I’ve got cabin fever

We are 10 days into the snow. There has been no let up. I cleared the drive on Thursday so that I could get out of the house for a wee while. Two hours later and all the snow was cleared and I could finally taste freedom. It was short-lived however, as it snowed hard again overnight and the car was stuck again. On Friday I knew I had worked hard to clear all the snow, as my legs and back were really stiff.

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My care co-ordinator was off work on Tuesday and we had a telephone consultation on Wednesday. I am worried now that she won’t be able to make it out this Wednesday coming. Once again my Borderline Personality Disorder clicks into place. She has only been working with me for a few weeks and there is already an attachment. This is part of the condition I really dislike. She is a nice person, but my head will make her into someone who for a while I will depend on. Then something will happen, like she needs to miss an appointment and I will hate her. While I’m not at that stage at the moment I know it will happen. It has happened all my life since I was a teenager, I cannot control the intense feelings I get and I put people on pedestals. They simply cannot live up to the ideals that I set. Then when they don’t I get angry and confused. I try not to let this happen but it does and I end up feeling cross at myself.

I went to the doctors on Thursday and I have a sinus and throat infection. I feel really awful and am on antibiotics. I just want to sleep all the time, but as a single parent with three energetic girls its simply not possible. I’ve got my operation in just over a weeks time and I need to be better before that. I still haven’t organised help through that week and really need to sort it out next week or else I’ll be up the creek without a paddle.

Its coming up to the anniversary of my ex-husband walking out on the girls. We had already been separated for 2 years when he decided that he “wanted a life” and walked away from the girls. On Christmas Day it will be 6 years since he saw them. The hurt that we go through each year is hard to describe. My middle daughter enters a period of grief just before Christmas which lasts long into the New Year, and I find it very difficult to celebrate a day which broke my heart. I would never have believed that he could walk away from his daughters. If I had been as strong as I am now I wouldn’t have let him walk away. I still don’t know how he can live without them in his life. The very thought of that makes me feel sick. My girls are my reason to keep going at times, they make each day worth the effort. The spur me on. As the song goes “they raise me up, to more than I can be!”

So the joy that Christmas brings, for us as a Christian family, is also tinged with grief, that someone is missing from it all. He has a new family now, a new wife and her teenage children, but I often wonder if he sits and thinks about his girls, wonder if he misses them, wonder if his “life” really is complete without them in it. I know my life wouldn’t be.

Christmas, however, is still coming. I see the excitement in the little one’s face. Her joy at the snow, her delight in the Christmas lights, her letter to Santa was simple and asked for only a few presents. The older ones wanted more expensive gifts which I have tried my best to get for them. For me the joy of Christmas is in seeing my children happy, in seeing them participate in the nativity at Church, in making Christingle with members of our Church, with spending Christmas with my mum and dad, with having my brother home from University.

I try to focus on that time, and not on the hard times that Christmas brings, the memories of the past, the financial pressures, the demand to have a “perfect” Christmas according to tv adverts. I hope that this year we have a peaceful and contented Christmas.

one step at a time

Its been snowing for a week here now and there doesn’t seem to be any let up. The car is stuck on the drive and we’ve been using the bus to get to school and back. The temperature is breathtaking whenever the warmth of the house is breached, and this morning seemed to be colder than ever. Tomorrow is predicted to get as low as -6 with more snow predicted.

I feel trapped in the house. Without the car to rely on I don’t feel like I can go anywhere. The school run on the bus is awful. I really find it difficult to deal with the amount of people on the bus at the moment. When I have the children with me it’s easier, I can manage by focusing on them. When I am alone I feel panicky until I get back off the bus. I have to try to focus on as small a space as possible so I am not aware of the people around me. I can still feel my breathing getting faster and the panic rising inside me. I get the overwhelming feeling that I just want to get off the bus, out of the situation but I really have to fight that. Each completed trip on the bus feels like a small victory. Then I get back from the school run and find myself locked in the house until it’s time to pick the girls up again. It feels incredibly lonely at times.

