For Her Sake Or For Mine?

World Alzheimer’s Day – 2017

I haven’t been blogging much lately. It’s not because I haven’t wanted to. I have. And generally, I still have a lot to say.

But my brain isn’t functioning too well, and it gets in the way of getting the thoughts (and feelings) from my brain onto my screen. I start plenty of posts but they simply don’t end up saying what I want. And so I don’t even start to write. It’s easier that way because as a writer, there isn’t much worse than not being able to get the words out. Don’t mistake this as writer’s block. It’s not.

The problem I have is called brain fog (aka cognitive dysfunction) and I currently have two chronic medical conditions which make this a daily reality. Then there are several medications I take which contribute to the severity of my brain fog. And let me just say for those who have never had it, that the term ‘brain fog’ drastically underestimates the issue.

It was only a few days ago that I tempted the derision of another by raising the issue with my doctor (again). My brain fog has been so bad lately that I feared some type of permanent brain injury had somehow taken place, or perhaps even early-onset Alzheimer’s Disease. (There’s enough Alzheimer’s Disease in my family to know that it could well be a reality for me some time ahead).

My doctor told me to take a multivitamin. There is a lot I could say about her response, but I won’t because well, this post isn’t about her.

Regular (yes, I realise there has to be something to read to become regular) readers will remember that my mother lives with Alzheimer’s Disease. You can read previous posts that address this aspect of her, and my life here and here, as a starter. What’s important to know is that World Alzheimer’s Day is important to me. It’s right up there as far as awareness days go. Not just because of my mother’s current fight, but also the past fights of an uncle and my maternal grandmother, and of course, that one day this may well be my fight too.

Mum has been living in a secure facility directed at dementia care for nine months now. In that time, I have witnessed her fight become more intense. I have watched as she now struggles to recognise anyone but me. Sometimes she knows I am her daughter, but other times she is adamant I’m not her daughter, and that instead, I am a long-standing friend. Then other times I’m not altogether sure just who she thinks I am, except it is clear that I am of meaning to her. Only a couple of times have I got the sense that she had no idea who I am. Yes, all of that leaves me sad. I am grieving for someone who stands in front of me.

All of that leaves me thinking about why I do what I do?

Why do I spend time with Mum most days, often while I am in a great deal of pain, and often when brain fog is leaving me struggling to even speak with her (and/or the staff)?. Why is it important to me to be there for her, regardless of what physical, emotional or mental toll that has on me? Or simply when I could be doing something else?

I am the only person in her life that she actually recognises now. I find this terribly hard. Each time I have the realisation that she doesn’t recognise someone, it hurts. Each time she tells me she doesn’t remember being married, or the man she was married to, it hurts. I find that one particularly painful, simply because she was married for 53 years (to my Dad) and her brain has shut out all those memories.

But I have a unique opportunity to attempt to keep those memories alive, whether that maybe in telling her about aspects of her life, or simply keeping the memories alive in me. I can do that for her. And I can be her voice in a world she finds increasingly bewildering.

Imagine if you knew only one person. That person would be so important to us, and we would probably rely on them a great deal. I would hate for my mother to not have that one person, and so I do what I do for her sake. For her sake, to have a person in her life.

Realistically though, I know there will come a time when she no longer recognises me, but I am determined to be there anyway. Determined to be that person for her, even if/when she isn’t aware.

The truth is though, that I do what I do for me too. A year or so ago I would have told you that I am there for Mum for the sake of my late father. Doing what I thought he would want. But I know now that I also do it for my sake.

I have never had a good relationship with Mum. Actually, we now have the best relationship we’ve ever had. This is my opportunity to have a relationship with my mother. It might not be the sort you would hope for, but we have a connection. It is unique, it is largely one-sided, but it is something I have never had.

I’m not making up for lost time, but rather simply having what I am fortunate enough to be given at this time. Perhaps neither of us were ready for a relationship before, but now we both benefit. It is for her sake, and for mine.

And with that note, I will take my multivitamin (because I’m just a little scared not to).

