The sun has been shining and the lovely weather has spurred me into digging over the garden to plant some vegetables. This is something I have been intending to do for several years now but had never got round to it as it is a big job (the garden has been neglected and overgrown for the time I have lived here and probably for years before that) and in the past I have done the odd day out there but then the weather has changed and I lost interest. However, this prolonged dry and sunny spell of weather has meant that I have spent hours out there, day after day and I am now nearly at the stage where I have an area dug over, which is big enough to plant some spuds, with compost from the compost bin mixed in, all the stones sieved out, and nearly ready for planting.

I have enjoyed doing this work, being out in the sunshine for hours, feeling my unfit muscles straining and protesting, feeling the stiffness in them in the evenings, and knowing that I am burning calories at the same time. Aswell as the gardening, I’ve been making a real effort to walk every day with the dog and to walk for longer and faster.

As yet I haven’t noticed much difference except that I am really tired at night, sleeping reasonably well even without the Mirtazpine (I am have now reduced the Mirtazpine dosage to 15mg every 3rd or 4th night or if I feel that I need a good night’s sleep). And so because of being outside during the day, and being too tired in the evenings, I haven’t been blogging.

I’m not sure what the newfound motivation and enthusiasm for gettng active and fit and slim again is – there are 3 different factors all of which could be partly responsible :

1. Reducing the dose of the Mirtazapine so that I have virtually stopped it
2. Reaching a “maintenance” dose of the Venlafaxine of 150mg
3. The prolonged period of dry and sunny weather – I thrive in the summer, I love the sun, and I love being outdoors in the sun, I love feeling the sun on my skin and I can almost feel the energy of the sun being absorbed by my skin and energising me

This burst of energy and enthusiasm has meant that I now have the motivation to get myself physically healthy again, and the assessment appointment with an Occupational Therapy Support Worker (OTSW) a couple of days ago came at just the right time, to keep me motivated and supported to do this. The appointment was really good – I feel like I clicked with the OTSW, and she listened to me, considered what I was saying and formulating a practical support plan.

 At the end of the session, she said that she could offer me 8 sessions with her, probably fortnightly, with the aim of resolving my eating problems, (basically, I have no proper eating routine – never have breakfast, usually a piece of toast mid afternoon, and then either a ready meal or just more toast or a packet of biscuits or several packets of crisps and carbohydrate bingeing all evening), the reasons for these problems (ie long standing ingrained habits, self-esteem issues, and other psychological issues relating to food and meals), a gradual introduction of small changes towards healthier eating habits, and support and encouragement with regards to exercise.

I was pretty happy with this and felt like I’d been taken seriously, that my needs had been identified and a proactive plan formulated. My task for the fortnight until the next appointment was to cook a meal once each week using the slow cooker (I did this the following day and was pleasantly surprised at how quick and easy the preparation was and how tasty the result was), to maintain the maximum amount of coffee each day at 4 cups (I have reduced my caffeine intake following the recommendation of the pyschiatrist at my last appointment with him, from 8+ cups per day to 4 cups max), to continue to try to find a healthier alternative when I get the food cravings at night (eg raw carrots instead of half a packet of biscuits) and to keep a food diary for the next 2 weeks so that we can see what I am actually eating, and when, to identify where the problems are.

So far over the past couple of days since I saw the OTSW, I have managed to do all of these without too much extra effort, but the food diary is scary. I go from around 11pm at night till about 3pm normally without eating anything but drinking 3 or 4 cups of coffee. Then when I get those “I’m starving, must eat now” urges, I have several pieces of toast, and then don’t eat again for another 4 or 5 hours. And then between 8pm and whenever I go to bed, I am more or less eating constantly. I had kind of been unconsciously aware of what I was doing and that it wasn’t good, but the food diary has brought it home to me, and made me realise that I need to change, and that it is not just a case of changing my eating habits, but changing a lot of my other daily routine habits too.

So all is reasonably well in MHSU’s disordered little world. I feel much better about myself than I have done for ages. I still feel fat and unfit but I don’t feel lazy and idle anymore, and I want to change. I deliberately don’t weigh myself because I don’t want to know my weight ( I would be very happy to be 9 stone, my ideal is 8 and half stone but people tell me I look too thin at that weight – I would guess I am probably well over 10 stone at the moment). I haven’t measured myself for the same reason – I don’t want to know, but I do need to do this so that I can then monitor any weight loss. Once I start to see inches come off, and I can start to feel more comfortable in my clothes again, that will give me a huge boost.

And now having sat in front of the computer all morning in my pj’s, I am going to disappear off into the garden and do some more digging, and visualise the new slim, fit, toned, suntanned and healthy me.

Then on Thursday I took the dog out for a good walk – about 3 miles at a brisk pace with some hilly bits, and I did a similar walk yesterday. I can’t believe how unfit I have become, getting out of breath just walking up a gentle hill which I used to walk up briskly with barely a change in my breathing rate. But if I keep this up and do something physically active like this every day, it will have a positive effect in a number of ways – getting me out and about and seeing people again, getting fresh air into my lungs and sunshine on my face, burning calories, getting fit and hopefully losing the roll of stomach flab which I can’t even bear to look at at the moment.

