I have however found the cure for depression! His name is Baxter and he is an 11 month old beautiful red boxer dog, who came to live with me as a little puppy and changed my life completely. I actually leave the house three times per day now, or two when it’s raining, because I have to take him down to the field for his walks. I actually have to talk to other dog walkers on there, and guess what? I enjoy it.
Of course Chloe the cat took umbrage and left home shortly after Baxter’s arrival. She still turns up occasionally for food and even came indoors when it was snowing, but she appears to have relocated to another home. I’ve tried everything to entice her in and even forked out for an outdoor cat kennel (deluxe version bought during a manic spree) which is used by most of the cat population on our street.
So Baxter is curled up next to me snoring away, no doubt dreaming of his dalmation girlfriend or the sausages in my fridge.
The sausages are his, not mine. I’m on the slimfast plan. Only occasionally I supplement it with Haagen Daz icecream. The reason for the diet? I’m on the waiting list to have a gastric bypass. Yes I’m taking the ‘easy way out’ hahah. Major and life threatening surgery in a last ditch attempt to look normal. It’s taken a year to get onto the list and I had to pay for private cbt before tptb would accept that I was sane enough to deal with the post op diet.
So that’s another reason why bpd has taken a back seat. I CANNOT BE SEEN TO BE ILL. So I can’t phone the helpline or let my gp know things aren’t great. I can’t self harm and I can’t be hospitalised. And you know what? Having the operation as a goal seems to have really helped me to stay on track. The cbt didn’t help at all. £90 per hour got me a lovely decorated room to sit in and spill my guts, but homework has never really been my thing. Maybe it’s the exercise I’ve been doing which has kept me well. Who knows?
but the upshot is that I’m doing really well for now, I should be much thinner soon, and I’ve postponed my next relapse until after the surgery lol.

Things that aren’t going so well:
dad’s cancer came back and is terminal. He suffers a lot of pain right now and we’re in the process of waiting to see if he can take part in a clinical trial to buy him some more time.
Also, I feel as though I’m waiting for the sword of damacles to fall. Yep, the welfare reforms. So is there anyone out there who would like to give me a job?
I can work afternoons providing I can have an hours nap during my shift. Or I could work mornings as long as speaking isn’t required. I’ll need an average of 3 months off per year to go cry into a pillow and I’m not great with people so a nice little booth of my own with a Leave Me Alone sign on it would be great.
Work history? Well nothing for the last 4 years or so. Let’s just say ‘travelling’ shall we? Prior to that, hmm lets see. I can spin on a chair very fast and you’ll see a huge increase in your office vending machine profits. I’m fantastic at debating, although i will require a week off if everyone doesn’t agree with me. I make great coffee too, and only spit in it for one week out of four.
Oh I’d need to bring the dog with me. He has abandonment issues.

Unfortunately I then go through days of not being able to bear the noise from the tv. People’s voices are too loud and irritating. When I try to read the text jumps around and I can’t manage more than a page. Sleep evades me, despite the medication. I feel wound up so tight I’m going to explode. But fortunately this temporary madness seems to disappear just before it gets so bad that I can’t cope with it anymore.

It has been an eventful few months. Dad recently received his all clear from cancer. He is physically very well again but it appears to have left him with Victor Meldrew Syndrome aka grumpy old fart disease.  I lost three stone on the lighter life diet, which is basically a starvation diet which brought on the symptoms of anorexia. Now I’m back to bingeing each day and regaining all the weight. My nuisance neighbour has calmed down after being threatened with court proceedings if he continued to harrass the rest of the street. I spent the summer watching Big Brother and staying up too late, which is probably what has caused my recent relapse. Now I’m looking forward (not) to that time of year where the days draw in again and I start to evaluate what I have acheived in the last year. Of course that makes me feel low again because I’ve done nothing but drift through the year, spending my days shopping, eating and sleeping.

