It's been a funny/tough 2/3 months and the recent days have seen me experiencing a lot more turbulence in my mental health, however this to me is a good thing as it seems that I'm breaking out of that bad mood rut that I had been in alongside my overwhleming anxiety.  The therapy is helping me challenge the negative and catastrophic thinking,  a friend recommended 'Three Principles' which is the only self help homework alongside mindfulness that I'm going to do when I'm away in the USA.

My GP is happy for me to travel as is my therapist and my mental health nurse, that's good as getting Mental Health covered under travel insurance is proving difficult and I think I'm just going to 'Do Nothing' with that and trust it out as it feels I'm on the upswing.  With the upswing though my newly diagnosed ( tbc) Cyclythymic traits are showing in moments and hours of mania occasionally.  I have to keep a mood diary for my Psychiatrict assessments and it was actually my Wives insight into the mania that brought it to the attention of the mental health nurse, I hadnt really even discussed it with my GP.  Sometimes not everything comes out with every health professional and I guess that Mental Health is a difficult and with some folks subjective thing.

The Meds seem / seem to be dampening the overwhelming anxiety.  I haven't had a dawn to dusk day where I have had the adrenaline prickles for a whole day, that's exhausting.  I'm trying to walk / exercise more as well which I think is helping with that also.  My Meds on my EMIS patient record are broken into 2 types of medications interestingly as I signed up for Patient Record access with my GP this week. They are intensive and ongoing.  The intensive Meds which I think I may need to be off to work are the Valium, Sleeping Tablets and possibly the Quetapine .... though I thought that was going to be needed ongoing ?   The Ongoing are the Perycyazine , Anti Depressant and my Lanzoprazol.

Anyone, reason to blog = None apart from Catharcism for me
Though I am begining to be excited to cradle my GrandDaughter as well as anxious at the next 36 hours to get to Cinncinati.

Peace ......     Tony

p.s. I want to wish a Happy Retirement to my mucker at work Tony Noon.   One of the absolute best people I have ever worked with in my 30 years at Aviva.    Tony, enjoy it, you deserve it.

My good friend Dave 'Dodge' Palmer passed away 2 years ago, he and I used to write poetry together, he was a top bloke, I'm hoping to put together a book of his and my poetry for the Starthrowers charity later this year entitled 'A Dodgy Pair', there may even be a spoken word release on Rectum Records, home of Spewtum.

Poem - (this is) verbal diarrhoea

(this is) verbal diarrhoea

Allowing wordsmithery

The most valuable currency

That we use mostly fluently

Our words are our bonds

Enabling discourse

The formation of stories

Can tell of mans glories

With some verbal diarrhoea

We have words of honour

At our word sincere

Nos quod dicere

What we say we do

Not true

We wind and we weave

We lie and deceive

A great tapestry

for you and for me

in words their are truth

but we lie so much better

giving reign to imagination

the tales we unfetter

The child babbles

Become adults of babel

We live part in truth

Part our own fable

This poem was written for my friend Martin Nicholls 50th birthday in December last year, he and his wife have been supportive recently.

Martin Nico

(in the style of John Cooper Clarke)

This axe wielder is no mere mortal

Tales of him will make you chortle

Remember Aslan, Fond of Dogs and Mister Do

Theres a hairy guitar man known to you

Hes our rock god, lock up your daughters

Well they did until Helen caught him

He was the first to the skirt was Martin Nico

Hit paydirt even before his first Disco

I’m pretty sure her name was Sarah Caton

We were impressed, our mouths were gaping

But I don’t believe they ever went dating

Don’t think they ever shared an 18 rating

Early in the life of Martin Nico

He dwelled on a road called Yew Tree Close

He ran with his gang of youthful duds

A secret society called the Corny Cap Club

You had Ammo, Ivan, Karl and Mart

Warring with others in their Tank Go Kart

Martin Nico became an Oriel Crusader

Playing Diplomacy as a keen Boardgamer

Very ironic if you experience him later

But even then he was an idea Generator

We delivered sketches that made Beaky irater

And Aslan made a noise some would say grated

As a group we were early day Derek Acorahs

Ghost Hunting on the Broads made the girls nervous

You had to look after them if it got colder

Sleeping in Bobs Dads attic maybe the lads got bolder

Then we would all turn up at the Greenbelt Fest

A guy called Griff Pilchard was the worst but the best

Then theres the rallys on a summers day

We had to enjoy them come what may

There’s this guy with a big Water gun

If he spots you, you’d better run

His hair’s modelled on Justin Biebers

Nico it’s a Knockout he just caught ya

Off with Betty to Nottingham

Off his Tits in Amsterdam

Married with kids as Dad and Mum

Helen and Martin having fun

Late Night casualty of Bar Night Blow

Martin is gone before the evenings over

Theres a thing that you should know

About the mind of Martin Nico

He’s sharp, sharp as a meat cleaver

He will turn you into a believer

Drop a track like Amsterdam to deceive ya

Amongst all that Prog that really makes ya heave yeah!

