Overcoming Mental Illness

It’s October 2006…

(If you have your copy of the album ‘Fallen’ handy, skip along to track 6 – it’s what I was listening to in a room lit with twenty four candles when I started writing the following rough scene breakdown for my novel ‘All Things Must Change’ - aka - “The Ghosts that Haunt Us”)

A Dorchadas

“If you don’t shut your f*****g mouth you stuck up spoiled c**t I swear to god I’ll come over there, rip out your tongue and force you to perform wild c*********s on yourself whilst I s***w you up the a** with my sword!
  Now, where was I? Ah yes…”
  Leaving Elizabeth speechless Jeremy turned with a casual pirouette and cracked his fist into Katherine’s face - sending her slamming with a cry into the soft, rain sodden mud. He followed it up with a sharp kick to her stomach. Leaning down he grabbed her hair and hauled her to her feet before burying his knee into her stomach, and again into her face, before permitting her to collapse once again into the mud; her deep red blood gushing.
  He takes a few steps back, wiping some of Katherine’s blood from his lips with his sleeve. Shooting his head around to check on Elizabeth she stands staring in disbelief, her body shaking with fear and anger. Her lips move, words hovering on the brink of becoming before she stops herself, sinking to her knees and bowing her head.
  Jeremy smiles, turning his attention to the fallen Katherine, he paces around her bloodied body, smiling. She rolls slowly onto her back and blinks her eyes open. When she opens her mouth to speak, the words come out, barely a whisper, holding none of the power and grace they usually would.
  “Is…”She coughs, blood spitting down her chin. “…is…that all ya got?”
  With great pain she sits up, leaning on her arms, raising her eyes to stare at the pacing Jeremy. They follow him as he walks slowly around her.

(…and it was right about here that I took a small knife and sliced the one part of my body I knew my girlfriend wouldn’t see…)

From far above a flash of lightning streaks across the night sky followed by a deep guttural roar of thunder as the rain increases, drenching the three below.
  “I’m sorry…about…” Again she coughs. “…what happened to Amber,”
  With a fiery speed Jeremy whips down and grabs her throat, squeezing, crushing it with his bloodied hands. “Once more!”
  “Am…ber,” Her eyes stare directly at his, trying to catch a tiny glimmer of the man she knew. The man she loved. The man buried beneath a screen of darkness, grief and despair. “Amber.” She repeats, and there, a spark ignites.
  She catches sight of it moments before she is hauled into the air, gasping for breath, her lungs grasping for air as he carries her with speed by the neck through the darkness. With force he slams her hard against a tree and she hears her shoulder bone crunch under the pressure. She screams, forced back into her throat by his grip so that all that comes out is a silence.
  Jeremy releases his grip and lets her collapse to the floor, her right arm hanging limp from her broken shoulder, her neck bruised purple as she fights to refill her lungs.
  “Say her name again and you’ll be sorry!”
  “Will I..Shay …mi escosesito lindo …” She coughs, spitting the blood to her side. “I can still see you in there. Whatever you’re feeling…”
  He slaps her hard across the face.
  “Whatever darkness is eating you up…”
  He slaps her again.
  “Whatever pain is ripping through you…”
  And again.

(…and it was right about here that I took that same small knife and once again sliced the one part of my body I knew my girlfriend wouldn’t see…)

“I will always love you, Mi escosesito lindo…do what you need to…”
  And again.
  “But remember…I loved her too.”
  And again.
  “Amber.”
  A final slap and Jeremy in one swift movement spins around, rips his Luchair from his back, and slams the wooden staff hard against Katherine’s face which knocks her hard to the ground, her face and mouth buried in the mud. He cracks the wood against her back, shattering her collar bone. He drives the end of it straight down onto the back of her knee, destroying the joint with a thunder muffled crack.
  Whipping a knife from his boot he drives it into her thigh, the blade cutting deep into her flesh, her scream stolen by the storms wind.
  Another spike of lightning, her deep red blood spilling onto the earth.

(…and it was right about here that my own blood was spilling onto a rag I kept handy…)

Leaving the blade deep inside her Jeremy spins her around, the pressure of the ground on the knife’s hilt forcing it deeper into her leg, slicing more flesh, scraping the bone. Her screams echo into the sky, mixing with the thunder which howls back in response.
  “Don’t ever…ever fucking say her name again. Hear me bitch!”

(…and it was right about here that just as I was about to cut myself again I received a text message inviting me out. My girlfriend had been at her work’s staff meeting, they had then all traveled to a ten pin bowling alley, and I was being invited to join them in their drinking festivities. I cut myself again, not as deep, and replied. After patching myself up I went out to meet them, walking a little uncomfortably for reasons you’d understand if you’ve been able to figure out the part of the body very few people in fact ever actually see)

What has all these badly written fiction got to do with a manic phase? I hear you ask.

Well, the above is an exchange which takes place between two of my most personally loved characters – Shay and Katherine. They have been friends for a looonnnggggg time, and here, for reasons way to complicated to go into given the fact I’d have to go into the intricacies of novel’s plot, Shay has undergone a change in personality and is in the process of – well – causing rather a lot of pain to Katherine, the woman he loves, his best friend. I’ve cut the above just before the most brutal and upsetting sequence I’ve ever written. In fact, as I wrote in rather hefty detail how Shay proceeded to beat, rape and murder Katherine I was not only shaking myself but also shedding rather a hefty lot of tears in the process. Generally my stuff only gets dark when it needs to, and at this point in the story this needs to happen - it needed to be the nastiest murder you can possibly imagine. So imagine that, and then multiply it by a thousand, imagine the person you love is doing it to you, and then multiply it by a thousand again; that’ll get you close to how nasty and brutal this scene gets.

The reason this scene was so painfully emotional for me to write was because:
(a) Shay is based on me
(b) Katherine was inspired (in part) by Rachel
and no matter how selfish and evil people think I am, I never want to believe I am capable of being like this.

So, again, what the frack has this got to do with a manic phase? I hear you shrieking!
Simple. When I’m manic – I’m very much like Shay.

You see to understand my manic phase you have to understand who I am when I’m manic – because I’m not Addy, oh nosiree Bob! When I’m manic there are only two ways to describe me: immortal and god.

When I’m manic I can; have anything I want, do anything I want, have anyone I want and do anyone I want. If I were to jump in front of a train, it would be the train that would need to be rushed to hospital – as I’d be too busy tangoing down the tracks with a couple of passengers along for the ride.

So with that in mind let’s skip on eight months…

…into June 2007. Adelaide. Where things were about to get very interesting!

Or were they…?

You see, looking back on that time in my life, my manic phase actually began it’s gestation before Adelaide. My sudden decision to leave Melbourne was classic manic depression; ill thought out, ill prepared, ill planned. An evening of unabashed drinking at the Sherlock Holmes pub on Collins Street following a day at the hospital which had filled me with antibiotics, anesthetic and god knows what other medical concoctions was perhaps not the best thing to do. Alcohol and medication never mix. Yet alcohol and mania seem to go together like cheese and biscuits, cheese and chips, hell, cheese and anything! Everything I had been doing for those two weeks before I left Melbourne makes me think more and more that my mania had already started, it just didn’t truly explode out of me until a few weeks later…

…when we duck ever so quickly back into June 2007. Two members of my family are in hospital, one after a suicide attempt. I have no-one I can talk to about how this is making me feel, I have no money, most of my possessions have been stolen, and I’m spending an awful lot of time under a very friendly tree near the Torrens. My mind and emotions are in tatters and all I want is a friend to talk to. Just as things can’t get any worse I suddenly start receiving emails from my ex which escalate as the week progresses into full on abuse over things which I had been asked (by her) to do – which I had done – and was now being abused for in text for actually doing. This was WAY too much. I snapped. I eradicated all forms of communication (i.e. email address and phone) and - as previously mentioned in earlier posts - I lost what little control I had left of my mind; self harming nastily with knife, belt and the aforementioned “friendly” tree.

The next day I wasn’t quite the same. It wasn’t concussion, or a result of the injuries, as I’d had all of them checked out. It was that I woke up feeling completely different; restless, agitated whenever I was sitting still, I need to do something anything and from this point on things get a little difficult to write about – not only because some of my actions were far from suitable for a family audience, but because I don’t remember everything that I did.

(One of the most commonly asked questions from psychologists, doctors and the mental health teams I have seen revolves around how my “friends” viewed this change in me. Commonly whilst in a manic phase you tend to not really remember all that much, which is why they ask about friends, as the people in your life will tend to notice things that are different. Or they should do. Hence, if I’d had friends at the time I probably wouldn’t be finding it so hard to obtain treatment as not a single person I’ve ever met would have been able to be around me at that time without noticing I wasn’t really myself)

The most remembered events of this period were as follows and may or may not have happened in the order listed below (blame my Swiss cheese mind for that one!)