I did manage to make a quick trip to weight watchers on monday, straight in, got weighed and then straight back home again, but I was thrilled to lose 4lbs. I have also raised £66 in sponsorship money for mental health matters which amazed me. I feel like I am on a mission, not to just lose weight which is important to me, but to raise the money for the charity. I am so thankful to everyone who has sponsored me. The diet is going so well, it is easy when my head is into it.

The Department of Work and Pensions have changed my benefit from being paid weekly to being paid fortnightly. I hate being on benefit. I worry about what people think about me, whether I am a scrounging single mother? But I have a goal, I know where I want to be in a few years time, and that is off the dole and working hard to give something back.

However my condition of Borderline Personality Disorder doesn’t has an impact on my money handling skills. Changing from weekly to fortnightly payments has made this week hard. I have worked hard in the past 18 months or so to get my financial status better than it was. I was in a lot of debt from my divorce and I have been paying it back. But I still have to work hard to keep my money in check.

The benefits agency don’t understand that some of their clients (for want of a better word) have trouble with money handling and budgeting and that fortnightly payments just make things harder. It’s something I am going to work hard on so that I can get used to it, and not let it stress me out.

My rent and some other bills went out today and I don’t have much left until monday. We have enough food to keep us going, but nothing left for anything else. It’s hard to not be able to treat the kids to things, but the older two understand. The little one doesn’t understand so much but there isn’t much I can do about that. Sweets are off the menu until next week now. But at least we have heat. I used to be on a key card meter in my last house and it was terrible. Once the gas was gone it was gone and in conditions like we have had this week I would have put at least £30-£40 on the card to keep us going and still not had the heating on during the day when the girls were at school. It’s madness that in this day and age people have to sit in the freezing cold through the day, scared to put the heating on regardless of how old they are.

Now at least I can spread the payments for the gas over the month and I can put the heating on for a little while when they aren’t here and not worry about not having any gas for the girls. It’s been cold enough to trigger the cold weather payment system and so I will get £25 from the Benefits agency which will go straight to the gas company as soon as I get it to cover what I have used.

At the moment I feel a like I am slipping down a little bit. But I’m just taking it one step at a time. Taking each day as it comes. That’s all I can do. Try and focus on the little things I have achieved each day and not on the negativity and doubts that enter my head.

Blooming crazy!

My doctor has put me back onto monthly prescriptions following my recent wobble with reality, when I was only allowed a week’s worth of tablets at once just in case…..well you know. I take two antidepressants a day, both Venlafaxine but one is a 37.5mg tablet and the other is a 225mg tablet, as my GP was trying to bring my dosage down before my wobble.

So I had to go last night and pick up my prescription from the doctors and get it filled at the chemist. However, despite me regularly getting my tablets there they didn’t have my 225mg dosage but could get them by monday. Unfortunately I needed them for today and so I said I would try another chemist. So off I went to the local supermarket where they have an in-store chemist. But they had none of the right dosage of tablets in there either! Apparently 225mg of Venlafaxine is an unusual dose so I was told. Ho hum, I thought! I will get them in the morning.

So this morning I woke up, saw the lovely (sarcastic) snow outside and promptly spent nearly 30 minutes defrosting my car. So off I went to the chemist and handed over my prescription to be told “Oh we don’t have the 225mg dosage why not try the chemist around the corner?” So I tramped off, in the snow to the chemist round the corner. Which was shut! Grrrr! So was the next, and the next!

So I thought, Oh there is a chemist on the local retail park, and its a Boots too, they should have it! So off I drove to the retail park, which despite the snow was still thronging with people. The car park was filled with people who decide that doing a 3 point turn when there is a queue of people trying to go in the other direction is a great idea, or that signs that say “Please do not park here” don’t apply to them, hence making the area less of a car park and more like something off “It’s a knockout!”