Thanks for reading

 

Cate

What I Missed Out in 2016

Even though we are into 2017, at least in my part of the world, I do have a nagging thought on my mind. The posts I should have written in 2016. Of course, it’s too late for regrets and rather a time for looking forward, but I know that I take, drag these unwritten posts with me. They are posts I still need to write.

Let me be clear that this post is not those unwritten posts, if that makes any sense at all. Rather it is a commitment, at some time in the near future, to write those posts and share those parts of me. They may end up with different titles than I use here, but the content will be there. My commitment to you as readers is also a commitment to myself to get those issues out in the open, and in doing so hopefully shed the weight that they currently are on my shoulders.

Reckless Compulsion (Another Addiction?)

I’ve Been in Denial About for Years (Anxiety)

Eventually, there will be links above to the written posts.

Both posts-to-be-written are deeply personal and perhaps that goes some way to explain why they have been on my mind, yet not written, for a few months now. It’s hard to put them on ‘paper’, yet I know I must do so in an attempt to take some of the weight off my shoulders. In an attempt to begin to heal. And that is all that my posts are ever about.

Keep reading…

 

Cate

My Saddest Day…

The Saddest Day That a Daughter Has To Bear. That’s right. Today is my saddest day.

I’ve been there with the death of a parent, and yes, that was tough. My father died suddenly nearly six years ago. He wasn’t well, but no one expected he would die. I pounded on my father’s chest doing CPR for twenty minutes. It was just fortunate that I had learnt CPR about 25 years earlier. With the help of Emergency Services on the phone, I roughly knew what I was doing. Enough, anyway.

I felt it as one of my father’s ribs cracked beneath my pressure. I remember thinking he would be grumpy with me afterwards with his broken rib. I didn’t stop to think that my efforts to revive him wouldn’t work. I guess I couldn’t afford to think that he might die.

By the twenty minute mark I was so exhausted, and every muscle in my body ached. When you see actors doing CPR on the television, you don’t realise that actually it takes an enormous amount of energy and strength. But then they’re not really doing it. Are they?

I was so exhausted I had to stop. Unthinkable really, but I simply had not an ounce of energy left in me. I had done long-distance running and knew what that point of utter exhaustion felt like, but this was so much different and so much more. Fortunately, it was at the very minute the first paramedic came through the door. You can draw your own conclusions about how that happened right at the very moment I had to stop. The paramedic carried on for another twenty minutes. Beyond the call, really. My Dad had gone and my mother and I watched and waited for the funeral director to come. This was a new stage in our lives.

Losing my father was terribly hard. He was my best friend, hero and someone who had believed in me every step of my life. Now he was gone. I carry a diagnosis of fibromyalgia now as a reminder of the trauma, both physical and emotional, that I bore that day.

But today was quite different. Today I was ‘losing’ my mother to the Alzheimer’s Disease which has increasingly swallowed her up. She hasn’t died. I guess I haven’t really lost her. But then, I know that I have. There is no coming back from this.

Today I moved my mother into a secure (read locked!) dementia care unit. It was the saddest moment when she said in a pleading voice “you’re not going, are you?”. I had done my best to make her new room familiar, I had walked her into her new home and now it was time for me to leave. Time to let the staff take care of her.

Mum hadn’t known where we were going today. To have told her would have been wasted. We were simply going for a walk (her new home is on the same property as the old). When we got to her new room, she thought it was my room. She looked around and recognised a few of her things. Theo, the teddy bear she had once made was on her bed, as was a cushion she had embroidered back before she was married. These were her things. This was her room.

I’m no expert on Alzheimer’s Disease but perhaps since my father’s death, I have become somewhat of an expert on my mother. She’s scarcely the woman I knew. She’s barely the woman who raised me.

We used to argue day in day out, but that tension is gone. Now she depends on me for her life. When I’m not visiting, she spends hours looking for me. I have become her link to life, because while physically she’s holding on, mentally she is a shell. And today I took that shell out of her semi-familiar surroundings today and gave her a totally unfamiliar new home.

