We all need to be heard for a little while.

elsien

Gloves as a rule seem to make it worse - even the fleece ones feel like they're constricting the blood flow. Wrist warmers might make a difference - got to be worth a try.

Mrs_Ryan

Hello all
I'm a bit grumpy tonight. I decided that I wanted to look nice today. So I wore some new skinny jeans and black knee length boots.
I'm on crutches and have back damage. Did not end well! I'm now in agony with my back and legs bedtime I think. And my rugby team lost 58-3 I got some very lovely hugs which made me feel a little better though. Hopefully tomorrow will be another good day mentally.
Night all xxx

whitewing

We had the most amazing light blue sky today so I made myself go out for a walk. I spent half of it carrying littlewing's bicycle as she grumbled about how hungry, tired, thirsty etc she was. She has developed some fear of skeletons and now seems to think she will encounter them at any moment in time, even on her walk. But it's not a fear that surfaces that much so I expect her to grow out of it.

I am struggling with my martial arts class (I may edit this to become more vague, as now I'm getting jumpy). . There are bits we do by ourselves and other parts of the class are in pairs or small groups. I expect to find the exercise challenging, being so overweight. I am ashamed of it, but I also have to say that the instructors are brilliant and I can always do it at a level that pushes me but I can handle.

I feel discouraged by:

my difficulties in interacting with people. It sounds mad, but I have no idea how to pair up with someone. So last week, I ended up apologising profusely to a chap who had been doing it for many years as I felt that I was holding him back.

bizarrely, I am upset with how gentlemenly everyone is. One of the reasons I wanted to join was to get over more profound fear of being helpless if I was ever in a dangerous situation. (I have a tendency to not recognise a developing dangerous situation, but also I have a profound sympathy for anyone who is suffering - and I tend to see anger and aggression as suffering - not that I would willingly approach someone like that but I would potentially be making a sadistic killer cups of tea, lol). So, in our class, we have been practising moves like disarming people. It is great because I do now believe it is possible to be smart and feel a lot safer - helps the agoraphobic tendencies. It is frustrating that the towering blokes go out of their way not to scare me, move too fast and hardly even touch me with a rubber weapon! And they succumb slightly too easily sometimes. I want to say that I would feel safer by actually learning how to encounter some resistance in a safe environment. I am sure they already think I am weird though. Bless them, you can almost see them thinking that if anything happened to me some gentleman would come running along to save the women. Now I come to think of it, it is misguided but it is actually really lovely. (I am not attractive so it isn't that I inspire saving - they would do the same for anyone in trouble but I want to know how to do it myself. I'd happily be saved by anyone, if they were around at the time).

I can't remember the moves. This sounds trivial but caused me to abandon tai chi previously. I have had long term depression. I learn by the written word. I am not that used to interacting with people on learning. (Even when someone is doing a training course, I just focus on the overheads/screen). I can hardly remember what we've done so it is difficult to practise at home. Or maybe that is an excuse.

Because my teenage years were so unhappy, I zoned out when we did PE. I was quite fit but my family never were interested in sport and we didn't go to clubs or to the playing fields or anything. So I have no real knowledge of how to be fit or get to the level of fitness that I want to be at. I am enormously frustrated by my ignorance. Even asking doesn't help as the people who inspire me cannot get to the basics that I need. I am happy to spend the rest of my life working towards being a black belt, if that is how long it will realistically take but I can't fathom out where to start that is achievable for me.

There are certain positions of my body that I absolutely hate and I don't know why. I have never (to my knowledge) been sexually assaulted, but I know that it is to do with derogatory sexual experiences. So there are times that I stand like a lemon while everyone else is doing it. I have no issues with anyone else doing it - I see it as exercise, nothing more. But I feel very vulnerable and pathetic. And it isn't helped by it being physically difficult, and fearing I'd look stupid.

I am completely and utterly overwhelmed by the enormity of getting fitter. Usually I am great at setting targets and fine with adapting the pathway to them as I go along. But I want to do this for me. Especially now.

I can't think of anything else that I have deliberately done since I was about 8 years old that I knew I wouldn't be good at initially. I want to stick with it. It is important. Some of the theory that I have learnt from reading around it has already changed my life.

All my difficulties are problems that are going on in my head. WaS, I'd gladly swap brains for a couple of days. It would be quite interesting. I still think that some of the dreams/thoughts are old stuff coming out to be dealt with.

Hullo everyone. Sorry to be self-absorbed.

Waves_and_Smiles

Aw, sorry about the rugby and aches and pain, Mrs_Ryan. Have a gentle day tomorrow and give yourself some time to recover. I bet the outfit looked lovely!

