Christmas Time

Well, I havent been terribly good at blogging over the past few weeks. In truth I've been deathly depressed and just havent had the energy for it. Despite my dreadful moods life has been going along kind of ok. Mum is continuing to get better and nothing has gone especially wrong. Ive been listeniong to lectures and reading. Got some wonderful books for christmas. A history of egypt, a history of the french revolution, a sort of biography of hetshepsut and empress orchid - yay for books :).

I managed to weird[1] myself out a week ago. I was so sick of taking psychiatric meds I stopped taking them. Bad idea. I got better when I started taking my pills again.

Had a lovely experience as I was walking up to waitrose. I saw myself reflected in the window and not recognising myself thought that I was (really huge) woman. :)

I think that I'm improving again. I hate these mood swings.


[1] Mad.

All a go-go

Alex is still home :) and there has been a lot of cleaning going on. He is inhuman with the amount of work that he does. I am also inhuman, but some kind of giant sloth rather than a gazelle or bee.

I think that I am less depressed than I was yesterday which must mean that \I am comming out of it.

I think that Ruths friends have been on at her not to speak to me so much again. No evidence for this, its just a feeling. I really dislike her friends.

I went to abergavenny yesturday, whilst I did get a bit weird it wasnt too bad. I might go again soon.

I really hate being depressed.

Blogging seems to help

I'm a little calmer now after writing down my feelings in my last post. Maybe keeping this blog really is a good idea after all.

Depressed Again

Oh god I'm a nut case.
I was having a hectic, but good, day. I had to take mum from one shop to another which was hard but I coped.

I think that it was the timing more than anything that got me. I was still recovering from the trip into town when mum decided to get shouty and angry about the kitchen. Stress and fear. I was safe at home be I still flipped out into the loony land where everyone wants to kill me.

I wanted to cut. So badly I wanted to slice open my wrists and bleed to death. The risperidone was/is doing its job. It is keeping away the voices, just barely though.

My head aches, my body aches. Flu with suicide thats what my depression is. I hate the drunken, hyper feeling that I sometimes get but it is so much better than this. I cannot possibly bear this for much longer.

The feeling, it will pass. I know it. I'm crying now. I was almost happy earlier. Fuck ! Its painful.

Its almost convenient. I have to go to the doctors tomorrow for pills and another sick note. Just when I was starting to feel like I was skiving I get knocked down like this. I'm still not well am I? Im still pretty mental.

Returned

Mum has been back for a couple of days now and it is going well. She needs me to do some things for her like cooking and shopping but she isnt calling me every five minutes and she isnt being angry, both of which I was afraid of.

I have a new computer, well, a second hand computer. My friend Bryan has just himself a whole new PC and has given me his old one. Its sooo fast. Its wonderful. Yay. Bryan is such a wonderful person, all my friends are.

Got a bit stressed out and paranoid today whilst shopping in Asda. It was the ususal kind of thing, confusion, anxiety and thinking that people are watching me/planning to hurt me. Just like the last time I found that making an intense effort to concentrate on my shopping helped me through the experience.

I helped a woman rescue her money that had blown out of her hand and was scattered across the car park - it was apparently all found. I have never seen anything as strange as £200 just being blown away in the wind.

I have been listening to Memoirs of a Geisha - its wonderful. Such a beautiful and egrossing book.

As expected Lutja is now spending lots of time with mum and much less time with me. I think that I want her to get pregnant. If I had six cats then (by my calculations) I should be having continual cuddles :)


I found out that Ruth might be writing for the sheffield mental health magazine Your Voice again. How cool is that ?

Comming Home.

Mum is coming home today. I am to pick her up a two from tredegar hospital. I am so nervous. Will she start shouting? Will I be made to wait on her hand and foot? Its all selfish. When she was in hospital my only responsibility was to visit her now I have to be her carer.

Argh. Scared.

She is going to complain (and justly) about the state the house is in.

I hope that it will be calm.

Whoopsie

Oh dear, that last post was a little weird wasnt it?. Well I'm feeling better again now. I took my pills (better late than never) and now I'm me again.

AS I was saying it is looking very likly that I will need to go back to college to do a btec in health studies before going on to do a nursing course. The reason for this is my discovery that not all HCA jobs are linked to an NVQ and those that always do offer it seem to
demand six months experience...

Mum is comming home tomorrow. I am relieved but also apprehensive. Things could be very difficult.