I came home and I cried. Cried for the mother I have lost. Actually, I never thought that I would cry for her. We just didn’t have that kind of relationship. Actually, we barely had any relationship. It’s not that I didn’t care, or that she didn’t care. It’s just we had never found a way to get along.

One day, my mother will die and I guess I will cry again. But the woman I knew for fifty plus years has almost totally gone. Simply leaving a shell. And that makes this my saddest day.

Thanks for reading

 

Cate

 

 

What, You Too?

It was a few years back now that someone very close to me stomped badly on my feelings, and abused my trust. It left me re-assessing how I shared myself, both with others in my life and also on my blog. What I was prepared to share in order to say “this is me”. In some ways it left me incredibly sad that there are a few people ‘out there’ who will disregard the sacredness of my words so much. But it happened, and changes were made. I consciously cut back on what I share. The biggest shame of this is that it removed an opportunity to say “what, you too?”

The connection of being able to say “so you feel this too?” is perhaps the biggest disappointment for me, because it is that which is what blogging is all about for me. The opportunity for a writer and a reader to connect and share a common thought.

When my feelings got stomped on in such a destructive way, subjects became off-limits, and I suspect I lost something as a blogger. Of course, there were always a few off-limit subjects, but now there were more. And with a couple already shared here, it was necessary to back-peddle and even change the privacy rating on posts which now went too far in exposing the real Cate. Now you were getting perhaps a slightly sanitised version of me. And that disappoints me, even though I feel safer.

One of the biggest changes in what I was prepared to write about was the issue of what comforts me, and what I use to self-soothe. It was too hard to put that ‘out there’ for fear of being laughed at, and simply being stomped on again. No one likes being stomped on, me included. I will do everything I can to avoid it now, even to the point of withdrawal. You see, it’s not just you that misses out when I choose to protect myself and not write about subjects close to my heart. I also miss out, as I lose the opportunity to connect with another who might say those few words “what, you too?”

Perhaps it has been through a lot of therapy in years gone by that I have looked at what comforts me, particularly what I can use to comfort and self-soothe myself in times of distress. But also simply as I live and breathe. I know that I am perhaps a little weird in this. That was confirmed by my last psychiatrist. It felt okay to be described by him as such, simply because he heard me. I realised I didn’t have to be like everyone else, if someone I trusted with a part of me, heard and accepted who I was, what made me tick and what I used to comfort myself.

For there are some means of comfort which I have been using for as long as I can remember. I can remember doing ‘this’ (I’m not sharing details because that’s not the point of this post, and I still need to protect myself) as early as three years of age. My earliest memories include this means of comfort, even though I probably didn’t consciously know it was comforting me. I suspect that it went back further than that, too. Maybe back as far as being a baby.

What strikes me is that I wonder about my need for comfort at that stage. I have some ideas about that, but perhaps most importantly I realise that we all need comfort right from infancy, but almost more importantly we all need the ability to comfort ourselves too. We can’t rely on receiving comfort from others.

This week I read an interesting article about adults who use stuffed toys to comfort themselves. They literally carry these ‘toys’ with them. Of the two people interviewed, one had Autism and the other Asperger’s Syndrome. But there is a point to this beyond simply people with those disorders. They had worked out what comforted them, what they needed to get through interactions with the world.

“Tilley says she has always felt slightly different to others and is aware of stares when she’s out, but sometimes having Del [a stuffed toy pig] on her side helps her gain control of the situation.”

The article can be found by following this link:
Jamie and his Lion: The adults who take their soft toys to work

I encourage you to read the article, even if soft toys are of no interest to you. I think the article goes beyond a stuffed lion and a stuffed pig. It goes beyond the Autism spectrum too. It challenges us  to ask ourselves “what comforts you to the point that it enables you to traverse that thing called life?”

I admit that when I read this article I had a “what, you too?” moment. I understood, for my own reasons, just what was going on here. What these people do makes total sense to me, and I applaud them in finding a way to comfort themselves while participating in that thing called life.