• After dressing up for a night on the town in a whole new get up obtained from Hindley Street, I walked into a bar in this same street, and sussed the place out. It wasn’t a bad wee joint, not too crowded, people seemed okay. I saw something I liked – in this instance, the third tastiest butt I’d ever seen – walked over to it and slapped it rather heartily. To be honest the woman turned around and slapped me as hard as she could (good for her, so she should have done) but this didn’t stop me from introducing myself with a smile, commenting on the sexiness of her posterior without a beat and that she’d probably enjoyed the slap before buying her a drink without even asking if she wanted one. I grabbed a whisky, downed it in one, and proceeded to talk to her (whether she was looking at me or not) for about an hour and twenty minutes. Now, anyone who knows me should instantly be able to go – alrighty, hold on one wee minute, that pathetic little twat who never says anything to anyone talked to a stranger for over an hour and twenty minutes? – that doesn’t sound quite right. To which I would award them with a gold star, as it seriously doesn’t sound like Addy. But I wasn’t. I was someone else. All I cared about was the fact that the whisky was fine, her butt finer and the syllables escaping my mouth were – without any doubt or question in the world – the most entertaining, witty, important and downright had to be heard sentences anyone in the world had ever spoken ever! Plus, throughout that hour and twenty minutes; no pauses, no thought, no drinks; just me, talking, the entire time. Occasionally she would say something, try to turn around or walk away, but she was completely intoxicated by this incredibly strange guy who had slapped her ass, brought her a drink and was talking to her about really odd (overtly sexual) topics. So when I actually stopped talking she just laughed, for about three minutes, a fit which lasted until I had managed to get her wedged into a booth with me and as the laughter subsided she said “Hi, I’m Sammi,” to which I just said “Hi, I want you,” to which she burst into laughter again, a fit stopped seconds later when I planted a kiss on her. This kiss led to several (dozen) drinks and a whole lot of fun as I kept revving up the conversation to which she found herself having to hurdle sentences in order to keep up with. Upshot, we left the bar, completely rat-arsed, and ended up at the end of a fairly deserted Rundle Mall at God knows what time in the morning.

  

  An earlier conversation had been about public nudity…hence the logical leap into public streaking…and within moments I found myself dashing naked through the streets, a couple of socks disappearing into the night air behind me before riding a metallic pig in the nuddy. Police sirens, a couple of cops, a mad dash through the streets trying to escape the ‘law’ saw us end up in a bush in some deserted ruddy cold park away from the CBD. Being in such a confined space, still, ummm, naked, she couldn’t help but see the various cuts and bruises on my body, not that we really talked about those as we had far more important things to do…which I do remember but on this occasion am going to keep totally sthum about. Definitely not for the public eye! Next day; shower at her hostel then just wandered off into the glaze of the Adelaidian sun…never saw her again aside from a couple of Facebook messages, that’s about it.

• Knowing absolutely nothing about AFL, I ended up conversing with a homeless man in Glenelg about the intricacies of the game, it’s players and general rowdy Aussie rules shenanigans for – oh, about three hours! Player’s names, teams, who did I care if they didn’t exist – this guy didn’t seem to know any different. I wanted to talk; he wanted company, so until I hit the pubs of Glenelg it passed the time. Yep, more pubs, and that night every drink was brought for me. It’s amazing what acting like an arrogant misogynistic prick actually does to women!
• As the days rolled on and the mood hit it’s stride I ended up striking up conversations with various people all over the place, some just wandered off, somewhat hesitant to talk to a random crazy person in the street, others would indulge me for a while and occasionally we’d end up heading off for the evening.
• A couple of nights I became a salsa dancing dynamo, another couple of nights were spent tangoing away on the banks of the Torrens with a bargirl from the casino who I had convinced to teach me to tango, in exchange for some lessons of my own.
• Whilst on one occasion, whilst in mid conversation, I jumped into the road to push someone out the way of an incoming lorry, and then once I’d made sure they were ok scolded them for not looking where they were going and then returned to the somewhat bemused person I’d been talking to.

It’s bloody hard writing about this phase of my life knowing that there may be people reading this that know me. I didn’t really know what was happening to me at the time; my mental faculties had runaway, my inhibitions had vanished, my confidence over flowing.

As I said earlier whatever I wanted, whoever I wanted, I would get. I was slapped a fair few times from annoyed women (again, good on you, I deserved it) but then Sammi’s arse wasn’t the only one I slapped during that time! As the phase rolled on my actions became, at times, more blasé and uncaring:

• A couple of books, some food and other miscellaneous smaller items were shoplifted.
• Plus, on one particular evening, I initiated a fight with someone in a bar in North Adelaide. The week before the mania hit I had gone in there hoping to strike up conversation and meet new people, something I did frequently all through the year – especially from mid February onwards. However, on this occasion, the friend of the person I had been trying to talk to didn’t seem to care much for my somewhat nervous social anxiety drenched attempts at conversation so – in an effort to rid me from his friend – heaved a full glass of beer over my head. Not quite the best thing to happen to someone suffering from social anxiety, whose confidence had already been knocked into near oblivion through months of emotional abuse. So, of course, feeling like the immortal god I was, I ventured back in the following week on the off chance this man was there. He was. I walked up to the bar, purchased a beer, walked across the room, and poured it over his head before punching him and walking out the bar. He followed, some fisty-kicky-heady-etc-cuffs ensued until his friends tore us apart and I vanished into the night. Or rather, a few yards down the street to another bar.

The manic phase was basically one long unending quest to (a) talk as much as I could to anyone who would listen (b) drink as much as I was able to convince people to buy for me (c) bed as many people as I could and (d) do whatever the hell I felt like doing!

I have said before that whilst manic I am the person Sally and Kathy always bitched at me for not being. Sounds like a blast, doesn’t it? Well it wasn’t! It was immensely frightening, scary and at times down-right dangerous. The things I remember doing, the things I remember saying - I’m incredibly lucky not to have ended up with serious injury and/or death – chatting up a woman in a bar is one thing, chatting up a woman in front of their boyfriend another! Running across a road is one thing; throwing yourself in front of a lorry to stop someone getting hit another!

Manic phases are incredibly dangerous beasts as although you have control over what you want to do, what you want to do is not generally what you should be doing. But that doesn’t really matter when you’re manic – immortal god remember, no inhibitions! The other danger with the manic phase was physical health related.

At the time I was still recovering from glandular fever due to the pressure and stress I had been under all year, so flagrant drinking and athletic activities were probably not the best thing to do. Especially given the damage my liver had suffered. The CLL, also, was not helped through this period – as it wasn’t through all of the emotional stress of last year.

The manic phase was dwindling the weekend I left for Melbourne, helped partly by the beautiful speeches of Gridlock and when I rolled into Ararat on my return journey found myself crashing out for the first time in what felt like weeks. My return to Melbourne was still drenched in mania and anger following the events of the last few months and aside from a trip to an interesting looking club on King Street and a meander to the storage depot to collect some of my items kept myself to myself as I had no idea what would happen were I to meet my ex-girlfriend at this stage, in this phase.

Now, earlier on I said how I became like Shay whilst manic. This is and will always be the case. I still however continue to believe that I am not a danger to others whilst manic, only myself. Granted I started a fight, but many guys have, and that doesn’t mean I’m a danger to others. I never intentionally set out to harm someone unless they consented to it, and – like I said – you have control over yourself whilst manic, just because your inhibitions are down doesn’t mean you’re going to become a crazed psychopathic killer. That’s not who I am, that’s not who I’ll ever be, and having experienced one manic phase I’m hesitant to want another – although in many ways I’m secretly hoping for one soon – due to the danger it presents to me both mentally and physically.

As I say, when I’m manic I’m the person Sally and Kathy always wanted me to be, and part of me seriously wants a manic phase to happen right now so I can have some fun for the first time since, well, June/July 2007. Given the fact, as I wrote in November last year, I know my triggers it would be easy to bring one on. The only problem is, next time I go manic (which I know will happen sooner rather than later) it’s gonna do me even more serious damage, especially given my current state.

Hence, why I am fighting so hard against the onslaught of incessant mood swings that plague me whilst keeping those tempting triggers at bay.

Related posts:

• Coming to Terms with Bipolar
• Bipolar and Depression: Identifying Triggers
• (Some) True Confessions of a Self Harmer
• Understanding Mental Illness: Bipolar

“You’re useless,”
“You never do anything right,”

If I were to sit down with a friend, black eye on display, and tell them that my partner had been physically abusing me it would be hard for them to disagree. The evidence in all its black, red and purple glory would be staring them in the face.