I desperately need some structure in my life. A daily routine which involves more than just trying to get dressed and go out to buy cigarettes. I’m stuck in this rut and terrified of crawling out of it. I’m dreading the upcoming changes in the benefit system where I will most likely be told to get a job. Being around people, dealing with targets, just getting dressed and showering regularly is just too much right now. It’s been too much for several years. But that’s partly because when you don’t have to try anymore, you end up going backwards. I’m far less capable than I was three years ago. But is that because my mental health has deteriorated? Or is it because I have given up? A kick up the backside from the job centre might be good for me. But it might also send me into a BPD spin and end up with another trip to hospital. Now that Dad is better, I feel less inclined to hold on and stay well myself. If it wasn’t for the cat I’d probably have given up months ago. But I know I can combat those feelings by getting out and about and meeting friends etc. It’s just that the 5 yr old in me is screaming ”I DON’T WANNA”.

Oh and I finally got round to having Sky + installed and bought a nice big tv. I have become the stereotypical benefits scrounger. My goal for the next year should be to get pregnant and buy a Staffy.

As a teen I did once trip over a police dog whilst protesting against the Poll Tax. Rather than being arrested I ended up sleeping with the dog’s trainer on his next shift off. Oh the joys of bpd inspired one night stands. Waking up next to someone who looks and smells a lot less appealing than they did after ten pints. Or in this case, halfs, as Mr Copper didn’t think women should be seen with pint glasses. It’s not feminine apparantly. I didn’t see him again.

Anyway, back to the point in hand. The policeman is your friend. I always thought that to be true. I grew up on a fairly middle class estate, where a visit from the police was tantamount to social suicide, and the Turkish family who moved onto the street were suspected to be terrorists because they had natural yoghurt delivered with their milk. I always thought that if someone committed a crime against me, one phone call would have them promptly arrested, charged and sent to prison, whilst I would be commended by a tearful Judge for my outstanding bravery in giving evidence in court!

Then 10 years ago I moved into my first council flat. Oh the joy to be given those keys. The knowledge that in one quick move I had disappointed my father (who still had a lingering hope I would get my head together and become the next Poet Laureate or Nobel Prize winner), annoyed the hell out of my Tory brother by paying a subsidised rent whilst he worked 24/7 to pay his mortgage , and finally got out of the horrors of shared accommodation (myself and 4 aussie men, all of whom I’d slept with at one point over the years). I’d only been on the waiting list for 5 months. There must be a catch surely? Oh yeah.

Meet bad neighbour number one. A scrawny, ponytailed, jobless lout who spent his days playing Emimem on his stereo and having his friends round to get stoned. Obviously his days weren’t fun filled enough because within weeks of my moving in he realised the lone female in the flat below him was easy prey. Cue two years of harrassment in the form of death threats, vandalism, loud music and eggs. Yes, eggs. Remarkably difficult to scrape off the front door. I gave up in the end and just revarnished it. It took two years for the police to arrest him. At first I put it down to the intricacies of the law and the lack of evidence. It was my word against his as none of the neighbours were brave enough to give statements. Eventually he was arrested, and the discovery of a drugs factory in his flat helped add to the charges. Harrassment, Threats to kill and producing cannabis. I fully expected him to be sent down or at least evicted.

But then the police found out that I had a history of depression. Overnight my credibility was shot. The threats to kill charge was dropped with the excuse that I was ”too mentally unstable to give evidence in court”. The neighbour ended up with a fine and a years restraining order. I had to move home. That in itself was a battle, and only the threat of going to the press would make the council agree to a transfer. Ten years on and I still feel bitter. No one asked if I felt able to give evidence. No one suggested that I make use of the services of Victim Support, who would have helped me through the trial process. When I went to make a further statement at the station, there was a noticeable difference in the way I was treated. Sympathy and a promise to help became raised eyebrows and condescension. Officers became unreachable on the telephone to me. No one even saw fit to keep me up to date with the court appearances. I only found out the outcome when I opened my door to find the neighbour coming up the path with his belongings. He’d been forced to live with his father until the case was over. Once he pleaded guilty he was allowed to live above me again.

