Month: April 2015

RUNNING ON EMPTY (CRASHING)

Running-On-Empty-logo

SATURDAY As you may have noticed, I haven’t been ‘around’ WP in the last couple of weeks and firstly, I must apologize for not keeping up with following your blogs for that time and for not even giving so much as a ‘Like’ or ‘Comment’ either as a result. I have been run off my feet – my lifestyle has developed into something approaching manic lately. As you may have read in my last post, we are trying passionately hard to stop my college closing and I thank each one of you who has taken the time to sign my petition. Every vote is much appreciated. There has been so much going on with campaigning, petitions, protests, meetings, committees, student unions etc that I can hardly keep track of it all and feel like I am chasing my tail half of the time! In addition, I have had a lot going on in my private life which has been difficult to manage too. My stress level has gone through the roof and I am really pretty well worn down. I’m not finding time to eat properly (it’s not my old anorexic thinking but just stress and lack of time), and am not getting anywhere near enough rest or sleep. I literally feel like I am running on empty and am permanently exhausted.

SUNDAY

car crashed into brick wall

Today, I have crashed into a brick wall; not literally but metaphorically. I guess I’ve been overdoing it for a good while now which has come from running on empty for too long. Today, my spirits have sunk, my mood is low, the world is dark, my hope has gone, my drive has ceased, I’ve come to driving halt.

Tomorrow, I’m meant to be signing up for my college courses for the two short months we have left before we are closed down due to bloody government funding cuts (see last post). I don’t know whether to go or not – I’m not good with endings – I tend to pull out before the inevitable happens….it tends to hurt less, (obviously looking at the situation pessimistically today). Everything I have learned has temporarily gone out of the window….I have a W.R.A.P. programme to follow (Wellness Recovery Action Plan) which I’m not exercising. I’m meant to be going to a Student Union committee meeting tomorrow. I don’t want to take the responsibility of the role I have there which sounds so selfish. I’m meant to be taking part in a research study at my local  university which I was really looking forward to and now the prospect doesn’t feel as rosy as it first was. It all feels like too much.

My family are in crisis….I have to look for a new care agency due to inefficiency, my Mum (as well as having Myeloma and just recovering from pneumonia) is now having serious mobility problems; my sister, J, in Australia has just lost her job through no fault of her own; my sister, L, is fighting to get my 14 year old niece who is blind but gifted, adequate education and schooling and my sister, A, has just broken up with her boyfriend. As usual, my children don’t figure anywhere in the picture. No surprises there then!

I’m not sure where my faith has gone….it seems to have evaporated into thin air. Where is God? I didn’t go to church today, I haven’t prayed and I’ve not studied my bible reading either.

God, I’m a right old misery guts today; I’m having a real moan for no good reason. I apologize for boring the pants off you if you have read this far. I think I’d better end there before I sink further into my black hole of depression and self-pity.

[I’ll probably by fine by tomorrow/later/in an half an hour/in ten minutes…soon/maybe/perhaps/perhaps not – that’s the unpredictability of having Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD)]. Oh, deep joy!!!

SHAME ON ME!

PETITION – MY RECOVERY COLLEGE IS AXED (2)

FOLLOWING MY LAST POST, I HAVE NOW BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO POST OUR PETITION HERE.

PLEASE, PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION TO KEEP MY RECOVERY COLLEGE FROM BEING AXED BECAUSE OF GOVERNMENT FUNDING CUTS. EVERY VOTE WILL MAKE SUCH A DIFFERENCE. THERE IS NO MONEY INVOLVED AND ALL INFORMATION IS KEPT STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR TIME – VOTES NEED TO BE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. X

https://www.change.org/p/mid-essex-clinical-commissioning-group-reinstate-funding-for-the-mid-essex-recovery-college-and-hub

MY RECOVERY COLLEGE IS AXED!

a college

Why can’t the government leave things alone if they are working well?! They have decided to stop the funding for my college which is a Recovery College. It’s a college for 500 people like myself who are living with or recovering from (or trying to) mental health conditions. It’s a great place and has really helped me gain my confidence and learn new coping strategies. I’ve also made lots of friends of all sorts there and got to know all the tutors and other staff really well. We’ve been running for nearly four years now, learned a lot, shared a lot and had a lot of fun. Also, on a more serious note, I and we have all learned so much about coping with our lives with a mental health disorder and some of us have been able to move along to voluntary or paid avenues. I attend there 3-4 times a week and have benefitted enormously. It has given me structure to my week, a purpose and a social life, all of which have contributed to my improved mental health.  I am upstet and devastated.