I spent almost three hours on the phone with Ruth today. It has been so long since I last saw her. I miss her so much.

Take one twice daily

Oooh I have felt rough today. I forgot to take my pills this morning and I have really been feeling it. Silly me.

I've been doing more research and seems that I might need to go back to college before starting a nursing degree.

Colours and shapes everywhere

Little sachets of cappucino are yummy, yummy, yummy.

I feel drunk but I havent had any alchyhol, well, its better than being depressed I suppose.

My plans

I want to be a nurse. Ive been thinking about it for a couple of years now. I'm going to become a healthcare assistant, which will gain me the NVQ qualification needed to enroll on a nursing course. It seems like a realistic plan. My mental health status may be a problem in being allowed to work. The scars on my arm would provent me from wearing a short sleeved uniform. But I dont think that they are insuperable problems. I want to work as a psychiatric HCA, where uniforms arent needed and as long as I can stay well for the next few months I cant think why I shouldnt be allowed to work.

I've been looking at NHS job websites and there are very few positions being advertised locally so, after christmas I'll need to apply for every position that comes up, which will stop me from exactly planning when I will be returning to work. Thats a bit stressful for me buts not anything that I cant deal with.

I like having an ambition.

Electrical Disaster

This is really becomming, properly, too much for me.

As you may know I cant get the radiators to work - it is therefore fighteningly cold. This evening I, idiot that I am, decided to use fan heaters to at least make my room bearable.

All was well until half an hour ago when everything went dark and there was a smell of burning in the air.

*cries*

My brother had decided to put the bookcase directly in front of the wall sockets so, by scented candle-light, I had to move everything in order to get at them.

Fortunatly unplugging everything from the wall was enough to get the electricity to turn back on. but now - and this is what I really cant cope with - the room looks like the biggest explosion of hell that I have ever seen.

Why have things got to keep going wrong, I need things to be be calm for me. A few months ago I would have been blaming all that has been happening the demons as this kind of drip, drip, drip torture is just the kind of thing that they go in for.

Calm, calm, calm. Everything is actually all right. All that has changed is that the incredible mess has become an unbelievable mess and since when have I cared about messes?

There could have been a fire !!

Calm. Be calm.

I almost trod on little Lutja in the dark :(

I think I'm taking two sleeping pills with my anti-psychotic tonight.

ps
The I see that comment has been added and my heart lifes "ooh, someone loves me I think", but no it was spam.

And my tobacco just spilled everywhere.

I wish that Ruth would call, but its 1 in the morning so I guess that isnt very likly :(

Blame the Victim

I've been doing very little over the past few days, almost nothing in fact. So little have I done that I am bored. Bored, bored, bored.

A fightening incident happened at the house opposite Ruth's. A girl was attacked in her home. There was screaming, chasing through the street and police. Ruth, prompted by the girl's screams went outside to see if she could help. So brave ! I was really scared for her. That kind of violence, so close to her home, reminded me, quite forcefully that Ruth is living alone in not the safest part of sheffield. Ruth was quite shaken up the next day. She called me from work which shows how bad she was feeling.

Something that she noticed, that we found interesting, were the differences in peoples reactions as she told them about what had happened. The men diddnt seem to care or, when pressed for a comment, tried to dismiss the incident as not that serious. One of her friends even emphasised with the attacker, proclaiming that the girl must have been taking drugs or done something to provoke him. The habit of blaming the victim is one of the sickest and most sexist aspects of out society. I cannot understand the mentality that allows someone to hear about this incident and to then begin dismissing the reality of it. I find it shocking and we both found it very disturbing. In spite of being brought up as male there are still parts of the male psyche that frighten me and which I just fo not understand.

Its so cold. brrrr

Plumbing Disaster

Oh god the sink is completly f'ckd. I went down this morning to see what I could do. The sink was still full of water so I had to empty it with a bucket. Then, when I investigated the piperwork I found that one of the seals had completly come away - meaning that there was no sucking pulling the water away, so broken was it the i diddnt need to pull or unscrew it to pull it away from the joining pipe. Examining the pipe I saw that it was blocked up, but only for a second water began gushing out, covering me and the floor in filth. ARGH !. I did my best to cover it with my hand whilst i twisted the pipe so that it would discharge into a bucket.

