Wednesday 29 August 2012
I think maybe I should unplug my landline. Someone rang this morning again. So I woke into a panic attack triggered by the sound of the phone ringing, and have been badly anxious all day every since. This is not the first time this has happened. It's always stressful when the phone rings, but it's worst when it wakes me up - it's so horrible being jerked awake full of panic and fear, my heart pounding, my chest tight, my whole body full of adrenaline. I'm back to never being able to answer the phone again anyway, so I might as well unplug it.
Sunday 19 August 2012
Daily Mail helps write DSM V
This Week In Mentalists linked to this story about the Daily Mail concern-trolling Emily Lloyd (an actress with a histry of mental illness) because she was seen in - shock, horror - a mismatched outfit, with a 'downcast' expression. In my comment I mused on what it might look like if the Daily Mail helped write the DSM V (as clearly they know so much about it and are able to make diagnoses based on nothing but a single out of context image!) - I thought I'd repost it here, and see if anyone has any suggestions for what the criteria for other diagnoses might be?
A. Five (or more) of the following symptoms have been present during the same 2-week period and represent a change from previous functioning; at least one of the symptoms is either (1) mismatched outfit or (2) looking downcast.
Note: Do not include symptoms that are clearly due to a hangover or severe drug abuse.
(1) looking downcast at least twice in three years, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., gossip) or observation made by others (e.g.,paparazzi). Note: In children and adolescents, can be blamed on bad parenting.
(2) markedly diminished attendance all, or almost all, A List parties (as indicated by either subjective account or observation made by others)
(3) significant weight loss or weight gain (e.g., an apparent change of more than 5% of body weight since last appearance in magazine)
-
no weight loss or weight gain actually present but could be claimed due to unflattering clothes and bad lighting and three other symptoms are present
(4) diminished number of major film roles nearly every year, or recurrent appearance in tv advertisements
(5) mismatched outfit nearly every time spotted popping to the shops briefly (observable by others, not merely subjective reports in fashion columns)
(6) unshaved legs or lack of make up every time, or nearly every time, or just once but someone got a picture of it, when popping to the shops briefly
(7) acting ‘really depressed’ or ‘unstable’ as reported to the press by ‘close friends’ or family members in need of cash.
(8) diminished interest in doing interviews nearly every day (despite bribes or threats from trashy magazines and newspapers)
(9) being, y’know, a bit odd
Major Depressive Episode
A. Five (or more) of the following symptoms have been present during the same 2-week period and represent a change from previous functioning; at least one of the symptoms is either (1) mismatched outfit or (2) looking downcast.
Note: Do not include symptoms that are clearly due to a hangover or severe drug abuse.
(1) looking downcast at least twice in three years, as indicated by either subjective report (e.g., gossip) or observation made by others (e.g.,paparazzi). Note: In children and adolescents, can be blamed on bad parenting.
(2) markedly diminished attendance all, or almost all, A List parties (as indicated by either subjective account or observation made by others)
(3) significant weight loss or weight gain (e.g., an apparent change of more than 5% of body weight since last appearance in magazine)
-
no weight loss or weight gain actually present but could be claimed due to unflattering clothes and bad lighting and three other symptoms are present
(4) diminished number of major film roles nearly every year, or recurrent appearance in tv advertisements
(5) mismatched outfit nearly every time spotted popping to the shops briefly (observable by others, not merely subjective reports in fashion columns)
(6) unshaved legs or lack of make up every time, or nearly every time, or just once but someone got a picture of it, when popping to the shops briefly
(7) acting ‘really depressed’ or ‘unstable’ as reported to the press by ‘close friends’ or family members in need of cash.
(8) diminished interest in doing interviews nearly every day (despite bribes or threats from trashy magazines and newspapers)
(9) being, y’know, a bit odd
Friday 17 August 2012
Fat
Sign I'm on a downswing #246 - I think I'm fat.
I know people were worried about how much weight I'd lost only a little while ago, so logically speaking I can't be fat, I can't have put that much weight on that quickly. But I look at my body and I hate it right now. It looks fat and spotty and hairy. I look down and my tummy looks immense. I feel huge.
Normally I have both a good self image and I'm against fat-shaming, I'm a proponent of Health At Any Size. But that doesn't stop me from feeling nothing but disgust for my body right now.
Knowing that this is probably crazies doesn't stop me from looking fat and horrible when I look at myself though. Just have to try to remember this will pass.
I know people were worried about how much weight I'd lost only a little while ago, so logically speaking I can't be fat, I can't have put that much weight on that quickly. But I look at my body and I hate it right now. It looks fat and spotty and hairy. I look down and my tummy looks immense. I feel huge.
Normally I have both a good self image and I'm against fat-shaming, I'm a proponent of Health At Any Size. But that doesn't stop me from feeling nothing but disgust for my body right now.
Knowing that this is probably crazies doesn't stop me from looking fat and horrible when I look at myself though. Just have to try to remember this will pass.
Thursday 16 August 2012
Anxiety
I get lonely but it's my own fault. I run away from people. I don't understand why. I just can't cope with people so often. Talking to people involves either faking being someone or actually genuinely being myself, and both are exhausting. There are people I love dearly and I know I'm letting them down, I'm not there for them, I don't make the effort to see them as much as I should. I'm fucking amazed some people are still my friends, I watch them make efforts over and over to see me and reach out to me and I don't know why because I still flake on them all the time. I can't even cope with fucking fchat conversations half the time. I will be lonely as fuck but someone messages me and I panic at the thought of having to try and talk to them. I encourage friendships with people who cover my half of the conversation for me, or who are okay with silences. I hide when people knock on my door if I'm not expecting someone, or try to peek without them seeing me so I know who they are.