The spring weather makes it so  much easier to get out and go for a good walk – it is a real pleasure and it is a long time since I felt pleasure in doing anything. So I’m so pleased to see that Spring is finally here – in the past couple of weeks, suddenly the daffodils have started to appear all over the place.

I’m sure that getting out for a good walk last night helped me to put my bad mood behind me. My bad mood had been caused by getting an email from my CPN to say that she would be coming round to see me at home after 1pm yesterday afternoon. This was despite me having sent an email the previous day saying that due to all the messing around with appointments, I didn’t want to meet with her at the moment and would be in touch in due course if I felt I needed her support. I have plenty of support at the moment – GP, Therapist, and support group and I have an appointment next week with an OT support worker to look at healthy living, so I don’t really want or need to see my CPN at the moment, and in view of the recent problems with her and the messing around with appointments recently I really do not want the anxiety of a new Care Co-ordinator right at the moment, although I am definitely decided that, for both my sake and the sake of my CPN, I do need to change Care Co-ordinator in the near future.

So having read the email from my CPN yesterday morning, I immediately switched from being in quite a good mood to feeling angry and resentful that she hadn’t taken on board anything I’d said in my email, and that I had to wait around for her to come yesterday afternoon. Because I was angry and frustrated and a bit stressed, I didn’t reply to her email as I didn’t trust myself to be polite.

And so I waited around yesterday, tidying the house, getting odd little jobs done before she was due to visit. 1pm came and went and I started to get even more angry, as I thought I was going to have to wait around all afternoon, not even able to go outside and do some gardening in case I missed a knock at the door. Eventually at 2.30pm I went online and discovered an email from my CPN saying that she was sorry she hadn’t been able to get hold of me and that she was now going on leave for a week and what did I want to do about changing Care Co-ordinator. Presumably she had been waiting for me to confirm that it was ok for her to visit me and so because I hadn’t emailed her back to confirm, she hadn’t visited.

I had a real mixture of emotions when I got that email – relief that she wasn’t coming, with anger at her for yet another missed appointment, and frustration at myself for not responding to the email from her yesterday morning.

But despite feeling still quite grumpy and fed up when I set off for a walk with the dog at teatime, by the time I got home an hour later after quite a strenuous walk, I felt completely different. At one point, I had nearly decided to add an extra couple of miles to the walk by continuing along the ridge I had climbed up instead of dropping down the hillside to the road and my house. I think I did start to experience the “runner’s high” that people talk about when exercising. I felt like I could go on for miles, and it was only the fact that I was hungry that stopped me. So I think I have definitely changed my attitude towards exercise – instead of feeling like I just can’t be arsed, I am now positively looking forward to getting out again for another good walk.

But today I might have to settle for a shorter walk this evening as this afternoon is the annual village jumble sale. I love going to the jumble sale and usually come back with a huge bag of clothes and stuff, most of which only cost 20p per item. It means that I can stock up on cheap size 14 clothes which will see me through the next few weeks until I begin to see the benefit of doing all this walking and can fit back into my size 12 and size 10 clothes. Then I can pass all the size 14 clothes on to the charity shop and forget that I was ever that size without having spent a fortune. And some new clothes, even second hand ones, are always good for a self-esteem boost. Some of my favourite clothes have come from previous year’s jumble sale or charity shops.

The only problem with the jumble sale is that there will be lots of people there. And lots of people who will want to chat, and might ask me about work or who might have heard on the grapevine that I’ve been ill (I’ve resigned from a village committee due to “health reasons”) and I will have to put my mask on and smile and lie about looking for work after being made redundant, and how I have been ill but am getting better without actually saying what has been wrong with me. People round here don’t really understand mental illness – they are traditional country folk who see mental illness as having “trouble with your nerves” and that you just need a good slap and a kick in the backside to pull you out of depression. At least that’s the impression I get. Perhaps I am judging them wrongly. But whatever, I will have to be smilingly chatty without really saying anything or revealing anything. I can probably manage that for a couple of hours today. The benefit of last night’s walk means that my mood is pretty good this morning so it won’t be too much of an effort to put the mask on for a while.

I’ve been taking a half dose of Mirtazapine (15mg) off and on over the past week or so (I didn’t tell my GP that I sometimes don’t take it, only that I had reduced the dose from 30mg to 15mg) and I am convinced that the newfound enthusiasm and motivation is due to the reduced dose. I just feel more awake and enthusiastic about doing things, instead of that all pervading sense of “can’t be arsed”. That’s the only way I can describe it – just can’t be arsed. However I do notice a difference when I miss a dose – I go to bed much later, and therefore wake later, and don’t sleep nearly as well, often waking several times during the night. So I do think that the Mirtazapine does serve a useful purpose still as a sedative night-time med and so I have accepted that there will be times when I really need something to knock me out and get me to sleep. But hopefully I will only use it on an occasional basis.