With the pipes now definatly emptied of water i tried to fix the broken connection but when I tried it water would still not drain from the sink. Another geiser of water followed as I twisted the thoroughly broken pipe so that the water would flow into a bucket.

So now I am sitting in a house where the radiators dont work and where the sink's plumbing is effectivly a bucket. Cant afford to call out a plumber so I will just have to live with it until mum is out of hospital and she can get on to father who will then (probably) pay for the plumber.

I cant cope with all this.

*cries*

Low Down

I've been quite depressed for the past few days. Not as badly as I have been in the past and not badly enough to hurt myself but badly enough that I have been thinking a lot about sucicide.

I hate these mood swings. A few weeks ago I was suffering from intense, buzzing and drunken moods, somthing that I hated at the time but which, I realise now, was far, far preferable, even to the this realativly mild depression that I am experiencing.

Oh for a little stability in my psyche.

Alex, my brother was on tele last night. Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares. I felt so awful for him. I kept thinking that he was going to start crying (and I know I would have). Despite that though, it was still hugely exciting to see him on TV. I'm downloading the episode so that he can watch it when he comes back to visit in a few weeks.

Mum is practically better. Such a relief. She is still at Tredegar hospital whilst she waits for social services to fit a second bannistar to the stair (otherwise she is likly to fall down them). I am so relieved.

Ny tummy feels awful and by tummy I am euphamistically referring to my bowells. I think that the silly chinese food that I had tonight has caused me to spend far too much time at the toilet.

I have managed to completly block the kitchen sink. Tomorrow when, hopefully, the water in it will have drained away I will have no choice but to engage in a little plumbing work to try and fix it. My silly idea of filling the sink to the brim in the hope that the weight of water would unblock it was extremely unsuccsesful.

I'm about the make another hot water bottle (because the radiators are still broken - the house is falling to wrack and ruin under my tender care) and continue my search for stories of important women in history by listening to some lectures on four famouse medieval women.

Another Poem (Sorry)

Broken Promise

Silver ring
It hung about your neck
Clasped with black leather
Bathed in skin and sweat
It held your heart
It was your heart
The ring you were to give

One night drunk
We were joy
Together with trust and touch
You held my hand
And we wished for tomorrow and after
You took the silver and put it about my finger
Our skins
Then warm together
A piece of you upon my hand

I had you
I could not lose you
Always the touch of your heart
Silver ring
Upon my skin
Your promise for tomorrow and after

But tomorrow came
And today was dark
And tomorrow after was death
You took your ring
You clawed back your heart
You left a naked hand
The ring it went
With you away
To a place where thieves take hearts
And upon a stool beside a door
Your silver ring lays unregarded

Positive Thinking

...Is hard to do. I'd started to write an entry about my transsexualism, about how I felt like a failure, how I am so scared of the pressures and violence that come from attempting transition.

But I had to stop writing. Thinking too hard about transition and about my earlier falied attempts makes me wonder if it will ever be possible for me. I am scared that it might not be, I am terrified that I might always be as I am now. Thinking about failure (which is all I seem able to focus on) makes me intensly suicidal.

But ! I have a plan. Its a simple plan. Its plan of crossing bridges when I come to them. Right now my future in bullet points is.

Be able to cope with stress without going mad (almost there)
Get a job and lose weight.
Deal with problems once the first two are sorted.


Simple. Easy. Stress Free.

Anxious in Asda

Ooh I diddnt enjoy going to the supermarket today. It was so crowded and loud, I kept getting in people's way and I started to freak out. I was getting really paranoid, thinking that people wanted to kill me.
But I've had worse experiences, I diddnt hear any voices and I found that concentrating intently on my shopping that the paranoia and anxiety subsided to quite managable levels.

I think that the quantity of chocolate that I left with is indicative of the type of emotional shopping experience that I had hehe :)

Visiting and Noodles

I found writing the last couple of posts to be quite harrowing. I began to feel depressed again. I am better again now but it was a scrary little interlude. It was strange at first I thought that I was comming down with the flu and it wasnt until I found myself thinking about suicide that I realise what was wrong with me. In truth I am still quite low, not suicidally low, but not quite right either.

My aunt and uncle visited yesturday. It was a plesant visit, we watched little Lutja play and talked about mum. They were very encouraging about my plans to become a nurse - somthing that made me feel great.