A friend came round the other day - I'd arranged it in optimism, like I so often do - I really like her, I want to know her better, but I've somehow always ended up failing at spending time with her. So I arranged it, I said come round, we'll have hot chocolate, I'll get the whipped cream and marshmallows you bring the milk, I've already got powder. And then I forgot about it and she knocked at the door and I just panicked so badly. I wasn't prepared. I know damn well if I'd remembered earlier I would have cancelled on her, made up some excuse or other. I considered pretending I wasn't home, but she opened the door so I had to come to the door, and she came in and sat down and I was just panicking so fucking hard at the prospect of having to interact with her for a socially acceptable amount of time. I was screaming inside my head JUST GET THE FUCK OUT I just wanted her gone. I felt trapped in headlights, y'know? I sat there and tried to wait it out, when really I just wanted to get rid of her, or failing that just leave myself. Just up and walk out and not come back 'til she was gone. I hate situations I can't leave. I managed to get through it, she was good at talking and we finally managed to hit on something I could talk about. She didn't try to stick with the 'so what are you doing nowadays?' thing that so many people ask and I have no fucking clue how to answer. 'oh I'm a cripple now' apparently doesn't cut it if you don't have another conversational topic lined up to move to. 'I like to internet' is also insufficient.
I find myself sitting there in social situations trying to remember how to do conversations. There are times when it's so natural I don't have to think about it, times when there seem to be so many things to talk about that the topics spill over one another and you can never say all the things you want before ending up somewhere else and the words just flow over one another, but they seem so infrequent nowadays. Most of the time I have serious trouble trying to figure out how to talk to people and what the fuck to say and I watch other people's conversations trying to analyse them to figure out how I could do it.
I get upset at not having more help with my problems, but if I would just go to the places I've been recommended and ask maybe I would have that help but I just can't make myself do it. I have trouble explaining it to people. I just CAN'T DO IT. I try to face the idea and I just slide off it and into something else. I have to be forced into these things and sometimes I can cope with it and sometimes I can't.
My friend contacted me over facebook chat the other day and said her mum did disability advocacy stuff and had offered to help with my benefits stuff if I wanted and I said great thanks that's awesome maybe give me her email address and I'll get in touch (knowing full well I would never be able to manage that just no can't do it nonono), and luckily her mum is kind of insistent and she took over my friend's chat and just started telling me things and asking me stuff and I answered - again with the massive amounts of panic and wanting to end the conversation and run away - I felt really trapped - but I tried to stick with it, and it ended up being really useful, and I asked her some stuff I've needed advice on, and I was really glad it had happened.
Someone used a phrase recently, to sit with your discomfort, to just acknowledge it and feel it and try to stick with whatever you're doing, wherever you're at, through that discomfort, that anxiety or panic or whatever. They were using it in a non-clinical sense, but it stuck with me, and I've been trying to do that, when I can, trying to stay where I am and not bolt. I can't always do it, and it only really works in situations that I've been dropped into and then panic, I can't seem to get to the actually stepping up to do the things I'm scared of part. At least not yet.
I'm starting to wonder whether my problems lie at least as much with anxiety in some form, socially avoidant disorder or something similar, as with the depression/bipolar, but I'm really not sure. I could really do with some professional help figuring this out. I mean, socially avoidant... I really don't know. Most people would say that's not me at all, I think. But then I know socially confident me is usually hypomanic or drunk me. And hell, I'm still not even sure whether to classify half of this as anxiety or not.
I went to the doctor a few years ago when I was really stressed and I'd started having trouble with pain/discomfort/tight feeling in my chest that would last for hours at a time. He told me I was having panic attacks. Mind you, he also told me this was 'perfectly normal'.
Most people seem to only consider it a panic attack if it's some completely overwhelming thing that you can't function through, whereas with mine people don't tend to even know it's happening, I don't let it show. Sometimes I'll have to escape to be on my own, and it can *feel* incredibly overwhelming and horrible, and I often feel like it must be terribly obvious, but other people really don't seem to notice.
Sometimes it's just this sharp pain in my chest, like a breadknife slipped between two ribs, and it'll gradually get worse, my chest will get tighter and tighter, and I'll feel more and more panicky. I can have just the pain on its own without a huge degree of panic for hours at a time. The panicky parts tend to be shorter.
Other times I'll have freakouts that I sometimes refer to as panic attacks, where I feel absolutely overwhelmed with BAD and CAN'T COPE and curl up in a ball and need to be held if someone's there. I don't usually have the stabby chest pain with that, although I sometimes do, and I usually get the very tight chest with them.
But I don't know whether to call the social stuff anxiety or panic attacks or anything though, they're much lower level, I don't tend to get stabby chest pains or anything, I just feel panicked and trapped. I mostly deal with it by avoiding it and then I'll be okay. I never know if that counts as anxiety, proper clinical anxiety, or panic or whatever, when it's just, well, anxiety and panic. No physical symptoms. I just CAN'T DO IT. Brain says no. (Sometimes there's the tight chest and palpitations and stuff, but not always. I tend to stop at the rising panic, it's just too much and I have to make it stop.)
I feel like I'm appropriating terms that don't really belong to me. I don't know. At the same time it's these avoidant behaviours that are causing me a lot of trouble. It's not *just* social stuff though. I'll get it with things filling out forms, or cleaning the kitchen, or leaving the house. Sometimes I just can't do things I need to do.
And then I get mad at myself because I must just be lazy. And I hate myself because everything that's wrong is my fault, it's because I'm lazy and procrastinate and don't do things. But then I figure if this is just laziness, if this is just my fault, why don't I just stop? Why *can't* I just stop? I want to. I want to do the things I need to do. I want to get all those forms filled out. But I think about it, I try to do it and I just. I can't. Brain just slides away, can't face it.
When I'm not depressed a lot of this gets easier. Which I try to remember, and hold onto as proof that I'm not just lazy. A lot of the social anxiety stuff sticks around though, the example I gave of my friend that came to visit was slap bang right in the middle of my relatively stable period recently. But the being able to fill out forms and clean things and so on gets a lot easier.
I really need to talk to someone about this and get some help. It's been about 9 months I think since my psych assessment and referral for counselling. I feel like 6 sessions of problem-focussed CBT is really not going to fix all my problems somehow, but it would be a fucking start. Although despite desperately wanting some help I'm terrified that when it comes around I won't be able to make myself go to the damn appointments. I have enough trouble making myself go to my regular GP appointments.