I have definitely noticed a lack of sugar and carb cravings when I don’t take the Mirtazpine and am now prepared for the cravings when I do take it, trying to ignore them or if I can’t, trying to find a healther, less fattening alternative – raw carrots, grapes, dried fruit and nuts. But it does take alot of will power to resist them.

But I want to fit into the new size 12 jeans which I bought in Asda the other day, within a month. They are hanging up in the kitchen next to my food cupboard and serve as a good reminder that raiding the food cupboard for crappy snack food late at night is not good.

So she then arranged to see me on Wed (2 days ago) at 4pm but at lunchtime I got an email from her to say that due to unforeseen circumstances she had to leave work early and so she had to cancel the appointment and would contact me the next day (yesterday) to re-arrange. I was annoyed but didn’t over react and sent her a polite email saying that in view of the fact that I have an appointment with the Occupational Therapy Support Worker (new referral) next week, have seen my GP this week, am having CAT fortnightly and attending Support Group 2 days per week at the moment, I don’t really need to see her and so I will keep her informed of the progress of my ESA appeal and will contact her if I feel I need to see her.

However, this morning I have just received an email from her saying that she is coming to see me this afternoon after 1pm. I’m cross about it because :

1. She knows I struggle with plans changing at the last minute
2. She knows that I normally go to my Support Group on Fridays (actually I am not going today as they are all going out for a pub lunch and I didn’t want to go) and so wouldn’t be able to go if she is visiting me at home
3. She either hasn’t read my email properly or has ignored its contents – I thought I had made it clear that I didn’t want or need to see her at the moment
4. She will want to discuss whether or not she remains my Care Co-ordinator and I really don’t want to do that this afternoon as I will be left to spend the whole weekend on my own with whatever is said during the appointment going round and round in my head.
5. I know that because of all the messing around with the appointments recently, I will be a bit angry and likely to be “challenging” – it would be better for her if she waited until I have got over it a bit

I am now definitely convinced that I do want to change CPN but I just don’t want to do it until I hear about my ESA appeal as if I need to go to a Tribunal, it would be much better to have evidence from a CPN who has known me for 6 years and (at least in theory) understands my problems.

So I don’t know what to do – whether to email back and be assertive and say “No I don’t want to see you today” or whether to lie and say that I won’t be in, or whether to just accept an appointment. She hasn’t specified an exact time, she has just said “after 1pm” which means that I will have to stay home all afternoon waiting for her. I had planned to get out for a decent walk with the dog today as part of my new “get fit, get un-fat” regime – I took him out for a good 3 mile walk yesterday and was going to go for another longer walk today.

Grrrrr. This has triggered a mood swing and I am now feeling angry and resentful. Half an hour ago I was feeling relaxed and enthusiastic about getting some housework done and then getting out with the dog this afternoon.

I got there just in time for an Easter Sunday Roast Lamb dinner, much appreciated, and I cleaned my plate. It was probably the first proper cooked meal I’d had for weeks and because I forgot to take the Mirtazapine that evening, and had a fully and satisfied stomach after the roast lamb, I didn’t eat anything else that evening.

On Easter Monday my friend and I went to Matalan to get me some new cheap clothes that I can fit into. I spent £28 on 3 new smock type long tops which hide my bulging tummy and wobbly backside. I also had a haircut by someone who comes to the house to do my mates’s hair and so the haircut and new clothes have given me a bit of a boost. I had originally planned to come home on Monday evening but my mate was doing another roast dinner on Monday night, roast beef this time, and so of course I ended up staying for that and then it kind of seemed natural to just stay for another night.

I went to Asda on the way home and bought another (!) new top (but it was reduced so it was only £7) and a pair of cheap Asda jeans (£4). The jeans are a size 12 and as Asda clothes always seem to be big for the size, I thought they would be ok. However, when I got home and tried them on, they were too tight and I was gutted. I could probably have done the zip up by lying on the floor and wriggling a bit but I didn’t bother trying. But instead of getting glum I have hung them up in my bedroom and they are going to be an incentive. It will probably be a couple of weeks before I am next at Asda and so by the time I next go to Asda, I intend to be able to fit into them. I refuse point blank to accept that I am a size 14 in jeans. I can accept a size 14 for tops because I like things to be loose fitting (the combination of meds and anxiety means that I have a real problem with excessive sweating) but a size 14 jeans is just too much to accept. So I am going to look at those jeans and keep telling myself that I will get into them sooner rather than later.

In fact, rather than hanging the jeans in the bedroom, I think I shall bring them down and hang them in the kitchen as a visual incentive when the Mirtazapine induced food cravings start. Last night I took the Mirtazapine (but only half a tablet = 15mg) for the first time in 2 days (I missed both night time doses whilst I was staying at my mates) and within an hour of taking it I was stuffing myself stupid even though at one point I honestly felt like I couldn’t actually fit anything more inside my stomach. So that has definitely sounded the death knell for the Mirtazapine. It has got to go. I am definitely going to get off it and as soon as possible.