ITs bloody cold. A few days ago I was unable to turn the radiators off and now I am unable to turn them on. I'm ok as I snuggle beneath a duvet and some blankets with a hot water bottle but I do worry about Lutja - she isnt used tot he cold. I keep encouraging her to come under the blankets with me like Buffy and Annie used to but she does not like being covered over.

Tonight I satifised a craving for MSG and noodles from the chinese take away. Yummy.

Hallucinations

Sarah made a comment asking, more or less, 'What are hallucinations?'. Id thought I'd expand my reply into a full post.

Hallucination are any fasr sensory input, hearing, seeing, smelling or feeling things that are not really there. But what have I experienced? Mostly voices but I have seen, smelled and felt things as well.

It first started about three years ago. I was extraordinarly depressed , stressed and self harming daily. I had recently started taking my first anti-depressant (prozac). The voices began simply as commands to die. They would sound as though they were being spoken by a person standing behind me. They worsened the commands to die, to hurt myself, descriptions of me as a fucker would occur almost every day. AS the symptoms worsened object such as dolls, and paintings, anything with a face, would begin to talk to me. They would talk to me in sentances, they would abuse me. I could nto be anywhere without something or someone telling me that I had to die. Ruth kept hiding away dolls from our house. Gradually the voice that I call my Devil appeared, she was different than the othersI could have a conversation with her, sometimes she would be comforting. She wanted me to kill myself but she diddnt abuse me as the others did. Eventually she became part of delusions that had me believing thta most people were demons disguised as humans that existed to torture me. She told me that she had been placed inside my head by the demons so that they could hear my thoughts and know how well their tortures were working. She told me that the only way I could escape from the tortures was to kill myself and even that would only grant me a few years of peace as I would be reborn in a differerent body.

I would hear continual crowd noises, a low level hub-bub of conversations that i beleived were those of the invisible demons that had not yet taken human form.

I remember once that the simpsons were on television and it took serveral moments for me to realise that homer simpson was telling me to kill myself.

The voices always sounded real, I can, mostly, distinguish them from reality but doing so requires conscious effort. Keeping myself behaving sane required unfathomably exhausting and constant effort on my part.

The first thing that I noticed when I began taking risperidone was just how quiet the world really was for I had grown used to the constant fin of noise in my life.

Its difficult to separate the experience of hallucinations from the delusional beliefs I developed. One afternoon my Devil was telling me that I had to decipher the message that was there for me in the Sky TV guide and by reading the guide I was convincved that I would not get better until I had travelled to Australia and found Aliens. It is also difficult to sperate what is a coincidence from what is really happening. I almost had major religous conversion when, in the middle of intoning "Why wont anyone help me" a Finding Faith In Christ advert came blaring out of the TV.

The experience of maddness (as described by Ruth) is being paraletically drunk at the first moment when you wake

The world, when I began taking risperidone, changed wonderfully. It ceased to be a crappy Hammer Horror and turned into the world or quiet normalcy.

I am so afraid of becomming unwell again.

Where I Live

Self Harm

I havent cut for eight months. I used to cut daily, daily and deeply. My arm, though healing, is a think mass of white scars. They are parmanent and I will never be able wear a short sleeved top.

The morass of emotion that I experienced before the act of harming can be described, fear, confusion, despare and, perhaps, some anticipation . All these feelings engulfed me with the intensity of boiling acid. I would be dissociating, living in a dream of myself, I would be hallucinating. I would take my razor blade and hold it with hatred and desire, I would cut into the skin of my arm and I would bleed. The blood would pool and trickle in patterns across my arm. There was never any scent and I always yearned for the visceral smell of blood to accomany my dance with the razor. Cutting was sometimes an extasy and I would sprawl across the bed in a stupor of sexual delight.

Five, ten, twenty minutes of cutting and the emotional tulmit would quieten itself. The hallucinations would stop and I would become again someone human. I would place my razor blade gently and secretly away. I would roll down the sleeve of my shirt and then I would rejoin the world.

Arrival On a Psychiatric Ward

I'd been trying to kill myself, three times over about a month. Two overdoses and one hanging.

Ruth was scared, she came to the house and began calling doctors. It was new years day so I had to go to the out of hours gp at hallamshire general hospital.

It was a strange appointment. I dont remewmber much of it . HE asked me about my suicide attempts and then left to make telephone calls.

Back at home and about an hour or two later the crisis intervention team arrived. There were two of them. They asked the same kind of questions as my gp, they wanted to look at the cuts on my arm. I told them that I would kill myself that night. They started to talk about hospital and then went outside to make telephone calls whilst I had to pack a bag of clothes.