When I finally managed to get a space I went into Boots and walked to the back of the warehouse I mean store to hand in my prescription. Why Boots have the actual chemist part at the very back of the store always mystifies me. It’s supposed to be a chemist isn’t it? I guess not. Well you wouldn’t have thought it anyway as the rest of the shop was heaving but the actual chemist part was deserted.

Anyway, I was told “Hmmm this is an unusual dose, we don’t have any of it here.” Great! So I said “I have tried a few chemists now, this is my normal dose, why can’t I get it, it’s not that unusual is it?” to which I was told “You should have tried to get it earlier yesterday”. Well yes, I should have. But the point is I am travelling all over the North East, and I’ve never had problems getting this medication before. I asked if they could phone other Boot’s chemists and ask if they had it in stock and was told “No, we don’t have time to do that”. I made a point of looking for the non-existant queue of people desperately trying to get their medication, but the pharmacist and his assistant didn’t appreciate my attempt at humour.

So off I went again, into the snow and drove to the last remaining chemist that I knew of in my town. Walking in I wearily plonked the prescription down on the counter and said “Please, please have this medication in, as I don’t know what I will do if you don’t have it!”

The good luck fairy must have been looking out for me, because although they couldn’t fill my prescription they had 15 of the tablets. I didn’t know whether I should kiss the pharmacist or not. I had been out for an hour and a half, driven almost 14 miles while only ever being about 2 from where I live, risked my sanity in the car park of the permanently bewildered and found out that my tablets are not that common.

I know that chemists can’t stock all the tablets that everyone requires, but it seems mad that patients have to go on treasure hunts to be able to find the tablets that they need. Had this happened a couple of weeks ago then I would have been up the creek without a paddle, as I was in no fit state to be driving around. How are people without transportation expected to be able to source their medication, especially when they are on weekly prescriptions for their own safety?

When I got home I sat and looked at the medium sized white tablet in my hand, the tablet that keeps me going, the tablet that without which I get a feeling of vertigo and lightheadedness, and wondered why I had to go to such lengths to be able to get it. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t been able to get hold of the medication.

cold, cold, cold

It started snowing last night, much to the girls’ delight, and my dismay. I hate the snow and ice. When I was 18 I slipped on some ice and broke my scaphoid bone in my wrist, which left me in some pain for quite a while. Since then I have never been confident in the snow, and anyone who knows me well will tell you that even if there is nothing to fall over I am guaranteed to take a tumble.

Last night seemed to last forever. I started to watch the Ashes, and immediately wished I hadn’t bothered as Strauss was bowled out after 3 balls. I decided to go to bed not long after that, but could I get to sleep? Could I heck! I got up at about 1.45am and saw the last 15 minutes of the first session before going back up to bed to try again to sleep, but just managed to watch the clock move from the 2am’s to the 4am’s. My care co-ordinator has told me about a system of relaxation called “Mindfulness” however it’s wasn’t that easy when my cat, Groucho, lying in his premium position at the foot of my bed started snoring.

I nearly got up at 4am to just stay up, but must have fallen asleep not long after that, as the next thing I knew I was having a horrible nightmare, where I fell when I was running up the stairs, split my lips open and knocked a tooth out. I can remember me standing over the sink in the bathroom watching the blood pooling in it. It was weird though, because I knew I was dreaming but just couldn’t wake myself up. I hate dreams like that, I always wake up with a headache when I have stressful dreams and this morning proved no exception.

When the alarm went off (Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day”) I could hardly open my eyes. I felt like the gritters which should have been out sorting the roads had basically dumped their load in my eyes. I grabbed a Lemsip drink as I can feel a cold coming on while the little one spent about 15 minutes just staring out of the window singing Christmas Carols with most of the right words, some of which were in the right order and none of the high notes hit correctly but hey, whose reviewing her eh? It’s amazing seeing things through a five year old’s eyes at times, snow is so exciting for her, puddles still hold a fascination, piles of rustling leaves in the autumn are put there for her to jump in.