If I were to sit down with a friend, looking just the way I normally do, and tell them that my partner had been emotionally abusing me it would be hard for them to agree. The evidence would be locked away inside my mind, hidden from their view.

Or would it?

When I was in the city a couple of week’s ago I was strolling around one of the bigger book shops checking out all the books I had missed and/or wanted to read if only I could summon the focus to get through more than a page and I stopped – dumb founded – in a section which I just couldn’t believe.

Tragic Life Stories!

“Your photos are so boring, so uninspiring, why do you even bother?”
“You’re just contaminating me with your negativity,”
“You never do anything to help anyone - ever,”

There was crime, science fiction and fantasy, teenage fiction, literature, classics, history, biography, art, politics, adult, photography and then right in front of me in prominent display – tragic life stories. What the hell? Since when did this become its own genre? There were literally dozens upon dozens upon dozens of books all about exactly the same topic. Which is important, don’t get me wrong, but when I hopped over to the psychology section (if you can call it that) I could not see one title which examined abuse of any kind; it was just all comic-esque books about how eating an apple on the 14th July can stop depression for life, or that coloured day book; a collection of cute animal pictures with semi-topical lines derived from self help books (another genre I can’t stand – they’re written for people who are going through a relationship breakdown, of course they’re going to say you can learn a lot from pain. Which you can. But they never say you can learn more from happiness do they? Of course not, as this is the last thing the hurt person reading it is going to want to hear. I can categorically say that I learnt more about life from my happy moments than from all of my painful moments combined - but we’ll get to that in my last post on Friday) Give me The Black Day Book or the wonderful novel Happiness any day; exactly the same thing but streaked through with brilliant irony which teaches far more than a jaunty little sentence of self-help bullshit.

But I digress.

Tragic Life Stories and the complete absence of psychology books about abuse. That’s where I was.

“You never take my feelings into account ever,”
“Your sex is so boring, it never excites me,”
“Get your back waxed, it’s horrible,”

There is absolutely nothing wrong with telling stories about abused childhoods, relationships or lives – especially if it’s about bringing this topic to the fore. Abuse destroys lives. Simple fact. As I browsed the titles, and every single cover looked exactly the same I should point out – virtually identical cover art, font, title, everything – they were all about sexual or physical abuse. It was as if emotional abuse doesn’t exist, as if we can all whole heartedly believe in every form of abuse under the sun except this, or perhaps because we can’t believe in something that doesn’t have any evidence to back up the claims. Both physical and sexual abuse can leave physical evidence that the abuse has taken place; emotional abuse, not a jot.

“It’s not that I find you physically repulsive, it’s more that you’re just not at all interesting,”
“If you were beaten as a child you wouldn’t think like that,”
“You’re such a pathetic retard,”

Hence why if you sit down to tell someone you’ve been emotionally abused chances are they’re not going to believe you. Surely they’re just words taken out of context and if you had a “thicker skin” it would be doing no damage at all? Nope, can’t agree with this at all. Emotional abuse is just as if not more damaging than all other forms of abuse and I’m sick of it continuing to be the Loch Ness Monster of the abuse debate. It causes life long potentially irreparable damage; just as physical and sexual abuse. In fact emotional abuse often (not always) leads directly into physical and sexual abuse.

“You never do anything to care about anyone - ever,”
“You’re always so selfish, it’s always about you!”
“No-one gives a shit about what you’re going through, why should they, it’s not important?”

So what evidence, what damage, does emotional abuse cause? Let’s use me as a case study (I mean, who else am I going to use, this is my insipid ramble here!) What are the consequences of emotional abuse?

(The quotes you are reading by the way, weren’t just said once, they were said on multiple occasions throughout and after my relationship. The reason it is so hard to get people to believe in emotional abuse is that it just looks like you’re not taking criticism well, but they just don’t seem to realize how frequent and repetitive this criticism is that’s being thrown at you.

No matter what you are doing. No matter how much of yourself you’re putting in. No matter how honest and open you’re being. No matter how deeply and positively you believe in something. No matter how you are saying something. No matter how it’s being done.
It
Will
Be
Attacked.
There is a list on this blog which I wrote in mid 2006; everything on that list was attacked and criticized by my abuser with the knowledge of everything that was on the list as I had told her about it and shared its content with her.

The other problem with simply retyping comments that were said to me throughout this post is that their context is lost, and with emotional abuse it is often the context in which something is said that elevates it from mere criticism into overtly abusive territory. Take for example the following:

“Yep, I made the right decision in breaking up with you,”

Fair enough. We’ve all thought this at some point in time and whether or not we actually decide to say it is up to the individual. But when taken in context, this sentence takes on a slightly different and – for me – more potently damaging aspect.

I was phoned on a Sunday afternoon by my ex-girlfriend asking if I wanted to come round for a cup of tea. We were trying at this stage to be friends, possibly the worst mistake of my life, but having nothing better to do, and valuing the friendship we once had (as I still do), I agreed.

We met in a park and being Easter I took along a couple of cream eggs, as really, cream eggs are just delicious. We chatted for a bit before ending up strolling down Smith Street and then journeying back to her house. She was peckish, I was peckish, and we were both bored so decided to cook up something to eat before going to the cinema. She was also tired, so went to have a nap whilst I wandered to the cinema for a schedule before coming back to her place and cooking a fairly simple pasta and sauce meal. Due to the timing of the cinema the dishes were left, and we went to watch the always enjoyable Audrey Tatou. Walking her home she invited me back in and we began a lengthy conversation touching on various subjects which at times became quite deep and meaningful and as the evening drew on she said how it would be easy for her to flirt with me in order to get me to spend the night.

I’d never hidden the fact from anyone that I was still in love with her, never did, never have, never will – as I even stated in my first post on emotional abuse how I still loved her. We talked about what she was saying and it resulted in the fact that because she was lonely and at times needed company it would be nice to spend the night with someone, to which she also added that she also understood how it would appear that she would be using me, knowing how I still felt about her. Fuelled by mild narcotics and love I agreed, and we spent the night.

It was actually rather miraculous I was able to get it up that night given the fact my body was pumped full of anti-depressants and diazepam, but I did, albeit a little awkwardly (not surprising when you take into account that impotency and reduction in sex drive are two of the most common side effects of this form of medication).
Anyhow, the following morning whilst we were both still dozing, she rolled herself on top of me with her head resting on my bare chest. Aside from underwear we were both wearing not much else. So as she rested her head on my chest and the rest of her body lying on top of mine, she played with my chest hair with one hand, opened her mouth and with a smile said: “Yep, I made the right decision in breaking up with you,”

And I suppose it’s probably just me thinking that maybe that wasn’t quite the nicest thing to say. Not quite able to believe those words had just been spoken I just lay there in shock, and it wasn’t for quite a while that she moved herself from on top of me and we both set about getting up, dressed and ready for the day. I gathered my bits together, threw them in a bag and wandered into the kitchen to bid farewell. To say I was hurt by her sentence was an understatement. I gave her a hug and left. A few minutes later I received a text message saying I had left a few bits at her place which she didn’t want, which I had, and so returned to get them and was met with a tirade of anger about how I hadn’t stuck around to do the dishes or help her with the laundry. Which, to be honest, just pissed me off!

I had made her dinner whilst she slept, had long emotional conversations with her, spent the night with someone who had ripped the heart from my chest only a couple of months before because she was lonely and needed company, and who had upon lying half naked on top me that morning told me she was happy she had broken up with me. And yet I was at fault because after being so obviously used I hadn’t stuck around to do the boyfriend thing of helping her with her laundry and her dishes.

Similarly with the context of:

“You and Grace aren’t friends, you never were, you never will be, she doesn’t care about you and she’s tired of being there to listen to all of your pathetic little problems. You’re on your own,”

After having had a nervous breakdown, a painful relationship breakup, being diagnosed with leukemia, falling back into self harm, depression, suicidal thoughts and still suffering from glandular fever (all of which – besides the leukemia - she knew) – the last thing I needed was to be told I was on my own. Whether what she said was true or not I always thought of Grace and myself as friends, and to be told this was not how she felt hurt like buggery, especially given the state my mind and physical health were in at the time.

“I have so much more respect now for a manager I never met than I have for you, she was a much better manager,”
 “You treated her so badly when she was at the hostel, she hated you,”
“Your hugs were suffocating; I never really liked them,”

Words alone though aren’t all the emotional abuser will use.

There were the with-holding and refusal to do anything which she knew I would like or wanted, such as:

• The information that she had a boyfriend was something she didn’t share with her mother and despite knowing how much I wanted to meet her family it was never to be – despite several opportunities when it could have happened.
• Or the utter refusal to do something sexual to me she knew I wanted, without ever explaining why. It was in a sense with-holding something from me she knew would bring me pleasure as a means to retain control over the relationship.

