Sparks.

I have no idea why I'd be interesting to follow. It appears I follow too many Doctor Who blogs and whinge far too much to be healthy. I'm a student with too much time on my hands and that's about it.

[delicatesparks]

This is one of the strangest things I've done in a while, but why not?

I last posted on here a million years ago, about to get married and since then a lot has happened (obvs).

Married, qualified as teacher, bought a flat, dad died, went and got epilepsy (wild ride), other one got MS diagnosis (less wild), moved to another city, gave up teaching, got a puppy, had a miscarriage, had a baby, had a miscarriage and now what? Oh and other one has had a million interviews for fellowships and jobs and brainy things while I hang around doing nothing. Some of this seems so negative and it has been a tough time BUT I have been fairly non-mental about it. I'd go as far to say that I've absolutely smashed it in that regard.

As a teenager, fuck it, as a 21 year old, I didn't even imagine being alive at this point in time. And here I am with a house, dog and two year old. Nuts. Life is strange but good. It's actually good. My worries aren't about not hurting myself but instead which bin to put out and sorting the tyre pressure out on the car.

Nice feeling.

Trying to stay positive about this two weeks' later and struggling to think that stuff is still okay? Holy shit am I thinking about the stress of not knowing where we will be living in six months and whether or not I'll have a job and whether or not we'll be having a baby and whether or not the other one's mental health will stay in one piece because, woah is it hard to be the non-mental one.

Eeks.

[delicatesparks]

Had a flick through tumblr. 

This is definitely nothing in comparison to last year’s brain behaviour and that makes me happy. This time last year I was having enormous panic attacks and losing the plot on a daily basis. Can’t even express how different it is now. 

I’ve actually come a pretty long way, and that’s cool. 

[delicatesparks]

I don’t really know what I spend my time doing on here anymore, but at times like these it’s the place I end up mooching around. 

I get married in less than a month now. 19th. Which is pretty exciting and also terrifying because people staring + being centre of attention + being organiser + social anxiety = one big fat mess of a me. BUT it’s going to be lovely and holy shit I’m going to be married. 

But right now it’s a Friday night and I’m on my own, watching Adele at the BBC and sitting on the sofa in jim jams with blankets and a shit ton of planning that I need to get done. And I’m just feeling a bit run down, a bit mopey and a bit meh? Not massively so, but enough that I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about being a fruitcake for seemingly little reason. 

I’m on the way to being a fully fledged primary teacher. I’m currently on placement with some little Year 4 lovelies in a pretty deprived area and I’m loving it. Yes, it’s mind-blowingly-blurry-busy sometimes and I have no idea how to get everything done that I need to get done most of the time, and I now have responsibility for all teaching until Christmas which is a tad daunting. I spend a lot of my week swanning around acting like a confident teacher who has the power to remove playtime when I am actually panicking about the amount of work I’m going to have to do to plan the next lesson since none of them got it the first time round. But I love it. 

This is the first time I’ve really got stumped and just stopped. Not really sure what it is, just maybe feeling a bit caught in a rut, a bit ‘life is on top of me’. Wedding arranging has been relatively stressful but is now pretty much done apart from the last few things. (Rings tomorrow!) I have Uni work to be doing alongside a Science display and a million lesson plans for this week. My planning is also shared with the other Year 4 class which is always a bit scary. And I’ve just looked at my planning notes and haven’t the foggiest what I was thinking for some of it. So that’s handy. Oh and we’ve got to start looking for somewhere else to live because the neighbour is challenging to say the least. Even though we love the house and it’s homey and cosy and I’m BUSY. 

I think I came on here because I thought that maybe I was getting a bit ‘not so great’. But writing it out makes me think that anybody would find this remotely stressful? It sounds pretty stressful when I write it down. I emailed the nurse and she replied a couple of weeks ago and right now is one of those times I wish I could email and say ‘can I pop along on Monday?’ but I’m meant to be a fully functioning nearly married human being with responsibility for little lovelies and their learning and well being and right now that doesn’t really feel real or plausible. Sometimes it would be nice to have the excuse that my brain didn’t feel like it. 

[delicatesparks]

So I’ve decided to daily-ish document things as a way of a) keeping the ‘positive data log’ I’m meant to keep but don’t and b) having something to look back on. When I did this about 5 years ago and looked back on it recently it was a bit frightening in terms of mental-ness but also really interesting to consider how things have changed and the way things were. Here’s me giving it another go, purely for myself. Future me - please don’t think this was too pretentious. 

I’ve been exam free since Wednesday afternoon and woahhh it’s weird. There were no disasters but no exceptional performances either. Already sold my textbooks and sorted out getting rid of my French lit books...I did five loads of washing yesterday, made a paper flower prototype for my wedding bouquet thing and emailed about a million people re:work experience and wedding things. Turns out I don’t like not having much to do. 

I’m also about to become the co-renter of a house which has been gutted and has new everything and is in an amazing location and for which I’m about to start knitting a pouf. Because that’s a normal thing to do...Such strange but exciting times. We move on 20th June and I cannot wait! 

I’ve got an appointment (finally) at the eye hospital on 11th and Occ Health on 16th (also when we sign the contract!) but I’m going to have to deal with a fair chunk of anticipatory anxiety prior to that.

Today I went to see the nurse for the first time since my exams started and she was so happy to see me. It’s funny, we’re more like good friends now than anything else. I suppose she’s a bit of a detached parent figure? Like, she definitely cares about me but also has that therapeutic input that a parent isn’t in a position to give. We’re trying to sort out some of the social anxiety stuff before I fling myself into a new environment where I don’t know anybody. She said again today that she’ll always be there to answer my emails. It means a lot but it’s slight confirmation that I can’t cope. Chatted about how I can’t cope in a social situation when I don’t have a role - work experience? come at me no problem. bumping into someone in the kitchen? terrifying and overplayed in my head a million times because I don’t want to have made them anxious or uncomfortable and because I don’t want to have been ‘weird’. 

Had a discussion about having been on medication for four years and not knowing what really happens without it. I have no intention of coming off it tomorrow or anything but I’m conscious that I don’t want it forever, either. It’s a tricky one - I’m not sure I’ll ever feel comfortable enough to stop taking it because I worry about what happens too much (let’s just remind ourselves of suicidal madness and certain self destructive tendencies...) Anyway, we had a nice chat about stuff and didn’t bring up the fact that I’ll have to stop seeing her soon. Because right now not having that support frightens me. 

I also bought myself a pair of low top suede converse in a moment of nostalgia - a nod to my emo teenage days if you will - and to celebrate exams being over. Then, and as what we like to call a ‘social experiment’, I decided I’d bite the bullet and get my eyebrows threaded - i.e. I voluntarily spoke to strangers. (the threading was weird but really effective and beats tweezers because I have a nasty habit of fiddling with tweezers and faffing and just yeah not great). So here I am recording that I spoke to strangers and it was fine. Tried not to replay it too much. 

Finished Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig today (started last night) and it was a really interesting read. I sent a couple of bits to the nurse because they seemed useful:

“Adding anxiety to depression is a bit like adding cocaine to alcohol. It presses fast-forward on the whole experience. If you have depression on its own your mind sinks into a swamp and loses momentum, but with anxiety in the cocktail, the swamp is still a swamp but the swamp now has whirlpools in it. The monsters that are there, in the muddy water, continually move like modified alligators at their highest speed. You are continually on guard. You are on guard to the point of collapse every single moment, while desperately trying to keep afloat, to breathe the air that the people on the bank all around you are breathing as easily as anything.”

“Depression is also . . . Smaller than you. Always, it is smaller than you, even when it feels vast. It operates within you, you do not operate within it. It may be a dark cloud passing across the sky, but – if that is the metaphor – you are the sky. You were there before it. And the cloud can’t exist without the sky, but the sky can exist without the cloud.”

“Minds have their own weather systems. You are in a hurricane. Hurricanes run out of energy eventually. Hold on.”

I haven’t had diet coke for 2 days (which shouldn’t be an achievement but really is due to my disgusting habit of a litre and a half a day as of recent times) and, after an initial killer headache, I’m surviving rather well without it. Trying to eat salad again rather than a million chocolate bars. That is rather more difficult. 

S is writing up his thesis so I am pretty bored at the minute but enjoying mooching on the internet and feeling my smooth-ass eyebrows. Looking forward to not living in grotty student accommodation and being able to have a nice long bath and a read knowing that the bath is clean. Ah, simple things. 

[oddly-romantic]

anxiety: OK BUT WHAT IF -

me: homie we went over this like 100 times yesterday and we totally resolved it

anxiety: yeah but i’ve looked at it from a new angle and there’s like 20 more reasons why u should be worried about it

me:

me: …..go on

[delicatesparks]

desperate for exams to start but absolutely terrified that it’ll be a whirlwind i can’t keep up with or cope with

REALLY NEED A 2.I

[delicatesparks]

impromptu nurse meeting because i forgot i had a class tomorrow and it clashed and needy me can’t manage a week sans mental chat. 

we came to the conclusion that, surprise surprise, my anxiety is running wild. so we split worry into current vs. hypothetical. 

re: exams. a current worry is ‘how the fuck will be eyes be?’ a hypothetical one is ‘what will the outcome be?’

but the real shit comes re: moving. and the worries are very much hypothetical, though that doesn’t seem to invalidate them. so we’ve got ‘what if i don’t like it?’ and ‘i might have to find a pgce somewhere else if i don’t get a 2.i.’ top worry is ‘I’ll move and not cope because I’m not good with change’. to put it in polite terms. what i really mean is ‘i’m almost definitely going to slump and want to kill myself and go a bit nuts because that kind of shit just always happens to me when i try something new’

the problem is that the answer to such hypothetical worry is to tolerate uncertainty. and having anxiety and needing to control things and all that makes that such an unpleasant thought. these things are uncertain because they’re in the future and there’s nothing i can do about them at present. 

we had a think about that one. 

evidence for ‘not good with change’ - i went insane upon oxford arrival. i went insane upon paris arrival. 

reasons change is hard - low/no confidence, social anxiety, desire to resort to old methods of coping. 

i was trying to explain the self harm thing. so i haven’t self harmed properly (as in, long term dependency) since november 2011. which is a reeeeally long time ago considering that it went on for an enormous chunk of my life. i did once in paris but nothing major. but the thought is still there when change comes along - it’s a bit like taking a bit of the familiar with you. i said it was like taking your duvet when you move so that you feel you’ve got a bit of familiarity there. 

this time the duvet should, in theory, be different and not mean resorting to self-destructive habits - i’ve got s, the dr has said the nurse can continue to skype me if i want (part of me feels insane, the other half is incredibly relieved) and i’ve apparently learned how not to resort to self-destruct mode. i also do the whole mindfulness shabang. 

i’ve basically typed this out to re-read everything she wrote down but anyway, i’m trying to a) not worry about the hypothetical and let one thought spiral into a million horrid ones and b) focus on the idea that i have actually, shock horror, learned the skills i missed out on as a neglected child. whoop. 

side note - it’s hard having someone tell you that your experiences as a child were neglectful, whether you know it or not. it’s difficult to accept and move on without being angry at the way it’s affected your development as a person. 

other side note - i’ve got to meet occupational health in manchester on 16th june and i’m consequently stressy about that. 

another side note - i really should just do some work. 

[delicatesparks]

i spend quite a lot of time thinking about mental health and trying to align my behaviours with ‘symptoms’. so i get into an argument and end up contradicting myself but carrying on the argument because halfway through i realise that i’m overreacting and that’s because i’m an awful, fundamentally flawed person but because i’m also incredibly stubborn and hate being wrong i won’t stop. so the ‘me’ bit is the arguing one, the stubborn cow who was pissed off. the fundamentally flawed thoughts are due to an illness and their intrusion is not welcome and would not happen if i was doing okay.

things are weird at the minute and i know that it’s because exams are two weeks away but it doesn’t make the experience of weirdness any less valid. 

i’ve had double vision for a month and i’m waiting to see an ophthalmologist and have an mri scan but they lost the referral so i’m still waiting, good times. consequently i’ve had to sort out exam arrangements whoop. i was already sitting them in college because anxiety and all that jazz and now i’ve got a potential 20 extra mins per hour to sit in darkness and rest my eyes. how fun does that sound!?

basically this has fucked up revision because i have a permanent banging headache and can’t see shit very well. it also is making me a bit more mental. oh and i’ve had pins and needles down my left side constantly for about a week which is, i’m sure, helping me develop a hint of health anxiety. i actually had to tell myself the other day that the ct scan i had at a and e showed no signs of a stroke so ‘it will be fine’. 

i actually have no idea why i’m writing this, probably just to procrastinate.

problem is the mental bit keeps telling me i’m making shit up and i know i’m not but that isn’t convincing me at the minute. BLAH this is miserable. 

plus side i am so excited for the exams to start and then be over and then i can leave oxford and move to manchester and actually do a pgce and become a primary school teacher and do something i want to do yay. providing i get on the course and don’t have to plead my case. ergh, problem child.

but yeah, looking at houses is fun and planning rooms and listing furniture and saucepans and cutlery we own (as in, an entire kitchen’s worth because saucepans and knives and baking gadgets are the only presents i ever get) is great escapism. i could be living in a house with s in like a month’s time if we find somewhere. that is excitingggggg. 

[delicatesparks]

french oral will be over in less than three hours and i’m so excited for it to be over but also so incredibly terrified eeks. 

[delicatesparks]

Nearly died by stepping out in front of a bus - completely unintentional - and boy did my heart race. Hilarious cliché but I felt so alive. Like, not invincible. It was great. I feel so much better. Lolllll what a funny day. 

[delicatesparks]

'I want you to still be here next Tuesday'

Fuck me that was full on. Actually having to list reasons to live vs. reasons not to is....draining? Yeah, draining. I feel guilty as fuck, more worthless than ever and the biggest burden on the planet. Because I know that tomorrow, or Thursday or basically any day before Tuesday I'll feel okay. It's probably just the meds kicking in making me want to drop down dead rather than do anything. Probably just me being really good at being miserable. But last night, despite the lack of sleep (or maybe because of it) I was positively manic. The kind of mania that you could probably diagnose but let's not mention that to anyone because pffff hassle and attention seeking-ness. Just hate taking up people's time like that. She listed herself as a reason to live, as in, she'd be sad if I died. Weird, not sure why she'd give a shit considering the time I take up. 

Really just need to go and pick up the prescriptions and then go to this tute on my own to discuss the worst notes/essay plan I've ever managed. Woo, go me. 

[delicatesparks]

i am super lucky. really nice walk with the nurse's scatty dog this morning while she did some presentation thing. having someone trust me and be actually completely willing to go above and beyond just to help me feel 'reasonable' is reassuring. hopefully on monday i'll be able to say that i'm okay. she did have a suicide prevention book out in her office lol. she gave me the key and let me bring him back to wait for her. really am rather lucky. still feel a bit shit but never mind.

it's now like 5pm and today has definitely been better than the past two days. but i still have an essay hanging over me and i'm still not motivated (at all) and i'm still not doing anything productive. all i'm actually doing is waiting for s to finish his work so that we can have tea and i can get drunk and go to bed. ahhh such a great life. just a constant slump at the minute and even the good bits aren't neurotypical good bits, just meh good bits. 

whinge. 

[delicatesparks]

so today i called the samaritans which is something i've never done before. the guy was great. like, really lovely. from blackburn and we had a conversation about seemingly nothing yet something. it isn't that i'm suicidal, it's that i have thoughts pop into my head quite frequently about suicide (at the minute anyway). and we established that it's kinda okay for that to happen. and it's okay not to want to sing and shout about it because yeah, people misinterpret stuff and overreact. it helped just to validate that these thoughts are scary, but thinking them doesn't mean it's because part of me wants to kill myself. saying 'kill myself' out loud was strange but at the same time a weight off my shoulders. 

saw the nurse this morning who seemed concerned about how safe i was/am. i'm quite safe, just not completely with it at the minute. trying not to sit in my thoughts and do nothing. she's offering her dog tomorrow morning while she does some training thing, says i can take him for a nice long walk and then come back for a chat with her. i'm rather lucky, it's a saturday tomorrow. 

i hope tomorrow's a better day. i might even get some work done. 

[neuroatypicalotp]

Reality of what you get from a healthy romantic relationship when you’re mentally ill:

another person in your life who deeply supports you

encouragement to take care of yourself

not feeling alone (esp if partner is also mentally ill)

little moments of joy

What you don’t realistically get from a healthy romantic relationship when you’re mentally ill:

a cure that makes it all magically go away

[lastlips]

important

[delicatesparks]

second post of the day, whoop. been up for like 7 hours and i'm absolutely shattered. well this is ridiculous. 

of course i've not done any work today, well done me. looks like tomorrow will be a fun day of duras. 

just want to spill my guts out without anyone saying that they care or that they are obliged to tell someone what i've said. bleurgh. 

[delicatesparks]

so yesterday i posted a rather unhelpful whinge about suicidal thoughts and how they can be dealt with/not by a GP. side effect one of medication right there. deleted it pretty quickly because ain't nobody got time for that. 

side effect two appeared today. i slept for 13 hours straight through. woke up at 11:49 just to roll over and go back to sleep when i looked at the time and promptly shit myself. 

productive morning all round. and now it's the afternoon, great. i have stuff to do. not exciting stuff, mundane stuff like make food and pop to the post office. i also have work-y stuff because, surprise surprise, i have an essay in on monday and i obviously haven't done a thing for it. i also missed lectures this morning, as i did yesterday (though that was the whole 'let's think about topping myself knowing that i won't anyway' - swings and roundabouts). this is just not convenient or helpful. i see the nurse on fridays so i know i'll mention it to her but the only helpful thing would be to not have to do this extra lit essay this week (that i stupidly ASKED for) just so that i can do a bit of normal human functioning hoping that side effects will wear off. because i'm definitely not an agitated anxious wreck anymore which is good and don't want to have to come off something to try something else again because fuck me was that week hellish. i could even tell my tutor LOL oh wait she's about as understanding as a banana. i know she'd be like 'of course we won't do it' but would make shit so awkward and blergh and she'd say things like 'well keep in touch with the nurse' which i do anyway. okay that's unfair she's quite nice just socially inept unless you're discussing french literature. 

and i'm obviously being productive now by just sitting here writing this. i am hungry though so that is something to be addressed by some lunch or breakfast or brunch or whatever this time would count as. what a lovely write off of a day. 

[delicatesparks]

Last week I was reminded that I will always need some level of support to keep me (haha, more like 'start') functioning. Not sure I enjoy that idea very much. 

---

So that's all done. Went for lunch in Hall with her to see how it would be. Panicked, yay. Not a full on attack but I couldn't eat and did the whole shaky/breathy/fiddly thing which was clearly not ideal. Sitting there as an adult (yes, technically an adult) and being coaxed to eat and talk and just live normally is demoralising and feels completely ridiculous. WHY THE FUCK HAS THIS HAPPENED?! And when? I don't think that I was anything like this at school? Maybe I was. But I was gobby and hilarious and would sit with friends and laugh with teachers and all was good? Periods of this maybe but not quite as intense. Fucksake. 6 hours of collections tomorrow and all I want to do is crawl into bed and pretend I'm a fully functioning person. 

This level of anxiety is just not normal. But separating that from what 'makes me me' or that bullshit is virtually impossible and it leads to the confirmation of my worthlessness (despite acknowledging existence of fiancé and friends). Like honestly no melodramatics at play, I just don't believe I am worth anything and I accept that. (Which is also in conflict with the whole 'God loves me' deal, woo.) Struggling to accept that I experience 'illness' rather than an enormous personality flaw because I don't believe that this is a mental health problem, just me being pathetic. 

Massive lack of coherence on the go but I'm meant to be writing shit down. Ha this isn't even my brain at its worst. Perhaps it's the meds? Idek.

My friends are going on (again) about me having babies and it just makes me think how can I look after a tiny thing that relies on me for everything when I can't manage basic 'looking after' of myself? Maybe I can. Maybe I am just making this all up? Sometimes I wonder. 

Before I came to Uni I was convinced that nothing was real and that I dreamt everything. Dreamt up concepts, systems, the works. I was also invincible (and quite probably very ill). And now I'm pretty sure that I do live in a reality and I'm comfortable with that. I just need to work out where to draw the line - when does my head flip from 'well' to 'unwell' and how can I distinguish between the two? 

Fucking helllll collections are the last thing I need. Never mind. I have a tendency to catastrophise and I know that these are only for my benefit and nobody else's and there isn't anyone else doing it etcetcetc but there's still the exam fear factor kicking in. Yuck.

Okay this is just a massive ramble and makes for yet other draft post but maybe I'll just shove it up idek what's the pointttttt