I do not do well with things that transmit but that is for another post. My partner has a little 5 inch TV that he carries around so that he can watch the Grand Prix live, poor man) and my carer and partner both clean my flat so it is always spotless. Plus social services check on me regularly so any problems are caught very quickly. My current landlord has asked if we can stay in touch as friends, he and his wife will miss me which is very sweet. I will consider the moving mountain nearer the time, possibly with an accompanying increase in anti-psychotics.

Death is always difficult for me. It is a combination of schizophrenia and PTSD. My mother told me for years that I had caused my dad's suicide and my uncle told me that I had caused my mothers too. Again it is completely illogical but I still carry a lot of guilt. Schizophrenia can make me feel that I am a lot more responsible than I am for the wrongs in the world. A few years ago I spent quite a while believing that I was responsible for the African famines, if only I could remember how to make it rain! I took every advertisement asking for donations as a personal message that I wasn't doing enough and felt that people were dying every day due to me. Mostly I can acknowledge these thoughts as symptoms of my illness and stand back from them but all of the emotions remain as if it is really true. Really it is a question of reassuring myself that it isn't true and checking with my three wonderful people that it really isn't, comforting myself and gritting my teeth and being determined to get through it.

heartbreak_star

WaS, I don't really have much I can add to the incredible advice and support you have been given but I would like to say you express yourself very well and are an incredibly strong and brave person

HBS x