I try not to think about bad neighbour number one anymore. Shit happens after all, and he did cite depression as the reason for his anti social behaviour. I’ll take that with a very large pinch of salt if I’m honest. Anyway it’s in the past. I didn’t even realise it was ten years ago until I started to write this post. Another reminder of how I’ve drifted in recent years. However, I’m currently embroiled in the ongoing saga of Bad Neighbour Number 2. I’ve posted about him previously and did hope to have something more positive to report by now, (perhaps his sudden death from chronic nastiness) but nothing has changed as yet.

My local bobby is fantastic when it comes to giving out assurances. Unfortunately, actually visiting either myself or the neighbour seems to be beyond her capabilities. The estate I live on is fairly rough I suppose, but not quite a no go area yet. The local teens do like to play chase the community support officer on occasion, and my culdesac has become the in place to abandon the stolen car on a Saturday night, but other than that we’re a pretty friendly lot. Think ‘Shameless’ with a Yorkshire accent and no pub (shut down for frequent brawls on the street outside).

It seems that my local plod can only communicate via email at the moment. In other words, I send them frequent updates (as requested) on the notes my neighbour is still placing in his window. In return I get the occasional reply saying how shocking it is and how we must come down hard on him, but unfortunately we’re off shift for the next few days.

Perhaps I’m a little paranoid here, but I have a suspicion that my name has been run through the computer and the Mental alarm has gone off. Either that or my council estate manager has warned the police of my past problems. I nearly got evicted prior to hospitalisation after forgetting about things like paying rent or letting workmen in. As before, nothing I say seems to carry any weight anymore. It seems that this is regarded as a problem between two nutters and the police are happy to step back and take bets on who cracks first. I wonder if they would react in the same way if I lived on a middle class street or didn’t have a number for the crisis line stuck on my fridge. Yes ok, I should have taken that down before she came to take my statement.

So we’re in limbo at the moment. He puts up the notes. I write down a copy. His wife gives me dirty looks and I check that neither of them are out in the street before I leave the house. Dad thinks I should just ignore him and I know he might be right, but be fair, could you walk past that window and not read what rubbish he’d put there? My whole reason for going to the police was that he hassles my other neighbours who are elderly and good friends of mine. And as the weather gets warmer and we go back to sitting in the garden again, I know from experience that the situation will escalate again. He can’t stand to see us out there. But I still feel sorry for the guy. There’s something very wrong going on in that flat and, whilst I don’t fear him (I will not become like the general public and assume mental illness equates to violent sociopath), I do fear for the well being of his young daughter, who hasn’t been seen by anyone for weeks. But the more I complain the more I feel myself getting sucked into an obsession. He is starting to be the focus for all my low moods and angry feelings. The person I can blame for why I have trouble getting out of bed or doing the washing up. And that’s not right. Perhaps I need to step back from the situation, but I hate losing! But really that’s what I should do. I have enough to worry about at the moment.

An update on Dad. He was hospitalised for a few days last week, after his blood tests showed a low platelet count and he also had a temperature. He’s back home now but it did mean he couldn’t have his chemo, and will have to have a milder dose of it from now on. So it’s a knock back. His hair also started to fall out this week, which has really brought it home to me that he is frail. I’m trying to play the role of attentive daughter, and it does feel like an act, because cancer doesn’t delete all the crap from the past. Something which Jade Goody should also realise. But I think I’m doing a fairly good job of hiding how I feel from him. I limit the visits to a couple of hours which helps me to rein the feelings in. It’s bloody tiring though.

So that’s what’s going on with me right now. I’m coping ok, if drifting through the days without any real sense of purpose. I take my meds. I behave myself. The fact that I don’t feel like a real person most of the time is incidental. Tomorrow I will be interviewed by some doctors, after agreeing to take part in research into BPD and psychosis. A chance for me to feel listened to for once. I know I crave attention, but honestly, most days I only have the cat to talk to and he doesn’t like me very much. 