A friend came round the other day - I'd arranged it in optimism, like I so often do - I really like her, I want to know her better, but I've somehow always ended up failing at spending time with her. So I arranged it, I said come round, we'll have hot chocolate, I'll get the whipped cream and marshmallows you bring the milk, I've already got powder. And then I forgot about it and she knocked at the door and I just panicked so badly. I wasn't prepared. I know damn well if I'd remembered earlier I would have cancelled on her, made up some excuse or other. I considered pretending I wasn't home, but she opened the door so I had to come to the door, and she came in and sat down and I was just panicking so fucking hard at the prospect of having to interact with her for a socially acceptable amount of time. I was screaming inside my head JUST GET THE FUCK OUT I just wanted her gone. I felt trapped in headlights, y'know? I sat there and tried to wait it out, when really I just wanted to get rid of her, or failing that just leave myself. Just up and walk out and not come back 'til she was gone. I hate situations I can't leave. I managed to get through it, she was good at talking and we finally managed to hit on something I could talk about. She didn't try to stick with the 'so what are you doing nowadays?' thing that so many people ask and I have no fucking clue how to answer. 'oh I'm a cripple now' apparently doesn't cut it if you don't have another conversational topic lined up to move to. 'I like to internet' is also insufficient.
I find myself sitting there in social situations trying to remember how to do conversations. There are times when it's so natural I don't have to think about it, times when there seem to be so many things to talk about that the topics spill over one another and you can never say all the things you want before ending up somewhere else and the words just flow over one another, but they seem so infrequent nowadays. Most of the time I have serious trouble trying to figure out how to talk to people and what the fuck to say and I watch other people's conversations trying to analyse them to figure out how I could do it.
I get upset at not having more help with my problems, but if I would just go to the places I've been recommended and ask maybe I would have that help but I just can't make myself do it. I have trouble explaining it to people. I just CAN'T DO IT. I try to face the idea and I just slide off it and into something else. I have to be forced into these things and sometimes I can cope with it and sometimes I can't.
My friend contacted me over facebook chat the other day and said her mum did disability advocacy stuff and had offered to help with my benefits stuff if I wanted and I said great thanks that's awesome maybe give me her email address and I'll get in touch (knowing full well I would never be able to manage that just no can't do it nonono), and luckily her mum is kind of insistent and she took over my friend's chat and just started telling me things and asking me stuff and I answered - again with the massive amounts of panic and wanting to end the conversation and run away - I felt really trapped - but I tried to stick with it, and it ended up being really useful, and I asked her some stuff I've needed advice on, and I was really glad it had happened.
Someone used a phrase recently, to sit with your discomfort, to just acknowledge it and feel it and try to stick with whatever you're doing, wherever you're at, through that discomfort, that anxiety or panic or whatever. They were using it in a non-clinical sense, but it stuck with me, and I've been trying to do that, when I can, trying to stay where I am and not bolt. I can't always do it, and it only really works in situations that I've been dropped into and then panic, I can't seem to get to the actually stepping up to do the things I'm scared of part. At least not yet.
I'm starting to wonder whether my problems lie at least as much with anxiety in some form, socially avoidant disorder or something similar, as with the depression/bipolar, but I'm really not sure. I could really do with some professional help figuring this out. I mean, socially avoidant... I really don't know. Most people would say that's not me at all, I think. But then I know socially confident me is usually hypomanic or drunk me. And hell, I'm still not even sure whether to classify half of this as anxiety or not.
I went to the doctor a few years ago when I was really stressed and I'd started having trouble with pain/discomfort/tight feeling in my chest that would last for hours at a time. He told me I was having panic attacks. Mind you, he also told me this was 'perfectly normal'.
Most people seem to only consider it a panic attack if it's some completely overwhelming thing that you can't function through, whereas with mine people don't tend to even know it's happening, I don't let it show. Sometimes I'll have to escape to be on my own, and it can *feel* incredibly overwhelming and horrible, and I often feel like it must be terribly obvious, but other people really don't seem to notice.
Sometimes it's just this sharp pain in my chest, like a breadknife slipped between two ribs, and it'll gradually get worse, my chest will get tighter and tighter, and I'll feel more and more panicky. I can have just the pain on its own without a huge degree of panic for hours at a time. The panicky parts tend to be shorter.
Other times I'll have freakouts that I sometimes refer to as panic attacks, where I feel absolutely overwhelmed with BAD and CAN'T COPE and curl up in a ball and need to be held if someone's there. I don't usually have the stabby chest pain with that, although I sometimes do, and I usually get the very tight chest with them.
But I don't know whether to call the social stuff anxiety or panic attacks or anything though, they're much lower level, I don't tend to get stabby chest pains or anything, I just feel panicked and trapped. I mostly deal with it by avoiding it and then I'll be okay. I never know if that counts as anxiety, proper clinical anxiety, or panic or whatever, when it's just, well, anxiety and panic. No physical symptoms. I just CAN'T DO IT. Brain says no. (Sometimes there's the tight chest and palpitations and stuff, but not always. I tend to stop at the rising panic, it's just too much and I have to make it stop.)
I feel like I'm appropriating terms that don't really belong to me. I don't know. At the same time it's these avoidant behaviours that are causing me a lot of trouble. It's not *just* social stuff though. I'll get it with things filling out forms, or cleaning the kitchen, or leaving the house. Sometimes I just can't do things I need to do.
And then I get mad at myself because I must just be lazy. And I hate myself because everything that's wrong is my fault, it's because I'm lazy and procrastinate and don't do things. But then I figure if this is just laziness, if this is just my fault, why don't I just stop? Why *can't* I just stop? I want to. I want to do the things I need to do. I want to get all those forms filled out. But I think about it, I try to do it and I just. I can't. Brain just slides away, can't face it.