Many psychotherapists recommend something called a Soothing Box (and other names for the same thing). A box of items which a person can use to soothe themselves when they are in distress. I think these are a great idea, but I think that sometimes we have to go beyond a box we can occasionally pull out. We need to have ways to give us comfort, or soothing, in our everyday interactions. What do we need to get us through?

I think this is a particularly important question for people with mental illness. It can be hard interacting with the world. It can be hard to simply walk out our front door. So what can we do to ensure we are able to comfort ourselves? Maybe we don’t carry a four-foot long stuffed lion with us, but how do we interpret this article into what works for us?

Thanks for reading

 

Cate

 

You May Think That I Am Crazy

You may think that I am crazy by the time you have read this post, but that’s okay. As long as you don’t abuse me, I am finally (after 50 years) getting to a point where what you think of me doesn’t worry me. It doesn’t change me. You’re entitled to your opinion.

Do you believe in the divine? The supernatural even? Maybe you believe in God, or maybe you believe in some other religious or spiritual being. Do you believe that there is more to this earth than you, me and the animals who inhabit it? I do.

I believe that there is something more. I can’t give you a complicated explanation of why I believe there is something more. I just do. I believe there is something more than us, and there is even something more than our lifespan. Please don’t ask me for an explanation. My beliefs come from my experience. I have experienced what simply must have been a force beyond human kind. I will never be the kind of person who can give you a lecture on this. Maybe I’m copping out, I don’t have to have all my theories worked out, for me to be at peace with what I believe. That’s enough for me.

I started on this earth in a Christian environment. My family lived and breathed the Bible and its teachings. It was my father’s calling in life. My views have changed since then, and I know that some of what I believe wouldn’t sit comfortably with those Christians from my upbringing. That’s okay with me too. We don’t all have to agree.

Time to get to the point, though…

A few days ago I had a particularly hard day with my mother, who has Alzheimer’s Disease. We were talking about family and I was ‘introducing to her’ (for want of a better word) photos of family members whom her decaying brain had wiped from her memory. It was tough. I don’t think it was tough on her, but it was definitely tough on me. When I left I knew that there would be many days ahead when we would repeat the process of identifying the photos of family sitting on her window sill. Explaining why their particular photos were even there.

When I left I really wanted to be with those family members we had identified, but there were none close by. More so, the person I most wanted to be with was my father, who died nearly six years ago.

I did the next best thing and went to the cemetery to spend some time ‘with Dad’. Okay, so it wasn’t really Dad but I believe I can go there and talk to Dad. I don’t do it often. Just when I need to focus on remembering him and identifying for myself what advice he might give me.

I believe that where ever Dad is now, he can hear me. What’s more, I believe he can help me, particularly as I care for my mother. Before you start worrying, no I don’t see him but I guess I can remember being with him. Being loved. Being with someone who believed in me, and always importantly, had hope for me.

When I go to the cemetery I regularly take some coffee. I sit on the grass, drink my coffee and talk to Dad. I usually go at a time when the cemetery is pretty much deserted, just the gardeners maybe, somewhere in the distance. It’s peaceful. And after I have removed the odd weeds growing, I focus on talking to Dad.

That day there was no one there when I arrived. I really needed to focus on how Dad might help me if he were still here. I felt like something my mother had said had swept the wind right out of me. I felt lost and desperately sad.

After maybe fifteen minutes, another car pulled up. Two women and a dog got out and headed towards me. In a huge cemetery, they happened to be coming to a gravestone just two down from Dad’s.

The dog (a Jack Russell) immediately came over to me and was jumping over me and eventually sat down right next to me. The two woman were amazed that their dog was so friendly with a complete stranger. I asked the dog’s name. Her name was Hope.

This is where you might think I’m crazy. I believe that dog came to me as a messenger sent by my father. Hope was a reminder for me that there is hope. It was exactly what I needed, and once I realised this I felt an instant feeling of peace. I no longer had to worry about my mother. I could be at peace. And one day, my mother would be at peace. For a number of reasons that day, it was exactly what I needed.

A dog named Hope.