I had a doctor’s appointment last night when I got home, and I spoke to my GP about the Mirtazapine. I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t taken it for 2 days but said that I have reduced the dose by half over the past week, and explained why – it is not just because of the food cravings and weight gain, but also because I am now convinced that the Mirtazpine is the cause of the past few months lethargy and the pervading sense of “I can’t be arsed”. I have felt more alive over the past couple of days when I haven’t taken the Mirtazapine and I honestly don’t think it is because of being with my mate, but am convinced that without the Mirtazapine I am not so lethargic and groggy the next day.

My GP was really understanding and now that, as of today, I have started on the maintenance dose of 150mg Venlafaxine, he agreed that I could try without the Mirtazapine and see how I get on. I have to stay on 15mg each night for another couple of weeks, and then take 15mg every other night for a few weeks and see what happens. I am due to see my GP again in 3 weeks to see how I am getting on. So I am quite happy with that although I am a little concerned that the sleep problems might come back without the Mirtazapine to knock me out at night time. The biggest problem with medication for mental illness is trying to find a balance where the meds are helping without contributing unacceptable side effects which then cause further problems, both physically and mentally.

And so now hopefully I will be more motivated and have more energy to do exercise which will help with the battle of the bulge.

I’ve got an appointment with my CPN this afternoon – she is coming to the house at 4pm to discuss whether or not she is going to continue as my CPN and Care Co-ordinator or whether I am going to change to someone else. Whilst I feel that I think the time has come where I need a change, and perhaps she does too, I’m wondering whether I should stay with her for the moment because of the ESA Appeal and Tribunal, as my current CPN came with me to the ESA medical assessment and a letter from her expressing concern about the deterioration as a result of the ESA process was included in my appeal as supporting evidence. My CPN has known me for 6 years and so she would be the best person to give further evidence at a Tribunal.

I still haven’t responded to the email from the CMHT manager yet. I’ve just blanked that out. I don’t want to meet him, I haven’t asked to meet him, and he has got the wrong end of the stick and has shown no understanding of my problems in spending 2 weeks trying to phone me to arrange for me to meet him when it was only a few weeks ago that my CPN had to get permission for me to have email contact with her due to my telephone problems. So I shall just tell my CPN today that so long as there is a copy of the Advance Directive which I wrote in my file and so long as anyone involved in my care reads it and acts accordingly, I don’t want anything else. I will however, be letting the Service User group know that service users are definitely not being involved in their own care plans and that instead of being encouraged and supported to write my own Advance Directive, I have experienced a lack of understanding and considerable anxiety and that as a result, my faith and trust in services has been affected. We are certainly still a long long way from Person Centred Services. The Service User group will feed back my issues to the Mental Health Trust.

So I think I am up to date now with the blog now. Time to start getting active and to burn off a few calories.

I came home at teatime feeling a bit down and got more and more gloomy as the evening wore on. My gloominess was caused I think, by a sense of not belonging, not being part of something. Square peg in a round hole syndrome again. I spent last night getting more and more gloomy, the sense of wasting my life growing stronger and stronger, and wondering what the point of it all is. What is the point of trying to do normal things? It is emotionally tiring, putting on a normal mask, and who am I fooling? If I am honest with people about the state of my mental health, they think I’m a nutter and don’t talk to me because they don’t know what to say, but if I put on the mask and make an excuse for my lack of activity, they think I’m not committed and lazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah – I know that is just my perception and I have no real evidence that that is what other people are thinking but the lack of comments such as “It’s good to see you” helps to fuel that way of thinking.

And so last night I went to bed feeling low and aimless and have woken up in the same mood this morning. Today I am supposed to be going to stay with a friend and her family overnight but I just know that I am not going to go. I am going to make up some excuse about being really physically tired, or full of cold, or needing to be back for some imaginary plans for tomorrow. The truth is that I just can’t face the stress of thinking about what to wear and trying to find something that fits and looks ok, and having to pack an overnight bag, sleeping bag, laptop etc to take with me. I just can’t be arsed. I haven’t got the mental energy to do all that. I don’t know what I will do instead. Probably I’ll just waste another day with the tv and computer on, doing nothing except reading blogs and wasting time on Facebook games.

At some point this morning my friend is going to ring and I can get away with ignoring the phone the first time she rings, saying that I was still asleep, but at some point I am going to have to talk to her and tell her that I am not coming and that means experiencing feelings of guilt for having let her down. But I just feel that being with people today is just going to be too hard – too tiring to keep the mask up and trying to ignore all the voices in my head that tell me I should be doing this or that. And the irony of it, is that I know that even if I don’t go today, I still won’t do all the things which the voices tell me to do. I must point out that I am not schizophrenic and that these are not “voices” in that sense, but rather urges – I find it extremely stressful and difficult to sit in someone else’s house for several hours without doing anything productive. And having to keep the mask on too. And the urges come thick and fast and make me restless and stressed and twitchy, unable to sit around doing nothing, wanting to be out of the situation, but feeling trapped into it for fear of people thinking worse of me if I go home after only a brief visit.

The exposure theory is fine in principle – that by putting myself into these situations, I will gradually relax and accept that it is ok to sit around and do nothing for hours on end and to just enjoy being with other people. The reality of it is that it just doesn’t work like that. I get home after a visit, absolutely shattered emotionally and physically, so it takes me a day of doing nothing to recover and then the guilt of having done and achieved nothing for several days means that I go into hyper-drive and can’t settle at home until I have written a “Things To Do” list and ticked as much as possible off it.