When I'm not depressed a lot of this gets easier. Which I try to remember, and hold onto as proof that I'm not just lazy. A lot of the social anxiety stuff sticks around though, the example I gave of my friend that came to visit was slap bang right in the middle of my relatively stable period recently. But the being able to fill out forms and clean things and so on gets a lot easier.
I really need to talk to someone about this and get some help. It's been about 9 months I think since my psych assessment and referral for counselling. I feel like 6 sessions of problem-focussed CBT is really not going to fix all my problems somehow, but it would be a fucking start. Although despite desperately wanting some help I'm terrified that when it comes around I won't be able to make myself go to the damn appointments. I have enough trouble making myself go to my regular GP appointments.
Sometimes I think the internet is bad for me, that I spend too much time on it, that maybe it exacerbates my problems instead of helping.
On the other hand, when I have bad nights I will sit and click through tumblr and realize I am now focussing on geeky slashfic or a funny story about someone accidentally buying a giant squeaky duck toy, and for a little while I'm not fighting the urge to hurt myself or worse. Without the internet I would just be sitting here alone with that urge and that would be worse.
On the other hand, when I have bad nights I will sit and click through tumblr and realize I am now focussing on geeky slashfic or a funny story about someone accidentally buying a giant squeaky duck toy, and for a little while I'm not fighting the urge to hurt myself or worse. Without the internet I would just be sitting here alone with that urge and that would be worse.
Lost people
Woke up and cried again today. This is getting to be a theme. This time my ex wasn't the trigger, it was C. I popped to the shops before the barbecue to grab some bits and pieces yesterday and she was there. Long story short she was my friend and now she's not. I've never gotten any closure on it because the last time I spoke to her we were good friends, hell last time I saw her I spent christmas at her house, with her and her husband and her daughter, and she made it clear I was part of the family. We'd never fallen out, she'd never expressed any issues with me. Her husband had been my best friend for a very long time and we'd progressed to being in a poly relationship, although that hadn't worked out and we were back to just being friends. He wasn't taking it very well though, and things had been strained. After christmas there was an incident and I said I needed space from him for a while. I went away for a couple of weeks. By the time I got back C hated me and didn't want me to be part of their family any more, didn't want me to have contact with her daughter or her husband. W (her husband) told me about this. I never got to speak to her about it. I was just told that she no longer wanted anything to do with me, and whilst he had won out on being allowed contact with me and for me and him to try to rebuild our friendship it took a lot of arguing, and she basically saw me as the freaking antichrist apparently. Which was very hard to understand given the last time I saw her she was so clear on the fact that I was family. Either she'd been hiding having problems with me very well for a long time, and me wanting space from W was the last straw, or... *shrugs* I know she'd had a hard year, both with health problems and relationship stuff with W, as far as I can tell she suddenly decided all the latter were my fault, despite having been fine with it all at the time. I made it very fucking clear that if she was ever uncomfortable with anything between me and W that I would end it, no question. She insisted she was fine with it and that she was glad it had happened and she thought it was good for their family. Hell, she was talking about me maybe moving in with them one day or me being a surrogate for her and W to have a child, shit like that, at points. So either she's a very convincing liar or something changed, and I don't know what. I feel like I'm missing some important piece of the puzzle, but I don't know what.
Anyway, I saw her outside the shop yesterday. I focussed on using my phone and pretended I hadn't seen her when I went in, to avoid the awkwardness of her blanking me or whatever would have happened. I don't know if she even saw me. But it made me really sad. And today it came back to me and I found myself imagining us meeting and me not blanking her and us ending up talking and it all turning out to have been some huge misunderstanding and us hugging and it all being okay... even though I know that's not what's going to happen. It's been made clear to me by mutual friends that I am dead to her, essentially, and so me going up and saying hello really would not have ended that way. And I just started crying and crying. I miss her. She was my friend and everything's been so focussed around all the drama with W that I feel like everyone's ignored the fact that I lost a friend and I don't even fucking know why. I mean, clearly it was something to do with everything with W, that she felt betrayed by me pulling away from him or mad that I'd hurt him or felt betrayed by them letting me into their home for christmas and me then pulling away, but none of that really makes sense on its own, to go from family to I never want to see you again and I never want you to have anything to do with my entire family ever again. It hurts to have someone who cared about you decide you're basically evil.
I also miss their daughter like crazy. I've cried so so much over missing her. I'm allowed to see her again now, if it's with our mutual friend who looks after her, but I haven't seen her to arrange it yet for various reasons.
But missing C led to thinking of my sister who's also in the last year decided she wants nothing to do with me. That really really fucking hurts. And again over pretty much nothing. There was this stupid thing over G+, when she told me how fibromyalgia isn't a serious disabling condition and I could control it with exercise if I just tried, and how she *wished* she just had such a mild condition like that that she could fix so easily, instead of having arthritis as well, which is a *proper* disease. I disagreed, provided sources, pointed out the errors in the article she linked about fibro and exercise, and said that I had no interest in playing the 'whose illness penis is bigger' game. Which I thought was pretty restrained. But apparently this was me bullying her, and I sicced all my friends on her (some of my friends also posted on the open G+ thread to disagree politely with her - this all started from me posting a '10 things not to say to someone with fibromyalgia' thing, and her immediately posted to say most of them). Anyway. I figured this was just a stupid little falling out and things would be back to normal soon after - we're not close, we see the world very differently, so our interactions are mostly birthday and christmas cards and presents and small talk when we see each other at family things, when she makes thinly veiled digs at me and I try to find non-controversial areas of interaction or avoid her.
But this time she persisted, she didn't send christmas cards or presents - I sent hers as usual, via my mum, and my mum reported back that my sister had been very surprised, as she thought we were having some kind of feud or something, but that if I wasn't going to be petty she wouldn't either. Then she got pregnant and didn't tell me, I found out eventually from my mum. She set up a website to put all the scans and then later baby photos on, and instructed my parents not to let me know about it (my dad let slip). She didn't tell me when the baby was born, again my mum let me know, and I didn't see any baby photos. I finally met the baby when I came down to visit for my dad's birthday, but she didn't let me hold him. She didn't send a card for my birthday. I asked my mum for her address so I could send presents for my nephew and my mum embarrassedly told me that actually she didn't think A would want me to have it, so if I wanted to send anything it would have to be via mum and dad.
