Am I Still Ill?

Feeling like a fool, loving both of you is breaking all the rules.

Well. I went to visit my mum, originally was just going to meet her for the afternoon at Canterbury but decided the journey to and from was gonna be too much so I would stay at hers for one night, which turned into two as I was not ready to go back and was enjoying the peace and quiet.

Just complicated by the fact that my son obdurately refused to talk to me or even acknowledge my presence. Not even a hello.

This despite having a two hour phone conversation with him in the middle of the night a few days ago. He called me needless to say.

He just can’t face seeing me in person. My depression tells me this is because I am just unacceptable as a person, let alone a mother. He doesn’t want to see me because it just brings him down. And he has enough on his plate already.

It’s understandable, all too understandable. Given the foster care, given the many times he has felt let down by me. He has difficulty trusting anyone he says. He also tends to reject people before they reject him.

All of this is a cautionary tale to anyone out there with a severe mental illness when thinking of having a child. I didn’t even get to choose. I was psychotic when I got pregnant and psychotic throughout the first six months of the pregnancy. I didn’t worry about my lack of a period because my periods had stopped the previous November and he was conceived in the middle of March. It does seem as if he was determined to be born. But it hasn’t worked out well.

I was high for most of last year and am still enduring five plus months of depression as we speak.

Being blanked by my only child doesn’t help. But it is what it is and I understand his reasons well enough.

I was just backreading my blog and it sure does make embarrassing reading in places. But I show myself warts and all here, I let it all hang out whether in mania or depression. Less so when I hit the sweet, in between spot.

As I’ve said before it provides an invaluable record. And while I may have fewer regular readers and fewer commenters I still have some. I write it mainly for me though. I sound like an absolute asshole when I’m manic. Narcissistic in the extreme. And then there’s all the music videos, posted in the early mornings when sleep won’t come because I am manic. I could remove them all but it would take ages, and it’s as valuable a record as any because I can tell I was manic at the time instantly when I see one. It’s a certain ‘red flag’.

So how are things? Well I’m not totally out of the depression but it’s pretty mild now and mostly I feel fairly normal.

I can’t praise the Clarendon Recovery College enough. It’s been there for me these past few months when no one else was. It’s become a staple part of most of my days. There are always people that I know around. I know I can ask to talk to one of the staff if I need to even though I mostly don’t nowadays. Classes have started up again. The voluntary work there is a bit of a non starter because there just isn’t enough to do, it’s usually very quiet in the cafe.

But I don’t feel up to doing very much in any case. Sometimes I sit for long periods doing precisely nothing except possibly texting on my phone. It’s preferable to languishing in my own four walls all the time though that is still something of a comfort zone. At times it’s the only place I feel safe with the exception of the Clarendon.

I still have my text pals as I call them. One in particular I would count as a proper friend.

My finances have recovered, in fact I’m saving now. And I have to pay my carer so that is all the better. I also quite often get cabs here and there because I can’t face being out with all the people. Mild agorophobia.

Now that I’m better I’m looking at going down to visit my mum in Kent. I don’t know if I will stay there. Depends how strong I’m feeling.

I would like to have someone to cuddle. Cuddles are always good.

So why the title? Because this blog is humbling reading for me. It faces me with the reality of how I’ve been with myself and others. In AA and other 12 Step Groups the fourth step  instructs us to make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Well there’s one right here, I needn’t look any further. And it’s pretty comprehensive.

It’s the relationship with oneself that is paramount. You have to have one, and it has to be in decent shape. Otherwise it’s damn hard to relate to anyone else.

Today I have made a trifle, or at least I am in the process of making one. I have also bathed and washed my hair and got dressed in clean clothes. I had a text therapy session. I made breakfast, which was home made spelt bread with smashed avocado.  Later on I had some leftover takeaway Thai noodles with tofu and veggies. I spoke briefly with my housemate. I brushed my teeth.