They took ruth and I in their car through sheffield to a hospital. I followed them to a ward and was ushered into a room where I waiting with Ruth and cried.

I waited there for ages until at last I was seen by someone that asked me the same questions as the gp and the crisis team Then she lead, with gently but fixed smile to a bed. Then Ruth had to leave and I diddnt want her to go. I was so scared. I started crying again.

The people in the smoking room seemed happy to see me. They wanted to know why I was there "I keep trying to kill myself" I answered. They seemed a little dissapointed that I wasnt being held on a section.

Some time passed and I was given pills then I went to bed.


The entire day is difficult for me to remember, it is more a series of events without any context or emotions. I remember finding it diddifuclt to speak I couldnt express myself properly and people were always asking me to repeat myself. I remember being very concerned that had not eaten that day and then being taken to the kitchen where I took a tuna sandwidge. People kept talking to me but I diddnt really understand them. I was self conscious about my apperaance and was obsessed that I should be gracious and charming.

I wonder what It will be like the next time I am taken to hospital. I'm pretty sure that there will (eventually) be a next time.

End of Menopause

I have had a silly little habilt recently of running ot of ovysmen before I run out of androcur. Ovysmen is a combination estrogen/progesterone pill and androcur is something that stops me from making testosterone.

Consequently, for the past few days I have been without any kind of hormones at all and have been going through the menopause.

I can practically feel the lovely little estrogens coursing through my body. :)

Day of Hectitude

Oh what a day I had yesturday !

Drive, drive, drive, drive, drive all I did was drive. First to Cardiff to collect parts for my new PC. Then After getting home I couldnt get it to work. Panic, fear crying. Would I be able to restore my old little computer? I did but I was so scared to thought of life without a computer was too much for me.

During this I had been calling my friend Bryan (who had given me most of the bits) He said to bring it over and he would get it to work, which I'm sure he would have done but I was so relieved at this point to have any kind of working computer that I diddnt want to chance it.

Then it was decided that we should meet up in Brecon. Which ws wonderful It was so good to be with and talk to people again. We, Andrew, Bryan and Helen, were at Bryan's flat eating pizza, chatting and catching up - it was brilliant :).

Then later I had to drive all the way home again.

Such a busy day and today the health visitor is comming over to inspect the hose to see what changes can be made to help mother with her mobility so I have to do lots of tidying.

Locked Out.

Well... I was heading out to pick up my curry when, after firmly shutting the door I realised that I had forgotten my keys. Shiny !

It was dark and cold and I havent had to break into the house since I was a teenager - would I still be able to do it.

Eventually I managed it but it was much harder than I remember for I am not nearly so lithe and nimble as I once was.

What really amused me though was little Lutja's reaction to all of this. In ancient times certain breeds of cat would guard Egytian temples. My little one's reaction to the scary noises of someone breaking in was to run and peer down nervously from the top of stairs. What a fantastic guard-cat she is:)

Updated

The past few days have been calm for me. The only down side is that I have been feeling more and more lonely but even this has been a positive for it has encouraged me to start reaching out to people more to try and make new friends.

Mum is doing better. I havent hallucinated since the incident with the imaginary cat and even my edgyness has subsided.

I've put on a ton of weight since leaving hospital Its now completly undenable that I am obese but I not letting it get to me for I know that I can lose weight quite easily when I need to. I'm concentrating on avoiding stress and put my mental health back into order I can begin rebuilding my life (and apperance hehe) when I am once again ready to start facing the world properly.

I have to test today whether my computer's power supply is able to drive the new components that I have - this should be reasonably easy to do and if not then I can buy the correct kind of PSU when I go to pc world tomorrow to complete the purchases for my shiny new computer :))) I'm hoping that having a faster computer might encourage me to begin some graphics programming again as I really havent done any for years.

All in all things have improved for me, lets hope that they stay that way :)

Drunk

For the first time in many months I'm drunk, in fact this is the first time that I hace drunk at all since about june.

I have to be careful with drink. When I am ill I often get a sensation of being paraletically wasted which I find very unplesent but as long as I stay 'a little tipsy' I'll be fine and it should be fun.

I've found myself g4etting involved in other peoples blogs lately. I think its because I am so lonely where once I simply read I now comment.

