I am still feeling rotten. My two mood states seem to be depressed or dissociated. I guess the dissociation is all about my mind giving myself a little bit of relief from the depressive thoughts. I’m not sure if that is a good thing or not. I still feel “meh!” while dissociated but at least the really dark thoughts don’t hound me as badly as when I am feeling just plain, old depressed.

For the sake of trying to hold on to some semblance of sanity, I decided to keep myself busy by developing a new theme for my blog. It’s been a couple of days in the making. The Green Swirls theme as I’ve called it, is based on Wordpress’ default Kubrick theme and the styling is informed by the wonderful WordPress Theme Guide over at Urban Giraffe. The WordPress Theme Guide is really a great resource if you want to start out making your own WordPress themes. Anyway, I think this Green Swirls theme is reasonably cross browser friendly and is plain and simple which is always a plus for me, so I might keep it for a while. If you notice any glaringly obvious problems, let me know.

Thankfully I don’t have to work this weekend because I do not feel up to it at all. Actually that’s not entirely true. I did have an event to go to today; an ecumenical church service. However when I turned up at the location and time that the event was supposedly happening, no one was there. Thank goodness for small favours, hey. I don’t think I would have coped at all.

My pdoc appointment last Wednesday was horrific. I was having a very disso-y day, so when I walked into his office I lost it in the way that only I can. I wasn’t able to look up, let alone make eye contact with the pdoc. Try as hard as I could, I was unable to give voice to much of what was going on in my head for the majority of the appointment. I fixated on small things such as the hem of my skirt and the skin on my fingers and was virtually unable to draw my attention away from them. It was horrible, and something I haven’t done in a while. I was half hoping the pdoc would hospitalise me, but no mention was made of it. What I did get was a “see you next time”. *sigh*

Anyway, that’s enough for this post. Until next time my little blog …

This is my procrastination post. I’ve got two weeks left to finish virtually a whole term’s work of TAFE and I really need to get started on it but for some reason I find myself turning to my blog.

I’ve had a busy weekend. Saturday saw a full day of me taking photos for the newspaper. I had three events to cover: the local Rotary auction, a rugby league game and a speedway event. All three events required action/news images and social images. Yesterday saw me fixing up the paper work from Saturday’s event. By Sunday night, I was exhausted.

My husband has been driving me crazy lately. It seems that the only time he talks to me is when he wants to nag me about something. I’m sick of hearing, “The dogs need a bath,” “Why is there a growing pile of clothes in the hallway,” “Get me something to eat,” “I need a drink,” etc. Do this for me! Do that for me! It makes me feel like the only reason I am here is to satisfy his every whim. I feel like a maid, not a wife. I feel like I have a better connection with my friends when I can’t help but believe that my strongest relationship should be with my husband. Fuck! Why does my brain came back to this again and again?!?

Frustration aside, the social worker from mental health rang me on Friday afternoon although I wasn’t home to take the call. Hubby was though, and he said that the social worker will call me back today. When I receive the phone call, I guess I will find out whether mental health is able to offer me any assistance. I wonder what the verdict will be? As a result of last night, I am sporting a new fair-sized blister on my arm, so I suppose that having a few appointments with mental health won’t be a bad thing.

Anyway, it’s time for me to try concentrating on some TAFE work. Eek! Wish me luck!

* * * * * * * * * *

Update: Well, I just got off the phone with the social worker from mental health. As expected, mental health is unable to offer me any individual therapy-type work due to my case being seen as non-acute.

Even though I knew that this was most likely going to be the case, I’m surprised about how this news has affected me. I feel really teary. I wish the meddling nurse from the hospital had never referred me to mental health. She should have listened to what I was trying to tell her and realised that mental health wouldn’t have been able to assist me in the first place. I wouldn’t be sitting here feeling sad and disappointed then.

What a stupid cow for not listening to me. This situation has just made me more adamant never to return to the hospital for any type of treatment.

Having said all that, the social worker did mention a group, which he considers may be appropriate for me, that the mental health psychologist will be running after Easter. Apparently, it has something to do with emotional regulation, although I must admit to not knowing what that is. I guess it is time for a Google search. He is going to send me some information regarding the group. I’ll have a read through the information and see what I think, although I am leaning towards not worrying about mental health and re-concentrating on my private psychiatrist and perhaps taking up the offer of seeing his psychologist. I dunno!