Then there were the dramatics:

• The “climbing of a construction site” and storming into my room at 10pm to make sure I was okay after she had broken up with me because she hadn’t been able to get in touch since breaking up with me. (i.e. because I had been in Port Fairy without a phone battery or charger)
• Or the storming out of the room at random intervals because I wasn’t doing what she wanted me to do and testing whether I’d chase after her or not, despite the fact she never really actually told me what she wanted to be doing. I was supposed to guess that.

Then there were the actions:

• Such as the throwing of a glass of water over my head in a relatively crowded restaurant on New Years Day because my preference of Bond actor differed from hers and she needed me to realize how stupid it was to prefer that actor over her own opinion.

Then there was the fact that my feelings never mattered:

• The apparent refusal to accept I was suffering from glandular fever; so was expected to wander around a town, go for a half hour horse riding session and then hike 6km to a bus stop whilst initiating in-depth emotional conversations without actually feeling any pain. Despite the fact that whilst she had glandular fever I was on the receiving end of an hour long tirade for suggesting we walk less than a kilometer from a train station to our destination in the city. (I wasn’t taking her health or how she was feeling into consideration)
• My mental illness was not under any circumstances to be discussed in detail ever. Whenever I tried to raise the topic of depression, self harm or social anxiety it was instantly rejected out of hand as depressing and not worth talking about in any way. So I learned to never even attempt to bring it up first.
• Or the fact that all of the above examples can be listed under this also. My feelings about what I wanted or desired were not a good enough reason to do something, the fact that her not introducing me to or telling her mother/family about me made me feel she was completely ashamed of me but that never mattered or that maybe throwing a glass of water over my head for no real reason made me feel completely humiliated and the fact that my physical illnesses were merely me being pathetic and weak for suffering from conditions such as glandular fever.

Then there was the always present never allowing me to forget the mistakes I had made in the past, with the constant use of lines beginning with:

“You know 12 months ago you did this…”
“Two weeks ago, you did this…”
“Why, 11 months and 2 weeks ago, when you did this…”

Before going into lengthy detail about incidents I had myself forgotten and/or overcome the regret in my mind, only to have the whole situation constantly resurrected in my head to feel the pain of them all over again.

Plus the fact that no matter what I was going through she had always been through something of equal nastiness or in most cases something far worse:

• You’ve had a breakdown? Well I was having a breakdown as well.
• You’re suffering from depression? When I was a teenager I also suffered from depression and I wanted to kill myself but I got through it so you should just get over it and that’s that.
• You’ve not got any money? Well neither have I, despite the fact that I’ve just bought a $300 pair of boots, have three jobs and am receiving a few hundred in benefits every couple of weeks, I have no money either.
• Or the all time classic! When I sat down with her one afternoon to tell her I’d been diagnosed with leukemia. Before I could even get out fully what my situation was: “I’ve been in exactly the same situation as you have so you’re not going to get any sympathy from me, so don’t even bother going into it, I don’t want to hear,”

And that’s just the tip of the ice-berg. Yet through everything, through all of the occasions that I tried to find out why she was saying these things, or why she was criticizing and hurting me so much, the answer was always the same. It was either: ‘I don’t know,’ or, something familiar with cases of emotional abuse, ‘I was just trying to change you,’

As a result of emotional abuse I have changed! As a result, I:

• have lost all sense of self belief, self esteem and confidence. I have been reduced to a scared, frightened wreck, unable to believe I am capable of doing or achieving anything. I think that’s fairly obvious from a lot of the posts on this blog.
• cannot trust anyone, anywhere, and doubt I will be able to again.
• do not believe a single word of praise which is given to me.
• have inflicted self-injury on several occasions as a direct consequence of the emotional abuse I suffered.
• am literally afraid to talk to anyone in fear of a repeat of what happened to me. My ability to communicate has been destroyed, and any chance of emotional, open and intimate conversation has been lost.
• suffer from flashbacks and daily replays of moments and quotes from that time.
• have ended up in hospital as a result of some instances of the self injury inflicted as a result of the abuse.
• lost my college course due to my problems, issues and circumstances being unimportant compared to hers.
• have found my depression and related mental illnesses relapse to the worst point in my life to the point I don’t believe I’ll be able to get over it.
• spent several hundred dollars that I couldn’t afford on psychologists and counselors in an effort to overcome the PTSD, anxiety, panic and related disorders which the abuse created.

That’s a fair whack of damage; internal, external, physical and financial – all with long reaching and devastating consequences on the rest of my life. So for my abuser, rejoice, because you definitely succeeded in changing me. And for those who think emotional abuse is merely friendly criticism that’s being taken in the wrong way.

WAKE UP!

There is so much more that needs to be done to make people realize that this is not acceptable behavior. It is almost impossible for both the abuser and abused to realize and understand what is happening during the relationship, even if this is the case the abused will often be unable to break up the relationship because their love of the person is far too strong to be able to do this. The abuser has control, which is what everything is about, which is why there is the criticism, the games, the tests and manipulation. They must at all times ascertain their control over their relationship and the people in their life, and most often, do not even realize this is what they are doing.

If you are being emotionally abused find a friend, find someone you trust and talk to them about what is going on. If they don’t believe you then find someone else. Emotional abuse exists, it is destroying lives, and more needs to be done. Those Tragic Life Stories littering the shops are not just books – they are lives – real human people who are never going to be the same and who will not be able to live the life they want. This is the damage of abuse. Physical, Sexual, Emotional, whatever – abuse should not be tolerated.

Every quote, every incident, every moment detailed on this page and thousands more replay in my head virtually all day every day. Nothing I do makes it go away, nothing I do seems to be able to make it stop. That’s what emotional abuse does. Is it any wonder I hate myself? Why I cut myself? Hit myself? Believe my hallucination so much? Abuse sucks, and until you’ve experienced it, I don’t think you’ll ever fully understand it’s long reaching soul destroying consequences.

“You should tape record your voice, it’ll make you realize how boring and monotonous it is, and so you should just kill yourself,”
“Your kisses were terrible, I never enjoyed them, my ex was the most perfect kisser in the world,”
“You never say anything interesting – ever,”

Related posts:

• Emotional Abuse
• Emotional Abuse: Resources and Information
• My Nervous Breakdown

March 2006, back when I was able to work, I worked as a manager for a backpacker hostel in Melbourne, which at the time I left it, was the best small hostel in the city. Granted I’m a little biased when I say that, but I put a helluva lot of work into that hostel. Fifty to sixty hour weeks were frequent, seventy plus hours rarer but still there. My salary was fracked beyond all measure, with virtually all of the staff beneath me earning more money than I was. I quit the job for various complicated reasons, the most predominant being one which I kept secret until this blog vomited out of my mind; which was my decision to end my life after visiting the Port Fairy Folk Festival in March 2006. Something which really should have been picked up on given the fact I made it clear I had no intention of returning from Port Fairy, and also was (rather obviously) tying up all manner of loose ends in my life at the time. No matter – I’m used to people not noticing the pain I’m in. I’m WAY too good at pretending I’m all okay and hunky-dory for my own good.

In those two weeks of tying up loose ends I had to kick someone out of the hostel. I can remember his face, name, personality traits as clearly as I can remember those of any of my once closest friends. I was kicking him out for all manner of reasons; upsetting other guests, not paying for accommodation, fucking up the room, the list was endless really – and as I was kicking him out he told me many times the same line. Over and over again.

“You have to help people!”

January 2007, the start of those long, dark and grueling months when I was suffering from glandular fever I was in a huge amount of pain. I haven’t written about how I felt during that time in great detail due to this blog being, predominantly, about my mental illnesses and not physical ones. However, I will say that glandular fever is one of the nastiest illnesses that you can do nothing about that I know. At least with cancer, bronchitis and bacterial infections medication exists which can help control and reduce the pain experienced. With glandular fever, there is nothing. There’s no pill you can take to stop the excruciating pain exploding in your liver and spleen, there’s nothing you can pop to clear the cloud of fog which has engulfed and infected your brain’s thoughts and synapses. You just have to endure it all, and hope that in time it will clear itself. When suffering from glandular fever everything is difficult; walking, talking, thinking, emoting, shagging, dancing, socializing, drinking, eating, horse riding…and yet whilst I was suffering from it I did all of the above and a lot more besides. On a regular basis I was passing out at the end of the day, literally, because of how hard I and other people were pushing me whilst I was suffering from this illness. It would have been so much easier, and so much wiser, to retreat and hide under the doona throughout the course of this illness, but I would not allow myself to do this and (in hindsight) nor would other people.