Mother is doing better and so am I. I felt a little edgy this morning but nothing extreme. She is getting stronger, walking more easily and is generally improving.

Lutja and I played an exciting game of chase this morning. It was hiarious running around the house trying to escape from my kitten :)

Time for some alcho-pop I think :P

Annie Cat

Here is a picture of Anastasia. She was only with me for a few months (as I lost both her and Buffy when I was taken into hospital) but I loved her. She was such a special cat, she wanted cuddles, continuous cuddles. Ruth and I got her after she was rescued from a house where she was being kicked and starved.

I love my Annie.

Birthday Girl

*cries* ageing is an issue for me :)

I went with mum for her assesment to maindiff court mental hospital. Stressfull. She is being put on anti-D's .

I was out of it for most of the afternoon. The simplest way to describe what is happens is this state is that you are dreaming what is really happening to you. Its extremely uncomfortable and disorienting. I was trying to talk to Ruth on the phone and I couldnt distinguish between what I was thinking about saying and whaat I was actually saying, she diddnt seem to notice anything wrong and we managed to talk for almost an hour inspite of it hehe.

I treated myself to a scrummy curry from the take away. Yum :)

I'm old *cries*

Fear of an Imaginary Cat

I just got scared.

I woke this morning hearing a cat crying outside my window. I even saw it for a moment.

Tonight I started hearing it again so I went out to investigate. The trouble was that when I got down into the garden I coud hear the crying coming from all around me. I think it might not be real. I got scared and called Ruth which calmed me down.

I know that I have been feeling bad today, visiting mum in hospital was stressful. Driving back home the overwhelmeing feeling that I just couldnt cope any more, almost had me in tears. I've also been sleep deprived lately, as I try to get myself back into a day light and mornings routine.

I can ususally tell when something that I see or hear is an hallucination. Its rare that one hits me as indestinguishable from reality.

I think that I should just ignore any crying cat in the garden noises for the time being.

Why Feminism Matters.

I have a conceit that, maybe, because I am trans or because I am just an unusually keen observer of behaviour and of people that I am unusually well placed to observe the sometimes subtle misogyny and male privilege that infests our society.

Men (and often women) treat mean and women differently. They show men deference and respect women are subordinated in every interaction of consequence. Women's opinions are never first solicited when a man's is available. Even our built environment is designed for average male height and strength. Try accompanying a man to a shop or restaurant, who does the assistant attempt to serve first? Try reaching for an item from a desk or shelf, then watch as a man does the same thing. Pay attention to the patterns of conversation that you have with men then compare it to the conversations you have with women. How often are you the object of a joke? How often are you able to dissent from an opinion? How much to get to speak?

These behaviours are subtle and, in my experience, unnoticed until they are pointed out. Inequality is most easily expressed in statistics of violence, pay and employment but even if you have a job that pays well, even if you have not been subject to violence we are still forced into a societal role of domination or submissiveness, we are still being discriminated against, whatever sex you are.

How very myspace

I had a bad day today. Very bad. I diddnt hallucinate - for which I can thank my anti-crazy meds. But I wazs having every other symptom.

Its unbearable.

I had a good chat about it with Ruth and, together with a good lie dowen, she made me feel better. But it was hellish.

I am so afraid of this mental-health problem. It can fall upon with with hardly any warning and it is wrecking, it has wrecked, my life.

At least I recover quite quickly from the episodes now. A few months ago one would hit me and I would stay that way for days, weeks. No wonder I was trying to kill myself It really was the only sane reaction to what I go though.

Now I have to apologise. By way of explination Ruth has been doing a poetry course at Sheffield Uni. Consequently I have been listening to an awful lot of poetry lately. I know how insufferably lame and myspace'y amature blog poetry is but...

(I'm Sorry)

___Thoughts of Madness___

Pushing warmly upon
the bubbles of glass
That cover my thoughts
which show me the rain

Silk, dust and angels in my clouds
But for the pressure and violence of the Devils on my glass
Nectar and oils would wash across my gaze

But the Devil’s thoughts
They crack my glass
They join in the rain

Sight and insight
Once pure and gold
Now made rotten
By thoughts all wrong

Raining now with spite the Devil’s thoughts
Truth scattered upon my broken glass
Until the bubbles heal
As they always do
Thence to break again.