I KNOW that she's the one who's acting like a kid here, I know this all started with her saying hurtful things to me, I know it's not me in the wrong here really. But it still hurts and I still miss her. I don't like her very much, she's often a pretty unpleasant person. But she's my sister, and I thought no matter what she would always be my sister. But apparently she's decided she doesn't really want to be my sister any more. My mum says she disapproves of the choices I've made in life. I'm not sure which choices those are. I think the ones where I didn't just buck up and get over my fibro and get back to work probably. I know she disapproves of me roleplaying and stuff - it's kids stuff and I should have grown up by now. I don't know what else. She pretty much just disapproves of me. All of me. She's never liked me. She's done nice things for me, but her attempts to reach out to me when I was younger were always attempts to fix me, to teach me how to be better, how to be more like her.
I still can't help feeling guilty though, feeling like this is all my fault. I pushed her away. She knows I don't like her just as I know she doesn't like me. As a kid I was always closer to my other two sisters and I didn't really hide it. I've fucked up and forgotten her birthday and shit like that lots of times (I also forget other people's birthdays, it's not just hers, but yeah it was probably hers more often than others). I haven't always responded so well to her attempts at friendship (generally cause they were so full of her judging me and trying to fix me, but still). My other sister put a thread up on g+ with a limited circle complaining about some things she'd done (which were pretty fucking out of order) and how frustrated she was and part of my response was that I'd given up on her. 'Cause I kinda had, I'd given up on her ever understanding me or acting in a way that I would want my sister to act. That doesn't mean I'd given up on her being my sister though, or that I'd stopped loving her. It turned out she'd messed up and my sister's partner could see the whole thread. He agreed not to share it with her cause he thought it wouldn't be helpful for anyone, but I'm worried in case he did and she decided to give up on me because of that. And my little sister S said that when the whole G+ thing happened A (the sister in question) had mentioned an e-mail one of my friends had sent that she considered me to have been behind. I haven't been able to find out who sent it or what it said or even if it really existed (S wasn't sure if she'd just misinterpreted A talking about the G+ comments) - but I worry about what might have been in that, if that's what's caused all of this, given she thought I was behind it.
I don't know. I just know that she's my sister and I don't want her to hate me. I still love her. I may not like her very much but I still love her, and I don't think she loves me any more.
The last time I saw her before everything fell apart things went really well, too, the best they've gone in a long time. She'd arranged this birthday party for my mum's 60th, and we all came down, all the family and friends, and I helped out wherever I could, and me and A actually got on pretty well, she didn't snipe at me for the whole day, and I remember it felt so fucking nice, I was so glad to have us actually feel like we were on the same side for once, like she didn't despise me for once.
And then it all went wrong, and it doesn't feel fixable this time. I'm trying to just be the mature one, to wait it out, to still get her birthday and christmas presents, to still make things for her son (my nephew - I want to be part of his life, but I'm pretty sure a big part of this is that she doesn't want me to in any way be a potential influence on him - she thinks I'm a failure and she doesn't want him to be like me).
Anyway. I've been crying on and off for the past 2.5 hours because of C and A and just generally all the people I feel like I've lost in the past year or so - W is still technically my friend but nothing like before, and my ex, and C and A and C+W's daughter, and I'm still mourning the loss of Y - my best friend from school. I feel like I'm trying so hard to do the right thing and to be a good person but I still just keep losing people because of who I am. Which is reinforcing my feeling of being a complete failure and pretty much worth despising right now.
Anyway, I saw her outside the shop yesterday. I focussed on using my phone and pretended I hadn't seen her when I went in, to avoid the awkwardness of her blanking me or whatever would have happened. I don't know if she even saw me. But it made me really sad. And today it came back to me and I found myself imagining us meeting and me not blanking her and us ending up talking and it all turning out to have been some huge misunderstanding and us hugging and it all being okay... even though I know that's not what's going to happen. It's been made clear to me by mutual friends that I am dead to her, essentially, and so me going up and saying hello really would not have ended that way. And I just started crying and crying. I miss her. She was my friend and everything's been so focussed around all the drama with W that I feel like everyone's ignored the fact that I lost a friend and I don't even fucking know why. I mean, clearly it was something to do with everything with W, that she felt betrayed by me pulling away from him or mad that I'd hurt him or felt betrayed by them letting me into their home for christmas and me then pulling away, but none of that really makes sense on its own, to go from family to I never want to see you again and I never want you to have anything to do with my entire family ever again. It hurts to have someone who cared about you decide you're basically evil.
I also miss their daughter like crazy. I've cried so so much over missing her. I'm allowed to see her again now, if it's with our mutual friend who looks after her, but I haven't seen her to arrange it yet for various reasons.
But missing C led to thinking of my sister who's also in the last year decided she wants nothing to do with me. That really really fucking hurts. And again over pretty much nothing. There was this stupid thing over G+, when she told me how fibromyalgia isn't a serious disabling condition and I could control it with exercise if I just tried, and how she *wished* she just had such a mild condition like that that she could fix so easily, instead of having arthritis as well, which is a *proper* disease. I disagreed, provided sources, pointed out the errors in the article she linked about fibro and exercise, and said that I had no interest in playing the 'whose illness penis is bigger' game. Which I thought was pretty restrained. But apparently this was me bullying her, and I sicced all my friends on her (some of my friends also posted on the open G+ thread to disagree politely with her - this all started from me posting a '10 things not to say to someone with fibromyalgia' thing, and her immediately posted to say most of them). Anyway. I figured this was just a stupid little falling out and things would be back to normal soon after - we're not close, we see the world very differently, so our interactions are mostly birthday and christmas cards and presents and small talk when we see each other at family things, when she makes thinly veiled digs at me and I try to find non-controversial areas of interaction or avoid her.