So well done for all of that Louise. Well done for all of that. Well done for recovering your appetite and well done for making the bread the other day when your carer was here. Well done for all the times you have done laundry and hung it up to dry while wanting to die.

Well done for trying to make plans with people for the weekend while wanting to die. It doesn’t matter that none of them wanted to meet you. The point is, at least you tried.

And well done, Louise, for attempting to do voluntary work while wanting to die. Well done for putting yourself in a safe place (the Recovery College) and just sitting there for many hours to assuage the gnawing fear of solitude. Well done for all the small things you did for yourself while feeling subterranean.

I love you Louise. You are at heart a good person who does her best. You get out to give yourself sunlight, fresh air and exercise despite the anxiety of seeing people together and being alone and despite wanting to die. The fact that you’ve been indoors for three days straight doesn’t matter, you have your reasons for that (to see what it’s like and because the weather is lousy).

The wrong things you have done in your life, which are many, were largely done while you were out of your mind, and even though you are accountable for them you are not fully responsible for them unless you are also responsible for having bipolar disorder, which is doubtful. A lot of the transgressions were ones of neglect rather than flat-out abuse. Your son is paying the price not just for your deficiencies but because of society’s, your mother’s, the Children and Families Social Service and the haphazard way the cards of Life fell. And most importantly of all, his own. Only he can decide to change and start shaping up or getting himself the help he needs. The only way is up, for J.

I was just scrolling back to 2016 to see what the pattern of depression, stability and mania looked like. It seems that there were over three months of depression followed by about five or six of stability, followed by another manic high of about four months. So really, there was more stability than I had previously thought. And no mania lasting as long as that of 2015 which endured for eight months.

I hate to say this but regrettably I miss the mania. I miss how self-sufficient and strong I feel. Confident and fearless with others. But when I pause for a minute I know that stability is vastly preferable. It isn’t like being on drugs, no. But it’s when I truly feel recovered. And my finances recover. Everything recovers.

Well back to the present though. I am addicted to…texting. I know it sounds dumb, like a 13 year old girl. I know all that stuff about how real life friends are more valuable and I certainly do need more of those. I’m starting from close to zero. But I had a very special chat today that was better than therapy for letting me talk about the nature of my psychosis. The guy was so interested it really drew me out. He asked all the right probing questions.

I felt such relief from the appalling self-blame and rumination on the ruins of my life. That I just couldn’t seem to free myself from, I was caught in the net, helpless as a fish. I thought it might be temporary and dependent on access to my phone and it might be. I don’t know yet. But I like to think I am preparing to come out of this depressive phase.

I was due to visit my one close friend (yes, it’s come to that, sadly) today and had been absolutely dreading this long Bank Holiday weekend. But she then had family coming unexpectedly so that was off, another acquaintance cried off my offer to go for coffee, I’ve been dropped by another who I hoped was becoming a friend. It seemed like I was being universally shunned and it hurt like Hell.

The thing is, it’s only when I’m depressed that I so crave company because to be left alone is the enemy. I am the worst company for myself imaginable. Not that I am much better for anyone else. That’s probably why I was dropped I don’t know.

I have been so desperate for company that when a message comes up from the phone company I am heartened by the sound of the text tone. I am glad to see the Pest Control worker (yes, we had a mouse problem which they failed to solve and the mouse seemed to disappear by itself). I am glad for the ring of the phone even when it turns out to be someone from India. I am grateful to talk EVEN TO AN AUTOMATED MESSAGE on the phone. THAT’S how desperate and lonely this condition leaves me folks.

And one friend (he’ll know who he is in the unlikely event he reads this) has not been back to me via email and I think it’s because he’s had it up to here with my mania and inappropriateness alternating with my needy and abject depressive phases. I also asked him for money when I was broke because of S, which was unforgivable.

Not to mention my ex Richard completely ostracising me and refusing to even speak on the phone.