Nighttime

I'm becomming nocturnal. I diddnt go bed properly until half past five this morning. I sleep a little during the night as I fall asleep with my lecturers (as Ruth says). I love the teaching company courses but it messes with my sleeping patterns as the listen-to-just-one-more effect means that never go properly to bed :)

I wonder what I will listen to next.

Medieval Europe Crisis and renewal?
Something about the Incas?
An audio book of Gibbon's Decline and Fall

...The choice is so exciting

Knees

Perfectly encapsulating what it is like to be a cat's human this is supremely wonderful.

Hospital was terrible today . Mum is so depressed. She is in pain and can barelt walk. She believes that she "is on her way out". I wish that she would start getting better I cant cope with this pressure.

Holby City had me weaping like a baby tonight. Elliots wife went to switzerland to kill herself. Cry, cry, cry. I just wanted to call Ruth and tell her how helplessly and hopelessly sorry I am for all that I put her through when i was bad.

I've had loads of kitten cuddles today :)

Tredegar

Weel, mum has been movel from Navill Hall in Abergavenny to Tredegar general hospital.

She hates it. It was distressing to she her today. She admitted to feeling depressed, she was shaking and she was cold. It is a longer stay ward than the one in abergavenny, consequently it was less well staffed and thus quieter, filled fill old people. She was bored and unwell. I things get better soon.

I've developed the oddest sleeping pattern, awake for four or five hours then asleep for two or three.

I passed a billboard advert for cadbury's chocolate on the way to hospital - I became consumed by a need for chocolate - Which I satisfied :)

Since moving properly to 4mg of risperidone I have been wonderfully stable. No hallucinations, no crazy mooods, no real depression and little anxiety. If I can now cope with all the stresses I am under I should be well enough to being rebulding my life after christmas.

Wish you were here

I saw the GP again today. Thursdays have a system of no-appointments, first come first served. The wait was interminable and the room crowded with people that were sick and people that were children. Though shorter than last week, we talked about my situation and about my mother's. I am feeling better than I was, sedated and with the whif of zombie, but better. The sacrifice of my alertness and faculties is wort it. I am so afraid of becomming 'mad' again.

It seems that I might have enough money for curry tomorrow !!! Yay !!!

Ruth and I spent ages on the phone together last night. I so love talking to her. She was feeling upset and confused by the history of her relationship with x. I doubt that I invoke the kind of passionate emotions in Ruth that she still does, but then I never treated her as cruelly. Treat them mean as they (bastards) say...

I am so terribly lonely. I really want to spend time with someone, preferably Ruth, but any kind of company would be plesant to me now.

I think that I need some kitten cuddles.

As I said to my cat...

A nice cup of tea...that will solve all of the problems.

and indeed it has. I do love a cup of tea :)

Dispatches

Tonights Dispatches programme was wonderful. It secretly filmed life on some of britains psychiatric wards.

I am so lucky to be alive and cant believe the gamble that the people in hospital were willing to take with my life - The programme shows that such disregard and cynicism for self harming patients is actually typical.

As far as I could tell the most unrepresentative aspect of the programme was that they sometimes showed patients without a cup of tea and cigarette in their hands.

Side Effects

I'm feeling quite sedated by the new dose of risperidone which is just one of the side effects of my crazy meds that have turned me into...

a sweating, farting, drooling, sleeping, quivering, burping, food monster.

:P

Suicide Watch

'Neglect' factor in patient death

This happened at a ward in Brecon - which is near to where I live, I went to college there.

Apart from what amounted to a few days, I never felt as 'protected' as I wanted to be when I was in hosptial - I wanted to be somewhere where, no-matter what, I would be physically unable to hurt or kill myself. Hospital diddnt give me that. Certainly I would have died if I had not been there but I was at such high risk I should have been better protected.

It wasnt just me, all of the patients (except for one girl that wanted to have sex with everone) were left alone.

They seemed to regard lust as a being a bigger problem than patients seriously hurting themselves.

This one of the most emotionally trying posts that I've written here. I want to be fair, several of the staff were extremely lovely and, as I said, I would have died if I haddnt been there. But the ones in charge of my care wer so unfathomably cruel, hostile, incompetent and neglectful that that I find it quite impossible to be gratefull for the experience.

Day of Doctors

My visit to the GP's this morning was very helpfull. We long talk about how have been doing and about the condition of my mother. She has upped me to 4mg of risperidone and will write my psychiatrists a letter to try and get them to see me sooner. I felt relived and happy after visting her, though a little suprised that she talked about incerreasing me to 6mg over the next few weeks (if I dont improve). I sure that I wont need to go that high a stable 4 (maybe 5) mg should be all that I need.