Current Mood: Disappointed

Shock! My first appointment with public mental health has already been cancelled. I’m not surprised. At least they told me about it this time without me having to drive an hour away for no reason. *sigh*

Also, I am no longer going to present at the hospital’s dressings clinic. I encountered another rude, bitchy nurse when I visited last Saturday. It was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. I’m not going to allow myself to be treated like crap by the hospital’s staff again.

The end!

Okay, I really need to blog in order to move that huntsman spider image down the page a little. It’s freaking me out every time I open my web browser.

Well, tonight I have to wonder a little if I am back at the beginning of this whole crazy double D’s show. I swear, I must be experiencing a sort of funky deja vu or something similar. It would appear that I am back within the public mental health system. (Shit! I’m screwed!)

Back in early 2004, when everything came to a head, I was referred to the public mental health office over in the next town. It didn’t go well. After appointments being cancelled on me and phone calls never returned, I got the distinct impression that the public mental health system was far too busy to bother with people like myself … you know, just the garden variety depressed person. In fact, that impression was made fact when a friend of mine got a job in the local welfare sector and was told by the public mental health office that they indeed did not have the time to deal with people with depression. They were too busy dealing with people with “real” mental illnesses. At the time, it took a third overdose in as many months for the local doctor to suddenly realise, “Shit, this woman’s husband has private health insurance. I can refer her to a private psychiatrist.” And that, my dear Melissa (don’t ask … I’ve been keeping her quiet but I think she is a reality now … about time I had someone else pop to the fore and deal with some of this shit for me), is when this whole friggin’ journey really began.

Anyway, this morning I fronted up to the hospital to get my leg redressed. Can I just interrupt my own thoughts for a second and say that I am completely over this whole dressings thing. When is my leg going to heal enough that I can tell the hospital to go fuck themselves and not have to deal with them again? Once again, I had a different nurse see me. Once again, I was told that my current psychiatrist must be doing nothing for me since I am still self harming. Once again, I was told that if I continued to self harm then the hospital would have to look at whether they were going to continue to treat me or not. Fucking hell!

However this time, as the nurse said that, I told her to “be careful”. I told her about what happened the other day and how I thought that particular nurse was entirely unprofessional. To her credit, the nurse heeded my wishes/warning. Instead, she was adamant about referring me to the public mental health office over in the next town. I tried to tell her that my psychiatrist had referred me to a psychologist. I tried to tell her what happened back in 2004. It either didn’t sink in or … well … fucked if I know. It felt like I was being told to accept the referral or the hospital would withdraw from treating me.

The end result of this morning’s visit to the hospital is that the referral to mental health over in the next town has been made. Apparently I will get a call from them or someone at the hospital to tell me when my upcoming appointment is.

So, what do I do? I guess I will attend the appointment but I will be sure to bring up what happened last time. The last thing I need is to be dropped like a hot potato again. I feel like the carrot has been dangled in front of me so many times (GP’s, public mental health, private psychiatrists and psychologists) but nothing has ever fucking come from anything. Just how long is a person supposed to keep on trying before she is finally allowed to go, “Fuck it! I tried and tried but nothing has helped and that is the end of it for me.”

I really don’t know!

During my appointment with my psychiatrist this afternoon, I told him about what happened at the hospital. He stated that he saw parallels between what had happened there and what happens during therapy with him. (Huh!?!) He said that while I am really compliant with taking medications, going into hospital when the need arises and attending therapy sessions, I am unable to communicate what is happening in my inner life. (Umm, isn’t that his job … to help me to be able to do that??) He said that my cynicism and nialisim (how the hell do you spell that word?) impedes anybody trying to help me.

For goodness sake! I am sure I am not the hardest nut that these so-called professionals have had to crack!

A denial,
I’m worse at what I do best and for this gift I feel blessed,
I found it hard, it was hard to find,
Oh well, whatever, nevermind …

This afternoon I had my first (and possibly only!?!) appointment with the new psychologist. I don’t know quite what to write about the appointment. It was certainly different to my appointments with my psychiatrist although I guessed it would be. Psychologists seem to be much more focussed on short-term therapy and more immediate results and less on, “Tell me all about how things have been going for you” and offering only minimal responses.

The good news is that the new psychologist doesn’t practice CBT because she doesn’t believe it to be all that successful. I wholeheartedly agree with her on that one. If getting rid of life-long depression was as easy as magically changing the way you think then no one would ever be depressed.