That’s a lot of shunning you must admit folks. A LOOOT of shunning. No wonder I am so keen to speak to my text pals acquired from reddit. And they shut down the subreddit Sanctioned Suicide which was quite a blow for many people undoubtedly.

Well my doctor has to bear some of the responsibility for discharging me from the service on a regime of precisely no meds whatsoever. That’s akin to sending a child from a tricycle to ride a proper bike with no stabilisers and no one to hold them up. I should never have been left with no meds, that’s ridiculous. If anything I should be on a depot injection to ensure I don’t stop taking the damn things while manic ever again.

Yeah it’s lonely both at the top and the bottom folks, and I should know.

Here we are depressed. Abject. Desperate. In despair. Full of regret. Ashamed. Guilty. Subhuman. Worthless. Here we are.

Yes it’s like coming down from MDMA only much worse and protracted over a period of about three months. I’m not out of the woods yet, but seeing some glimmers of light, hence this post.

Because if I don’t blog it, I won’t remember it, simple as.

This blog is invaluable to me as a catalogue of my moods. Unfortunately I am not able to report them dispassionately like some other bloggers, and bipolar podcasters that I am aware of (see: The Bipolar Family Podcast). Instead I just go into them, I am there, and I blog from there. That’s why you see so many music videos on this blog. But luckily it’s still easy enough to read what’s actually written and this blog does go back about ten years after all.

It’s important when I am piecing together the recent past that I can see where I was mentally at that time. And it’s darn obvious how often I have been manic.

Well praise the Lord I am not now.

I’ve had little to no appetite for food for the past two and a half months. I’ve slept fine, more than normal actually. I’ve taken my meds religiously. Risperidone 4mg, Lamotrigine 150mg (at present, will rise to 200mg ultimately) and an antidepressant called duloxetine which does seem to have helped a bit, especially with the debilitating anxiety.

It’s been utter Hell, just like the episode of Spring 2016. I seemed to skip serious depression in 2017.

I’ve been getting out most days, largely to the Clarendon Recovery College which has proved itself to be a godsend at times when I would otherwise have been rudderless, cut adrift and drowning in utter isolation. Classes and groups. I have now started therapy back with Barry at the Psychosis Therapy Project. Have reconnected with one old friend who has been stalwart and very caring. Also found myself a carer/befriender who I pay to keep an eye on me for an hour twice a week. She encourages me and gives me moral support to do a few things around the house and cook the occasional meal.

My son is not doing too well either according to my mum. The magnitude of his problems is borne in on me very starkly when I am in depression mode. He is still self-incarcerating in one small room most of the time. Obviously that’s not healthy. And obviously I feel responsible to a degree. But life must go on, I have to care for myself first and foremost or I am no use to him or anyone else.

It’s my birthday on Thursday. I’m going to be 56. Old enough to know better, older but not necessarily wiser. In fact what they say about bipolar worsening with age has been amply proven to be true in my case. I’m the local crazy lady. I have been going around like a ghost with downcast eyes, hardly able to look anyone in the face in case they notice something is decidedly wrong.

But like I say. Life calls and when you try to be deaf it shouts, and screams at you to get your head out of your ass and be here now.

Hey peeps.

Well I’m back home, by some miracle. Was released long before I expected to be from St Ann’s hospital. Guessing that the influx of new and quite disturbed patients had something to do with it. I was high on the list of ‘patients who don’t really need this’.

Truthfully the place itself made me feel quite ill. It really did.

Can’t describe how grateful and thankful I am to be back in my own little nest. Sometimes it feels like a ship on the high seas, sometimes like a stable for horses. But it’s all mine. I dreamed of these early mornings. Why did I wake up so early here when in the hospital I stayed asleep far longer? Self-preservation maybe? The mornings are just an inconvenience there, like pretty much everything else. You even have to beg the nurses for hot water to make a foul plastic cup of instant coffee.

Here they are my sacred time. Thank you oh thank you oh thank you psych gods!

