[Please note - This blog post was pre written in advance. I have used a Blogger tool to schedule when these posts appear. Pre written posts will appear once a day until they run out! I may go into labour any day now and am not necessarily monitoring this blog, able to publish or respond to comments or correct errors. Normal service may or may not be resumed depending on how this whole being a mummy thing goes]
So in my last post I reviewed how at the start of 2011 I spent much of my time trimming back my life and my commitments, refocusing my energies on the key areas so that I could focus my remaining strength on my therapy.
Long time readers of this blog will know that my path through Cognitive Behavioural Therapy wasn't straight forward and that I faced frustrations along the way.
Firstly was getting treatment. My G.P was sympathetic and put me forward for treatment straight away and I was quickly assessed by the mental health service and got the green light for treatment. Unfortunately due to an administrative error I fell off the list and ended up not having treatment for some months.
Once I'd got over this hurdle and begun treatment I faced other problems. A surprise pregnancy and the bitch curse that is morning sickness made some of my early sessions very difficult. Also, as previous posts will attest, I found the pace of therapy slow. At times I wondered if my therapist really understood my needs and I had doubts that the process, with its narrow focus on current problems rather then wider general issues, was really going to be of any help to me at all.
However my last sessions, which happened a few months ago, changed all that. The process my therapist taught me started to work. It was a combination of relaxation exercises and techniques coupled with small tiny steps to work through my anxiety problems. I applied the steps to my life and found myself able to do things that OCD had prevented me from doing before. Simple things I couldn't do before like preparing a cup of tea for someone else was now possible.
The sense of liberation and feeling of confidence that I gained from these little victories were highly significant for me. Before this I'd felt a sense of hopelessness about my condition. I'd freely admitted at the start of my therapy that I had serious doubts that it could work. I doubted the process and I doubted myself. I'd struggled with my condition for so many years and found the demon so strong that I couldn't imagine a life without it.
However winning those tiny victories over OCD proved that I now had a working tool I could use against it. I had been given a way to change myself so that the OCD couldn't hurt me as much any more and I could use it to live my life in the way I wanted to. I saw that I could use the same process against my OCD in whatever guise it took on. In short there was a way out.
As a result of this the me who started 2011 is totally different from the person I am now. The difference is striking and as I lay in bed yesterday trying to breath through this horrible cold even I was surprised at the change in myself. I've come to take the 'new' me for granted and I'd forgotten just how much effort and struggle I'd had to put into changing.
Since my therapy ended I've been using the techniques I was given and applying them whenever areas of anxiety or OCD like thoughts and behaviour have occurred with complete success.
Just as the life of the caterpillar must seem almost alien to the butterfly the life of someone crumpled by OCD seems almost alien to me. I'm now a new person with a new life and that's a really good thing.
Next time - Baby shaped wrecking balls.
Tuesday, 27 December 2011
Monday, 26 December 2011
The year in review
Yesterday was Christmas Day, a day which should normally be spent loafing on the sofa watching mindless TV and eating too much. A day of relaxation and self indulgence, of fun and frolics. Well to be fair that's the non religious British version of Christmas Day - no doubt true Christians view it differently!
My day was different then normal because I was ill with a horrible cold and I spent most of the day in bed. I wasn't in the mood to distract myself with food and I've found this years TV offerings to be dire. I ended up in a reflective mood and started to think about the past year and what I want for 2012.
My first thought was - crikey! It's been a heck of a busy 2011 and things have really really changed!
This time last year I was facing a serious mental health crisis. My undiagnosed OCD and generalised anxiety disorder held my better self firmly in its cold steely grasp. Over the previous decade and more I'd just about survived and limped through the days, but now I was really starting to struggle. The combination of not seeking treatment, not really seeing that I needed help and a combination of other pressures in my life were pushing me down the slippery slope to a complete breakdown.
Funnily enough it was Christmas 2010 and an incident with Christmas cards that got me to see that I truly needed help and needed to make some changes and at the start of 2011 I started on the path to get the help I need.
It was a painful and horrible path on which I have had to face many demons and make many sacrifices. The most painful and difficult thing was acknowledging that I was weak and that I needed to take time out to heal. It's here that I began to see that I'd internalised so many of the prejudices that our society has about people with mental illnesses. If someone has a serious physical illness no one thinks badly of them if they need to take time out to heal themselves. It's acceptable to retreat and focus on healing. However if you need to do this for a mental illness in many peoples eyes it's 'weakness'.
I realised that I am weak and that if I was ever going to get better I couldn't let the feelings of shame or inadequacy that others tried to impose on me from stopping me getting the help I needed. I needed to refocus my energies inwards rather then outwards and while I was healing I needed to focus what little energy I did have on the areas that mattered.