Well done for being determined to stick with it, whitewing. I bet that you are learning far more than you realise. I do understand about feeling the need to protect yourself. I was lucky that we were taught gentle restraint back when I worked. We had to learn it because I managed a home of very large men who all had challenging behaviours, if one hit out you needed to protect yourself and them while helping them calm themselves. I have no idea how to cause physical pain to someone (and I am not sure that I would want to because the guilt would be enormous even if I was being attacked) but I do know how to keep someone twice my size from hurting me for long enough for me to get away. I can actually gently roll WaSp to the ground much to his surprise! It has enabled me over the years to be in situations that may have proven unsafe, such as with my dear friend B.

Keep attending the classes as you are doing, it will get easier to interact after time. I used to find group activities very hard at first but found a lot of my fear went away if I persisted. You will naturally become more able to do the exercises the more often you go and the moves will become natural.

whitewing

Yes, DH said that it will come naturally over time. I didn't tell DH but I was shocked that the suicidal thoughts were cropping up again after the class. I do think of you, WaS, when I am there (sometimes it is the only thing that gets me through the door, because I know you had learnt similar techniques).

I am not keen on touching people. Not that I am OCD - it's not germs that I am worried about. I just hardly ever shake hands with people. I hug DD, DS (if he lets me) and DH. But apart from that, virtually no one. I am so out of the habit that it doesn't even occur to me. So it is weird to take a (very unrealistic) weapon off someone, even if it is minimal contact. I get distracted by my thinking.

Waves_and_Smiles

So here is today's psychotic episode. Last month if I recall correctly I was Jack Munroe, today's was as a result of WaSp playing computer games and showing them to me. Anyone is welcome to ask questions if they want, it isn't a penguin for me. I just record these for people's interest and it makes it easier to tell my psychiatrist what happened on my next appointment.

This started in a split second. I was perfectly fine and walking back to the sofa with a glass of water. I put the water down and turned around and everything suddenly shifted. The best way to describe it is if you have ever taken any medication and suddenly it starts working and you get light-headed and feel generally strange. The immediate thought was, none of this is real and I am playing a computer game.

I sat down and asked WaSp if I was really awake and managed to say that I didn't feel real. I was already stumbling over words, it took a few seconds to think of the word 'real'. I picked up my laptop and looked at it and thought I have forgotten the correct keys to make myself move forward in this game. Colours were far brighter and glowing at the edges and sound was muffled and echoed. I told WaSp that I didn't know the keys and when he asked what for I said to move forward! Part of me was aware that this was a very odd thing to say and think.

At this point WaSp took the laptop and gave me some medication. I got very distressed at this and tried to grab the laptop because I needed to find the right keys to be able to advance in the game. Sensibly, WaSp put it out of my reach because I may have damaged it. Things get a bit foggy at this point as I stared at the bright lights all around me. I was very confused, I needed to move forward in the game to get to the other side of an indefinable something, I was also aware that I had to eat in 'the game' so got up and went to the kitchen and stood there staring at it not sure what to do next. WaSp sat me back down and tried to explain to me that I wasn't in a game. I told him that we both were and that I needed to finish the game to rescue us. Apparently I was catatonic for parts of this (it went on for over an hour but felt like 20 minutes to me) and just staring ahead at nothing and not responding to WaSp, in my mind I was trying to figure out what move I needed to make to complete the level. I was trying to concentrate so much but everything was bright, painfully so and my thoughts made no sense. I knew that there was huge danger and that I had to do something to be safe but I couldn't remember what it was.

I could see little platform shapes that were transparent, I could see the rest of the room through them glowing brightly. I had to jump onto the platforms to get through the game level but I still couldn't remember what buttons to press. I was very frustrated at this point because I knew I had to move forward but I didn't know how. Suddenly I knew that there were monsters in the game and became very afraid that Wasp and I would die. I apparently started babbling to him about how we needed to move forward straight away because the monsters were coming and I didn't want to die. I know that I was very scared and crying.

Fortunately by this point I began to feel sleepy with the medication and even more confused because I was beginning to realise it wasn't real. WaSp managed to get me to bed and I fell asleep quite quickly and woke up 6 hours later feeling like I had had a very bad nightmare and very anxious.

As you can see, this is almost like a dream, the thing is that I am awake when it happens. As a psychiatrist told me, my switch between the dream state and being awake is faulty. It doesn't always close off to let me be in reality. These episodes happen when I am anxious for a period of days and also around TOTM, I presume it causes a chemical imbalance. What was unusual about this one was it was immediate, I usually start to feel odd for a while at first which gives me a clue, this time I suddenly lost touch with reality within seconds.

