The Fine Art of Surfacing ...........................

The Fine Art of Surfacing is i think an album title from the Boomtown Rats, however it applies to my week this last week.  After some mania Sunday evening last weekend at a Doctor Who convention, approx 36 hours in total, I then had a horrid dip with the Black Dog and Anxiety this last Tuesday.

THEN things got better, since Wednesday my low mood has rescinded and Im left with just the anxietal thoughts, I feel much better about in myself though maybe not about myself and long may it continue.  It means Im focussing in on the anxiety thats left and navigating that however I feel so much better than I have done for 5 months.  Ive even crept out onto socialmedia !?!

Im so pleased to get some respite from the frustration and hope that I can carry that into work next week and a greek holiday the following week.  Going to try and pace myself this week so that I dont go backwards though.

The reason I used the title for the blog that Im using is that it currently feels like I've dived in off the deep end of a pool and there was initially exhilaration ( the mania ) then there was the pressure of working my way up to the surface ( the dip ) and now though there is still work to do my head has broken the surface of the water.   I will endeavour to live the next couple of weeks mindfully and power myself forward, hopefully.

Left currently really with just the anxiety to battle, what is my anxiety.  My anxiety is a set of contradictions that I battle, I have good days but mainly bad days.  My anxiety is feeling lonely in a room of people, feeling less than others, unlovable but I think in recent days I have tapped into the overwhelming feeling that Im loved and if not that definitely liked.  My anxiety is the belief that my job is beyond me and yet a few chinks have shone through this week at work and so ill push those doors and see what happens.   Anxiety, though is mainly for me a complete lack of confidence and self belief hence reading every self help book under the son, I guess I must be in danger of drowning on this swim in the river of Self Help.

Thanks to all my friends and colleagies, you know who you are.

anxiety is not always in control, anxiety is not always right, anxiety is jealous and doesn't want me to share,  to coin a phrase from Doctor Who ............. YANA ............ You are Not alone

Book about BiPolar: Surfing the Edge

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Surfing-Edge-survivors-bipolar-disorder-ebook/dp/B0167DQA70

Surfing the Edge, thoughts so far ...........................................

I've read about 40% of the book and have just read the bit about an unexpected friends death. For me this part felt delusional though the person interviewed Alistair says he felt it was very real, he reacted in a way that he had a paranormal experience, obviously a friend dying has a profound affect on you but Alistairs experience to me sounded Psychotic. In fact i was surprised that the Health Professional didnt cover that trauma in his summation of that chapter. I lost my best friend when he was 30 in a Motorcycle accident and Im still sure that from a self esteem point of view that affected me a lot, especially as I had fallen out with him prior to his death and we never got to clear the air.  I should point out that a very engaging element of the book is that a Mental Health Nurse sums up each chapter of the book from a Health Professionals point of view as service provider.

Reading this book Im getting a feeling that with BiPolar as an illness its much less triggered than some other Mental Health conditions, it creeps up on you either as a manic experience or as a depressive experience though i also have tons of associated anxiety as well. I often feel that things for me change without any reason and once again my self critic gets in on the act and regardless of any prior progress with statbility or living well with the condition thats all wiped out very quickly, in fact my BiPolar which doesnt have lots of mania but has plenty of low mood/anxiety just wipes my life aside when it comes on and though i have tools and practices I can try and use it really is normally just frustrating trying to navigate the condition.

At the moment im sitting here having read 40% of the book 'Surfing the Edge' finding it really interesting but Im aware that the three characters are different to each other and to me, their experience of BiPolar is very different to each other though it feels like they have come to terms with their illness better than I have. I have had Mental Health challenges for a long long time where things were marked down as Stress, Depression, Anxiety going back to when I was at Polytechnic where I didnt sleep for 10 days when I have my Finals exams due to my anxiety levels........I would try running every night to quiet the mania in my head ............ I just couldn't and at my first house when I was up in my Dressing Gown at 0630 in the morning in 1990 when I started painting the house for no good reason that morning. It wasn't until last year that my only time with a Psychiatrist ( bar 1 other ) gave me a BiPolar diagnosis as he spent 3 hours going through my episodes through the years.

Im not sure what im saying here but im very aware that our experiences of Mental Health are very different from person to person.

This book is very interesting though as the way it works is that 3 BiPolar sufferers are interviewed chapter by chapter regards topics and their BiPolar experience. I imagine myself being interviewed and my answers having some correlation with the three folks the book looks at but ultimately being very different.

Recommended

Depression is not a choice

Today has been a bad day at work, in that though I have been at work I have achieved practically zero.

I have had a 'church going' person tell me to pull myself up by my boots and get on with life, intimating that my condition is a choice I have every day.

Who would choose to be depressed?  I have been so much happier in the past when I was not in a relapse or continous anxiety and low mood or less normally manic.

Of course I compare myself to so many things that make me feel guilty/worse, thats how my head works.  I can see all the phyical illnesses that people have, i can see the hardship of trying to build a life in a war torn country like Syria, people don't choose those situations just like people do not choose Mental Illness.

I feel less than others in so many ways because Im struggling to beat my mental illness even though my GP is following the medical model and im also following the Talking Therapy model to try and get some progress, its not proving easy and I understand that because my condition isn't physical in any obvious way that people might not understand how exhausting it can be acheiving very little !!! It can be though.  