But this time she persisted, she didn't send christmas cards or presents - I sent hers as usual, via my mum, and my mum reported back that my sister had been very surprised, as she thought we were having some kind of feud or something, but that if I wasn't going to be petty she wouldn't either. Then she got pregnant and didn't tell me, I found out eventually from my mum. She set up a website to put all the scans and then later baby photos on, and instructed my parents not to let me know about it (my dad let slip). She didn't tell me when the baby was born, again my mum let me know, and I didn't see any baby photos. I finally met the baby when I came down to visit for my dad's birthday, but she didn't let me hold him. She didn't send a card for my birthday. I asked my mum for her address so I could send presents for my nephew and my mum embarrassedly told me that actually she didn't think A would want me to have it, so if I wanted to send anything it would have to be via mum and dad.
I KNOW that she's the one who's acting like a kid here, I know this all started with her saying hurtful things to me, I know it's not me in the wrong here really. But it still hurts and I still miss her. I don't like her very much, she's often a pretty unpleasant person. But she's my sister, and I thought no matter what she would always be my sister. But apparently she's decided she doesn't really want to be my sister any more. My mum says she disapproves of the choices I've made in life. I'm not sure which choices those are. I think the ones where I didn't just buck up and get over my fibro and get back to work probably. I know she disapproves of me roleplaying and stuff - it's kids stuff and I should have grown up by now. I don't know what else. She pretty much just disapproves of me. All of me. She's never liked me. She's done nice things for me, but her attempts to reach out to me when I was younger were always attempts to fix me, to teach me how to be better, how to be more like her.
I still can't help feeling guilty though, feeling like this is all my fault. I pushed her away. She knows I don't like her just as I know she doesn't like me. As a kid I was always closer to my other two sisters and I didn't really hide it. I've fucked up and forgotten her birthday and shit like that lots of times (I also forget other people's birthdays, it's not just hers, but yeah it was probably hers more often than others). I haven't always responded so well to her attempts at friendship (generally cause they were so full of her judging me and trying to fix me, but still). My other sister put a thread up on g+ with a limited circle complaining about some things she'd done (which were pretty fucking out of order) and how frustrated she was and part of my response was that I'd given up on her. 'Cause I kinda had, I'd given up on her ever understanding me or acting in a way that I would want my sister to act. That doesn't mean I'd given up on her being my sister though, or that I'd stopped loving her. It turned out she'd messed up and my sister's partner could see the whole thread. He agreed not to share it with her cause he thought it wouldn't be helpful for anyone, but I'm worried in case he did and she decided to give up on me because of that. And my little sister S said that when the whole G+ thing happened A (the sister in question) had mentioned an e-mail one of my friends had sent that she considered me to have been behind. I haven't been able to find out who sent it or what it said or even if it really existed (S wasn't sure if she'd just misinterpreted A talking about the G+ comments) - but I worry about what might have been in that, if that's what's caused all of this, given she thought I was behind it.
I don't know. I just know that she's my sister and I don't want her to hate me. I still love her. I may not like her very much but I still love her, and I don't think she loves me any more.
The last time I saw her before everything fell apart things went really well, too, the best they've gone in a long time. She'd arranged this birthday party for my mum's 60th, and we all came down, all the family and friends, and I helped out wherever I could, and me and A actually got on pretty well, she didn't snipe at me for the whole day, and I remember it felt so fucking nice, I was so glad to have us actually feel like we were on the same side for once, like she didn't despise me for once.
And then it all went wrong, and it doesn't feel fixable this time. I'm trying to just be the mature one, to wait it out, to still get her birthday and christmas presents, to still make things for her son (my nephew - I want to be part of his life, but I'm pretty sure a big part of this is that she doesn't want me to in any way be a potential influence on him - she thinks I'm a failure and she doesn't want him to be like me).
Anyway. I've been crying on and off for the past 2.5 hours because of C and A and just generally all the people I feel like I've lost in the past year or so - W is still technically my friend but nothing like before, and my ex, and C and A and C+W's daughter, and I'm still mourning the loss of Y - my best friend from school. I feel like I'm trying so hard to do the right thing and to be a good person but I still just keep losing people because of who I am. Which is reinforcing my feeling of being a complete failure and pretty much worth despising right now.
Tuesday 14 August 2012
Passing protractors
This isn't about crazies, but I just wrote it for my G+ and it occurred to me that it would make sense to share it here too:
Y'know, it's funny the memories that stick. Tiny little things that were important. In my Year 9 SATs, around 13 years ago now, John passed me his protractor.
We were taking the higher maths paper and there were only about five of us. The school hall was set up to accommodate a regular sized exam, so it was full of tables and chairs in rows, and there was a weird atmosphere when we got there. Me and Jenny and John and I don't remember who the other two were. John was the undisputed maths genius of the year. He was just John the rest of the time, lanky, spotty, his voice had been mid-breaking for what seemed like forever, he wasn't popular but he wasn't picked on. He was part of the group. But everyone know he kicked ass at maths. The rest of us were just the people that were top in everything, we had no special aptitude for maths in particular.
We didn't hang out as a group, and it felt odd to have just us few together for an exam. Me and John weren't really friends. I don't mean we disliked each other, or even that we were in different friendship groups. We were in the same friendship group, we just... never really talked. I had a bit of a weird relationship with boys back then still anyway - they were kind of an alien species, and I mostly had crushes on them from afar - but I had a friendship of sorts with Chris and Nicky and Dave. We could talk about stuff sometimes, I walked home the same way as Chris and Dave sometimes, and me and Nicky even had long phone conversations. But me and John never clicked. He was painfully shy, which didn't help. He was friends with Jenny though, they hung out all the time. And I still hung out with Jenny quite a bit then too. So sometimes the three of us would hang out. But somehow it was still me hanging out with Jenny, and John hanging out with Jenny. Just at the same time.