The government promised that they would spend more money on mental health yet they are shutting down organizations like ours all over the country. We are campaigning and petitioning fiercely to defend our college but it is not looking promising and students are becoming very down and disheartened as a result.

The government say they want to save money yet can’t they see how bloody and stupidly short-sighted they are! As a result of the college closing, our students will need more support from NHS services such as the Acorn Centre (inpatient), the Crisis Team, our Social Workers, Psychiatrists, CPNs (Community Psychiatric Nurses) and GPs which will in the long run cost far more money.

I will be lost without my college which is set to close at the end of June this year. I have spent hours there, learning, studying, buddying, getting excellent advice and support, socializing and making good friendships and relationships with staff and managers.

So far, we have had a photo and article in the county newspaper, we have been on the radio, have been to see our local MP, have put a petition out there etc, etc, but all to no avail. We are NOT giving up and will continue to fight right up until the doors have to close. We must keep fighting!

As per my following my post, for anyone reading this would you PLEASE PLEASE sign our PETITION to keep this college open. All information is kept strictly confidential. THANK YOU SO, SO MUCH.

https://www.change.org/p/mid-essex-clinical-commissioning-group-reinstate-funding-for-the-mid-essex-recovery-college-and-hub

THE TOXIC THERAPIST

On discussing my relationship with my two children (yet again) with my therapist, T, yesterday, I realised that the reason they dislike/mistrust me so much is because of my past reckless behaviours during the time I was seeing the therapist, J, referred to in my last post, ‘Killing Me Softly’. They are blind to the fact that my mental health was so poor then but is now much improved and that I do not indulge or need to take up these behaviours again (those being my drinking, anorexia, all the self-harm I did to my body both by cutting and by abusing medication and all the risky overdoses I took, some of which were very nearly fatal). I do also recognize that she didn’t literally force me to drink, cut or OD, and that we all have our own free will. It was the influence she had over me when I was very vulnerable and the abusive responses during that eight-year period which made me react in such a dangerous way. Having said that, there was one occasion when she did literally say to me at the end of a session, “Why don’t you go home and kill yourself then?” Unbelievable, I know but I state that in all honesty which I then proceeded to attempt.

This, amongst other reasons such as my disability, I think may be at the core of why my children do not want anything to do with me. After all, how awful of me to put such young, vulnerable minds through such experiences of nearly losing their mother so many times etc. You see, the toxin within J was being transmitted as toxin to me which I absorbed like a sponge which then became the sting that hurt my innocent children so much (and I think still does to this day). So, basically, in summing up, J’s inner toxin was transferred to me which then acted like a cuttlefish or jellyfish sting to *Tom and *Clare, thereby poisoning their minds.

I wish I could put this past experience (along with others) in a box, leave it there and move on from it but however hard I try there are always the tentacles of the cuttlefish or the entrails of the contents of the box climbing through the gaps or hanging out of the lid that won’t quite shut. I have not, however, yet given up on hope:

I need to shut you tight into a box
with all the hatred I have for you.
It is a sturdy box, high sided,
but still the viscera ooze
through its seams and corners.

I long to seal the lid
but it is too late
for you have contaminated my world.
How on earth do I contain this filth
when you have sullied so much of my life?

The toxin within, still seeps out
like cuttlefish tentacles
that strike out upon contact.
Your viciousness intended
unlike the sea creature’s act of survival.

And will one day, the damage you have caused
be healed by some miracle or other?
Can so many negatives be transformed
into even one miniscule positive?
Well, I tell you, I will fight.

I will fight tooth and nail
to right the wrongs you created.
There is simply too much at stake
for me to allow you the victory
of trampling me to the ground.

jellyfish1