In terms of my mental state, well I can see that some of my behaviour over the end of last year could be interpreted as ‘high’ though not really manic as such. The sheer volume of posts on facebook for instance, and the slightly portentous tone of some of them. I was just a little too ‘into’ my grind!

Quite often the mental health services see me as ‘vulnerable’, which I fuckin’ hate. I feel it gives me no credit for my ability to self-preserve and the fact that I am far from self-neglectful, cooking beautiful meals for myself, bathing every day and wearing clean clothes and generally steering clear of trouble. Though trouble still finds me it has to be said (witness Solly).

But ohmigosh I had just been freed from Mile End hospital after only two weeks(so much nicer in every way than St Ann’s, but STILL the last place I wanted to be), I have to question why this happened. I was two and a half weeks on the ward at St Ann’s, despite being served with a Section Three.

Then again it has given me time to reflect on the Solly situation and come up with the conclusion that I should steer clear of him. His nasty side which I’ve seen nuff times, plus the financial drain.

Well on the agenda for these first days back is yet another phone call to the council regarding the water leak. Buy a few groceries. Pick up communication with my mum, and through her, with my son.

Being prepared isn’t no Boy Scout ting.

Everyone who comes here should be prepared to account for their own misdeeds, actions, whatever you wanna call them.

Because the fact is, many of us are actually HARDWIRED to commit ‘misdeeds’.

I don’t want no more victim-blaming for Christmas.

I don’t want no more psychological projection for Christmas.

I don’t want no more faux naivete for Christmas. Unless you wanna dig yourself further into a ditch – ‘fosse’ in French.

If you are convinced of your innocence you are probably dead wrong.

Accept you yourself are mind-controlled before you start accusing others of doing it.

Accept that you are a paranoid fuck before you start inventing ‘conspiracies’ that have no real existence.

Do not pour scorn on what others genuinely see.

Do not begin any debate with the words ‘you are dead wrong’. Be prepared to LISTEN before ‘speaking’.

Allow PAUSE between ‘speeches’ in any genuine dialogue.

Maybe do what my son and I do. Take time to SIGH.

No more polarised discussions for Christmas.

A big thumbs down to nonsense, unless it is entertaining.

And remember. We know the truth. About you. About me. And about everything else.

It was all over very quickly.

Now I don’t ‘tell stories’ for anyone’s benefit but my own.

Because yall hear what you want to hear.

And I get bored.

Coming off a high dose of risperidone I was given for two weeks in the hospital while not even faintly psychotic. Observed so far: intense fatigue and muscle weakness, lack of focus and concentration, nausea and vomiting, slurred speech, loss of appetite and seriously picky eating, insomnia, tardive dyskinesia.

Thanks again o great and mighty psych gods!

And on 1st December she was duly released from her penal servitude in the mental bin. Facebook is where I’m blasting out my oh so serious anger and pain http://www.facebook.com/zoe.vincent3. Because it’s more fun with an audience. Ooh Missus!

Kindly release me from my Section 2, you are seriously wasting public money…

It’s all very nice the free food board and company, don’t wanna seem ungrateful for the free holiday but free holidays should be optional would you not agree? No one should be dragged by a ravening, slavering mob of total strangers to the free holiday?

You’re making idiots of yourself as usual behmht. Nothing unusual for you, I gather that, but good leadership seems to have exited the window a long time ago and now we just have chaos.

Well, I’m a creative unfortunately and therefore cannot offer my services. Maybe try listening to my son who at 21 is much less tired, cynical and jaded than I.

OK so once again I am incarcerated for no good reason at all, in Mile End if you please. Brick Lane ward where is apparently no such thing as a book to be found. I have only the clothes I stand up in. There are no words to describe how much it sucks, how dark and sinister the whole thing is. Jasper if you read this pls help me. Solly I think this is beyond him.

I am two-dimensional. I am a living, breathing cartoon character. I am a caricature of myself.