And lastly, a shout out to Fairy’s mum, who I understand likes to read this blog. Your daughter hassled me into posting again. Hope you enjoyed it lol xx

Dad doing ok btw. Three weeks into his chemo and no side effects other than some tiredness and nosebleeds.

Sorry for the short post.

So, there are plenty of different mental illnesses. Or rather, plenty of different diagnosis. One in four people will experience mental distress sometime in their lives. That’s a fact. It can range from grief induced depression, postnatal depression, an eating disorder etc, to psychosis, bi polar, schizophrenia etc. And there’s the bit which has made me angry.

We, all of us have had to endure discrimination from the general public. Whether it be a job we haven’t got, or not being invited to a party. A relative who tells us to grow up and cheer up, or a doctor who blames our moodswings on being fat. You’d think though, that within our mad community, we’d be able to get along. But no. Because my mental illness is worse than yours. So there! Or maybe yours is worse than mine? I used to have a diagnosis of depression. Then it was BPD. Now it’s BPD with psychosis. Does that mean I’ve moved a few rungs up the ladder? Do I now look down to mock the depressives? And should I look up and feel jealous of the schizophrenics?

When I was an inpatient I noticed a definate heirarchy in the smoking room. You received kudos for having multiple stays. Total respect was offered to those who’d spent time upstairs on the infamous Ward 3 (plastic cutlery and no matches allowed).  Superficial self harm injuries were laughed at. Cigarette burns were oohed and aahed over. You didn’t say no when the person who’d thumped a nurse asked you for a cigarette. Gossip about diagnosis was rife. The schizophrenics were special. Cool people. Ours had a guitar and nipped outside to buy dope whenever he was allowed off the ward. Then came the manic depressives. After that the depressives, although they generally stayed in bed all day and didn’t make it to the smoking room. Bottom of the pile were the personality disordered. It was almost considered an insult to whisper that another patient just had a pd. Perhaps the patients picked up on the negative vibes from the staff? We were definately regarded as taking up a bed which didn’t belong to us that’s for sure.

I spend quite a lot of time over on the Rethink forum. Rethink used to be a charity specifically for people with schizophrenia. It has since modernised and now campaigns for the rights of all people suffering from a severe mental illness. But the forum is still mostly run by the schizophrenics. And boy do they like to hammer it in that they are the most poorly, the most discriminated against, the most misunderstood. I don’t think that does them any favours. This perceived longing to be special, to be held up there as completely different to any other mental illness. Yes I don’t doubt that schizophrenia is a hellish illness. But so is bpd. So is bi polar. So is post natal depression. So is any mental health condition which causes you severe distress. Why do we get so hung up on diagnosis? Surely we should concentrate instead on how the symptoms make us feel? How they affect our ability to function? Whether recovery is possible and to what extent. Yes it’s true that the general public still mistakenly associate schizophrenia with violence, but having said that, the general public still mistake a diagnosis of mental illness as meaning the same as schizophrenia. I’ve been called a variety of things over the years. Schizo, mong, nutter, wacko, retard,fuckwit (i quite like that one), weirdo, madcow. We’re all lumped together so perhaps we should all stick up for each other and stop this infighting.

Yes there is a massive difference between a short lived, one off spell of depression, and a life long condition like Sz, bi polar or a pd. But the majority of the public won’t experience the latter. The closest they can come to understanding what it is like to be us is when they themselves experience depression or a relative or colleague does. The ad campaign called Time To Change is currently trying to change people’s perceptions of mental illness. I applaud them for doing so. Yet they are criticised this week by The Times, who’s columnist is angry that their ad does not include schizophrenia and is too positive, focussing as it does on recovery. In my mind this ad campaign is long overdue. There are still generations who’s understanding of the mentally ill is that we are all loons who used to be locked up for life but are now roaming the streets like rabid dogs. Anything which changes that view is a good thing.