The older girls had their usual morning argument about who’s shoes were who’s, who could use the hairbrush first and accusations of a jacket being moved, only for it to turn up where it had been left! Being a mother is sometimes more like being a referee than a parent, and I am thinking of joining the Scottish ref’s on their picket line at the weekend.

Groucho and Chico did their usual morning chorus for the kibbles, while trying to knot themselves around my legs. I went and de-iced the car while the older girls did the important morning things. Once hair was straightened, foundation was applied, teeth were briefly introduced to the toothbrush, and the mirror was checked for a final time, I finally managed to get my two older one’s into the car. Meanwhile the little one was wrapped up like the child in “A Christmas Story” and hopefully she will have regained the use of her arms once unwrapped from all the layers.

Then it was the fun and games of trying to get the girls to their school. Even with my 4×4 getting off the drive was a challenge. The radio reported a crash on the A1 road, with tailbacks of nearly 20 miles, and drivers on another road talking about taking 2 hours to drive 9 miles! It took me about half an hour to drive the couple of miles to the girls’ schools, before I had to go to the hospital for my pre-operation assessment, for an operation in 2 weeks time.

The usual questions were asked, blood pressure was taken (122/57), height (which hasn’t changed since I was 17) and weight (which is down by 8kg since August) recorded , peak flow meter test done (325 whatever it’s measured in), ECG, pulse (88), urine test (who the heck knows, it looked like wee to me). I was informed that I would go in at mid-day on the 13th of December and hopefully be back home that night, although the Sister did say don’t count on it, and make sure you bring some overnight stuff with you. I don’t like the sound of that, as my mam is away in Northampton until the next day and I don’t really want to ask my dad to have to come and stay overnight with the girls as I know how badly it affects his back.

Mentally I am feeling quite calm at the moment. This is what I like my life like, nothing massively marvellous to crow about, just steady. Little blips I can deal with. It’s like surfing to be honest. The waves are always there, sometimes you have a calm sea and its ok, and not a lot of effort is needed to get through. When I struggle it feels like there are huge waves crashing over me and it’s a real effort to keep my head above water. But hey, lets not complain eh? I don’t mind the calm seas, I just want to be able to sleep a bit better but on the whole things are going well again.

Oh yes, I’m definitely back.

It wasn’t that long ago that I felt like I was in the depths of despair. At that time my life was black, gloomy, washed out and faded. Everything took a lot of effort, everything was so tiring and a lot of the time the motivation to do anything had abandoned me. Now I feel like the colour is coming back into my life, I’m listening to music more, I’m able to concentrate to read fiction, I want to spend time with the children. It’s so hard when the depression strikes as, although I love my girls beyond belief, I find it so difficult to be a parent and find that I just want to be anywhere but with the children. That is heartbreaking for me to admit, I have never stopped loving my girls but I can’t even live with myself when I am ill.

I got a letter from the First line Social Worker who has been involved with the family since September this morning. Basically it had her assessment in it, and she says there are no concerns about my girls and that she thinks we are working well as a family. That was such a boost to my confidence. My girls and our family unit is so important.

I am so bored at the moment. I can’t get into the TLS course and I really think that the method of study is not working for me at the moment. Having an open learning method is something I have done before with Open University, but there was more student support. I have signed up to go to “regular” college in January and I am looking forward to that, so I think it might be the best idea if I drop my TLS studies. I don’t feel as if it is a failure, as I didn’t expect to be as poorly, physically and mentally, as I was when I signed up for the course.

I really can’t wait to go to college. I feel like it will be a proper new start for me. I have a goal in my life, and I really want to go for that. At 36 I feel like I really do know what I want to do when I grow up and that makes me feel excited. I know what I have to do to get to where I want to be, and so I have to focus on that.