Such a life is demonstrably advantageous. A cartoon character doesn’t feel. It can engage in cartoon punch-ups and experience cartoon concussion.

A cartoon character is impossible to ‘take seriously’. A cartoon character knowingly sends itself up with every word it speaks.

A cartoon character has a kind of spurious ‘popularity’ in that everyone thinks they know who the cartoon character is. When in fact you and I both know? The cartoon character is no one at all.

People confuse ‘reality’ and ‘fiction’ all the time and often prefer their own ‘fictional’ world. So by becoming a cartoon I am literally giving everyone who comes into contact with me, exactly what they want. This is a FANTASTIC self-defence strategy. I’m a cartoon! How threatening can I ever be?

I love my cartoon life. Being able to slip under door-jambs and through window-cracks, or have people unwittingly wipe their feet on you are just added bonuses.

Cartoon characters are universally loved. They are never considered difficult, crazy or awkward. They always act predictably and ‘in character’. And it must surely go without saying that they are so much more at home in this world of illusions.

There’s just too much baggage at this point between him and me and the rest of the ‘tribe’.

Maybe I see myself in him as I too do not ‘try’ to be ‘liked’ . There the similarity ends though. He wants to be loved and I no longer care.

I’ve moved on, O such a long time ago.

That doesn’t mean his interests are not very close to my heart. But I am merely ‘using’ him as I do everyone else. I have no heart whatsoever. This, above all is what ‘life’ ‘showed’ me if you like. That we are all essentially utilitarian and cold. We don’t give a crap about human life unless it serves us in some way.

Seeing someone who still has a heart and indeed living at close quarters with one is quite a novelty for me, after so long hanging out with the spiritually dead.

If I ever feel another emotion I swear I will shoot myself. This is what they all do, the guys (yes, mostly guys, surprise!) on Reddit Sanctioned Suicide. They hold a gigantic long metal thing to their heads metaphorically speaking, all the while screaming ‘make it go away!’

If I didn’t feel so much the same myself I’d not hang out with them. It’s not as if I have better things to do though. I don’t.

Solly is a powerful black magician and ignorant ‘bottom feeders’ have been giving him the oxygen of publicity for too long. You made a rod for your own backs and now it’s come back to haunt you. Karma is inescapable, and she isn’t even me!

He drinks every day from morning until night, smokes drugs, anything to dull the pain he can no longer tolerate. Self-inflicted pain guys. The ‘male’ god is a masochist. You heard it here first. ‘He’ behaves like a self-harming teenage girl. Look at Jesus, or if you prefer, Yahushuah.

Old habits are hard to break. He can’t stop with his pathetic ‘black magic’. You know what it is? He picks up objects and puts them back down in ritualistic fashion. He also prepares small packages of drugs and mysteriously leaves small torn up piece of rizla paper and bits of cigarette all over the place (thanks Mike Skinner/Craig David). This sadly, is the nearest he gets to creativity. Alcohol, needless to say, is the ideal ‘painkiller’ to fuel all of this circular activity.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. God is neither male nor female. God transcends all duality. Anyone is free to be anything they want. Bodies don’t limit or hold us down, they are simply a convenience, a vehicle as it were. We’ve existed/survived a 3D existence in a hell realm ruled over by a black magician who some ‘peeps’ mysteriously want to worship. They too become addicts! Addicts of church! Addicts of ritual! Addicts of EVERYTHING THAT HARMS THEM putting their own children in danger by taking them to a ‘church’ of sex magic and penile worship.

I don’t like to beef too much over petty stuff but the second mysterious disappearance of cash that I had carefully stashed in a safe place this morning has me more than convinced that we are being shafted.

No one can tell me anything, to see me in person is to basically shut your mouth unless I invite you to speak. None of this is my fault so don’t think about blaming me like, ever. The buck stops with me and if any of us get out of this ‘alive’ you will have me to thank (it’s not mandatory though).