So over the next few months I retreated on many fronts of my life. I completely surrendered one volunteer position I had and almost completely gave up another; reducing my support down to the one thing I could do from my own home. I made the choice to give up working outside the home so that I could focus my remaining energy on helping my husband in his new business. I made the commitment to start treatment and to be open with the people in my life about my illness so that I wasn't wasting energy on hiding it any more.
Now that 2011 is coming to an end and I look back on these decisions I'm really really glad I made them. If I were to write an autobiography the chapter covering 2011 would probably be called 'The breakdown that never was' or 'How I stopped my self falling off the cliff into the abyss by the strength of my fingernails'.
I truly believe that if I'd continued with my life in the way it was shaped at the end of 2010 that I'd have had a full and total breakdown and possibly required hospitalisation. I just couldn't do it. I wasn't just at the end of my tether, my tether was fraying and about to snap in that very dramatic way it does in films when someone is hanging off a cliff. (Not like in 'Cliff hanger' though. That film was rubbish. Who climbs a mountain in a string vest for goodness sake). At best I would have limped on as I was limping on before, making myself and others around me more and more unhappy until some sort of crisis emerged.
As it was, cutting back and retreating helped to stop all of this. I guess its a bit like spinning plates (sorry I've run out of rope metaphors). I made the choice to keep a few key plates spinning and letting the superfluous ones fall to the ground. Doing this meant that I kept my life going and didn't damage myself or my mental health further. It meant that I could continue to take pleasure in the world while having therapy for my illness at the same time.
I think my Grandma could have summed it up best with a saying she loves. 'A stitch in time saves nine'. (That's practically a rope metaphor by the way, sewing thread is like rope only smaller).
Next time - Therapy and Baby Shaped Wrecking balls.
My day was different then normal because I was ill with a horrible cold and I spent most of the day in bed. I wasn't in the mood to distract myself with food and I've found this years TV offerings to be dire. I ended up in a reflective mood and started to think about the past year and what I want for 2012.
My first thought was - crikey! It's been a heck of a busy 2011 and things have really really changed!
This time last year I was facing a serious mental health crisis. My undiagnosed OCD and generalised anxiety disorder held my better self firmly in its cold steely grasp. Over the previous decade and more I'd just about survived and limped through the days, but now I was really starting to struggle. The combination of not seeking treatment, not really seeing that I needed help and a combination of other pressures in my life were pushing me down the slippery slope to a complete breakdown.
Funnily enough it was Christmas 2010 and an incident with Christmas cards that got me to see that I truly needed help and needed to make some changes and at the start of 2011 I started on the path to get the help I need.
It was a painful and horrible path on which I have had to face many demons and make many sacrifices. The most painful and difficult thing was acknowledging that I was weak and that I needed to take time out to heal. It's here that I began to see that I'd internalised so many of the prejudices that our society has about people with mental illnesses. If someone has a serious physical illness no one thinks badly of them if they need to take time out to heal themselves. It's acceptable to retreat and focus on healing. However if you need to do this for a mental illness in many peoples eyes it's 'weakness'.
I realised that I am weak and that if I was ever going to get better I couldn't let the feelings of shame or inadequacy that others tried to impose on me from stopping me getting the help I needed. I needed to refocus my energies inwards rather then outwards and while I was healing I needed to focus what little energy I did have on the areas that mattered.
So over the next few months I retreated on many fronts of my life. I completely surrendered one volunteer position I had and almost completely gave up another; reducing my support down to the one thing I could do from my own home. I made the choice to give up working outside the home so that I could focus my remaining energy on helping my husband in his new business. I made the commitment to start treatment and to be open with the people in my life about my illness so that I wasn't wasting energy on hiding it any more.
Now that 2011 is coming to an end and I look back on these decisions I'm really really glad I made them. If I were to write an autobiography the chapter covering 2011 would probably be called 'The breakdown that never was' or 'How I stopped my self falling off the cliff into the abyss by the strength of my fingernails'.
I truly believe that if I'd continued with my life in the way it was shaped at the end of 2010 that I'd have had a full and total breakdown and possibly required hospitalisation. I just couldn't do it. I wasn't just at the end of my tether, my tether was fraying and about to snap in that very dramatic way it does in films when someone is hanging off a cliff. (Not like in 'Cliff hanger' though. That film was rubbish. Who climbs a mountain in a string vest for goodness sake). At best I would have limped on as I was limping on before, making myself and others around me more and more unhappy until some sort of crisis emerged.
As it was, cutting back and retreating helped to stop all of this. I guess its a bit like spinning plates (sorry I've run out of rope metaphors). I made the choice to keep a few key plates spinning and letting the superfluous ones fall to the ground. Doing this meant that I kept my life going and didn't damage myself or my mental health further. It meant that I could continue to take pleasure in the world while having therapy for my illness at the same time.
I think my Grandma could have summed it up best with a saying she loves. 'A stitch in time saves nine'. (That's practically a rope metaphor by the way, sewing thread is like rope only smaller).
Next time - Therapy and Baby Shaped Wrecking balls.
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