2. Write about what you know

November 2013

Who knows if substances are the kick, spur, or the chance I take to increase my chance of a drop, pass or season of floating above the surface, like rubbish on an greyed stale puddle. Most days feel like having two sketchy voices inside. The happy voice is in a cage with bars as walls and a soft velvet cushion placed in the centre to sit on and observe. Another voice lingers, it's long fingers curl around each bar, glaring in with sharp teeth and glowing eyes looming. When happy voice wins it dances in the middle of a white open room with windows and fresh morning sunlight beaming in.

I don't need possessions or fabricated sources - none of that who said what and what's the latest...OMG . I'm impressed by experience rather than flash. An image pops up of tea and cake and having a lush day -  the lush shared with a person, allowed, embraced, accepted.

He was my rescue and I adored it but now I need to be my own.

A friend used to ask me what am I running from - and now I know I was and always am running from myself.

November 2013 - sometime later

To Mum

How are you? How is work and how are the cats?

Who am I kidding. You aren't at work - you're probably gardening somewhere with dirty glove hands, curls splayed into the sun, your boobs shaking about over mud knees with 90s shaped jeans dyeing your legs.

I don't imagine you with Dad. I imagine you in Dad's company. His lean legs flop over the garden chair as he reads the paper back to front, I could never understand the page logic - he wasn't even left handed. Dad's fine hair picks a light glow as the clouds block his eyes from blinding. He wears a blue flannel shirt with rolled up sleeves, this sits above ripped grey cut off shorts and dark aged slippers that hang slightly off his feet.  Proportions are irrelevant now though I like the idea that he is still taller than me and my head would fit on his chest when we hug.

The cats are there too. They liked it when we cut the grass, we were in their land, their territory, until they wanted to come back into ours. 

More than dope

Why do we wait for something bad to happen to us to acknowledge how to truly live?

Who's terminal?

Sauvignon burns and hits a hard reality. 

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1iSd_wTuA3U

One day

Simple diary

I missed you 

"I choo, choo, choose you"

'You choose to be happy.'

You don't choose to suffer from depression. You choose to help yourself, and be mindful.

Facetime

I'm watching a film about a fuck up and it's exactly how I feel today. Alone, disgusted and prepared to give up. I'm not quite sure how I'll manage to get out of bed tomorrow. Today I'm running out of answers to help myself; all I can think is booze, booze, booze.

Tomorrow is day one

I have been on and off anti-depressants for three years. Recently I decided to come off them, for good.

There are practical ways of managing mental health: GPs and other smug advice articles recommend exercise, eating well and being kind to yourself. They all make it sound easy.

The UK Government struggles to acknowledge that some people wake up everyday, full of anxiety, doom and the overwhelming thought "I am going to die, something bad is going to happen". 1-4 British adults experience one diagnosable problem in any one year: Clegg, Cameron, Milliband and Farage...we could play guess who.

When these thoughts become too overbearing, the first port of call, naturally, is the nearest GP. I have a two minute conversation with a blank faced Doctor in a yellow stained office. I am told to scribble on a Generalised Anxiety Disorder Questionnaire (GAD-7) and a Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). After a quick check over my medical history, the survey results are summarised (anything over ten out of 30, and GPs have to be concerned) I am prescribed with Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) and a two month waiting list for Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). In the short term these drugs have stopped me from doing something stupid to myself, I'm in a safe box I used to call it, and they have made time for me to heal. Whilst chemically supported I am nagging at myself that it feels like there is no 'normal' for those that suffer with ill mental health (not saying we are exclusively different to everyone else in the world) though in this case it does feel like you question 'being normal' a little bit more. Are we ever 'cured'? GPs cannot simply prescribe for ill mental health; what works for one person doesn't necessarily help another individual. What is normal mental health these days? Normal feels like such a dirty word, yet we are living in a society where the waiting list is forever growing for practical treatment, talking therapies. 1 in 5 people have been waiting over a year to receive treatment. I have been waiting since July this year for CBT. It looks like we're all popping pills until the waiting list shrinks down (check out page 7 for the economic costs of ill mental health).

For years my GP has convinced me that there are no long term side affects from taking SSRIs. However having been on and off them for three years I do not feel comfortable taking a pill to make me 'happy' (it doesn't), I guess it just makes me feel safe and less scared of myself. In conversation with Kings College Hospital professionals, they revealed that SSRIs are also prescribed to males that suffer from premature ejaculation, naming sertraline (or ironically, its brand name Lustral) to aid this. Though there may not be any 'long term' side affects, it makes me feel vulnerable that other parts of the body could take a hit from popping brain pills (perhaps to some, that might seem completely obvious).