If I wasn’t keenly aware of how rife this ‘sex magic’ is – and how many fools worship and love it – I wouldn’t bother posting about what happened to me today. I acknowledge that I am a little ‘pissed’ as the Yanks like to say. I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘pissed off’, ‘pissed’ seems more polite and milder somehow. Look, black magicians came in and stole all your worldly goods, creamed off the fruits of your labour leaving you in the dirt. Why are you not more bothered I hear you cry.

I’ll tell you. I didn’t want any of it anyway.

http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/24722/1/how-to-survive-a-british-prison

London one massive Downhills Ward at St Ann’s Hospital (name, shame and expose!!) It’s way too hot and what’s even worse than the heat is the retards crowing about the ‘beautiful weather’.

I long to wipe the silly grins off their faces with a cold snap followed by a monsoon…

So why is today Downhills Ward, St Ann’s Hospital, Haringey, London (name and shame, expose expose expose) writ large? Let me explain.

You wake up out of a beautiful dream of being someone who matters to a living soul. You wash, brush your teeth, make your silly hospital bed with it’s incontinence-proof mattress.

Then, as is your wont, you think, right what now?

Picture this. A TV lounge with a fucked-up TV that will now only transmit Magic FM. Picture, assorted drugged-up females ensconced on the squashy leather, somehow-still-uncomfortable sofas.

Wish you were way more drugged up than you are in order to endure this.

That’s your day folks. Unless you want to count…

The Community Meeting. Want your head done in to set you up for the day? You could do no better.

Cue an inept-but-well-meaning professional or six, who will ask us all to introduce ourselves with today’s ‘task’.

Task Monday. If you died and were reborn, what would you come back as? I kid you not folks.

Task Tuesday. What’s your lucky number and why?

Task Wednesday. What advice would you give your sixteen-year-old self (in the light of experience and hindsight).

If you think the ‘task’ is not enough to send you right over the edge you should then hear the response of the roomful of drugged-up females.

No one appears to have taken part in any meetings before, so they keep jumping in randomly and obdurately refusing to stick to the script.

Head clutched between hands you run screaming from the room to the astroturf smoking area, where a lone pigeon hobbles around, starving since it snuck in through the net and now can’t get out again…

That pigeon reminds me of me. I roll a fag. I cry on the phone to my social worker. This is the cue for several of the other patients to launch into a tirade of verbal abuse against me, and for a particularly brave one to snatch my tobacco off me.

They brought me here for non-compliance with the full force of the law of strong-armed psychiatry. I was recovering well without meds and simply wanted the Home Treatment to butt out and leave me alone, but I was nevertheless deemed somehow a danger to myself or someone else…at least potentially.

They lied to get me here without violence, saying I would be released later that day. What’s to stop them continuing in the same vein? How sane does a lady have to be before she’s deemed capable of making up her own mind? I’m upset about being here…I’m terrified frankly, I’m in fear of my life from some of the other patients who are like something out of Broadmoor. What’s to stop them finding that sufficient evidence of psychosis to keep me here indefinitely?

What the heck, these drugs are not sufficient to dull my mind sufficiently to sit on one of the squashy sofas for longer than five minutes. What’s wrong with me! They seem to work for the others…

I hear the howling of souls in torment all day in Downhills Ward (name, shame, expose to the power of 20). There’s fuck all I can do. I can’t even hand out fags, because I’m too shit-scared of running out myself, and I feel selfish and guilty.

I see violence, demon-possession, and fights break out like little fires in a forest blaze. I see the Black Sisterhood of mainly African nurses chattering and laughing their heads off while Downhills burns.

And then, five days on, I am released as randomly as I was brought here. Ironically, I am now a lot iller. This little adventure has set my recovery back by weeks.

Ach, St Ann’s Hospital Haringey why should I put in the effort of exposing you when you are doing such a fine job of it all by yourselves?

What IS it with you and me, Sharon? Who else have I dedicated three posts to?

Um. That’s right. No one.