Mum is doped up on tramadol (an opioid painkiller) and diazepam - so she is finally and unsurprisingly, feeling much better (but physically improves only slowly)

Iy was raining heavily and Lutja wanted to go outside. The last time I had showed her rain she wanted nothing to do with it and kept a safetly indoors. Remembering this I had the smashing idea "Why not open the door for her" she immediatly scarpered gleefuly outside and began climbing trees digging through leaves and prancing through the mud. When I finally pursuaded her to come in she was *soaking* wet, cold, covered in mud and apparently envergated by her, because of the cold weather, now rare garden adventures.
.

On Firmer Ground

I'm more stab le today. I'm taking an extra risperidone pill (now up to 4mg) and the statues have stopped talking. I was, for the first time in months, feeling properly, dangerously, suicidal this morning - Its such an horrific feeling.

I visted mum, she is stable. Its hard to tell how she is really doing though because she is suffering from achohol withdrawl (which she refused to even admit to).

Had a lovely, long chat with Ruth - Found out that she is scared of this blog's description of her as a strap-on-weilding sex deamon lol :)

Good or Bad

My goddess, Athena has just been talking to me. I'm atheist but I used to worship her as a child. We have a small marble statue of her in the living room. Its very probably a bad sign for my mental health that she is talking to me. But its good that she is talling me good things, that she has made me feel much calmer. I was runningand dancing about the house in tears when I heard her. I was in the kitchen and I could hear her calling out "Helen" as clearly and beautifully as if she were truly real and not (as is probably the case) another hallucination.

I am glad that she is there for me though. I love my goddess.

A Day of Rest

I diddn't have to go the the hospital to see mother today and I think that the rest has done me some good. I diddnt even get out of bed until 4pm :)

I've been listening to a wonderful series of lectures on the Crusades
here

I took some pictures of my boobs today. They are quite big :). I still makes me smile with glee to know that "I have breasts" :)

I'll think that I will post them in a few days.

I love my Lutja

Its so wonderful to have a cat. My buttercup princess. She is full to the brim with love.

Coping

I feel under tremendous pressure and I can sense myself buckling under it. Even though mother is doing well I am still terribly stressed. Worry for my mother is a big part of it, how am I to cope when she leaves hospital? How I am supposed to stop her drinking when she gets out? I can just imagine the arguments and fear - if she carries on drinking she will die. Travel is stressful to me and with stress comes psychotic symptoms. I have not been able to make it to abergavenny(my nearest sizable town) on my own since leaving hospital, now I have to go there every day and its battering me.

I dont think I'm in any danger of hurting myself but the confusion, agitation and paranoia are destrying my psyche - much more of this and I could become a risk.

I've been hearing voices as well.

I wish my brother was in england. I wish that I had been able to speak to Ruth properly. I feel so lonely, that I have no-one to help me through this.


I think that I will increase my dose of risperidone and go and see my gp on thursday. I should have gone yestuday but I thought that, so long as ny mother's condition was good, that I would be ok.

I will be ok. I refuse to be otherwise and have by pills that block out the worst of my experiences.

Hospital Update

Well she is very unwell, but she is not about to die (which is what I was fearing)

I was so scared and only an inch away losing my mind... The only reason that I diddnt take myself down to A&E is because there was no-one to look after my Lutja.

Fourtunatly the news was good.

Mother In Hospital

She has been very unwell for the past week, constant pain, unable to walk or eat and horrendous vomiting. Today she finally wen t to the GP who (almost immediatly unpon seeing her) arranged for her to go to the hospital.

Its very worrying. Her abdomen has become enormously swolen - which must alsmot certainly mean that her internal organs are swollen, which means that it is because of her three litres of gin a week alcohol addition.

I hope she will be ok.

Pictures of a Psychiatric Ward

Here are a couple of photos I took when I was in hospital.

a My Bedroom (notice that I had managed to make it messy)

The big, long corridor that I was always walking up and down

The smoking room. This is where I and everyone else spent all our time

The dining room

I do intend to write about my experiences on Burbage ward. I just want to wait until I have had more practice writing this blog so that I can do them justice. I dont feel confident enough in myself as a writer at the moment.