Frustration

It's hard to express my current state of mind. It's not that I feel apathetic or unmotivated. I'm not depressed or distressed. It's just that my skull is the only thing holding my thoughts together. I am having to be patient with myself, and I am not very good at that. I am having to be content with the smallest of small steps. I am so far away from living the life I want to.

I remember when I was at school, and I could write essays analysing arguments, or understand mathematical proofs. I used to enjoy feeling my brain work like that. I remember the teachers who told me I was "a high-flier" and would be able to succeed at anything I chose to do. What a joke. These days I struggle to do something as simple as have a shower every day. I am aware of the New Year rushing towards me, and of my absolute lack of achievement during this one.

Disorganisation

My mood is good to high right now, but my thinking is very very disorganised. Thoughts don't follow on from each other but leap around and often aren't completed. Words and phrases repeat. Then there are periods of blankness. It's a problem. And it makes it very hard to actually decide to do something and then do it. It's no wonder I don't tend to achieve very much in my life.

I'm trying, when I can, to sort the house out. I need my environment to be ordered because inside my head is so very disordered. I'm still waiting for help with my finances, that just feels too big and complicated to think clearly about. I'm working hard on developing a routine, so the ordinary everyday things that need doing, like showering, I do automatically because that's just what I do and I don't need to think about it. I'm having some success with that. I've started splurging out thoughts into a notebook every morning. It's a bit scary just how all over the place they are, but I think it helps me feel a bit clearer and get at least some stuff done during the day. I think I'm also going to start keeping a more traditional diary because writing it will force me to be more organised (just as writing this blog does). Hopefully that will also help with my memory, which is terrible at the moment.

Forgetting

Sometimes I feel like I've just been parachuted into my life and I'm looking around saying "Huh? What the hell is going on here?" I know that I've had various things I've wanted to write about since my last post but they've never quite coalesced into paragraphs. There was something about the "sick role". And patience. And paradoxes. But I don't really know exactly where my head is at right now, so this may be rather random

I know I've been sleeping a lot, a lot, a lot. It's the quetiapine. I feel great when I'm awake, I'm just not awake that much. It means I'm dreaming all sorts of elaborate dreams, both personal dreams, about emotions and events past and present, and more impersonal dreams about ideas and epic fantasy adventures. So I am spending a long time in another world, and it makes this world seem rather less solid, rather less definitely real. I feel a need to read and read about dreams, and to investigate the holographic nature of the universe. Because maybe experiences that have been labelled "psychotic" are actually telling me some truth about reality. So that's the parodox, I guess. That the effect of the anti-psychotics I'm taking is to make me think about "psychosis" in another way.

I know also that I've been feeling rather expansive, that I've had the thought "I'm just a naturally happy, high-energy person! Skipping in the supermarket, or having to pause because there is a rush of pleasure in my blood, that's just the way I am!" Hmm.

I had the first part of my psychology assessment this morning. It's hard to know how it went, but I talked a lot. The ninety minutes went by very fast. And I'm still talking in my head. I could talk and talk!  I must make sure I note down the things I want to highlight in the second part, so I don't get distracted. Today was mostly, inevitably, about family and childhood, but oh, there is so much else I want to say!

The Way Back

Saturday, Sunday, Monday I felt as broken down as I have ever been. I'm pretty sure that isn't true, it's just that time softens and blurs things so the memory of brokenness is never as sharp as brokenness in the moment. But I felt as though I was close to simply ceasing to function, to enacting my recurring fantasy of lying down somewhere and letting whatever happened next just happen. I thought I had reached the point of no return.

Except that something always does return, somehow. I don't know what that something is, but you wake up, you want to die, and then you keep living. It's as blind and stupid and stubborn as that. The body keeps on going, even when the mind believes that to do so is impossible.

The Crisis Team consultant came to see me on Monday. He refused to sit down, he just stood there firing questions at me. Had I heard of Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Why wasn't I taking care of my environment? What would happen if my landlord came round? Why wasn't I doing this? Why hadn't I done that? I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. Because I'm a complete failure? Because I'm an abject excuse for a person? Because I seem to be incapable of living like a human being?

But on Tuesday I got up and I did some stuff, made a few steps towards sorting things out. Then I comfort ate and comfort slept the rest of the day away. And yesterday I did the same. And today I will do it again.

I feel that the quetiapine is helping. It holds me somehow, makes me feel more solid inside myself. I am no longer filled with sickening fear and a sense of oozing badness. I am sleeping for a long time, and that is good for me right now.

The Crisis Team are coming to see me again today and then I expect they will discharge me. It is some ongoing support I need now, not an emergency intervention. I have a psychology assessment the week after next, and I'm still waiting to hear from the Reablement team, and then there is the tenancy support agency. So it's a case of waiting for these things to slot into place and hopefully help me move forwards.

Everybody Knows

I feel like there is an oozing badness in me and everyone can tell. It makes me scared to be around people. And no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work, I will never be able to fully conceal it. I feel sick and I feel afraid. I wish I didn't have to leave the house.

I hit the wall yesterday. I have been going on day after day, thinking I could cope, and yesterday I knew I couldn't do it anymore, I knew it was all over. I phoned the Crisis Team. I feel like shit for needing help but I didn't know what else to do.

I don't really know what happened next. People must have phoned other people because a man and a woman from the Assertive Outreach team came round this morning with a food parcel. And they asked me how I was. So I told them. And then they made some calls and the Crisis Team came to see me. They were kind, they said I should trust them and they would help me. I am to increase the morning dose of quetiapine and I am being referred back to the tenancy support agency that I used to see. I feel completely rubbish for needing them again, but I simply cannot manage my life. I feel like I should be in an institution.