I have also started up a Just Giving page. I realise that I need to lose a serious amount of weight, but that sometimes my motivation and willpower aren’t the best. So I decided that I am going to try to raise some money for a charity and hope that this will boost my efforts. The charity is Mental Health Matters (www.mentalhealthmatters.com) and I have used them before as they run an out of hours help line which you can call if you are feeling as if things aren’t going too well. They also cover support for other aspects of people with mental health problems’ lives. My Just Giving page can be found at http://www.justgiving.com/diane-pringle and I hope to raise £1000 by next Christmas.  I was weighed at Weightwatchers this morning and will report back on how I’m doing.

I am going out on Thursday night with my friend Sheena. We are going to see a band at a local bar and it will be lovely to have a girls night out. I know that the drinking will not be a problem, I know I will have a fantastic time and alcohol doesn’t have to be any part of that. Even though I am looking forward to going out and I will enjoy it I know that I will be uncertain about going out when Thursday comes. It’s not that I don’t want to go out, but sometimes anxiety hits. I just have to remember that if I succumb to the feelings that the Borderline Personality Disorder is then winning and I am not going to let that happen. I have suffered from mild agoraphobia in the past, and it’s awful. So I need to keep myself going out so that I can feel like I am not trapped in the house.

So life is looking a lot more like normal now and that is what I want, nothing spectacular, just middle of the road so that I can cope with it.

New challenges

I went to see my GP this morning as she had asked me to go back after my last appointment. I was so pleased to be able to compare myself to the last time I saw her, when I was tearful, despondent and couldn’t see any further than 15 minutes in the future. That place seems so far away even though it was only 2 weeks ago. I was so pleased when my GP agreed that I could go back to getting monthly prescriptions instead of having to get them weekly. That feels like I am trusted with my medication again, and that the GP doesn’t feel like I’m a risk to myself.

I think that Borderline Personality Disorder would be better named Emotional Instability Disorder. I really find that heightened emotions or stressful situations push me into a condition where I cannot cope with day to day life as easily. My GP said that the physical illness and the stress of being in so much pain was most probably the trigger of this recent episode and I would agree.

Physically I am feeling so much better. I think I expected to feel physically fit 2 hours after coming out of surgery. Now I am 4 weeks on from my operation I realise that it has taken all this time to get me feeling back to myself physically. I am no longer on Tramadol or paracetamol, where as 10 days ago I was still on 4 doses of Tramadol a day with paracetamol too.

Mentally I would say that I have 2 good days and then 1 harder day. But that is great. I can cope with that. The darkness is still in the background but each day it is fading, and each day I am achieving a little bit more. Tonight I am going to take the girls to see the local radio station turn on our Christmas lights, something that I am looking forward to, rather than fearing. The panic of going out is fading, I went to a Church party last night which I really enjoyed and was engaged in, rather than sitting and watching it go on around me. Going shopping is easier for me too, I definitely don’t feel that anxiety as much.

I am so thankful that I have the people around me to support me. Not just my friends, who have been brilliant and have been there for me 100%, but having a new care co-ordinator who I feel good about having around, the girls are working with the young carer’s programme which is great for them to have time out from looking after me, and we have a social worker who is in the background but is there. Probably one of the most important people who has helped me is the Pastoral Carer at my youngest daughter’s school. She sees it just as her job I guess but she has helped us out so much and got so much into place for us. It’s hard to express how much she has done for us to help us keep going as a family. People like her are invaluable and really go unsung.

Now that this latest episode is coming to an end I am looking to the future. The TLS course that I signed up to do is still in place for the next two years at least but as it is part time I have also signed up to go to Newcastle College from January to do HEFC’s (Higher Educational Foundation Course) so that I can go to University in 2012. I am starting out with Quantitive Methods, which I am told is a fancy title for Maths that you use in the workplace. I am really looking forward to that. It will be good to go out each week and have a regular routine, and to be with other people. Even though I know I will be anxious before I start I know it will be worth it, as I have a goal in mind.