I'm always pleased when someone has beaten their Mental Illness or at least not relapsed for a long long while whilst navigating it. its also true that some folks dont beat it and they have to live with how it makes them feel, how if impacts performance, friendships and even of course marriages and family life.  I think everybody we meet is unique and interesting and I think everyone I meet or talk to with Mental Illness is unique and interesting, each experience just like with physical illnesses is unique as well.

Im not quite sure what im trying to say but I think Im just pouring out my frustration that started with a comment to me earlier today and then was added to by my inability to work as I would like to.  My head is still on the wrong axis with too much/many thoughts from past, present and future fighting for part of my mind, making analysis and decision making and creativity at work such an ask.

Im pretty sure that though it can be a First World problem no one chooses to be Mentally ill.

Samaritans

I had never contacted the Samaritans before as I guess I had never felt, however flat and frustrated, that I was in that level of crisis.  To me it indicated that any dark thoughts I was having were beyond me and those supporting me.

Last week and earlier this week though I was becoming incredibly frustrated such that I just needed to vent, frustrated with myself and with my progress not with any of those supporting me and following Talking Therapy ( mine is really good ) that felt stymied I decided I would contact the Samaritans eMail address.

I have to say that the response was much more thought through from Samaritans than I would have expected and the dialogue has really made me think about some things, it hasn't fixed anything but I was so cross with myself I needed an avenue to vent myself within a safe environment and though Im sure the eMail I sent to them was quite venal, the response I got was warm, supportive and well thought through.

I just thought it worth mentioning as its something that people might not exploit because it might seem very dislocated where as my experience has been thats it works as one way to have a dialogue that is meaningful, I'm on a few online forums where I have vented from time to time and well meaning though other Mental Health sufferers are the platitudes can be quite driveby and repetitive if that maske sense.

Stop Making Sense

I'm not even sure if this BLOG stuff is carthartic anymore :( Ggrrrrrr @ Self

Head on the wrong Axis

I don't know how I've ended up here again but my anxiety has been overwhelming me the last 3/4 weeks on and off, mostly on, theres been very minor short lived hypomania which meant I organised stuff I couldnt keep up and bought stuff I shouldnt have bought.

I feel like my anxietal head is on the wrong axis, instead of my head dealing with my life in linear fashion I'm somehow now processing my past, present and future life in one go, all in my head at the same time.  I was in floods of tears at the Bowie Prom when watching 'Blackstar' and 'I cant give everything away', it was very touching and melancholy just overtook me ............... I have too much stuff, I have too much, Its a symptom of 21st & 20th century life I think.  Not expensive stuff, I just have too many comics, CDs, books and other guff, my house is a tip and I've allowed myself to hoard.  It's all great cultural stuff and some of it means a lot but I've just got too much stuff that thats part of my overwhelming head that I can't process the volume of thoughts and the volume of stuff in my life.

I feel like I'm letting work down, my wife Carol down, my family down as I'm this pathetic anxietal wastrel who just can't get a grip !!!!!!

I'm trying to use the tools I have before and obviously I've seen my GP and contacted my Mental Health case worker as well to discuss what I can do,  made a few changes  but theres not silver bullet that pulls you back into a sensible head set.  I'm cancelling lots of social stuff like I did a year ago because I can't get my head around the axis change in my thought processes where everything is pouring through my head at once.  I can't read all my eMails and all my facebooks as I can't add to the volume of stuff in my head either so apologies if you have contacted me in that way, it's bust I'm just ignoring it at the moment and I know I need to take things day by day, hour by hour, I'm looking to my CBT, Mindfulness and Talking Therapy and I'm also very lucky to have friends and family who have come alongside me as ever to help me, to try and help me out of a rut again.

I wish I could just be laid back and accepting of some of the guff going through my head but instead I often manage to crank up my anxiety, not that I mean to, I don't want that dialogue in my head, I really don't but as I think I've said before theres no silver bullets, yes we have tools that health professionals provide and yes they do work, but often they don't work as well because of the baggage we bring and our warped thinking, I don't know, I'm not the expert.

I just want to be well so that my family gets the best of me but at the moment thats just not happening !!!! Friends and Family and Work colleagues can I just say thanks and I'm sorry that I don't always respond in the way that your good faith deserves.  It's ridiculously a first world problem in these days of horrors all over the news regards Syria, Africa, Asia, Germany, France etc. etc.

I wish there was a switch I good flick my good friends.  I hope life is treating you and you are treating yourselves well !!!!!!!

Poem: BiPolar High Roller

BiPolar High Roller

Hello here its the BiPolar High Roller
You never asked to be at the table
To be so unstable
Try things and be unable
To bet on yourself a complete misery

Hello here Its the Absolute Beginner
You never asked to learn about this
To be far from bliss
Everything a mental quiz
To be yourself completely miserable

From mania to mood to anxiety
Theres no way to be free
From this devil thats sits on my shoulder
With the mania I'm so much bolder
Than the pathetic whelp overwhelmed by anxiety
From fight or flight wanting to be free

Feeling im Superman and I can do it all
Mania sweeping through me Im having a ball
Sleeping so little through it all
Talking over people standing ten feet tall
For a short time thats the way it is
Until I crash and burn as i shoot and near miss
From a near miss to feeling I've totally missed the goal
To a feeling that I'm useless and I fall into a hole
Concentration becomes a thing of the past
Prickling feelings that last and last and last
Daily fatigue yet sleeping no more
All of my confidence has shot out the door

In good company the BiPolar High Roller
The Dice are rolled daily as the mood hits the floor
The Wager is living life as the anxiety closes the door
On the chances to convince myself Im worth anything
what odds will the next day bring?

***END***

( this might not be finished ??? )