I am of course, in a roundabout way referring to my then girlfriend. I’ve always hesitated in pointing fingers on this blog, but in all honesty, the treatment she gave me whilst I was suffering from glandular fever was fucked up. She didn’t seem to understand how I was feeling physically, emotionally and mentally as a result of the illness I was suffering from. Which didn’t make sense to me due to the fact she had given me glandular fever to begin with – and during the months she was inflicted by the disease did pretty much exactly what I had refused to do; which was hide under the duvet for several weeks.

As time moved on, and the relationship ended, and the emotional abuse flew into full swing, one line was regularly slapped into my face by the woman who had done nothing to help me whilst I was suffering from glandular fever.

“You have to help people!”

So that’s two people now telling me exactly the same thing! Exactly the same line in fact.

June 2007, I’m in an empty room surrounded by memories, a backpack packed on the wooden floorboards beside me, on my other side a knife. A knife used frequently in the past to slice open my flesh. I was supposed to be at a pub, having a drink with people who I would miss dearly, but knew that in a few months time would probably not even remember my name. I picked up the knife and held the blade against my arm.

“There ya go,” She said. “You know what you have to do,”

Her voice sounded exactly the same as it always had, the same Scottish lilt, the same accent I had once upon a time become so aroused by. Now, and for the few months since her reappearance in my life, her voice filled me with agony and fear.

“When are you going to start believing me? They all hate you. They despise you to your very core. I want you to die, you want to die, she wants you to die, they all want you to die. Your existence on this planet is meaningless.”

“I know,”

“You came so close a few weeks ago, that overdose, genius. Truly inspired. Well, aside from the fact that you failed, but no matter, next time you’ll succeed. This time,”

“I don’t know if it’s what I want,”

“Who cares what you want? Fuck! Wake the hell up Addy! No-one has ever cared what you want! There isn’t a soul on this planet who would miss you, have you not been listening to everyone over the last few years? They fucking despise your very existence – why do you think you have cancer? You’re not worried about giving her an aneurism; you’re worried that it will give her an excuse to throw a bloody street party! You see, she’s right, you don’t tell anyone the happy things they want to hear. You sit there worrying about telling people you’re dying but you don’t seem to realize how happy it would make them if you did tell them – she told you that she wanted you to die, that this world would be a better place if you were not a part of it. Stop thinking. Just cut. Let the blood flow…I could do with a drink,”

“I can’t,”

“Here we go, it would hurt her too much? Same old fucking excuse. Listen to what she’s telling you, death is what she wants for you. She doesn’t care whether you hack your arm apart or whether you beat yourself black and purple, she – wants – you – to – die,”

“I can’t believe that.”

“You’re really boring me now Addy,”

“Yeah, well, I do that with everyone remember – boring old tedious monotonous unpassionate Addy,”

“Now you’re getting it,” Her voice grew softer. “Just cut yourself,”

“I can’t,”

“We’ll see about that,”

I put the knife down, wiped away my tears, and quickly walked out of the room for the evening of pain and frustration I knew would follow. Lots of faces I would miss greatly, yet none of them knowing the true extent of the degradation of my mind, how close I came to becoming, nor of the fact I was suffering from leukemia. Meadhbh loved that more than any of it. She adored the fact that I was dying inside – both mentally, emotionally and literally.

I know that Meadhbh doesn’t exist, I know she’s a fragment of my psyche, I know that the reason she appears faerie like is because of my fascination with faeries which only grew ten fold following her appearance in my life. I know that she comes to me mostly when things are rough – that when I was younger I craved a friend so created one out of my psychosis. I’m completely and utterly 100% aware of all this.

It still doesn’t detract from the power a hallucination can bring. Their words, so full of confidence and bravado can easily sway a mind cracking under emotional pressure. When she returned after my breakdown and haunted me every day her evil wicked words were merely an extension of my own mind, fuelled by abuse and the collapse of my self esteem. The simple fact they were what I believed were enough to give them a power unsurpassed by anything I did to combat them.

When I arrived at the pub that night she was still there, whispering in my ear as I attempted conversation with whoever appeared. She giggled, laughed, insulted me, and pointed out whenever something was said which backed up her own (my own) theories of who I was rather than who I had pretended so hard to be. I had to keep leaving the bar to have conversations with her in the street (pretending I was on the phone so as not to draw attention to myself) or vanishing to the bathroom to bicker and argue with my obscure imaginary friend.

“Can’t you just see the look of hatred in her eyes?”

I only nodded, tearing off a couple of strips of toilet paper to wipe away the tears.

“You sacrificed something important for her, why I have no idea, have to be honest that was a beautiful piece of manipulation I wish I’d been able to pull off, and she hates you – yet you still persist in believing you have worth. You gave her everything, I was watching, and then she destroyed you. Surely you must know it was deliberate. All that beautiful shit happening at the same time, the world wants you gone, it wants you dead.”

The corner of the toilet roll dispenser looked beautifully sharp, it might work.

“You should have bought the knife ya know, did you see how she tried to peek up your jumper, just to give herself nice warm glowy feelings at your pain, delicious.”

“I should have brought it,”

“Do you understand what I’ve been telling you now? They hate you,”

“They all hate me,”

The phone in my pocket vibrated and burst into song.

“They all hate you,” She whispered.

I checked the front of the screen and answered the phone, the conversation lasting a mere few seconds. I hung up, nodding. “Maybe,”

“Give her what she wants, what I want, what you want,”

I rolled up my jumper, and hacked the sharp edge of the toilet paper dispenser against the flesh, gasping as the skin broke and blood dribbled out. I didn’t even bother to clean it up before leaving the stall and heading back to the bar, Meadhbh following closely behind.

The power of hallucinations, regardless of whether what they’re saying is the truth or not, is that because your mind is already in such a state as to actually be able to create a hallucination in the first place – you believe what they’re saying. They are the true voices in your life, sometimes the only friends you have.

Meadhbh was there for me through the good times, goading me in the bad times. She’s still around now, three hour conversations here, five hour arguments around Glasgow there. Wherever I step I can’t shake her - her power too strong for my weakened mind to combat.

As we walked home that night, tears streaming down my face at all I had lost, all I would never see again, Meadhbh, with a glistening smile on her face, said:

“It’s like everyone keeps telling you, you have to help people. If you weren’t so selfish, then, none of this would be happening. You would be as happy as you were six months ago. If only you weren’t so bloody selfish. If only you made more effort to care about people, to help them,”

 Another public holiday, another religious festival, another day of me feeling like crap. Unlike Christmas when it was just me feeling like crap because of some godforsaken mixed-episode, which was much the same as why my New Year was also destroyed, this Easter I’ve also had the joy of some medication to back fire on me. Namely, Quetiapine fumarate aka Seroquel:

Seroquel belongs to a group of medicines called anti-psychotics which improve the symptoms of certain types of mental illness such as hallucinations, strange and frightening thoughts, changes in your behaviour, feeling alone and confused.

Umm, how exactly is a pill supposed to make you feel less alone and confused? Isn’t it contradictory that a pill which reduces your hallucinations also suppresses your feeling of loneliness? Surely people who are alone only have their hallucinations to make them feel less alone. No matter. They’re not really doing a bloody thing at the moment other than make me feel like a complete and utter zombie 24 hours a day - they’re not even helping me sleep, I just lie there having weird dreams about Kathy, Grace, Meerkats and Lucy. Lucy! I haven’t dreamt of Lucy for a looonnngggg time. Thought about her, yes, but not actually dreamed about her. Nope. These pills are doing bugger all at the moment aside from give me side effects. The list says:

| Dizziness | Feeling Sleepy | Rapid Heartbeat | Dry Mouth | Constipation | Indegestion | Feeling Weak | Swelling of arms and legs | Weight Gain | Fainting | Stuffy Nose | Low Blood Pressure in standing position | Allergic reactions | Fits | Fever | Very marked drowsiness | Muscle Stiffness| Marked increases in blood pressure or heartbeat | Reduced consciousness | Priapism |

Plus there’s the ‘if any of the following happen stop taking Seroqel and contact a doctor or the nearest hospital immediately‘:

| A fever, persistent sore throat or mouth ulcers, faster breathing, sweating, muscle stiffness, feeling unusually drowsy or faint | Fits or seizures | Allergic reactions that may include raised lumps, swelling of swelling around the mouth | That obscure sounding Priapism above (a long lasting painful erection) |

And it goes on…and on…and on…and for your information, those listed in bold above are ones I have experienced in the last few days. I suppose it could be worse, I could have a long lasting and painful erection!

So yep, my Easter has been chock-full of side effects and lacking in chock-olate and other such fun stuffs. I didn’t even paint any eggs, darn it! But how could my Easter have been different, if say, I had been in Eastern Europe?