GPs also prescribe some SSRIs to aid the symptoms of Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). It's not officially approved to use for treating IBS, though it has been found to have a positive effect. A large number of individuals suffering from depression also experience symptoms of IBS. The gut has been nicknamed the 'second' brain, as such; nerve cells communicate to each other through neurotransmitters, so if your brain isn't feeling particularly fun, these facts make it easier to understand the link between your mood and your stomach's behaviour. Sertaline has enabled me to eat like a 'normal' person (there's that dirty word again). IBS still holds a stigma and some assume that those who suffer are running back and forth to the toilet shitting their brains out after every meal. That just isn't true and there isn't a one way path to explain it. At least the plus side of taking an SSRI is that I have been able to eat without being in pain. Everyday hasn't been about food, I am less tired and my thoughts aren't encompassed around getting the right five a day and whether I can eat bread. I feel lucky that at least sertraline has helped one problem. Since I am not in pain, bloated and without a 'food baby' (even after eating a mouthful) my personal body image has improved, for example I am able to wear fitted clothes again. There's always more to it and one should not have to feel nervous before eating, just in case those stomach pains kick in again. It feels like your body is giving up way too soon, you feel out of control. Food has become less about guilt in the last year. At least that's one way of relieving myself of stress.

I guess when it comes to popping pills for mental health, it is a matter of life or death. After all we have two months or more to wait until we can see a therapist. GPs may tell you it's a 6 week wait. Who are we to trust, the Doctor? I visited the GP before Christmas 2013, talking through gritted tears I asked for a quick fix. In respect to the GP I saw, she was reluctant to give me Diazepam (or more widely known as Valium) since it is addictive and patients can experience withdrawal symptoms. The GP remained reluctant to give it to me, I felt clever and emotionally broken talking about how I felt, the desire for things to just seem 'quiet' in my head. The GP clocked my handbag and the M&S bag sitting next to it. I wonder whether she was looking for booze. Her words, you seem like a responsible person, I'll give you a low dose of Diazepam it's two weeks worth, it's quite a beautiful feeling actually when taking it, it's addictive, don't take it with alcohol...

I smiled to myself. I went in there and got what I wanted. It was too easy. I continued to explain that I had tried the low dose of 2mg before and it didn't do much, at least the GP didn't budge on that and handed me a prescription for Diazepam and the usual case of Sertraline since I had taken it before and it had been affective. Off I trot, scared, curious and angry. She also handed over a few websites on paper: Patient UK, Living Life To The Full. When the door closed I imagine she ticked a mental checkbox and continued her day. There was no mention of a talking therapy, a waiting list. Nothing.

This has happened too many times before, I said to myself. So I took my life into my own hands.

10 months later I decided to come off Setraline for good. When I started writing this article I hadn't gone cold turkey, you can't. Doctors recommend that the daily dose is cut down by half over a long period of time. For me I have always been wary of taking a high dose so I have kept myself to a satisfactory 50mg since my first major breakdown three years ago. Thinking about it, I can still taste the dry mouth, spacey days in the sun and a blissful indifference to just keep going. Cutting down over two months has allowed me to adjust, time without the crutch, time to accept who I am exactly and how my body works on less medication.
 

There are a few friends who know the true extent of my ill mental health experiences. Many might be surprised to hear that there were times when I just wanted to switch off, to 'end it', though not to die but to sleep for a really long time until things got better again. Life doesn't work that way and so I am getting practical. Running, yoga, putting positive energy into my career, going for things in the moment and being present; I have trained myself and I feel so good for it. Doing this for myself is so much better than taking any kind of pill. It is about taking simple steps on a ladder, an infinite ladder. Of course, there are still pangs of self doubt and not knowing whether my mood one day is just simply because I'm pissed off, or whether it's because I need my 'brain pills'. I may take a few steps down the ladder and be where I was a year ago. But I will get back up again.

There are some people out there that might even use my mental health against me, 'are you feeling like this because you are changing your dose', 'make sure you take your pill today, don't be emotional'. I'd put that in the same context when someone comes back at you, being female, and they question whether your mood is because you're on your period. It's such a kick in the teeth and is unfortunately the taboo of mental health, we all give it the stigma. For the first time in my life I trust myself and it's the lightest I have ever felt.

I am so ready. Bring it on!