I haven’t talked about all the things on yesterday’s “Things to blog about” list. I can’t even remember what they all are now. At the moment, I don’t feel inclined to bother blogging about them – maybe they will be explained in future posts. But none of them are really that important right at the moment. Nothing is really that important at the moment. Except for more coffee to kick start myself into doing something today. Except that I don’t know what to do today.

And now the phone is ringing and I can feel the anxiety churning up my stomach, making my heart race, and the angry guilt weighing down on me.

And so this has started off the usual automatic self-hating thoughts – I’m lazy and idle, and it’s my own fault I’ve put on so much weight because I’m greedy, have got no will power and am too lazy to do any exercise. Life seems so pointless when I spend day after day merely surviving and going through the routines which will help me remain socially accepted – having a clean (ish) and tidy (ish) house, wearing clean clothes, keeping myself clean, staying in touch with friends through Facebook, spending hours working on my financial spreadsheet so I know exactly how much money is in my bank account and which bills have been paid and which are still outstanding.

There’s quite a bit of stuff I can blog about today as I haven’t blogged since Thursday morning (and today is Saturday) and now I’m beginning to fret that I will forget about those things and just write a load of whinging drivel about how aimless and pointless I feel. So I feel the need to list, for clarity and to prompt me when my fingers start to run away on the keyboard and get ahead of my conscious thoughts.

So here’s my “Things to blog about” list :

1. The change to the ESA Work Capability Assessment criteria which the government stealthily and sneakily introduced earlier this week
2. The email I got from the manager of the CMHT at 8pm on Thursday evening
3. The effects of the Mirtazapine reduction
4. Today’s plan to help out at the Open Day of a local charitable organisation which I used to be very involved with (until last summer’s crisis meant that the meds I am now on have caused such side effects that I can no longer be relied upon, can’t get up in the morning, and am now too physically and mentally unfit that I can only help out on Open Days or shaking a collection bucket)
5. Going to stay with friends overnight tomorrow – the prep and planning required
6. Telephone call with my mother on Thursday afternoon
7. Yesterday’s wardrobe cull

The above list feels somewhat daunting and I am aware that time is ticking away and I need to go and get dressed and ready to face the day (somehow trying to find a pair of trousers which I can still fit into and which don’t make it too obvious that I have gained 2 dress sizes since people last saw me). So I have decided to blog later and in the meantime I shall make a “Things to do today” list :

1. Get washed and dressed and ready to go out by 12pm
2. Eat something before I go out
3. Write proper blog post about all the things on the “Things to blog about” list
4. Make a “Things to do whilst I’m out list” – ie buy milk and anything else I need
5. Start making a “Things to take for an overnight visit” list

Do you think I’m stressing about something? Me thinks my list making urges are very strong today. I’m trying to identify the reasons and I think it is mainly anticipated anxiety about having significant social contact over the next few days. So now that I have identified the reason (apparently that is the first and hardest step), what happens next? Having identified the reason am I now supposed to feel less anxious because I know what it is that is stressing me? How does that work then? Or perhaps I am ahead of the therapy and the answers will come in future therapy sessions. My fault for being too keen to do things to help myself, I suppose.

Runaway fingers again, responsible for that last paragraph. Naughty fingers. Mustn’t type negative things. Mustn’t question therapy. Must listen to rational side of brain which is telling me to stop right now and go and get dressed and ready to go out.

Bugger, bugger, bugger. I hate having a head like mine. Fucked up or what?

And suddenly the title of this post has just occured to me…

I’m seeing my GP next week and will talk to him about the Mirtazapine but I think he will be ok about it as he trusts me to use my judgement. By next week I will be on the target dose of 150mg Venlafaxine which does seem to be doing more already than the Escitalopram did. I think it would be helpful to use the Mirtazapine occasionally for getting to sleep but once I am on a maintenance dose of Venlafaxine I shouldn’t need the Mirtazapine to boost the AD effects of the Venlafaxine.

I am having some strange quite vivid dreams at the moment and apparently that might be caused by Venlafaxine. When I woke this morning, I’d been having a vivid dream but I can’t remember it now, I just remember having had a vivid dream. That happens quite alot, and it seems to have co-incided with my meds being changed from Escitalopram to Venlafaxine.

I didn’t go out yesterday after all, I just couldn’t get myself going and spent the day at home, in pjs until mid afternoon when I threw on some clothes out of the dirty washing pile – leggings and old sweatshirt. I had planned to have a bath last night but I just couldn’t be bothered and I slept in my clothes last night and today I am truly stinky and in desperate need of a bath. I still need to do my recycling and need to drive down to the garage for cigarettes and I’m trying to decide whether I can get away with going as I am or whether I should have a bath first.