In the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, a tradition of spanking or whipping is carried out on Easter Monday. In the morning, men spank women with a special handmade whip called pomlázka (in Czech) or korbá?(in Slovak), the women can retaliate by throwing cold water on the men. The pomlázka/korbá? consists of eight, twelve or even twenty-four withies (willow rods), is usually from half a metre to two metres long and decorated with coloured ribbons at the end. It must be mentioned that spanking normally is not painful or intended to cause suffering. A legend says that women should be spanked in order to keep their health and beauty during whole next year.

An additional purpose can be for men to exhibit their attraction to women; unvisited women can even feel offended. Traditionally, the spanked woman gives a coloured egg and sometimes a small amount of money to the man as a sign of her thanks. In some regions the women can get revenge in the afternoon or the following day when they can pour a bucket of cold water on any man. The habit slightly varies across Slovakia and the Czech Republic. A similar tradition existed in Poland (where it is called Dyngus Day), but it is now little more than an all-day water fight.

So there you have it. What would have been better? Spanking, whippings and waterfights - or side effects of anti psychotic medication. Maybe next year I should head to Eastern Europe!

Nevertheless I will keep you updated with all the medicated shenanigans over the coming days and, on Thursday, update you on yet another appointment with the Mental Health department. Who knows, it may even be hospital for little old me next :) I do hope however you all had an excellent Easter jam packed with chocolate, shenanigans and, if necessary, some aloe vera; I hear it has a rather soothing quality.

It’s been nearly a year since I was sitting on a beach in Port Fairy burning myself with a flaming stick. A flame which ignited the breakdown and the destruction of everything I had been building for 28 and a 1/2 years.

When I think back on that night, the cool autumnal air breathing softly around me, I remember the tears which streaked my face as I held that stick with trembling hands. The dead mobile phone lying on the beach beside me, a name burned on the LCD panel in my mind. I wonder what would have happened if the battery had still been breathing? I wonder if the person I had wanted to call would have answered?

Would they have listened?

A year before I had been on the exact same beach. A whole 365 days since I’d roamed there, with the intent of dying there. It had been a different phone at the time, but as I sat with the knife held against my wrist it had sparked alive with an echoing ‘beep’ in the still night. A ‘beep’ which sparked alive a long forgotten piece of my soul; enough to drag myself from the beach and spend a fitful night shivering and weeping in a lumpy hostel bed.

In the 365 days which had passed I had managed to rebuild my life. I had fought myself back from hell and only a few weeks earlier had been standing on the metaphorical Butt of Lewis screaming “Ha!” into the wind…(yay for obscure literary references)…having battled myself from the brink of death into a position where I had the world at my feet. Everything was in place; depression had been beaten, self harm overcome, social anxiety had had it’s butt spanked (well, nearly, a few more slaps and it would have been in submission). I had just started working toward my dream of a diploma, a novel was a few edits away from being completed and another started, I had friends for the first time in six years. Aside from glandular fever, which was hardly my fault, I was ecstatic about how much I’d been able to achieve, how much success I had reached.

Then came the double whammy I’ve mentioned before: leukemia diagnosis and being dumped, in the same week. Two shuddering tremors which rocked my foundations - two tremors which caused the earthquake that collapsed all the work. The act of nature which sent 365 days of work crumbling to dust and drove me back to that beach, back to where I had nearly killed myself.

I can’t go back to that beach this year.

I can’t go back to that beach ever again.

The aftershocks of that earthquake kept rumbling all year, cost me everything; home, friends, possessions, dreams, hopes, desires, cravings…my future. They’re still rumbling now. The odd few things which have stood strong trying to defy the inevitable are slowly but surely crumbling away to nothing. I don’t know how to make the earthquake stop.

I wish I did.

I can’t think about how close I came to happiness without bursting into tears. Is this the curse of bipolar? That no matter how much work we do, how close we come to achieving our hopes, something in the brain just trips and causes everything to fall apart. Or is it just dumb fracking luck? I was a different person before the earthquake struck; I was happy, excited, passionate. I dreamt and hoped and believed. Sure, it was difficult to show this through the crippling pain of glandular fever, but I tried, oh I tried. It feels like I’ve never stopped trying, ever.

Maybe I was never meant to be happy.

Now, 365 days since those vicious flames licked at my flesh, 730 days since I sat with the knife wanting to end it, I’m left with nothing. The dust is settling to reveal only a collapsed heap of someone who nearly became. All those friendships I worked so hard to forge have become mere pixels on a Facebook screen who don’t even remember my name. All those hopes and dreams and passions I fought to hug and dance with are nothing but embers of dying light in a musky corner of my soul.

When I think back on that night, the dead mobile phone lying on the beach beside me, I wonder what would have happened if the battery had still been breathing. Would my words have been listened to? Would that have stopped the breakdown? Or was a complete mental collapse merely inevitable for someone who - should fate and others be believed - deserved nothing?

The phone I use now is alive, I keep it breathing, daren’t not to. I glance at it from time-to-time, occasionally hearing the haunting ‘beeps’ of times past or names shimmering on the LCD screen only in my minds eye.

I wish people could understand how devastating a breakdown is.

I wish people could understand how hard I was fighting.

I wish people could understand how hard I still am.

Some people search for obscure humorous videos, others scour the web for pornographic material. Me? I seek out interesting and new articles on mental health related topics.

This morning I found a wonderful article written called The Stigma of Mental Illness by Ilse Pauw from Health24.com. One of the best I’ve read for quite some time.

Sue’s friend was the first to notice the mood and behaviour changes. Sue had always been extremely tactful, and had tended to put herself second; now she became argumentative, irritable and brash.

Generally, she became extremely talkative, but erratic, jumping from one topic to the next (referred to as “flight of ideas”) and couldn’t keep up with ideas flooding her brain (called “pressure of thought”). Others struggled to follow what it was she was on about.

She made several unwise choices, went on spending sprees, and made two foolish forays into investments which nearly ruined her. She gave away most of her belongings, and could not remember who she had given them to. She would spend hours phoning all her friends and acquaintances (often in the middle of the night), and could go days without sleeping or eating.

“In retrospect, I should probably be grateful that I came out of it alive,” says Sue now. “It’s so scary how your judgement becomes severely impaired. I still shudder when I think of all the risky situations I got myself into.”

She became very promiscuous.

“I flirted with all my male friends, whether they were single or not.” Fortunately, they were able to assure her afterwards that they didn’t respond; that nothing came of it.

She wasn’t safe among strangers, though: Sue says now that what frightens her almost more than anything is that she slept with strangers, and that there are chunks of time that she simply lost. She cannot remember everything and she has a real and legitimate fear that she may have been abused during that time.

A lot of the above is so familiar to me. The unwise choices, the spending sprees, the foolish forays. giving away belongings, phoning people, days without sleeping or eating, flirting, losing chunks of time, promiscuity…yep…check, check, check, check…check!

The manic episode I experienced last year in Adelaide is something I have yet to write about in any detail, aside from my psychologist(s) I have only briefly mentioned some of my actions to an old friend. Some people may view a ‘manic’ episode as being a heady period of fun and unbridled shenanigans - it’s not - it’s a mortifying period where you have little or no control over your actions. That’s if you can actually remember your actions!

“I used to think that I could predict how I would react to certain events. It is freaky that I behaved in such an out-of-character way. Although I’ve been in remission for almost 11 years, I always doubt myself: if I’m excited about something, I think ‘am I ill again?’; if I’m in love, I think ‘am I ill again?’ It is as if I have a much smaller range of emotions that I’m allowed to experience without me or others becoming concerned. That is one of the hardest aspects of having had a manic episode – your right to be frivolous and spontaneous is lost forever.”

Sue has a great group of friends: only one broke off contact because of how she behaved during her illness. She does, however, feel the fact that people become worried so easily about her, means that they haven’t really moved on. “At some level, I’m grateful that my friends become concerned so easily. To some extent this makes me feel looked after. In fact, I’ve asked my best friend to raise his concerns if he ever has some. I know that if he does, I will have it checked out by my psychiatrist immediately. The lack of insight happens quickly, but fortunately not immediately. This is the only thing that gives me confidence that it is unlikely that I would get ill again.”

Many people like Sue, who have or have had a mental illness, feel they do not want to disclose their status. People fear that they may not be regarded as “normal”, and will be rejected. So Sue has never disclosed her illness to employers or new friends. She battles with the idea, and is adamant that people should think carefully about who they trust with this sort of information.

Thanks to the fact that she took leave during her manic phase and when her depression was at its worst, her employer has never picked up anything.

She is grateful for friends’ discretion – except for one, who does tend to talk about it. Sue suspects that this might be why she hasn’t been in a relationship since then. “Whenever someone is interested in me, she tells them about what happened, and warns them that I’m ‘not relationship material’. I’m not being paranoid – I unfortunately know this for a fact. This hurts and frustrates me because it means that I will never be normal in her eyes again.”

Since I became public with the extent of my mental illnesses virtually all of my old-friends have broken contact. As I have mentioned previously on this blog, I do not blame them entirely, as some of my actions were questionable - although not all being my own choice. This has made recovery so much harder as isolation and loneliness only contributes to the symptoms of mental illness.

My decision to go public with my illnesses came about because of my passion for mental health awareness. Mental illnesses is and will continue to destroy so many lives that it is something which needs to be talked about. I understand why some people wish to remain anonymous or hide this side of their illnesses from people, however, when I decided to join the fight I knew I would need to be open and honest with everything - including my name - if I was to fight this battle on my own terms.

“The positive spin-off is that I have a far greater understanding of what people with mental illness go through and I’m in a far stronger position to support and empathise with those around me who have had similar experiences.”

As I have mentioned before; I have already lost everything, so I have nothing more to lose in being open with who I am and the illnesses I suffer from, regardless of the stigma attached to mental illness.

Read the complete article: ‘The Stigma of Mental Illness’

One of the hardest things about suffering from mental illness is the damage that it can do to the relationships in your life. Family, lovers and friends are all dramatically affected in learning that you suffer from a mental illness. The stigmas surrounding mental illness can be so powerful that friendships which were once strong and ever-lasting will become nothing more than a fleeting memory in the sands of time.

So it is always wonderful to come across initiatives which are dedicated to educating and supporting friends of those suffering from mental illness. Understanding what your friend is going through it key to understanding how you can help and support them towards recovery.

About the “What a Difference a Friend Makes” Initiative

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) launched the Mental Health Campaign for Mental Health Recovery to encourage, educate, and inspire people between 18 and 25 to support their friends who are experiencing mental health problems. The prevalence of serious mental health conditions in this age group is almost double that of the general population, yet young people have the lowest rate of help-seeking behaviors. This group has a high potential to minimize future disability if social acceptance is broadened and they receive the right support and services early on.

The opportunity for recovery is more likely in a society of acceptance, and this initiative is meant to inspire young people to serve as the mental health vanguard, motivating a societal change toward acceptance and decreasing the negative attitudes that surround mental illness. Mental health recovery is a journey of healing and transformation, enabling a person with a mental health problem to live a meaningful life in a community of his or her choice while striving to achieve his or her full potential.

Our work is important. Discrimination and stigma have made it harder and harder for people with mental illnesses to keep a job, find a home, get health insurance, and find treatment.

This is a wonderful website and well worth a visit. Friendships, like any relationship, require time, effort and commitment.

Understand your friend’s problems and help them recover - in the long run, it’ll be worth it for both of you.

Visit the WHAT A DIFFERENCE A FRIEND MAKES initiative…

If you’re keeping up to date with the blog then you’ll be aware that I once ran away. There has been fleeting mentions of this particular period in my life in several of the posts. The most recent mention was in The Video Adventures of Addy in Scotland: Inverness where I describe this particular period as simply “(a long story)”.

Well, slip on your most comfortable undies and whisk up that hot chocolate as I’m about to tell that story.

On Train: Guildford>>London Waterloo.
11th September 1997 - 7:12pm.

This is insane.
Still - I am 2hrs 20mins away from alienating family, friends and close acquaintances.
For the last five years or so - possibly stretching onto six or seven - I have never felt like me in my entirety. Sure I have got on with things: I’ve loved but I haven’t, I’ve lived but I haven’t.

The ‘event’ which most people (I’m sure) will recall happening during September 1997 was the death of Princess Diana. This actually happened the first day I was there. Waking up in the morning I flicked on the TV, found my show wasn’t on because of some annoying news flash, so pilfered my bro’s VHS collection (those were the days) and ended up watching Balto. When this movie ended I flicked back onto the TV to find the shows I was expecting still not on and this infernal newsfla…oh…Princess Diana has been killed. Ok. Right. Fair enough.

It really changed the whole feel of the week, instead of a lightning fast rush around of Guildford with occasional trips to London to party on in the West End and Soho, it was a much more contemplative period. At the time, despite suffering from social anxiety, I was still able to go to plays and concerts and would always try to catch at least one show whenever I was in London. On this occasion I seem to recall watching Shopping and F*****gwhich was rather interesting but - oooooohhhh, naked breasts! Shock!

As the days rolled on I watched some movies, wandered the streets, wrote to my hearts content, and generally carried onwards with my break from home. Princess Diana’s funeral came and went, Candle in the Windplayed in all the shops and I meandered the ghost-city Guildford had become. Then, walking back from the supermarket one night, I just said to myself, “I’m going to Scotland,”

If I were to try and explain my reasons this the only answer I could give would be ummmmmmm? Because I have absolutely no idea. It came out of nowhere and I just did it. Massively out of character for me, really. There I was watching movies, checking out live-theatre-breasts and watching the public reaction to Diana’s death - then suddenly, I was writing dozens of letters to all sorts of people because I just had to write them right then and there before I went and then I packed, threw everything I had into a backpack, wandered to the train station, journeyed to London Euston and boarded the sleeper train to Inverness.

No phone calls.

Didn’t tell anyone.

Just left a letter in my brother’s flat.

Loch Ness Backpackers: Lewiston (nr Drumnadrochit):
“What I did stumble onto was a split in what I thought was the Ness, an island in the middle. Various people passed by in both directions so I guessed it went somewhere. I just kept going. After an extremely fast hour or so I began milling on thoughts in self-conversation. “This is the Caledonian canal. It must be…it must!” I worked out in a somewhat over excited fit of glee and still ongoing disbelief of the situation I had placed myself into. Only after I found that the island I was on didn’t go anywhere, causing me to turn back some ½ a mile to cross a lock and experience my first meeting with a Scot (a really cool woman in a grocer store near the Donagharry Lock) to venture out to my forethought route - the A82. Cars, lorries, coaches, bikes all deafening me as I continued on.”

[Oh, all the "italicised" bits are actual extracts from the journal I kept during that period.]

Anyway, I arrived in Inverness and just carried on with the plan I had formulated over those hectic two days before leaving Guildford. It was a simple plan that can be summed up in 9 words:

I was going to walk from Inverness to Drumnadrochit.

 

Now, anyone who has ever been to this particular part of Scotland will know of the A82. It is the main road (Highway if you like) which runs between Inverness, Fort William and Glasgow. It is a bitch of a road; there’s no sidewalks or space for walkers, so to find a bizarre guy with a 15kg backpack wandering down this stretch of road is not all that common. However for one particular bus driver it became common that day as we waved at each other every time he drove past.

Loch Ness Backpackers: Lewiston (nr Drumnadrochit):
“My mind. Even being blasted with joy and hate as it was, still forged on, despising the thought of the HUGE blisters and stiff to rigid muscles I would have when I finally decided to stop.
Drumnadrochit is nothing to what I imagined (as I couldn’t remember from my one visit as a child). For some obscure reason I pictured a quaint little fisher town on the very shores of the loch with bustling streets full of eccentric Scots and pleasing “O’Hara” beauties. It is in fact fairly small, a good ¾ of a mile from the loch’s shore, has only a few touristy shops and a post office. It is pretty quiet and comprises of mainly B&Bs. After buying an ice lolly (funky lemon calypso) and water I choose (for some unidentifiable reason) to push on further; to see the castle up close for surely it isn’t far. It can’t be. About a mile at a slowing pace: it is a splendid beauty, utterly gorgeous from the distance I viewed it at. A photo was taken, the water guzzled - I was asked by a tourist about B&Bs - why? Like I know! I decide to find somewhere at Drumnadrochit instead of killing my feet even further.”

Again, if I were to try and explain my reasons for doing all this the only answer I could give would be ummmmmmm?

Following my hike from Inverness to Drumnadrochit I journeyed to Fort William by bus, exploring for the first time a town which has become so intertwined with my life, and it was days before thoughts began creeping into my mind about what it was that I had actually done. Which was, to all intent and purpose, the fact I had vanished off the face of the planet.

I had written in the letter to my family (the one left in my brother’s flat) that I was going away and that I’d phone them. I didn’t mention that I was going to Scotland, nor of my plan to walk to Drum, despite the fact that I knew all this before writing the letter. Again, I have no idea why I didn’t write this.

It’s because of this lack of cohesion, or memory of the specific events, that I’ve connected this to bipolar. By the time I ran away I had been self-harming for several years, social anxiety was rife and my ability to communicate with people virtually non-existent. Depression was prevalent and controlling, and from the remaining journal entries of the time, suicide was being bandied about as an option. I wouldn’t say this was a true manic phase, but the immediacy of the decision, the utter conviction of my plans and feeling rather confident that it was without a shadow of a doubt the right thing to do, all in some way, throw positives on the bipolar connection.

I’ve never been proud of this period of my life. Not once. Ever.