So please, schizophrenics, stop putting yourself on a pedestal just because your condition has an organic cause.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/sathnam_sanghera/article5663115.ece Times column on schizophrenia and Time To Change

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64EWjvxqbYg  Time to Change Ad

Other than that, life is treating me very well. Seeing the pdoc last week gave me an opportunity to reflect on life and I think I am slowly improving. I haven’t cut for a long time. I sleep properly now (apart from tonight) and am starting to eat more healthily. I am feeling a bit lost though. Where do I go from here? What do people do when they are well? Actually ‘well’ might be an exaggeration, but I’m not in crisis and I’m not suicidal. Looking back at recent posts I realise that I have been stalling for quite a while. I know I should be doing more each day but I’m just not getting round to it. I need to set some goals. Hmmm, let me have a think about it and I’ll post another time. Shopping less would be a start though, but there are still sales on!

Today I’d really like to go back to bed. Unfortunately Argos are delivering the results of my recent manic shopping spree, so I need to stay up until at least 6pm. I’ll bet they turn up at 5.59.pm. I’ve also lost my rag with the strange neighbour after he put yet another strange note in his window this morning. I’m ashamed to say that I called him a nutter, amongst other things. I’m going to blame that on the hangover though. Now I’m trying to get through to either the police or the council to update them on the situation. I keep being transferred through to a fax machine. I haven’t heard from them since I made the statement, despite being promised that they would keep me updated. Anyway, I thought I’d post  pics of some of the notes here to see what you think. Is he mad? Or just bad?

Todays is apparantly an idea for a new type of board game. No photo for it as yet but this is what it says.

Game Show Time

Players: A victim
Conspirator
A policeman
Official

Components of Game
1) one council bin
2) three washing lines
3) A beware of the dog sign
4) the victim

Rules of Game

Place component on top of bin
Start
Form a circle around the bin and face inwards. Circle must contain equal numbers. Policeman and Official must face each other.

Are we ready?

Relatives must not face each other or the game is void. Now look down on the bin. Now look up at the person opposite only. Only the policeman and official can look at each other’s faces. Now look hard. What do you see.

Prize. An end to gossip and treachery against the victim.

Now I do understand the reference to the wheelie bin. We take turns to put everyones out for collection but don’t bother with his anymore so he has to put it out himself. However I wasn’t aware of a problem with washing lines, and no one has a beware of the dog sign.  I presume he has been visited recently by the police and estate officer, which is why they both get a mention. The relatives must mean his family. Perhaps he is also angry at them now?

I know the notes aren’t threatening but they do disturb me. After 8 years I know he’s not going to give up and I worry that things will escalate.

Ooh my flatpack shelves have arrived!

The people who are running the research into BPD’ers with psychosis phoned me today. I’d forgotten to send in my consent form for them to look through my records. We’ve arranged for me to be interviewed on March 10th so that should be interesting. Fortunately the fact that I haven’t experienced any psychosis for several months doesn’t matter, as they want to hear about the last year. It all seems a bit hazy now though, so I’m not sure that I’ll be much use to them. Any research into BPD is useful though so I’m glad to be able to help. And lets face it, I’ll love the attention!

Just watched Obama’s inaugaration speech. Have to say that I was slightly disappointed. There wasn’t any stand out line for which he’ll be remembered, and more importantly, we still don’t know which puppy they’ve chosen! I liked the way he messed up his lines though. Perhaps a homage to Bush? Give him a week and the backstabbers will start circling.

So the upshot is that I have spoken to the police this weekend and they will be visiting him shortly with a view to getting him assessed under the mental health act. However, they doubt the CMHT will agree to assess him because a) he hasn’t been charged with anything yet, and b) he isn’t violent. So that leaves them with the options of either arresting him for harrassment and then sectioning him once he’s outside his house (it can’t be done on his property) or contacting social services because he has a young daughter living with him.

I feel like I’m betraying one of my own kind. However unpleasant he is, if he is mentally ill he is like me. And I would hate it if someone tried to have me assessed against my will. There’s a kind of them and us attitude between the mentally ill  community and officialdom, and I don’t like going over to the other side. Also, I have friends who have suffered at the hands of overly zealous social workers. Friends who have lost access to their children because in the past they have had a breakdown. If my neighbour has managed to get through life without being picked up by the CMHT so far, am I really doing him a favour now? Let’s face it, an assessment doesn’t automatically mean he will get help. It might just make him even angrier to us all.

