16th March 2015: Leanne

We know music often plays an important part in our lives. So in our interview with Leanne, who was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, we asked her what song was important to her. She chose Of Montreal’s The Past is a Grotesque Animal. Leanne tells us why:

Aside from being a really powerful, hypnotic tune with a clear progression, an aim, I empathised very strongly with the self-destructive element of the song – “at least I author my own disaster” and “the cruelty’s so predictable”; if there’s a phrase that could ever sum up relapse for me, it would be this one.

Yet it isn’t just a song with a comfortable, familiar feeling; there is still a hope in the lyrics, repeated over and over: “Performance breakdown and I don’t want to hear it/ I’m just not available/ Things could be different but they’re not”.

It is so important to remember that, whilst it would be fantastic if we were all well and happy and ‘sane’, this is part of who we are and whilst things could be different, they’re not, and we can only do what we can to go on from this, to build ourselves up. After all, “it’s like we weren’t made for this world / (Though I wouldn’t really want to meet someone who was)”.

 

9th March 2015: Becky W

Psychotic Paranoia – The Impact Of Trust On Relationships

‘It’s poisoned,’ I think to myself, nails digging into my palms with panic. ‘The food in my flat has been poisoned, and I cannot trust anything or anyone.’ Rewind to November last year and here I am, perched on the knife-edge of reality and confusion, completely tangled in my own mind.

The mania had started in textbook fashion, and rapidly, as always, I’d gone from slightly speedy and vivacious to a girl careening out of control. I was adamant in the belief of my own immortality to the point where I tried to walk in front of cars, and stayed up for days at a time. They all ran after me with nets, telling me that I needed routine, that my medication would start working again soon, but their nets could not catch me and I continued to fly.

My thoughts were a frenzied, disorganized factory, conveyor belts stuck on top speed with thought-boxes haphazardly strewn about as I tried to make sense and sort my way through them. Unable to focus on anything, my sentences blurred with half formed ideas. My speech blurting out as if someone had hit fast forward but yet, to me, everybody was talking through thick treacle. At some point during the chaos, a thread began to form and take shape, pushing its way to the fore of my mind with prickly awareness.

I was being watched. I was being followed. People were out to get me. I stopped leaving the flat, only stepping out in order to obtain a sick note from the doctor. I trembled as I sat in the waiting room, knowing I was being watched. I was afraid that even the doctor was out to harm me, and so was guided into the appointment by my partner’s firm hand.

The paranoia had a gritty taste; I could feel it clawing to the back of my brain and evermore increasing, decreeing that less and less people could be trusted.

I pushed my friends away, fractured my relationships. I accused them of things that became wilder with each utterance– they were following me, they were selling information about me, or worse – they were out to get me. They made frantic attempts to reach out to me, to prove that they were innocent of all the wrong doings, but I met them with a brick wall of silence or another torrent of accusations.

My diagnosis of bipolar disorder has had a clear impact on my relationships.  Episodes of paranoia and psychosis alongside the dramatic swings from crashing lows to the soaring bittersweet highs have done nothing to help this matter. Far from pushing me into the arms of my loving friends and family, the sinking feeling of dread and horror pulls me away from them.

Luckily, my partner seems exempt from this for the most part. I am, unfortunately, almost too reliant on him as I ride the waves of emotion. At times, even he has come under scrutiny as I demand he ‘prove’ he is himself by telling me something only I would know.

Sadly I have no cure for this; I do not know how to prevent this sickly paranoia from returning. When it does, I keep it at bay with emergency little white pills of calm until I can see a professional with their concerned looks. Unfortunately, the last time I suffered extreme paranoia, my psychotic symptoms only worsened until I was admitted to a psychiatric unit.

Rebuilding relationships after episodes was tricky. I trod on the broken glass of shattered friendships and tried to explain that I was not myself, I had not been in the right frame of mind.

With every passing episode, however, I am more prepared, another piece of armour is added to my collection. I can let those I love know I am feeling unwell and that I might not behave as I usually do around them.

My routine of different coloured pills and visits to the all-seeing psychiatrist do help with keeping the monster at bay, but that’s not to say it won’t return, rearing its ugly head of doubt and putting that match in my hand to try and burn bridges once more.

2nd March 2015: Abla’s Mum

A few weeks ago, we shared with you A Mother’s Story. Today, we are sharing with you a piece from Abla’s mother, who writes of her previous understanding of mental illness and what it means to her now, having witnessed those around her, and in particular her daughter, Alba, experience it in its many forms.

Abla is young, unique and unafraid.

Shenlee (short for Shenley Hospital), ‘loco’, looney, is how I grew up understanding madness. Selfish suiciders, weak depressives who could not pull themselves together…. Whatever the problem, it was vague and comfortably remote.

Until an acquaintance’s son sailed through school ending up at Oxford committed suicide. I found out about this through a secondhand source. I saw her, we chatted but never once did I dare ask…how could I, would I, did I want to understand? … still remote.

I lost mum, and for several years felt her beckoning me to follow her to this place of calm and stillness…but I had four young who needed me more, I firmly told her…as the youngest snuggled close to me. Tastes, feelings, sensations dulled and greyed, and I walked in this wilderness and was smiling outside and dying within. I daren’t talk, how could I make sense of what to others was clearly nonsense? I felt my grasp slipping and frantically clambered in again avoiding, worried, would I know if I became…mad? I clutched at NLP. I grew nails and clawed back on to land…but did not speak, did not share and continued as if nothing happened…still remote.

And then it landed. First in her friend, Maya. The body form was the same, but the words uttered and behaviour I did not recognise. I wept with her mum…her daughter must have been given some mind changing drug on her trip abroad. Alba stuck close. I, like many, worried about ‘catching this flu’. The casualties continued in the bright glare of academic success – as imperfections flawed the perfection. Abla was not spared…and I was afraid as I still had not understood what happened to that acquaintance, how her son slipped away, or the friend who must have been drugged.

As Abla recovered, I thanked God and sought an end to the matter…give distance and render it remote. But Abla was impassioned. She cared, she believed, she refused to be shushed. She was not an evangelist, she was not a victim, she did not direct the spotlight on her, or anybody – she simply wrote, creating many emotions including laughter, tears, connection, openness and fearlessness.

Her writing did not patronise, it did not create understanding. It simply immersed you, drawing you in – mental health was no longer remote, but a calm co-existence where all can still love, live, laugh, talk, and be the best safety net.