Black and White

One of the most common (and somewhat annoying) traits of someone with Borderline Personality Disorder (I never abbreviate it - Bipolar got the acronym first) is 'black and white thinking'. and it seeps into many aspects of my being. It's a powerful in that it allows me to achieve great things, but sadly it's to the detriment of other matters.

Credit - hdwallnpics.com

I rarely have thoughts or opinions that are 'somewhere in the middle' and frankly this frustrates me greatly. Logic tells me that there are many grey areas in these things, but I just can't see them.

People. People cause me a great deal of problems. Not in themselves, they're just generally minding their own business going about their daily shenanigans, but I overwhelmingly can only ever see people as inherently good - or inherently bad. Rarely in the middle. It's almost like an obsession - (luckily I'm dead sensible so I don't appear to be a nut job) but I meet someone in a friendly capacity, I like the cut of their jib and the things they have to say - that makes all other people disappear from my radar.

They are, frankly, a bit of an annoyance. Ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. But very, very true. Has happened many times, over the years. And their fall from grace is equally as prompt and sizeable. Once someone has stepped over that (imaginary) line, they join the ranks of all the other minor annoyances. And that's if they are lucky. I'm lucky that I rarely see people as inherently bad. That's the one thing I'm grateful for.

Exhausting, huh? Yep. I have a certain amount of control these days but imagine being like that as a young person sans Mental Health toolbox? Wholly unfair.

This aspect creeps into many other areas too. For me, my home is EVERYTHING. And I do mean everything. I love to travel and do stuff and see stuff, but knowing that my home is there the second I am ready. So this means that my home is perfectly manicured, beautifully decorated and constantly flawless, doesn't it? Yeah right! Like hell it does. A few weeks ago, according to my monkey brain, the entire reason for my anxiety and spiral into depression - my living room. Completely and totally.

The fact that it was a work in progress due to impending horrendous building work, was the sole reason I was feeling agitated, anxious, empty etc. etc. The rug didn't match the curtains (an amalgamation of two rooms - terrible tragedy) and my need for fully matching scatter cushions in coordinating colours was like crack to an addict. You see when I achieve my desired effect within my living room (which is, in fact a pivotal universal point, I think you all know) then I will feel well again. I will be healthy and happy and all will be complete. Course it will.

It's just that over the last few months, I've felt that way about all of the rooms in the house. And, I felt that way about amalgamating the two rooms in preparation of the building work. Once we did that - everything would be perfect.

I bought a book over Christmas about decluttering. It is a wonderful and marvelous book that helped me greatly. It's much easier now for me to move around and be comfortable in my home now that I have gotten rid of a LOT of stuff that I didn't need. But I felt the same about that. It was the answer to all my prayers. Except it wasn't, of course. Jolly helped, but it wasn't the guiding light.

You see the whole black and white thing means that my brain can only direct it's considerable attention to one place. Hence I don't really feel like I've achieved much in my life really. Long term goals are just not something my brain can ever deal with. If I achieved a long term goal I would lose all my friends and turn into Stig of the Dump to do it. The 'all or nothing' thing is fantastic for short term, high intensity stuff, but not everything is like that.

I simply cannot do the slow-burn. I can't sip a drink, I drink it. I can't pick at a meal, I scoff it. But while I'm drinking the kitchen might catch fire and when I'm cooking that food to eat it the realisation that I have to clean up having prepared the food, will not have occurred to me. Or, I could concentrate on clearing up, only to find that my dinner has gone cold/been eaten by the dog in the meantime.

Recent minor obsessions have been:

Walking
Writing this blog
Running
Decluttering the kitchen
The back bedroom of doom
Riding my big bike
The stationery drawer
The airing cupboard
Having pink hair
Instagram posting
Needing to get a tortoise
Buying some new clothes (which I hate doing)
And some other stuff I would never admit publicly.

The Holy Grail, for me, is being able to disperse my attention across a few different things. Consistently. That, for me, is #winningatlife which I'm not, currently.

Oh well, I suppose I'd better put the kitchen back together. Don't want to. What a total nause.

First (and hardest) Port of Call

The slippery slope is well and truly underway and you're hurtling, full force, towards a feeling that you will never be less exhausted, less desperate, less isolated and less "black" ever, ever again. You have to do something. You mentally and physically don't know what to do with yourself.

So what do you do?

Only recently has it become apparent that every A&E has an emergency mental health team dedicated to it. I bloody wish I'd known about it when I was 16. They were some of my worst times and they truly scared me. Young, naive and utterly clueless, there were some bad, bad times. I spent a few miserable nights in the Samaritans offices in Newport where I was advised to see my GP. I had no idea what about, how, why etc. etc. etc.

And that's where the GP misery started.

"How can I help you today?" The dreaded words. Ummmmm...

First, you have to explain what you don't understand yourself. The whole time trying to justify yourself AND get across the fact that that you no longer want to exist any more but at the same time the whole British "stiff upper lip" that is intrinsically embedded in our terribly British psche is playing fuck with us for being impolite and a bit embarrassed; all while telling a potential complete stranger of the darkest, terrifying parts of your mind.

Then you have to wait, mentally stripped naked and the most vulnerable you've ever felt, for the verdict.

It could go a variety of ways. And trust me, over the years, there have been some variations. Some kind, well meaning Doctors have tried to help in generally clueless ways - a few years ago I was prescribed gardening (I was suicidal at the time) as a great way of "taking my mind off things" where as in approximately 1995 while living miserably in Neath, socially isolated from everyone I knew and realising that I had made a terrible mistake in my choice of life-partner, I broke down on my GP - with hindsight suffering from severe post natal depression.

"My life's a mess, I'm miserable I'm alone, I have no one, I have no idea what I'm doing with this baby, I'm scared but I don't know what of etc. etc. etc...." (I was 18 years old at the time) crying my heart out so much so that I couldn't breathe. The GP very helpfully offered in return "So what do you want me to do about it?"

I pray to Dog no one ever has to go through that these days. But I'm not entirely sure.

I've seen some GPs who stop you within one sentence, acknowledge your mental anguish and kindly and gently direct some appropriate questions at you to give you the best help they can. Some will go waaaaaaaaaay over the allotted time for you because they see your desperation, and appreciate the situation. Who knows, maybe they've glimpsed this misery themselves?

My very good friend took herself to her GP a year or so ago. She'd recently been diagnosed with Adult ASD. The GP told her she was "too intelligent" to be autistic and that she should "just get on with it".

But I suppose mere mortals aren't immune to the unhelpful advice either. "Stop moaning and get on with it", "what have you got to be depressed about?", "what are you feeling anxious about?" all NOT HELPFUL. But that's a different blog post.

The worst part for me about being ill is having to go to a GP. It's not just because of the bad experiences, it's unpleasant trying to explain something invisible to someone and simply rely on their sense of empathy to treat you accordingly.

My GP is great and I know she will always be great. But what if she's sick that day and there's a locum? What if she's having a bad day? Unlikely, but possible.

Stories regularly find their way to me about terrible GP experiences and I feel this to be totally unacceptable. It's dangerous. I'm quite a tough old bird who knows the lie of the land, but what if the patient is sensitive, fragile, even more vulnerable and they are met with that response. Well, I bet terrible things like that have actually happened. And they mustn't ever again.

I am seeing change in the NHS treatment of MH conditions, but it's just too slow. Too little, too late.

I'd like to hear from you. What have you experienced?

Buzzfeed's 14 Favorite Apps for those suffering with Anxiety

Two years I've been well. Then BAM! depressive episode up the ying yang.

I know how these things work. Sneaky, underhanded symptoms you can only see retrospectively, gradual build up of emptiness and loss of interest in pretty much everything, then you're on the slippery slope. But you still probably don't know it. Well that's my experience anyway.

Then it hit you like the proverbial freight train. I heard once a great description of depression - 'it's like having the flu, really bad flu, but with no physical symptoms - every single day.' I think that's a great description.

I've been investigated and poked and prodded to try to treat my depression since I was sixteen. I remember feeling depressed for as long as I can remember feeling. Of course I thought everyone felt that way, as everyone does. Turns out they don't. But it took many, many terrible episodes, poor life choices, ill advised situations, shit tonnes of struggling (and more episodes) before I was diagnosed with Borderline back in about 2011  I think it was.

I have a LOT to say about MH and Borderline, and one of those things is that when I feel this way I do have a lot to say. And the drive of a brand new Maserati to say it. But as I get more well (dog willing) I can lose that focus, that acuteness and that need. It's one of the most irritating things about borderline. I already have that as a personality trait, this exacerbates it.

In a nutshell, I feel I have wisdom to impart (snort) and things to say currently, but it might dry up like a stream in a rare British dry spell. Don't judge me. Well, you can if you like - I will never know.

That's the joy of a) being human and b) having a smashing MH condition. We just don't know what's going to happen.

#endstigma