Avoidance

It’s frustrating being smacked in the face by your own limits. Each time they catch you off guard; is it a denial that there isn’t anything wrong? Or is it because they come out of nowhere and are unpredictable? The situation you may have been in a thousand times before can randomly trigger a negative reaction and it is subjectively unpredictable!

Take tonight. There’s a Zumba class that I would like to go to with my fiancée but guess who reared their ugly head? That’s right, my limits. I was fine all day – it wasn’t a particularly busy day either – but right at the last minute I felt that regrettably familiar sensation of panic in my chest and then my mind began to shut down.

So what to do?

The staff at my CMHT would tell me that I need to push through; anxiety has never killed anybody and it can’t stay at that high level they’d say. Also once I get to the other side I’ll see that it wasn’t as bad as I feared.

I’ve had many panic attacks over the years and I really don’t want to experience one around people I am unfamiliar with. But maybe that is what must be done? Or should I take smaller steps?

Should I take care of myself and recognise my limits?

It’s hard to accept the fact that you’re mentally unwell (I still don’t believe it sometimes) and that you’re limits are far narrower than those possessed by a lot of others. I see the things my fiancée can do and it amazes me.

When she tried to persuade me to go tonight I got annoyed that she didn’t seem to understand me. I really wanted to go but there was something stopping me that I had no control over and wasn’t even able to put into words; I was annoyed but I also recognised that she has no idea how it feels to experience these things.

There is someone else with me in here. He can’t speak but he can take over my body; stiffening up my legs so that I can’t walk or shutting down my brain so that I can’t think.

So I chose avoidance (although I think that ‘chose’ is a long way from being an appropriate word), and have stayed home.

I hated seeing the look in my fiancées eyes as she left without giving me a kiss goodbye. I hated feeling that whoever it is that’s in me had let me down. I felt anger and frustration and had the desire to lash out but, having felt that way many times before, self-control pervaded and I managed not to.

The frustration has mostly evaporated now but will I learn my lesson for next time?

Be yourself

When I was growing up I was always encouraged at home or at school to “be yourself”. I got a bit muddled somewhere along the way though; I’d watch films and instead of recognising characteristics that were already part of me, I found myself thinking “I want to be like that and I will be!”

That just plain isn’t healthy, so now I’m beginning to embrace who I am.

My dad was eager for me not to succumb to my diagnosis. He would always talk of how the service mollycoddles me. How they are being extra cautious and I that mustn’t allow myself to take on their cotton-wooling approach.

But I’m beginning to think that they’ve got a point.

I now see that am ill adjusted to the world around me; I don’t seem to fit in to the traditional niche. This is annoying because I would like to get a job to support and raise my family. It is now obvious that I must find a different way of achieving this goal.

I am an animal that hasn’t adapted to its environment.

Then there’s medication; I know that has changed who I am. I would like to lower my dose but I am worried that I’ll change for the worst if I do so. I feel quite numb at the moment so it would be great to experience a wider range of emotions. But this could come at a price which I don’t know if I’m willing to pay.

So I will be myself and learn to know what I think and develop confidence in my own opinions. I will embrace my limitations and make use of what help is out there for me. I will not measure myself by the rule of others. 

Religion

I have to die. I can’t bare the doubt anymore. If I die then two things will happen;

1.       Nothing

2.       Something

Either way I’ll feel better. If nothing happens then I won’t know any different, but if something happens then it will all be resolved.

This was my thinking when I was twenty years old. I have been told it is psychotic and I no longer agree with my reasoning back then. For one, based on what I’ve been taught, I’d be going straight to hell for sure - so it wasn’t the best thought out plan.

Luckily I don’t believe in heaven and hell anymore. I am now happy I didn’t kill myself because all I have at the end of the day is my life and so that would have been an awful waste.

But was my thinking any more psychotic than that of the millions who believe in God and are prepared to die and kill for that belief (probably not in that order)?

But then if they are not psychotic then does that mean I’m not either? If I based my idea to kill myself on the beliefs of many then is it a psychotic idea?

Hold on…. am I normal?

Have I tailored my life to my diagnosis? The boot does seem to fit: I hear voices talking in my head independently of my thoughts and I also have horrible images in my head that seem to be inserted somehow.

But could these be normal, everyday experiences? And if I had never been labelled would they have paled into insignificance a long time ago? Or would I have killed myself from sheer frustration many times over by now?

Who knows?

I am starting to understand that I am not my label.

Am I still ill?

They labelled me; first with OCD and later as a paranoid schizophrenic. Now I wonder what it’d be like living without a label.

Back in school when my problems started I thought that everyone was going through the same difficulties as me but somehow, where I wasn’t able to deal with them, they were. Then came the diagnosis and with it everything suddenly made sense.

(There’s no use speculating as to whether my problems had something to do with my head injury or whether they were there from the beginning - I just don’t know. There is also the possibility that the world is just too fucked up for my poor human brain to cope with!)

A lot of people aren’t very receptive when receiving a diagnosis of mental illness, but I was. There was something romantic about being diagnosed and having treatment and being prescribed medication. It made me feel special.

I felt like I was out of the TV program Six Feet Under, being put on meds; and that made me feel even more special. I used to try and meld myself to the personalities of the characters I’d see on TV and in movies instead of simply recognising portions of myself that resonated with them.

I remember sitting in with the psychiatrist and saying that the world doesn’t seem real to me. I didn’t know if my parents were really my parents; I didn’t even know which thoughts were my own.

I’m always trying to find a reason. Why can’t I work while at the same time I am ok doing other things? Is it weird not knowing why you’re unable to do something? Maybe it’s like with science in that some things just haven’t been proved yet.

I am this way and there is a reason behind it but it just hasn’t been understood yet. That’s interesting though because even with a reason to validate it, it doesn’t change anything. Giving something a name doesn’t mean it’s resolved like with the discovery of a new element.

Is understanding fundamental to overcoming your problems? “Knowledge is power”, right? Or is it? Maybe living by your instincts is the key to happiness. But who can do that? The world is a lie that has grown out of control. We are all fucked up pieces of meat who don’t have a clue! Born into a world that doesn’t make sense, that isn’t natural. Trying to live instinctively because that is natural but then this man made thing comes along and it all goes Pete Tong!

Nobody fits into a box. We all live in the grey areas and that is what makes us fantastic. You can’t say I’m a paranoid schizophrenic because that is an empty statement. I am a human; there is nothing wrong with me. I am not ill; I am just grey.

You can diagnose someone with a physical problem like diabetes but mental illness is totally different; there’s no evidence that for everyone it is a problem in the brain. I think it’s a problem with the world we live in.

So what to do?