Yesterday I emailed an organisation which for the past 6 years I have been very involved with until last summer when I had a prolonged period of crisis – they are having an open day on Easter Saturday and had asked for volunteers to help out. I’ve emailed to say that I can help out on Sat afternoon. I know it will be good for me but I’m very anxious about it as I had arranged to have a “time out” period when I went into crisis last year and I haven’t really been in touch or done anything with the organisation since. The people involved in the organisation don’t know much about my mental health problems and to be honest, I’m not sure that the majority of them would really understand.

So I will have to put my mask on and pretend to be happy and confident and capable on Sat afternoon. Apart from feeling dishonest about doing that, it is actually extremely tiring. But I know that if I am ever going to pick up on the things which used to be so important to me, I have to make an effort. Otherwise, I will have  nothing going on in my life and that in itself will be a significant depression risk. I’m also quite anxious about the fact that everyone will see how much weight I’ve put on since they last saw me. People keep telling me I look well but its because my face has filled out a little due to the weight gain.

I can’t think of anything else to write about now so I’ll do a bit of Tag Surfing and catch up on everyone else’s blogs – I know I should go and run a bath but I just can’t be bothered…

My CPN has offered me another appointment on 23/12/10 – I presume she means 23 April and that the date she has given me is a mistake (a freudian slip?). I can’t see her on that day as our support group is going out on a day trip to visit an exhibition of paintings by another member of the support group. She said in her email that she is reducing her hours to 3 days per week which means that it is going to get more difficult to arrange to see her, as I won’t be able to see her on Tuesdays after I’ve been to the support group.

So another reason now for changing CPN but as I discussed with one of the support workers yesterday, my CPN is best placed to support me through the ESA appeal as she knows the situation and having known me for 6 years, her input is likely to be given significant credence by the tribunal.

Having replied to her email, asking whether the OT support worker can meet me on a different day or the same day but later on after the support group, and giving my CPN dates when I am not available in April to meet her, I am now wondering whether I have been assertive or awkward. I feel as if I am being awkward for not agreeing to the dates she has suggested, but I know that if I do agree to those dates, and miss out on the support group (which is hugely important to me at the moment), I will feel resentful and angry and so that will affect the way I engage during the appointment. But I kind of get the feeling that SUs are supposed to be grateful for whatever support we can get from the CMHT and therefore should be grateful for any appointment, even if it is inconvenient. And so I don’t know if I am being assertive or awkward.

Not sure if I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I got a letter in yesterday’s post from the Tribunals Service. My ESA appeal is going to a Tribunal but a judge has decided that, despite the fact that I sent in my appeal well after the month allowed for appealing, that my appeal will be allowed – presumably they are allowing it to be heard in view of the fact that I clearly explained how the whole process of ESA and the work involved in submitting an appeal had caused considerable additional symptoms and I had not been well enough to submit an appeal within a month. So that is one small hurdle overcome, but I am very very anxious about the prospect of having to go to a Tribunal. And there is no indication of timescales, so I have no idea of how long the process will take. I have heard that there is a considerable backlog of appeals so it could take months and months yet.

I wonder which will come sooner – a Tribunal or an appointment with my CPN?

Yesterday’s post also brought the shoes I’d bought on Ebay and I am really pleased with them. They are second hand but in pretty good condition and are just what I had wanted. I had planned to wear them today when I go into the service user group’s office this afternoon but it is now snowing so I think it will be a boots day today.

I’d better get my (fat) arse into gear and think about today’s To Do list and then go and get dressed. I am not going out till about 1pm but I’ve done no washing up since Sunday and my bedroom is a mess again. And I will need to pack up my laptop and various paperwork to take with me to the office later. So as it is 10.30 now, although there is plenty of time to get things done, I don’t want to end up being late and stressing.

I’m quite anxious about seeing her today as I haven’t seen her for about a month as I had wanted some time out so that I could think about whether or not I want her to continue as my Care Co-ordinator. I am more or less decided that I do want to change but I am nervous about telling her and am also nervous about who I would have instead as Care Co-ordinator.

Also the manager of the Community Mental Health Team has been trying to get in touch with me by phone last week. I had changed mobile network and unknown to me, the voicemail had been enabled on my mobile and so he had left a message (there were several calls to my landline and mobile from a private number and I never answer those unless I know who is calling – hence the communication problems with CMHT and CRT in the past). I did listen to the message and he had asked me to ring him back. I switched the voicemail off so that no more messages can be left and have ignored his message and will say that I didn’t listen to it. It made me really cross that despite the fact that my CPN is well aware of my problem with the telephone which is why we now have email communication which she had to get “permission” for from her manager, the manager only tried to contact me by phone, and not by email or letter. So that has made me feel that he has no understanding of my issues and has really affected the amount of trust I have in the service and in him.

No doubt my CPN will tell me today that the manager wants to talk to me. Apart from the telephone thing, I am very anxious about meeting with her manager anyway as the reason he was ringing me was to discuss the care plan advance statement that I had written which was the cause of the problems with my CPN in early February. I still really feel like I have been a naughty service user for writing my own care plan despite the fact that the guidance says I am perfectly entitled to do and should be encouraged and supported to do so.

So I am quite anxious and jittery today and really don’t want to see my CPN today.