The worrying thing is this happened despite me taking extra anti-psychotics for a week previously, so I need to tell my psychiatrist about that. We had presumed that it would be. I cannot afford to suddenly snap into a dream state, especially if I am going to be on the farm. Not only would it be potentially dangerous, I would die of embarrassment afterwards! Plus there is also a risk that they might call an ambulance. This is totally pointless because when I have been to hospital while in an episode all they do is inject me with anti-psychotics and wait it out, the same medical treatment as I have at home except an injection rather than pills. Then they just change the dosage a little and send me home the next day, it's honestly a waste of everyone's time. This honestly just makes me want to stay locked away in my flat. All better now though, just very jumpy and still a little confused.

dragonette

The Hugs to all. Sorry, i said hi then hid again!! My brain has been mulling over some things recently and I'd like to write it out on my comp rather than my phone so will need to wait a lil.

Whitewing, I'm very impressed that you are continuing with the classes. Maybe after a couple more, you could say about them holding back and ask them to gradually be a little stronger in their resistence? It sounds like something I would love to do!

WaS, i love the explanation of a faulty switch. Although my issues are different in their expression and severity, the switch metaphor had helped me understand some of the processes.

That episode sounds fairly scary, have some extra (((hugs)))

Waves_and_Smiles

Aw, how sweet that you think of me, whitewing. I promise you that it makes a difference if you know that you can take care of yourself in potentially dangerous situations. It also allows you to take risks where you wouldn't normally, I doubt if I would have ever approached B without knowing that he couldn't hurt me, and doing so gave me a friendship that I still treasure. When I first saw him he was screaming at people that didn't exist in the street and everyone was crossing over the road to get away from him. It was essential at work, we hardly had a day when someone wouldn't become distressed and hit out, we all had to be confident that we could prevent harm to ourselves and the client. It also protected the clients against any of us panicking and lashing out when we were grabbed, we knew exactly what to do to keep everyone safe. Learning techniques to protect yourself can have many benefits for others, too.

Can you try to distance emotionally from the touch? Tell yourself that you are doing to this learn a technique, it is simply a process to achieve an end. Yes, you need to put your hand on this persons arm now but it is a series of educational moves for you to learn? I think that will become easier given time also and you will start to think of it as series of actions.

Hello dragonette! Yes, I love the faulty switch explanation. It really is the best way of describing it, it is just like dreaming but I am still awake. It even feels like dreaming, you know the floaty feeling you get when you dream? Where things seem odd but you go along with it anyway? It is just like that and also I don't have control of what happens next, it is like a film playing out and I am along for the ride.

A psychiatrist told me that I have an extremely vivid imagination, too vivid and the part of my brain that separates it from reality doesn't work properly. In fact he used to refer to the episodes as fugue states combined with psychosis because I lose the ability to remember my name and personal details while they are active. If I was outside I would have no idea where I lived (hence my care plan says that I cannot be left alone for more than 4 hours and I cannot go out alone). I cannot recall anything about myself at all at the time, WaSp has learnt that it is pointless trying to ground me by talking about where we live and things we have done, I just get more confused. At the time the only real thing to me is what I am imagining and even that is foggy. That ties in with my MPD diagnosis so it is likely several conditions combining that causes these episodes along with a monthly hormone imbalance (read-one giant chemical mess).

Waves_and_Smiles

Oh, oh I found footwear that I can actually wear without pain! I am the proud owner of a pair of black wellingtons with pink spots! They cause no pressure on my feet at all, the only type of shoe so far that I can wear brand new. Quite how I manage in these in the summer I am not sure but for the winter at least, I have shoes!

Forgive me talking so much, WaSp is asleep and I am sitting here alone and still slightly anxious. Also, when I become catatonic I lock all of my muscles, it is impossible to move my arms and legs. This is very bad for my arthritis so I wake up in a lot of pain and practically unable to move. So I have taken a lot of opioid medication (maximum dose allowed) to counteract it and it has made me a tad errr... talkative with rushing thoughts. Oops.

I shall pass out shortly, combined large doses of opioid medication and anti-psychotics cause that to happen. I am shutting up now before I embarrass myself further. It is just as well that WaSp is asleep, otherwise he would need earplugs while I babble on incessantly. You may all laugh at me, I am!

System

Never feel like you're talking too much WAS if it helps then talk away

I currently can't sleep, my meds seem not to be doing their job! Doctors appointment is booked for next week so can discuss it then. I just walked to the garage to buy some Pepsi max...I think my addiction may be getting out of hand :rotfl: