Overcoming Mental Illness

Poached eggs on toast with the most ludicrously small portion of spinach I have ever seen. This portion of spinach was so minuscule you were seriously left wondering how eating it would ignite the muscles in your arms Popeye-style and give you the strength to get through the day. The poached eggs were wonderful, as was the bread, just a darn shame about the spinach. Sitting across from me was - shock - not an empty chair, but one of the most beautiful souls I have ever known.

“Why didn’t you phone me?” She asked.

“I wanted to,” I said back.

She just gave me one of her looks, a look I know well.

“I guess I just didn’t want to bother you,” I added.

Another look.

One of the most common and recurring problems in today’s world seems to be asking for help. Everyday people are having problems with work, relationships, finance, legal issues, health, family, their pet wombats…the list is interminably endless. Yet, asking for help with a problem from anyoneis increasingly becoming one of the hardest things in the world. Perhaps fear of appearing weak, needy or incompetent is the primary cause - three things which none of us wish to appear to be, as is no doubt evident from the wealth of posts on my blog dealing with similar issues and frustrations.

For some reason we all like to believe we have red, blue and yellow Lycra suits on underneath our daily clothes so that whenever we feel like it we can loosen our ties (or brassieres) and reveal that we are actually from the planet Krypton - or just someone with a fetish for wearing our underwear on the outside. Now don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t mind so much if I girl I was seeing dressed up as Supergirl for a night of kinky fun as I’ve always had a self confessed superhero fetish, but reality alas always gets in the way.

“C’mon, when do you ever ask for help?” I questioned.

A pause.

“Do what I say not what I do,”

Such wonderful words. Do what I say and not what I do…oh how many times have I heard those in my life? It’s funny how they always seem to come about when the giving of advice is involved; surely leading by example is a far better way to be. Although if I were to leap off a cliff, break 326 bones, spend several months in traction I would probably then tell someone to not jump off a cliff - which would I suppose be a good example of do what I say and not what I stupidly did which caused me months of emotional and physical pain. Anyway, I digress, for this post is surely about Superhero fetishes isn’t it…

…well, actually not, but then surely I’m allowed to dream ;)

ASKING FOR HELP!

WHY IS IT SO HARD!

We don’t ask Superheros for help do we? They just swoop on in and save the day, that’s why they’re super and heroic and look sexy in their skin tight costumes. What is it about those four simple letters which makes it so hard for the majority of us to say?

I can’t speak for everyone, but what I can do is tell you my story of why I find it so hard to ask for help - and then you can all click on the “submit comment” button and tell me your stories and then maybe we can get to the bottom of this perplexing issue and create a new world order where help is not a reviled word to be feared, but is actually something which proves how strong we are.

Okay, so my issues with asking for help stem primarily from my social anxiety disorder but when I was back in my prime and had overcome depression, self harm and all that in the few months pre-breakdown I was feeling much better about myself in everyway. I actually felt that if I had put on a Spiderman costume (my own personal superhero outfit of choice) I would actually have looked like Spiderman instead of some chubby guy in a suit which caused people to vomit because it was just way too tight for public viewing. So I did actually, on occasion, ask for help. Or rather there was one specific occasion where I tried asking for help before anyone offered it, before I went days or weeks without trying to indicate there was a problem, for the first time in my life it was “frack, I have a problem, I need help, okay, I’m gonna ask for it!”

So I sat down and tried asking for help…

…then came the criticism, the heartfelt words of ‘bugger off your problems aren’t important” then came the dumping and the breakdown and the months of turmoil and loss of social network and friends and everything I’ve had. Me attempting to ask for help with a CLL diagnosis was a major catalyst for everything that happened. 

So is it any wonder I have a pathological fear of asking for help? When one of the only times I’ve ever done it in my life the reaction it received cost me virtually everything in my life bar one thing. My own misplaced belief in myself, which even itself wavers from time to time.

I would LOVE to be able to ask for help more often. I get messed up sometimes, very very very much so, and sometimes all I need in those moments is to speak to someone about anything - crickets, jam, koalas, Tibet, the state of the political situation, Lego Indiana Jones, yaks - and it just takes my mind off things to ease me back into control. Yet, because I don’t ask for help I end up cutting myself, or taking overdoses, or hiking 50odd kms to the Dandenongs with a scarf in hand. 

What’s weaker - asking for help or ending up in hospital staring at blank ceilings when you want to be looking at a friend?

[This post makes no sense. Maybe it's the hyper-manic state I'm in coupled with shock and confusion from the events of the weekend which I still haven't really come to terms with. Maybe I shouldn't even post it.]

I just want to know what others think. Why is asking for help so hard? Why does it make us feel like a shit person? I’ve just explained my reasons, so what do others think? Or am I completely wrong and is not asking for help selfish.

My friend (and it feels good to write that) said to me as I finished off my poached eggs:

“I would much rather you bother me before you did something like that than tell me afterwards,”

Which is true. Because I’m the same. If Supergirl, Superman, Spiderman or any of the whole pantheon of Superheros we drool over each night were to land in front of us a couple of days after the city had been destroyed you’d be PISSED! You’d have a go at them for not helping sooner.

If you don’t ask for help then you won’t get any. If you try and deal with everything by yourself, you’ll end up like me.

Don’t end up like me.

One word. Four letters. H E L P. Use it whenever you need to. Your friends - your true friends - will always listen.

[PS...hands up if anyone thinks I can write a more confusing and badly written post than that. Blimey. I need a drink]

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

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.

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!

Gosh, I should have written this yesterday but then I was a little out of it…and gosh, I should write more posts starting with that mighty fine word - gosh - what has been going on in my head today? Racing ecstatic thoughts, mind numbing tedium, utter frustration at banks and the bloody job centre! And - oh my - have I been fixated on sex today!

Ummm?

Ah yes, the hospital, what fun and shenanigans that was…

Anyways, the hospital. Was it a hospital? Not really, I suppose clinic would be the more apt term for the appointment I had. In fact I guess the term ‘the most boring building I have ever laid eyes on’ would be the most apt term, I didn’t realise until yesterday morning that a building could be so grey in both appearance, feel and colour. I smoked myself into a lung cancer ward, fought of mounting panic and anxiety and stepped through the doors with my long billowing Highlander/flasher jacket and was hit by a wall of sheer ice. Not literally of course, their heating had failed, which left everyone in the waiting room looking like icicles and caused the woman conducting my “assessment” to lose the power of hand writing due to the extreme dunes of frost which had built up on her fingers.

I am exaggerating of course.

The appointment kicked off at 9:30am, damned prompt as medical appointments go, and I swathed into the room and onto the chair where my leg proceeded to dance it’s merry jiggly samba (it has a predisposition to vibrate like something which, well, vibrates, when I am in such a state of anxiety) and she attempted to calm my nerves with small chit-chatty talk about the weather and the glory of being back in the UK. Glory? Glory to me is a fine-assed Big Bad from Buffy. There is nothing glorificus about being back in the UK! And then:

Her: So, tell me a little about your expectations and what you’re hoping to get in terms of treatment.

[Of course, with my brain the way it is at the moment (i.e. even though I am writing words onto the screen I am not thinking about them, instead, right now, I'm thinking about Glory because I just mentioned her - and well - she's a woman) the questions I'll be writing down as having been asked to me are not spot on word-for-word quotes, merely a rough indication of what was asked.]

Me: Ummmm, nothing.
Her: Nothing?
Me: Well, aside from the fact that I’ve been fighting mental illness alone for so long it would be nice to get a little bit of professional help - I mean that is what you do isn’t it? And, having been engaged in an all out war with the Australian mental health service for the last 12 months (12 months!) in which I lost ground faster than the Water Voles in their great struggle with the Mole kingdom of ‘75 and achieved absolutely nothing in terms of treatment other than various forms of anti-depressants which just screwed me up even more. No, I don’t really have any expectations really.
Her: I’ll just write ‘hoping for proper and effective treatment then’ shall I?

[Of course, I wouldn't take the words I'm writing here to be direct translations of my actual answers either - trust me - if I'd started talking about the great war between the Water Voles and Mole Kingdom in a mental health assessment I'm fairly confident I would be writing this post on the back of a stale cracker in a mental asylum.]

[Of course, I don't actually even believe their was a great war between the Water Voles and the Mole Kingdom, this was something I only just thought of to get my mind off Glory's posterior - and it worked - if only for those brief few moments.]

If I were to work through the entire assessment I’d be here all day. I had expected the appointment to last for about an hour, maybe less, but it was a whopping 93minutes I was vibrating in that tiny room looking out the window at the spectacular view of…a grey brick wall! Absolutely true! Yet more grey! There were three pipe ends which kindof looked like a face with it’s mouth open :o which reminded me of something which I’m now thinking about in respect to Glory.

It was basically what I have done so many times now that I have most of the answers on automatic response. The history of Addy and his insanity…basically what I’ve been talking about on the blog for the last several months. Which, yep, got a mention (go publicity!): all started at school…bullying…shyness…social anxiety…self harm…depression…hallucinations…kindof managed to get it all under control for a bit…emigration…Australia…BAM…nervous breakdown…massive relapse…the manic adventures of Addy in Adelaide…bipolar diagnosis…etc…etc…etc…and then all of a sudden, completely out of the blue, a question not a single person had ever asked me before. Not any of the GPs I’ve seen, none of the mental health gurus in Oz, no-one. Not a single person.

Her: So, tell me a little about your sexual history. Indiscretions? What age did it all begin happening? Any issues or problems in this area? Are you able to achieve an erection or do you require drugs or manual assistance? And tell me a little about what is psychologically going on in this respect.
Me: Ummm?
Her: …
Me: Errrrr?
Her: …I know it’s embarrassing, it is for me, but it’s something they will need to know.

[Of course, I had no idea who "they" were - the Moles perhaps?]

Me: Okay…I…well…I was a bit of a ‘late starter’…well…physically I was…well…what I mean by that was…ummm…physically with other people. I was actually quite young when I had my first sexual experience. I’m actually quite a sexual guy, I think about it a LOT and I’m a bit adventurous and when I’m manic - wow - tie me down!

[Of course, you can if you want to ;) And of course, I'm stopping the 'answer' there as I'm sure none of you desire to know about the inner workings of my sexual life...]

It just completely and utterly threw me! There was me expecting the same crap I’ve been through dozens of times now and I was suddenly talking about erections, losing my virginity and all that sexy slurpy stuff which is generally only talked about everywhere other than a mental health assessment!

Moving on! (See, told you I was in a weird one today!) The upshot of the whole assessment was that we covered each and every aspect of the ‘basic’ mental health (and sexual) history of Addy. All of it got written down on several pieces of paper and then as the clock kept ticking away as it tends to do, she pulled out three quizzes which had to be filled out. They were risk assessment quizzes and I had never done one of these before so I got a bit excited, not sure why, as it just entailed answering yes or no to a variety of questions - a tad disappointing as I was hoping for some general knowledge, literature or entertainment questions. Those quiz writers really should take a quiz in pub quiz writing styles to mix up their brain teasers a bit.

The three quizzes were:

• Do you pose a threat either physically or psychologically to another person?
• Do you pose a threat either physically or psychologically to yourself?
• Neglected?

And how did I fare?

• Zero. Zilch. Nada. Zip. Nothing. Nought. I am more likely to time travel than harm someone else.
• ABSO-FRIGGING-LUTELY! COMPLETE AND UTTER “SEVERE” GRADE ON THIS ONE!
• Kindof. The sort of boring result where I’m not in a state of utter neglect to warrant any concern, but you would avoid me in the street sometimes due to my apparent confusing odour and current bad taste of clothes.

I was at least hoping to win a gift voucher for scoring highly on the danger to myself quiz, but alas, all I got was a wee smile and a slightly increased vibration in the thigh area. Better than nothing I suppose.

And this concluded the appointment. She gathered her variety of paperwork together and told me what happened next…which is that they all gather together on Wednesday to have a laugh over my answers (I’m sure that’s why the sex questions were asked) and then they will get back to me in regards to further treatment (if any is applicable) which will either be an appointment with a medic, a series of counselling sessions or the swift sectioning of this utterly and ludicrously insane gentleman. Me? Gentleman? Sometimes I s’pose.

I billowed my way out of the clinic (love that quote, even if it does make me look like I’m gonna leap out and reveal myself from time to time) and instantly lit up a cigarette and all I could think about was why they’d ask that sex question…and why hadn’t I answered it better?

All in all though I can honestly say that it was a lotmore thorough, detailed and ominously could-actually-go-somewhere than any of the appointments I’d had in Australia. She actually seemed like she wantedto help rather than me being a disposition in her otherwise ravenously exciting day, which was how I felt at the culmination of several of my appointments in Australia (especially when they discharged me from hospital after suicide attempts - ahhh, let him go, he’ll only get in the way of our arvo pub meal if he stays) so this is a good thing!

I will of course keep you all updated on this ongoing saga as soon as the next development takes place.

— — 

And what of today I hear you ask?

Well, I’m not allowed to open a new account with a new bank as I don’t have an income, which IMHO is utterly bizarre, so right now am not not sure where the money from the great Addy-eBay-sellout is going to be paid into.

Plus, the ongoing saga with the Jobcentre/benefits agency is beginning to scale even greater epic heights of frustrating absurdity (and I haven’t even really started talking about that on the blog yet so why start now?).

Oh, and I went to Newport today (the nearest city) which is quite possibly the most uninspiring city outside of Cardiff. I went there to get a book from the library, one of the ones from my list I wrote the other day.

I’d looked it up on the web last night so knew they had it, knew which section it was in -  and when I got there - nothing. Nothing in the other sections, nothing on the online catalogue, nothing anywhere, even the staff knew nothing about it! What the hell? So when I arrived back home I immediately got on the internet to try and solve this puzzle and it turns out I had been looking at the Newport, Oregon library website. Thus, at least I know if I ever find myself several thousand miles away in a library somewhere in America they will have the book I want to read!

Moral of the story? Make sure you’re on the right website!

If you want Newport, Wales libray - go to this!
If you want obscure mental health blog posts from a guy who thinks he’s a lot like the guy in the picture - stay where you are!
If you want porn - follow me… :p

Yep, I was standing outside last night looking at the night sky - suddenly realising that all the stars are different - and I realised I’d missed one of my fave songs from my music page.

When I was going through my big “gotta beat this shit” push of late 2006/early 2007 this was the song I would listen to a lot! Utterly marvellous song, and has been a source of several in-public drunken sing-a-longs…the first of which was my leaving BBQ for my job. Several drunken people all singing along to a song we all knew only from a TV show was a rather wonderous moment! Granted at the time we only knew the few seconds which had been featured during the Scrubs opening sequence, but now I know it pretty much verbatum!

…altogether now…but I can’t do this all on my own, no I know, I’m no Superman…

BTW, the music video for this song was directed by Zach Braff, just in case ya didnae know!

Okay, so what the hell has been going on over the last several weeks? Eh?

Why the hell I’m asking you guys I don’t know, because by heck if I don’t know, how can I expect any of your guys to be able to work it out. All I know is that a few weeks ago I was sitting in 40+ degree temperature watching the scantily clad women wander by wondering why I’d been ejected from hospital after a suicide attempt, whereas now, I’m sitting in the UK watching the rugged up pseudo-Eskimos walk by in barely 5 degree temperatures wondering what the hell is going on (and where all the t’n'a have gone)?

Oh, and I’ve become obsessed with a CD track called All the strange, strange creatures which is one of the most inspiring pieces of instrumental music I’ve heard for years - and would be an absolutely kick ass piece of music to score my major manic phase of last year in Adelaide - but all that’s beside the point!

Because why on earth did I call this post ‘getting back on the space hopper’? I haven’t been on a space hopper for years, maybe I should, maybe that’s what I need, I mean how can bouncing around on an orange ball of rubber with a smiley face not cheer you up?

So in regards to being back in the UK, I am, to be honest, hating it! Yep, you’ve got all the excitement of seeing my family again, and the added excitement/nerves of finally meeting my brothers fiancee (which hasn’t happened yet, but I’m sure will at some point), but really, this is the UK. Aside from skips, fruit gums and proper chips (only to be eaten when planning on saving the world of course) what exactly is there in the UK?

It’s funny, whilst in Australia I would often get homesick. I’ve spoken about that before. Generally it would be every few months, with a major ’bout of homesickness occurring annually, usually just after Christmas. Now I’m homesick for Australia, because it’s been my home for the last five and half years and…well the UK, isn’t!

Now bare in mind that I have yet to revisit Scotland, of which you should all know I’m rather a fan of, and as this is the place I got homesick for I guess in a way I still am, but it’s like, I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in the UK just because they have skips, fruit gums and proper chips here. It’s not that I have anything against the UK, it’s just not my home any more.

So who the hell knows.

Basically I have no money, and I’m here for a reason, so it’s not as if I can go anywhere else at the moment even if I wanted to, which right now I do.

Stay tuned for Scotland though because…I am in the process of selling everything I own on ebay in order to afford it. So yep, genuine articles from Addy’s turbulent childhood and life are currently being offered for sale on ebay should anyone so desire to build their Dr Who collection, invest in random bizarre books and/or obscure artifacts which may one day be worth thousands as genuine Addy collectibles head over to eBay and check it out! You see it’s to raise money for my Scotland excursion which has and I mean has to happen at some point in the near future - otherwise this already crazy and insane mind will no doubt implode and I will just become a skip eating air-conducting lunatic for the rest of my days.

So very soon I will actually have absolutely nothing - I will have lost everything from Australia, plus everything from the UK - which is kinda cathartic, kinda symbolic and really rather upsetting. Especially as someone wished it on me last year and this means they’re wish is coming true which I’ve been fighting to not happen.

Pretty much the saving grace of being in the UK is that I should get the medical help I wasn’t able to get in Australia, because they just wouldn’t give it to me. I am currently not on any medication, my mood is oscillating like something which oscillates at an extreme pace and I am doing my best to keep everything under control.

I have an appointment with the mental health team on Monday morning, which should be fun. There won’t be any physical prodding (I don’t think) but there will be lots of mental prodding which I’m kinda used to now, but I’m hoping all that poking will actually lead somewhere this time. It’s getting somewhat frustrating how little professional help I’ve actually had over the last year, not without trying for it, so something would be good.

The benefits have also been applied for so we’ll see what happens there. They told me on the phone that I should expect something in about 6-8 weeks, which is interesting, considering I have no money and not sure how I can survive for another two months without anything to live off, but as with everything I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.

I mean without benefits how can I afford skips? I’ve been five plus years without them, how am I expected to go another two months?

So in the interim between now, Scotland and the future I am trying to get this blog back on track. I’ve neglected it and all of my wonderful readers over the last several weeks, basically because I didn’t, and in a way, still don’t want to be alive, but I am slowly working on that. I started the blog to assist the effort of fighting the stigma of mental illness so I will continue to do so in whatever way I feel like when I sit down to write.

If I promise to write more posts - and more interesting posts at that - then I’ll have to do it. Otherwise I won’t be true to my word and that would just be, well, naughty! And we all know what happens then.

To strip everything away (not literally of course) I have absolutely no idea what’s going on at the moment!

Don’t know where I am, where I’m going, what’s gonna happen, what’s happening at the moment, where I can get my next skips…in fact all I know at the moment is that I’m still here.

Which is really all that matters in the long run!

Let’s try slap this blog back onto track shall we. It’s been a rough few weeks, at the end (or is that the middle of) a rough twelve months…we shall see…and to begin let us commence with round 3 of the Starter for Ten quiz.

In the Starter for Ten series I attempt to answer any of the questions which have been thrown at me by my wonderful readers with the same honesty and bizarreness I try to inject into each of my entries.  

If you’re just joining us now you can review round one here and round two here, back on the old blog.

So, finger on the buzzers (even though I’m the only contestant) and let’s begin.

—–

1. Why dont you add “and all I ever will be” to the title?

I did actually kinda answer this with this post, in a roundabout incredibly depressing way!

However, I never considered adding this line to the title of the blog, partly because I hope that I will (at some point in the future) not suffer from the mental health conditions I have. Or in other words be able to control them enough to live as normal a life as possible. Or in other words, I hope that what I am now will not be all that I will ever be.

I also didn’t add this line to the title of the blog because the song which inspired it doesn’t have this line as part of the lyric - and I didn’t want to mess with contemporary song perfection :p

2.  I’m sure my partner has bipolar disorder. Will it ever go away even after taking medication?

I would absolutely 100% in every way love to answer this with a resounding YES!

However, I can’t.

From all of the research I’ve conducted since being diagnosed bipolar, it’s not cureable. It will be there in the background throughout my entire life and will never truly “go away”. Medication helps to control the symptoms/mood swings which are so difficult to deal with, but unfortunately they won’t erase the illness in the way that one can overcome the flu or glandular fever.

I also wished to make a note of something which comes to mind having read the way your question is framed. Bipolar is something which really should be diagnosed by a medical professional so if you believe your partner has bipolar it is best to speak to your GP and/or local mental health team in order to obtain the diagnosis, help and support which your partner (and yourself) will need in order to help control the condition.

3. How is it that you are so witty yet find yourself without friends? Do you make friends easily on the net because there’s a buffer or safety zone in the anonymity?

Witty? Up until now I can’t actually recall anyone ever having used this word to describe me. Not quite sure what to say now - you could however toast marshmallows from the warmth radiating from my blushing cheeks, so that’s something I guess, if you like marshmallows - or even just the thought of blushing cheeks.

I’ve never really understood why I don’t make friends easily. Granted the social anxiety doesn’t make it easy for me to start conversations, either in person or on the net, so that’s probably one rather obvious answer - but given the fact I do have a rather intimate understanding of who I am and that I consider myself to be a rather decent person you would have thought I’d have more friends than the resounding -zero- that I currently have.

Throughout this last year I have put a lot of time into thinking about friendship and the impact depression/mental illness has on it. Building, maintaining and growing friendships is hard enough as it is - let alone without the added burden of mental illness causing all sorts of dilemmas and issues. As is fairly obvious with this blog I miss my friends and the relationships I once had and the continuing downward spiral I’ve been in has only added to the difficulty in making new friends and ongoing relationships. I guess it’s not going to happen until  I have these illnesses under control. 

Even the safety zone/buffer you talk about in regards to internet friends is difficult for me to overcome at the moment, the social anxiety impacts on my life here as well and I frequently dissect and choose not to send some emails and messages I plan on sending because of the possible humiliation which may come from doing so. This can sometimes make chatrooms and emailing very difficult - yet another aspect of social anxiety which is often overlooked by the general public.

So I guess despite this attempt at an answer it’s not a very good one, I wish I knew why I didn’t have friends and why I find it so hard to make them, but I guess I don’t quite yet know…maybe one day.

It’s been 64 months that I’ve been in Australia.It’s been 64 months of ups, downs,  highs, lows, excitement, misery, laughter and despair.

It’s been 64 months…wow…still can’t believe it’s nearly over.

It hasn’t really sunk in yet, even though it should’ve done. All the things I didn’t get to do are flying through my mind and joining up with all those things that I did do.

It’s been a long five years, it’s been an incredible five years, it’s been an emotional five years, and by fuck I’m gonna miss it here!

This is a month by month, memorable moment by memorable moment, account of my time in Australia.

This has been my 64 months in Australia…

A quick note on the links:
The links which are bolded will take you to a photograph taken by me.
The links which are italicized will take you to one of my blog posts on the subject.