I woke at a decent time this morning (about 9am) despite going to bed much later than usual last night, and so I feel a bit tired this morning as I haven’t slept as long as usual. I’ve got quite a few “Things To Do” whilst I’m out today and have also arranged to go and see some friends at teatime so I need to go out in about an hour or so and won’t get home till about 6 or 7pm this evening.

Plus I’m out all day tomorrow at my support group and am then going to see some friends afterwards, and am planning to spend Wed afternoon at the service user group’s office, so I thought that 3 days out was too much. I know that is a really lame excuse seeing as how I’ve just had 2 days at home not really doing much.

I got most of the weekend’s To Do list done – I took the dog for a good walk yesterday afternoon which I enjoyed and I know he did. We were out for an hour at a brisk walk, with some hilly bits, so we must have walked about 3 – 4 miles. I am shocked at my lack of physical fitness – I haven’t been this unfit for years. It’s going to be hard to get back to the level of fitness I had a couple of years ago. But I really want to get out and do more proper walking rather than just doing a quick 20 mins “round the block” walk with the dog most days. I’m very lucky in that I don’t need to drive anywhere to go for a good walk – I have the hills on my doorstep and so can just pack a rucksack and go from home, so long as I can motivate myself sufficiently to do so.

The postman has just brought my Eye Massager so I’m going to try it out now…

Mmmmm, it’s lovely. I look like something out of Star Wars but who cares? I think this could be really good for when I have a headache. It vibrates and the foam pads massage around the eyes. It makes a bit of a buzzing noise which at first is a bit annoying but you do get used to the noise and it actually becomes quite therapeutic after a while, helping to block out other noises which are distractions when trying to relax. I need to allocate myself 10 mins twice a day just to sit quietly or lie down with it on.

So what to do today? I didn’t mop the kitchen floor or do my recycling yesterday so I should really do those. There are also a couple of other things I need to do today – order some coal by phone and post a birthday card to a friend. But then that’s it – nothing else urgent on my To Do list, other than to write another letter to DWP requesting that they backdate the increase in my ESA payments to December, when I became eligible, so that I then qualify for the cold weather payments in Jan and Feb, and so that the 13 week waiting period for Mortgage Interest Benefit starts in December rather than mid March. Hopefully that will mean both a considerable back payment, and that I will then qualify for Mortgage Interest Benefit immediately so I don’t need to pay my mortgage out of my dwindling redundancy payment any more.

But I’m not really in the mood for writing more letters to DWP today. I really need a bath as I haven’t had one since Thurs eve, so I think I shall go and have a bath now that the postman has been (with 10 mins eye massage), and then take the dog for a walk, posting the birthday card at the same time. Then when I get back from the walk, I will drive down to the recycling point unless it is raining bad. It’s been drizzling this morning although it is not raining at the moment, but I suspect it is only a matter of time before it starts raining again. To be honest, there is nothing to stop me doing the recycling in the rain. Hmmm, need to think about that.

When I have done all that, then I will mop the kitchen floor and I might even get the sewing machine out and do some sewing, odd jobs which have needed doing for ages (curtain lining, repairing clothes, hemming a top which I’ve cut the sleeves out of).

My mum has phoned this morning, not long after I’d got up, about 9am, but I didn’t answer. I don’t really see or speak to my mum much – alot of my emotional problems are due to a difficult childhood, and my mum has never really properly accepted my mental illness. She seems to think that by telling me that I need to stop moping and think about all the people in the world who are worse off than me, I should be able to shake off my depression and anxiety, and all the various other emotions which cause me problems. She is constantly critical, forever telling me what I should or shouldn’t do, and expecting me to agree with her (often harsh and critical) point of view about all sorts of things. Often I do agree verbally just to keep the peace, as my mum can’t seem to agree to disagree, and one of us always has to be “wrong” (and it is never her), but by giving in and agreeing with her, I feel bad inside, as if I am betraying my own principles and beliefs.

I have only seen her once since Christmas 09 which was a horrible, terrible experience for a number of reasons which I won’t go into now. But after that Christmas I decided that my family was doing me more harm than good, and that it was time for me to break the chains and to stop allow myself from being my mother’s punch bag. It is hard as there are times when I do just want my mum, but I have realised that my mum is not the person I want her to be and never will be and she will never be any different. I am convinced she has mental problems of her own but is in denial. She put up with years of emotional abuse from my father before finally leaving him but I don’t think she has ever really dealt properly with the emotional consequences of that abuse and instead has become fixed in a victim role, becoming more and more bitter and critical and negative. And her bitterness and negativity is very damaging to me.

Of her 3 children, I am the only one still in this country and mum was the youngest child and her brothers are now dead, and so she doesn’t really have any other family. She has never had a relationship with another man since she left my dad 14 years ago and I get the impression that she doesn’t really have many close friends either – a bit like me – her mental health problems have meant that forming relationships with others is difficult. So I feel guilty that I no longer have any real contact with her but I know that when I do, I find it difficult, frustrating and a “duty” rather than a pleasure. I really do wish things could be different. But my family is so dysfunctional and damaged by what my dad put us all through, that none of us are very good at coping with each other.