The police were meant to keep me updated and should have rung me yesterday, but so far I’ve heard nothing. I’m wondering if they’ve looked me up on their system and realised that I’m also flagged up as mental. In which case, anything I’ve told them will be taken with a pinch of salt. They may not mean to be prejudice but you tend to see that look in their eyes as soon as you disclose it. In my last neighbour dispute I had to agree to drop some of the charges because I was deemed unfit to give evidence in court. So a man who threatened me on almost a daily basis for two years, received a years probation for harrassment rather than a prison sentence for threats to kill.  This latest dispute is nowhere near as bad, yet I wonder if my past experience is impacting on it. I’m coming out fighting this time, rather than being a victim. Perhaps as a result I am being too hard on him. Damn I wish I’d never had group therapy. Decisions were so much easier before that lol.

Dad gets his scan results today, so I’m rather on edge. Another reason why I’ve spoken to the police perhaps. I needed to transfer my anger onto someone else.

Today is a good day though. A new president in the USA. A black president no less. A president who doesn’t make me cringe and turn over every time he speaks. Hopefully the mood of optimism and change will reach over to the UK too. We certainly need it.

I have a problem neighbour. When I moved into the flat 8 years ago I became aware of an ongoing dispute between him and the nice couple who live above me. Joe seems to suffer from some sort of paranoia himself. I like to think the best of people so I try not to just put it down to him being a nasty piece of work. He beleives some money was stolen from his flat and this has grown into a major hate campaign against my other neighbours, who are absolutely not to blame. Every few weeks he starts hassling them again. Making nasty comments as they walk past. Threatening to take them to court. For the first five years I kept out of it, despite him constantly telling me they were evil. Then I came across him hurling abuse at a widowed pensioner and I stepped in to help her. Since then I have been added to the list of conspirators.

Joe plagues the police with lengthy, increasingly paranoid letters. He writes to our neighbours warning them about us. He shouts to me that I am a fat cow. For the most part I can laugh it off, because it has never turned violent. The police and local authority are also fully aware that his accusations are groundless.

But now he has taken to putting handmade posters in his window. Last week it proclaimed that any trouble would be returned tenfold. Today it was addressed to me and said:

To ***

When you arrived here you were brainwashed by people so desperate to hide the truth from you at all costs. Ask them about their strange behaviour many years before you came. Or better still, ask me. You will not find the truth such a big joke for you.

Now this has totally freaked me out. I hate to think of all the passers by who have read it. What will they think of me? I dread to think what will appear next time. I’ve had to ring the police and add it to the lengthy list of his harrassment. That means the police are going to come and see me tomorrow, which is a huge problem in itself. I can’t answer the door to my flat. I am phobic about letting people inside, and have to prepare for it in advance. The flat is also a bit of a tip. So now I have to stay up most of the night to make sure it is clean and tidy.

Also, what’s the point of complaining? I’ve been in a similiar situation at a previous address. That did go to court, and the druggie who had terrorised me for two years, posting porn through my door, slashing my clothes on the washing line, shouting that he was going to stab me, got away with a years probation because I was deemed to be too mentally ill to testify. Now I’m scared that the police will look me up and dismiss me as a serial complainer. Or if they do proceed with charges, he might escalate his campaign. I live alone on the ground floor and feel very wary. I’m sat here now listening out for every noise. I know that he isn’t anywhere near as bad as the last one but it’s bringing it all back.  And I’m frustrated at the way he makes me feel. This is the absolute last thing I needed to deal with this week!

And yet, I still have sympathy for the man. He must be deeply troubled and I wish he would get help. I’m hoping that the police can make him get a psychiatric assessment. I don’t know if that is within their powers though.

I just want him to take the poster down. Right now I want to throw a brick through that bloody window.