Running away from home was a terrible thing to do, and the pain and worry I caused my family was completely unacceptable (and I paid for this upon my return). So writing now that I believe it to be connected with the then undiagnosed or even unthought of bipolar seems like making light of my actions, even excusing them, but this isn’t the case. I did the wrong thing - but for me, at the time, it was the only thing that felt right to do.

Despite the pain I was causing my family back home things were quietly simmering away for me in Scotland.

The Mission Backpacker Hostel: Fort William:
Take for example my return at F. Willy train station, I usually walk with my head facing downwards yes? Well today I didn’t, when I exited the train for the first time in memory I was walking with my head upright, it may not sound much but to me that was everything. I passed a pretty girl and in the past eye contact would not have been made, but as it was I automatically flashed a smile. Knowing myself, and my shy soul, this was a major advancement and something must be going right.

This was “huge” for me at the time. I never ever ever made eye contact with strangers - the mere thought of doing so was enough to cause a panic attack so to actually, without hesitation or thought make eye contact and smile at a complete (yet utterly beautiful) stranger was amazing!

Though, since the diagnosis of bipolar I’ve been looking back over my life at these moments of madness and confused reality and things have become skewed as to whether it was truly me or perhaps the manic-me.

At the time I ran away I hadn’t even heard of bipolar, didn’t know what manic depression was. I knew about depression and self harm, obviously, even though I never spoke of it. At this time I was just a crazy teen who’d runaway from home; despite no-one I was meeting actually being told this. I mean, c’mon, you don’t tell someone you’ve run away do you? Kinda defeats the purpose. That’s hard enough for a normal runaway, let alone someone who suffers from a mental illness.

What a lot of people don’t seem to realise is that some sufferers of mental illness have great difficulty talking about how they’re feeling. Sometimes because they don’t even know themselves. I was - am- one of these people. The social anxiety makes everything a hundred times worse but talking about my feelings has always been something I’ve been terrible at, which is something that has infuriated so many people in my life. I dread to think of the number of homeless, runaways and missing persons out there who are mentally ill, unable to comprehend what’s happening or even how they got to where they are. All those lost, aimlesss, confused souls filling all the gaps in the world which most people don’t even notice exist.

I guess I notice them ’cause I’ve been there. I’ve slept under trees, on benches and in minus temperatures. I’ve been homeless and penniless and on the brink of disaster.

Anyhow.
My travels continued.
I spent the weekend in Fort William, visited Glenfinnan - a place which has become so closely intertwined with my life and fate - and then travelled back up the A82 to Inverness where the social anxiety continued to decrease slightly.

Bazpackers Hostel - Inverness:
It’s the time we spent seemingly unaware of each others names that is surreally amusing. We were together for the most part from about 6 thru 11 last night, chatting for a couple of hours at the hostel before venturing to the streets of Inverness for a pint or two. After being drowned out of an Irish bar by the football on big screen TV w4e lost ourselves looking for a hostel-recommended place known as the ‘old market inn’ after half an hour traipsing, directions asked, we found it: down an alley, up a thin flight of stairs to a room no larger than my bedroom back home. It was quaint. Quiet. But somehow inviting: as a live singer milled up to the stage to perform some easy going well played tunes. He wasn’t bad. However, we were after something a little more lively so pushed on, popping into a bar where the pink haired hostel girl worked - then just wandering uneventfully round the town, across the river, simply chatting.

From there I travelled to Aberdeen, through Portlethen and then down to Stirling. Memories of my childhood firing back at me on all cylinders. I would think of home, of my parents and friends, all the letters I’d written, wondering why or how and what I was going to say. But as I couldn’t answer this I never picked up the phone. Stirling led to Edinburgh, Edinburgh led to…home.

And the inevitable showdown.

From my own experience the fear and dread of re-emerging after disappearing off the face of the Earth was enough to make me not want to return. Is this the same for all runaways? Is this why so many people just disappear? Because the fear surrounding the reality of what they’ve done is too consuming for them to deal with? It was incredibly hard to do, to see the relief on their faces, hear of being reported missing (for the first, but not last time of my life) and the pain and confusion I had put them through. As I said before, I have always felt ashamed of running away, but in another way exhilarated also.

That may sound callous, but it’s true. That week opened up my life. Until then it had been social anxiety, self harm, depression and confused blackness. Now - there was a whole world out there. There were places called backpacker hostels out there! This alone would have huge repercussions later in my life!

The final journal passage of this trip read as follows:

Carlisle Train Station -
So we reach Carlisle and I am now, once again, officially out of the country I will always call ‘home’. To be totally honest I feel such a great connection with the country that I honestly believe I spent a former life amongst it’s gorgeous glens. Either that or I’ve taken way too much solace in it over the years! Still, it has been a grand week. From the rolling fields and sloping hills of the lowlands to the treacherous mountains and mysterious lochs of the highlands. I have had a wondrous time. Maybe it’s down to the people I’ve met; the Islamic Enigma, Danny, Paul, The pink haired girl, the kind drunken couple, and lest not forget the funky Canadian. Or maybe it was the sights I have seen; the view over Loch Shiel from the viaduct, seeing the dark mountains and mist covered water of Loch Ness, passing through old haunts or the darkened built up beauty of the capitol. It’s all been a wonder.
Then again.
Maybe it’s down to the fact I lived a dream. Or for the first time in years know me. At some point I would have feared what may be awaiting back home, now, after the last week, I don’t care. Things have to happen and payments made for the decisions we make.

I feel good, about me. For the first time in years I feel truthfully happy.
Happy.

From this, you could say that I’m praising running away as a valid decent choice. It’s not!The pain I caused was far worse than any of the positives which came out of that event. In the long term also, the positives faded and I descended into a far worse period of depression than I had been in before I ran. This is the problem with running away. Everyone has problems and everyone wants them to go away, but running is never the answer.

With so many lost souls out there unsure of what was, is and will happen in their lives I wonder how many are suffering from mental illness and not getting the treatment they need, I wonder why they ran away in the first place, and what made them feel so alone in the world to make them want to. Having been there, I understand the confusion and torment which can go on in someone’s mind when they decide to vanish, and the hardship in making contact to let people know where they are.

Talking, opening up and sharing your problems is hard; but no-one in life needs - or should ever be - alone.

So this is my new home.

As I don’t actually have any place I can call home in the “real world” it’s nice to have a place to call a home in cyberspace, especially with an address that I can call my “own”.

My decision to move to my own domain has been a long time coming, it’s something I’ve wanted to do since I started writing this blog back on blogspot so many moons, mood swings and lifetimes ago I can barely recall who I was back then. My move to wordpress was, in essence, a way to try out their software whilst I pondered and tweaked with the whole “is it possible/feasible/worth it” debate.

Eventually I decided, as it was something I desired, it was worth it. So often in life we never get what we want, no matter how much work we put in to realise our dreams.

Hopefully the move will prove undramatic, but as I have become accustomed to dramatics in life I’m sure there will be some hiccups along the way.

For those who have followed me over from my wordpress.com blog, all the posts found on that site are here and complete so you can re-read and study to your hearts content. new posts will, mood dependant as always, fly either thick and fast powered by uncontrollable mania - or trickle along slower than a snail trying to escape his arch rival the slug (who is intent on stealing his home) - hopefully the former :)

For those of you who are finding me for the very first time. Don’t be too scared! :) Granted I have my obscure moments, but peak beneath the surface and the labels and you’ll find a surprisingly interesting guy. The best thing to do is have a wander and see what you find.

I recommend a trip to the INDEX where you’ll find answers to the most commonly asked questions. Perhaps then a visit to the UNDERSTANDING MENTAL ILLNESS page where you can read more about the various forms of mental illness which exist in the world, as well as lengthy passages about my own experience of dealing with these illnesses which I have had thrust upon me.

To keep you up to date you can subscribe to my RSS FEED or by EMAIL; and for those of you who decide to subscribe by email you will be in the running to win a wonderful prize every two weeks, just for subscribing! So hop to it.

If you’d like to know more about me you can have a wee gander here, and please let me know a little about yourselves, it’s always good to meet new people.

I look forward to settling into my new home and getting to know you all better :)

Inverness, the site of so many memories and moments of my life was both a happy inducing tour-de-force and also a nostalgic kick in the groin. There are two videos of my time in Inverness, both rather reflective pieces, which draw this particular journey in Scotland to a close.

Part 1: Return

Part 2: Reflect

And this concludes this journey. It’s not been handled very well, but that’s kinda the thing with bipolar isn’t it! You get all these wonderful ideas of world domination and then - BAM - a vicious depressive episode hits for no reason and nothing ever gets done.

Ah well.

There’s always next time!

Anyhow, hope you’ve enjoyed them at least a little - I had fun making them, so at least that’s something!