The bad(?) news is that the theory that mostly informs the way in which she works is Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. I’ve only had a quick skim of a couple of websites about REBT that I found through Google and, on face value, it seems to be quite similar to CBT … just an older version of it, so to speak.

She seems to have a much stronger personality than my psychiatrist despite the fact that they are life partners in addition to being business partners. During the appointment, she spoke a lot more than he does. She seemed to be an incredibly straight forward, tell you exactly what she thinks, type of person.

She said that she doesn’t “do” overdoses or threats, whatever the hell she meant by that. Believe me, if I chose to overdose again, I wouldn’t be “threatening” her about it. Hell, I wouldn’t even tell her about it. I would just do it. She also said that she expected the client to work at the therapy, that it was a partnership and that if I wasn’t at a time of my life where I was ready to change, then perhaps seeing her wasn’t in my best interest.

In short, it was fucking full-on!

Regarding my concerns about entering into therapy with her, I wonder how empathic she can be. Going by this initial appointment, I can’t see it being one of her stronger points. As for if I am ready to change, fuck, I have no idea that change is even something that is possible. In some shape or form I have been living with depression for twenty fucking years. Can a short stint of REBT truly make any difference?

On the positive side of entering into therapy with her, what do I have to lose? My life? Well yeah, that is a slim possibility. If it doesn’t work I may just go, “Fuck it! I’ve had enough! I’ve tried and tried and nothing has changed.” Realistically though, that is not a good enough reason not to give it a go. I’ve been fighting for my life over these past three years, so I might as well keep going for a little longer at least. I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn’t try everything that was available to me.

Finally, at the end of the appointment, she said that I should take the time to think about what was said during the appointment and consider if making another appointment was a thing I would like to do. Her saying that demonstrates that she doesn’t know much about me as yet. I am certainly not the most proactive person to ever walk this earth. My next appointment with the psychiatrist is early March, however, so I have until then to make my decision.

In short, yesterday’s appointment exceeded my expectations. Mind you, I’m not exactly sure if I could articulate what those expectations were (perhaps I was just expecting it to be a total disaster). Instead, let’s try to reflect on what happened during the appointment.

Firstly, let’s talk about the odd things that happened. I don’t view them as particularly earth shattering by any stretch of the imagination. They are more curiosities than anything else but freaky nonetheless. 

The main one is that I had this feeling that I was not 100% integrated with myself during the appointment. By this I mean that the part of me that did the talking was not 100% me. It was sort of like this offshoot of me, like I could hear myself talking but the voice was kind of “off”, or disconnected with the actual me, or some part of me that was actually speaking for me. I know, I know. It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it is certainly what it feels like. It’s not the first time this has happened during a pdoc appointment. It’s not the first time this has happened in other situations. What it is is kind of offputting and frustrating. It feels strange and I am not a fan of the sensation at all.

The second one is that the weird physical reaction happened again. It’s been a while since it happened. The “PR” bugs the hell out of me. Why it happens as a result of sitting in the pdoc’s room is completely beyond me. I mean it’s just … like … wrong!

With those two things out of the way, what were the general things that were discussed during the appointment? Well, I guess the appointment was all about how I had been feeling about the whole therapy business during the past month … the anger, the disappointment and the hopelessness. I can’t say exactly what was achieved through this discussion, but the result of it seems to be that I am willing to turn up to my next appointment at the end of October. I don’t have an overwhelming urge to just forget about therapy and give it up as a bad joke.

Finally, the medication issue is not as big an issue as I thought it would be. I mean, the man is a psychiatrist after all. Dealing out crazy meds is what he does, right? (As opposed to the psychological counselling thing). I was almost expecting him to say that he couldn’t help me if I chose not to go the medication route. That didn’t happen though. What he did say was that him prescribing the medication in the first place was some sort of almost blind experimentation to see if my depression had some sort of chemical imbalance component to it (ok, that’s vaguely disturbing) and it would be too early to tell if the medication had been beneficial since its only been within the past month that I have been stepping down all the dosages to arrive at my 50mg Seroquel at night to help me sleep. (I can’t give up on that yet. Sleeping is my reprieve at the moment and it just doesn’t happen without the help of half a little yellow tablet).

Anyway, this post has been a long, rambling and mildly dull one. Time to quit the reflecting and get on with my day. Mind you, I am doing the thoroughly exhausted thing today so the rest of my day will probably involve me lazing around on the couch watching TV willing myself to have enough energy to get up and do something, but ya get that.