Check out Mr Bobby Titz

He’s famous for his magic keyboard tricks

He’s just another over-achiever

Hanging on the coat tails of Martin Nico

Playing his Hammond to a 9 minute guitar Solo

Apparently he can also Yodel

We’ve got CCC and

We’ve got and

You need a fricking PhD

To keep up with Martin Nico

So let me say in conclusion

And for the avoidance of confusion

He’s a guy that

cc 2014 Tony Amis

Letters

I just noticed that during an episode in 2014 I turned to writing long hand old snail mail letters.  I may do this again in the coming weeks, assuming that on Wednesday we decide with the GP that I will travel to the USA.

It was therapeutic last year and I always have burning topics that I like to get off my chest.  I need to listen to those around me though and not bounce around between low mood and mania.

Today I have 'Hope'.  Yesterday was a 'Cage'.

I rarely blog.
I don't have people read my blog.
I don't really know what makes a satisfactory blog.

11th to 17th May 2015 was Mental Health Awareness week, my 51st Birthday was in there on the 16th, last year my 50th though full of great memories was also tinged with sadness as I celebrated it with the spectre of my anxiety and depression hanging over it.  I look back at photos of last year and I can see that I'm not there fully, I'm absent, my face looks almost like someone else.

Mental Health is hard to explain to folks, every experience of an episode of troubles is unique though obviously symptoms are shared amongst sufferers.  The most eloquent thing I can say about it is that my episodes see my emotions flattened and my body thinking 50-95% of the time that I'm in a fight for my life, andrenaline flooding me.  I have never been able to quite understand what my triggers might be, apart from it's complex.

Earlier this year I weathered an oncoming storm, I saw the signs that things were not right and I was able to seek interventions both medical and therapeutic and remain at work.  I was elated and excited that I had beaten the Black Dog.  I thought I was stable, I thought I would be able to celebrate my 51st and look back on photographs that saw myself incumbent in the moments and not absent.

However the elation turned into manicness and I buzzed for a while and then I sunk.  I didn't notice and see a secondary set of signs and though I was overwhelmed by depression and anxiety I tried to work through it.  For 3 weeks between 8 and 9 in the mornings as work and later in those days I sat paralysed at work, unable to solve problems, analyse issues, run work, decide what to do, I was effectively like the duck, possibly looking serene though absent on the surface BUT underneath I was prickly with adrenaline and my webbed feet were flapping away, problem is I wasn't moving anywhere.  I was also prone to oversharing, 'I'm rubbish', 'I'm not effective','I'm not able to do this','I'm ........', well you get it.

My wife and my manager both asked me to get to the GP, I got to the GP and the only immediate thing that he could do was take me out of the workplace.  I have now been off for 7 weeks.  It has taken 6 weeks to access a Mental Health Nurse in the NHS and that was with me overwhelmed with anxiety, buzzing and prickling with andrenaline being incredibly pushy BUT also being incredible incoherent I think in eMails and Phone Calls.

I have spent every day trying to get better, trying to practice 'Mindfulness' as launded by Ruby Wax and others.  I have spent every day using the Happify App to try and take the CBT style tracks and rewire my head whilst accessing the Mental Health services.  I have spent every day thinking I'm worthless and thinking I'm not getting anywhere.

In being absent from my life I have engaged with family events but I have not felt the normal emotions that a Grandchilds birthday should provide, Nieces birthdays, then felt guilty that I wasn't as excited as I should have been about my new GrandDaughters birth.   First world problems, I'm not fighting for my life in a conflict or escaping tyranny, why is my head giving over to negative impressions so much more than anything positive, weighting those negative ruminations with so much that they wipe the positive ones away so quickly.  I was signing off any correspondence with 'I hate my head' which is tantamount to 'I hate myself'.  I have had great support from friends and family however that doesn't change me, I wasn't able to turn this 'Titanic' around and it felt in rumination that I was heading for an iceberg.

There is so much that I could say, that I could try and explain, that would probably exist as gibberish, there are challenges ahead as things were not right and are still not right, there are dark thoughts that none of you would recognise as me, however ................

Things have moved on, medication has been adjusted 3/4 times by GP and MHN. I have Talking Therapy underway, I still prickle, I still am in a low mood and hungover much of the time with the more tranquilising Meds I'm taking but today I have 'Hope' ................

'Hope'

synonyms:

aspiration, desire, wish, expectation, ambition, aim, plan, dream,daydream, pipe dream; More 'Hope' is essential to looking at the future and putting the breaks on negative ruminations.  I understand the CBT work that I have done over the last 6/7 weeks, understood it's science in the way that it ought to work for me to rewire my head, I couldn't make it work though.   It seems that I needed 'Hope' to be a key to that.  It's early days ........ but I have had my first better days for months. Thanks to all my friends and family.