I have also decided to really get a grip on my weight. I really need to lose a lot of weight and have decided to make a real challenge to myself. So I am going to set up a just giving page and get people to sponsor me to lose weight. I think it will give me the motivation and incentive to really get the weight off, and I know that the fact that I am overweight brings me down a lot, so it can only help my physical and mental health.

 

 

Hello me, nice to see you again!

After 3 and a half months someone I have been missing desperately walked back into my life, ME! Yesterday afternoon I realised that I was getting frustrated with my brain fuggieness that has dominated me since August. Brain fugginess is my way of explaining what it actually feels like in my head when I am not doing so great. My thoughts become slow and turgid. My memory goes, meaning that I rely on lists and diaries to keep me on track for everything, and by everything I mean just about EVERYTHING. Words get lost in the middle of sentences for me, when I am speaking I find that I am trying to explain something and my mind just goes blank. When the depression is really bad I don’t even notice too much or if I do notice I don’t really care. But yesterday I was getting seriously hacked off with the fuggieness and that is a good sign. It means that the proper me, the me that functions properly is coming back and is not tolerating the slow, clumsy me.

The first sign of me coming back was on Friday when I made an appointment to go to the hairdressers to get my hair cut, as it was getting longer and needed sorted. I had made a couple of appointments since I got home from hospital, but had ended up cancelling them all as I felt unable to leave the house when the time came to go out to get to the shop. But this time I was out, had my hair cut and was back before I even thought about it. Then when I got back the gel came out and I got my usual spiky punk-girl look back. When I looked in the mirror it was as if I had changed in the half hour I had been to the hairdressers. The tired, strange person who had been with me for the past few months was fading.

Then on monday I went and had a tattoo done. It’s one I have wanted done for a long time and something that symbolises the brightness and colourfulness coming back into my life after the dark spell I have been through. I was going to get it done earlier in the year but now I am pleased that I waited as the time was right, and Hash at Northside Tattooz was definitely the right artist to do the work. The brightness and boldness of the tattoo reflects me coming back to the place I am getting back to.

While I was sitting having the tattoo done it made me remember the self-harming I used to do. I had to think really hard about whether I was being tattooed to scratch a self-harm itch, but after spending several minutes thinking about it I realised that although the sensation of being tattooed did release endorphins like the cutting had, I wasn’t motivated to get the tattoo for the endorphins, it was the tattoo I wanted.

I am so pleased to be coming back to myself. Borderline Personality Disorder for me means that I haven’t learned to cope with my emotions well. I am emotionally unstable, so feelings such as grief, anger, anxiety, loneliness, happiness or boredom are magnified for me, and I don’t know how to cope with them. They are scary, even good feelings are scary as they feel so intense.

The alcoholism was a tool that I used to cope with feelings. The alcohol would numb me, and so any emotions were dulled. To be honest all I felt when I was drinking was either drunk or hung over. The sharpness and clarity of life was fuzzed up by the alcohol. Now I love the clarity, and feel uncomfortable when its gone. The self-harm was also another tool I used when I felt out of control. I hate feeling like I’ve lost control and at the time of self-harming it would feel like the one thing I could hold on to. Now I realise that cutting solves absolutely nothing, and leaves you with nothing but scars.

I read a really interesting blog about depression and sport and it really struck a chord with me.

http://inbedwithmaradona.com/black-wings/

There are people from all walks of life who have mental illness, and who cannot cope with what the illness does to them. I have been on that path, I know that without the strength and support of some very important people in my life I could so easily not be here. God has kept me going at times when I have felt so alone. Even in my blackest, most desperate times I know that God is with me, supporting me, carrying me if I need it. Through prayer and meditation I have been kept away from the brink. I know not everyone who reads this believes in God, but having Him in my life means an awful lot to me.

So ultimately I feel brighter. I feel like the dark, bleak tunnel I have been walking through, one step at at time, and which has felt never ending, has suddenly turned a corner and the chink of light that I could see is getting bigger, brighter and closer with each step.