So it's the day of the maths exam and we're in the room between the cafeteria and the hall, where the cubby holes and coat-hooks are, putting away our bags and getting out our calculators and pencil cases. I wasn't really well prepared - organisation wasn't my strong suit. Nor was pretty much anyone. We'd had so many exams over that week we'd gotten kind of blase about them. I had writing implements and my calculator. I might have had a pair of compasses? Not sure.
The time came, and we filed in in silence, John first, then me and then the others. They'd placed the papers on a single column of tables by the exit. It didn't feel like a real exam, given how few of us there were, and the teachers weren't really treating it as one either. They told us no talking, no mobiles, but didn't bother with the spiel, just let us sit down and get on with it.
So we did. And halfway through I hit the question that required a protractor. We never needed a protractor. It just didn't come up. Ever. But bam, there it was. So I left it for the time being and moved on. I was about three quarters of the way through when I heard my name whispered and looked up to see John looking back at me. He looked back to the front and then nonchalantly passed his protractor back to me.
The teachers weren't paying attention, and christ, we were hardly cheating anyway, but it FELT like such a huge deal. They made a huge fuss out of telling us ANY communication would lead to being failed not just for that exam, but ALL of your exams, just in case you'd cheated in them too. And it just didn't seem like John to take a risk like that, especially not in maths, and especially not for me.
I took the protractor. I used it. I passed it backwards. It travelled down the whole group, as no one but John had remembered to bring one. I don't know if the teachers saw but didn't care, or if we were sufficiently sneaky about it. But not a word was said.
I just remember that feeling of suddenly being linked. We were now a group. It was pretty fucking rare at that point for me to feel properly part of a group, not just tolerated, not the outsider. We were all in it together. And John made us that group, and made me part of it. And that meant a quite disproportionate amount to me, so much so that I still feel happy when I remember it. Hell, so much so that I still remember it, despite my sieve-like memory, despite not knowing what I got in that exam, despite having had to piece together all the external pieces of where it was and why and what was happening.
It's just one of the moments that mean nothing and a great deal all at once, so I thought I would share it with you all.
Y'know, it's funny the memories that stick. Tiny little things that were important. In my Year 9 SATs, around 13 years ago now, John passed me his protractor.
We were taking the higher maths paper and there were only about five of us. The school hall was set up to accommodate a regular sized exam, so it was full of tables and chairs in rows, and there was a weird atmosphere when we got there. Me and Jenny and John and I don't remember who the other two were. John was the undisputed maths genius of the year. He was just John the rest of the time, lanky, spotty, his voice had been mid-breaking for what seemed like forever, he wasn't popular but he wasn't picked on. He was part of the group. But everyone know he kicked ass at maths. The rest of us were just the people that were top in everything, we had no special aptitude for maths in particular.
We didn't hang out as a group, and it felt odd to have just us few together for an exam. Me and John weren't really friends. I don't mean we disliked each other, or even that we were in different friendship groups. We were in the same friendship group, we just... never really talked. I had a bit of a weird relationship with boys back then still anyway - they were kind of an alien species, and I mostly had crushes on them from afar - but I had a friendship of sorts with Chris and Nicky and Dave. We could talk about stuff sometimes, I walked home the same way as Chris and Dave sometimes, and me and Nicky even had long phone conversations. But me and John never clicked. He was painfully shy, which didn't help. He was friends with Jenny though, they hung out all the time. And I still hung out with Jenny quite a bit then too. So sometimes the three of us would hang out. But somehow it was still me hanging out with Jenny, and John hanging out with Jenny. Just at the same time.
So it's the day of the maths exam and we're in the room between the cafeteria and the hall, where the cubby holes and coat-hooks are, putting away our bags and getting out our calculators and pencil cases. I wasn't really well prepared - organisation wasn't my strong suit. Nor was pretty much anyone. We'd had so many exams over that week we'd gotten kind of blase about them. I had writing implements and my calculator. I might have had a pair of compasses? Not sure.
The time came, and we filed in in silence, John first, then me and then the others. They'd placed the papers on a single column of tables by the exit. It didn't feel like a real exam, given how few of us there were, and the teachers weren't really treating it as one either. They told us no talking, no mobiles, but didn't bother with the spiel, just let us sit down and get on with it.
So we did. And halfway through I hit the question that required a protractor. We never needed a protractor. It just didn't come up. Ever. But bam, there it was. So I left it for the time being and moved on. I was about three quarters of the way through when I heard my name whispered and looked up to see John looking back at me. He looked back to the front and then nonchalantly passed his protractor back to me.
The teachers weren't paying attention, and christ, we were hardly cheating anyway, but it FELT like such a huge deal. They made a huge fuss out of telling us ANY communication would lead to being failed not just for that exam, but ALL of your exams, just in case you'd cheated in them too. And it just didn't seem like John to take a risk like that, especially not in maths, and especially not for me.
I took the protractor. I used it. I passed it backwards. It travelled down the whole group, as no one but John had remembered to bring one. I don't know if the teachers saw but didn't care, or if we were sufficiently sneaky about it. But not a word was said.
I just remember that feeling of suddenly being linked. We were now a group. It was pretty fucking rare at that point for me to feel properly part of a group, not just tolerated, not the outsider. We were all in it together. And John made us that group, and made me part of it. And that meant a quite disproportionate amount to me, so much so that I still feel happy when I remember it. Hell, so much so that I still remember it, despite my sieve-like memory, despite not knowing what I got in that exam, despite having had to piece together all the external pieces of where it was and why and what was happening.
It's just one of the moments that mean nothing and a great deal all at once, so I thought I would share it with you all.
Monday 13 August 2012
Sorry for lack of updates. I've had ideas for posts sometimes but haven't been able to put any words down.
I was remarkably stable for a few weeks - not entirely sure how long, but much longer than usual. Definitely doing the best I've done in a long time. Kept my flat relatively tidy (by my standards), was getting up and getting dressed most days, wasn't having suicidal dips or intrusive thoughts about self harm. So it was good timing to get the letter through saying I've been found fit for work.