I’m not sure whether to phone my mum back again or not. I need to pysche myself up before I do. I am guessing that she is ringing to arrange to get together over Easter and before I speak to her I need to decide whether or not I want to meet up and whether I can cope with it at the moment. I have provisionally arranged to go to stay with a friend over Easter weekend, so I need to decide whether I am going to change my plans to see my mum instead or whether I am going to be firm and tell her I have already made plans.

I’ve just realised that I stink so I think it’s time for a bath. I’ll put off thinking about my mum and whether to phone her back till later.

3.15pm

I’m bored now. I’ve had a bath and got dressed. It’s raining now so that has given me an excuse not to do the recycling. I can post the birthday card tomorrow when I go to my support group. I feel a bit chilly, sitting around in a cold house with wet hair so I’m going to light the stove early. I can’t be bothered doing the kitchen floor, it would only get messy again later when I take the dog out. Bored, bored, bored. I could change my bedlinen and tidy my bedroom I suppose, but it feels like too much effort. I could quite easily go back to bed. In fact, I might just do that.

My mum has phoned again, whilst I was in the bath. I’m feeling a bit uneasy now wondering whether something is wrong. I should phone her back but not sure if I can handle it at the moment. Just making a phone call is such hard work. Which reminds me, I need to phone and order more coal. Ok, I’ll do that now, then it’s done, and then I might go back to bed for a couple of hours as that will save on coal by not lighting the stove till later. Just can’t be bothered with anything today.

I’ve just phoned and ordered some coal. I’m going to go back to bed now.

8pm

I went back to bed and slept for several hours and then just lay in bed with the TV on but not really watching until half an hour ago. I haven’t gone back to bed during the day for a long time. I used to do it alot, most days in fact. Mainly because, like today, I just didn’t know what to do with myself. I don’t know why I’ve felt so flat today. I wonder if it is anything to do with my mum’s phone calls.

One part of me is feeling really guilty about having lazed away the day – another day that the dog hasn’t had a walk – and one part of me is trying desperately to tell myself that it is ok to have a crap day and to be kind to myself and just accept that everyone has days like this.

I do feel really gloomy now. Rested but gloomy. Tonight I will be glad of the Mirtazapine as I wouldn’t get to sleep until the wee small hours without it, having slept through Countdown, Deal or no deal, Coach trip and Come Dine with me. I got out of bed because I wanted to watch the Chancellor’s debate on TV at 8pm, and the TV is on in the background but I can’t really focus on it and so have turned back to blogging just to give me something to do to pass the time.

I am pretty certain that I am going to vote LibDem and that has just been confirmed by Vince Cable’s stating that the LibDems would put more money into Mental Health as it is an area that has “long been neglected”. Hooray. God help us if a Tory government get in, I dread to think what they will do. They’ve already said that they will move all Incap Ben claimants onto ESA asap – it won’t affect me as I’m already on ESA, but ESA needs reform as it is already damaging for many vulnerable people and transferring more and more people onto it, without reform will simply create more and more problems for the most vulnerable people. Labour’s been keeping very quiet about exact timescales of doing this, but it will happen within the next couple of years.

But I’m not a single issue voter and I vote according to the “feel” I get from the personalities. And I just don’t like the attitudes of alot of Tories, who display that traditional white upper middle class male whose arrogance and self-confidence barely hides their determination to gain control, often of other people. And there are alot of Labour personalities which display similar qualities. It may be something as minor as the way they talk over someone else, or refuse adamantly to answer a question directly, giving a carefully pre-scripted answer which more often than not is an attack on another Party. Vince Cable seems to be much more of a people’s politician – he gives clear informative answers rather than dodging questions, he focuses on his policies rather than attacking those of others, and he just “feels” more honest and trustworthy. And flawed though my judgment may be, that is what I will base my vote on – which Party do I trust the most? And which Party has been most honest about what they will do, and not glazed over the bad stuff and embellished the good stuff. And which Party is the fairest.

I must be really really bored to be discussing politics on this blog.

Lol. Just laughing at the TV – the sound is not in sync with the picture, it’s several seconds adrift and Alistair Darling looked momentarily like a manic goldfish, his mouth moving desperately open and shut but nothing coming out. Lol. I’m laughing now at the description of Alistair Darling which I have just typed – not sure where that came from, I’d typed it before I realised. Being able to touch type fast, means that I can often type as fast as I am thinking and sometimes my fingers just run away from me.

Today’s post is turning into a monster post and I know I am wittering on but I just need to be doing something whilst sitting here trying to watch TV feeling inherently gloomy without any real cause, with my thoughts racing round and round in my head, bouncing from one subject to another. Maybe I should do some knitting instead.

11.45pm

I knew it. I’m not tired at all. I took my Mirtazapine at about 8pm but so far, no effect. Usually by this time I am either in bed or ready to go to bed. It’s because I slept earlier. I’m not too worried about it as I don’t have to be up early tomorrow but I would like to be up and ready to go to support group by about 10.30am which will mean getting up by 9am. So even though I don’t feel tired or sleepy I am going to go up to bed soon and read my book and I might just fall asleep.