Well, I suppose there's no good time to get that letter, but it could have arrived at a much worse time. As it was I was upset and angry, I cried and I ranted, but I didn't sink into despair like I would have done a couple of months ago. I managed to research appeals, rang and requested the form and the report and requested a reconsideration, and began filling it out.
I think it might have disturbed the stability I'd achieved though - my mood dropped over the following week. Still not as badly as it's done before, but I was tearful a lot - not over the ESA decision, other things. Mostly over missing my ex - we've been broken up nearly a year, but it was a four year relationship and we were very serious - we were trying for a baby just before everything went wrong. I think it was for the best we broke up, and we've remained friends to some extent, but sometimes I just miss him like crazy. Over the past week I've found myself weeping pretty much out of nowhere over missing him at least four times now. I think that's less about missing him and more about my mood dropping though - I would be weeping over something else if it wasn't him probably. Anyway, things have been less good. The flat had started to get messy anyway for Reasons, and over the past week my ability to tidy up seems to have disappeared and it's turned into a pigsty. My ability to do anything productive seems to have vanished. The urge to self harm came back. My self esteem dropped - I realized that I didn't understand how anyone could actively like me - I mean, I could be convenient, I could listen when someone needs to talk, and I can be not-unpleasant to be around, but I'm not actually interesting or funny like other people, there's no substance to me. Mostly people stay around because they pity me because I'm crazy now. There's no way my ex could miss me because there's nothing to miss. I managed to identify this and that it sounded like crazies, but at the same time I couldn't find a way to believe it wasn't true.
Today though I seem to have come up - I've been in a somewhat silly mood. Still not able to do anything *productive* really, but very excitable and enthusiastic about other things, pissing about on the internet and putting lots of ALLCAPS POSTS ZOMG and talking SO MUCH and faster and singing silly songs even though we were in public and so on. My pain and fatigue are still flaring though, which has put a lid on it somewhat. I wanted to skip and pull my boyfriend along by the hand and dance around like a mad thing and talk about all the things but I hurt too much and now I'm lying down resting and I feel very tired and I have a headache and I've calmed down some.
Again, not nearly as bad as it gets, and my brain feels fast but not really racing and tangled yet. It's still at that kinda nice stage. Although I'm a bit concerned about tonight - I've got a game with friends (Serenity roleplay) and I know I'm going to be silly and unable to concentrate and won't take things seriously and the gm will get annoyed with me :/ Pain makes concentrating difficult *anyway*, this really won't help.
Ah well, see how it goes.
I was remarkably stable for a few weeks - not entirely sure how long, but much longer than usual. Definitely doing the best I've done in a long time. Kept my flat relatively tidy (by my standards), was getting up and getting dressed most days, wasn't having suicidal dips or intrusive thoughts about self harm. So it was good timing to get the letter through saying I've been found fit for work.
Well, I suppose there's no good time to get that letter, but it could have arrived at a much worse time. As it was I was upset and angry, I cried and I ranted, but I didn't sink into despair like I would have done a couple of months ago. I managed to research appeals, rang and requested the form and the report and requested a reconsideration, and began filling it out.
I think it might have disturbed the stability I'd achieved though - my mood dropped over the following week. Still not as badly as it's done before, but I was tearful a lot - not over the ESA decision, other things. Mostly over missing my ex - we've been broken up nearly a year, but it was a four year relationship and we were very serious - we were trying for a baby just before everything went wrong. I think it was for the best we broke up, and we've remained friends to some extent, but sometimes I just miss him like crazy. Over the past week I've found myself weeping pretty much out of nowhere over missing him at least four times now. I think that's less about missing him and more about my mood dropping though - I would be weeping over something else if it wasn't him probably. Anyway, things have been less good. The flat had started to get messy anyway for Reasons, and over the past week my ability to tidy up seems to have disappeared and it's turned into a pigsty. My ability to do anything productive seems to have vanished. The urge to self harm came back. My self esteem dropped - I realized that I didn't understand how anyone could actively like me - I mean, I could be convenient, I could listen when someone needs to talk, and I can be not-unpleasant to be around, but I'm not actually interesting or funny like other people, there's no substance to me. Mostly people stay around because they pity me because I'm crazy now. There's no way my ex could miss me because there's nothing to miss. I managed to identify this and that it sounded like crazies, but at the same time I couldn't find a way to believe it wasn't true.
Today though I seem to have come up - I've been in a somewhat silly mood. Still not able to do anything *productive* really, but very excitable and enthusiastic about other things, pissing about on the internet and putting lots of ALLCAPS POSTS ZOMG and talking SO MUCH and faster and singing silly songs even though we were in public and so on. My pain and fatigue are still flaring though, which has put a lid on it somewhat. I wanted to skip and pull my boyfriend along by the hand and dance around like a mad thing and talk about all the things but I hurt too much and now I'm lying down resting and I feel very tired and I have a headache and I've calmed down some.
Again, not nearly as bad as it gets, and my brain feels fast but not really racing and tangled yet. It's still at that kinda nice stage. Although I'm a bit concerned about tonight - I've got a game with friends (Serenity roleplay) and I know I'm going to be silly and unable to concentrate and won't take things seriously and the gm will get annoyed with me :/ Pain makes concentrating difficult *anyway*, this really won't help.
Ah well, see how it goes.
Thursday 2 August 2012
Kicked off ESA
So the letter finally turned up. I have been awarded either 6 or 0 points, depending on where in the letter you read (it contradicts itself), and found fit for work and my benefit stopped.
I raged and cried and raged some more and then I wrote a song. It's dedicated to the DWP, ATOS and the Tories.
It's called 'Fuckweasels'
(And yes, I will be appealing - the list of reasons included lots of blatant lies that directly contradict the evidence I provided and the answers I gave to the assessor.)
I raged and cried and raged some more and then I wrote a song. It's dedicated to the DWP, ATOS and the Tories.
It's called 'Fuckweasels'
(And yes, I will be appealing - the list of reasons included lots of blatant lies that directly contradict the evidence I provided and the answers I gave to the assessor.)
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