Think I’m crazy if you want to. It doesn’t matter to me. I believe that there is not just one explanation of the divine forces at work on our planet. There is space for us all to have our own beliefs. There is no right or wrong. If you want to laugh at my interpretation of my encounter with Hope (and hope), that is okay. That’s your choice. What matters to me is that it helped me enormously that afternoon to have that encounter. And so often such gifts for me come in the form of animals. I am so lucky.

“Some people talk to animals. Not many listen though. That’s the problem.”

― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

Thanks for reading

 

Cate

September 11 – A Birthday ‘Girl’

There were times when I thought birthdays were simply a kick in the teeth. A day which celebrates your life? When you’re seriously depressed? Exactly. It doesn’t work.

I would fight my family, especially my Dad. There was no way I wanted to celebrate my life or my birthday. Love him as I did, Dad couldn’t get why I didn’t want to celebrate anything, and having an eating disorder (think Anorexia) I had no desire to face any extra food. Why was all this so hard to explain? And why do all celebrations centre around food?

Now that Dad has been gone for over five years, I know he just wanted to take the bad stuff away, see me happy; and now I would give anything for him to have been here today. I would even have put up with his sometimes, over-exuberance for my life.

Sometimes birthdays are just as much about who is there, as who is missing.

This morning I took my mother to church (we do it pretty much every Sunday). I go so that Mum can continue her life-long habit of church involvement. If I didn’t go, she wouldn’t be able to. With Alzheimer’s to contend with she doesn’t altogether understand that this is the only reason I go, but that’s okay.

While I used to have a Christian faith which would fit with my mother’s church, I admit that now days I find it frustrating, bordering on annoying to even angry-making. I admit today was at the angry end of the spectrum.

So my mind wandered, out the window, and I watched as firefighters were preparing for a 9/11 commemoration ceremony across the road. I watched as they tied both American and New Zealand flags to the handrail going over the bridge. I could just see the two beams from the World Trade Center towers, which are now the focus of the Fireman’s Reserve here.

There have been times since that I hated that 9/11 was my birthday. It is a reminder of a very dark time in my life. 2001, I was desperately suicidal and had planned to be dead by my birthday. Instead, I was in a psychiatric hospital in Dunedin.  I was close to psychotic and the staff would tell me they were running out of ideas of what to do with me. I was becoming a hopeless case. I certainly felt hope-less. Without hope.

Each year when 9/11 is commemorated, I am almost forced to remember my own hell of 9/11. I actually want to think of anything but. That morning (it was actually 12 September by then in New Zealand, but that didn’t matter) the nurse woke me and told me “the world had gone mad“. I wondered what I had done. Why else would she say that?

That was fifteen years ago, and much has changed. I’m glad it has changed, and actually, I’m glad I have a birthday today. Yes, I did just say that (for the benefit of family who may be reading). Today I can remember my 9/11 hell and not have it pull me down into despair. I remember my time in Dunedin but I know it is firmly in my past.

When I see the American and New Zealand flags side by side on 9/11, I can remember what happened that day, and the people who died, but I can remember my American friends too. Without having gone through my own version of hell back 2001, I probably wouldn’t have some of the friends I now have. I’m glad I have them.

Happy Birthday to me.

Below is my gift today from my niece L, still my favourite little person in the world. She makes being alive worthwhile.

I know you might not be able to read the message, but that’s for me anyway. The picture is of her and I. I love it.

The fact that I can now love anything, anyone and especially my five-year-old niece tells me that there is hope. I would never have imagined being able to enjoy a birthday or enjoy L.

Life isn’t perfect, I wouldn’t even say it is great. Life is what it is, and often that’s really hard. But it is worth being alive.

And that makes 9/11 worthwhile for me.

Thanks for reading

 

Cate

Spring Follows Winter

I was wrong.

There. I’ve said it. I was wrong when I suggested in my last post that there was no hope. I wrote that instead of hope there was only a void.

I don’t mean to deny how I was feeling, but that’s the point. It was a feeling, and I was forgetting what I know.

Think about it. What I know is that there is hope. At the time I wrote I was feeling that there was no hope in my life, but really, that didn’t replace what I knew.

I might feel down, discouraged, and even depressed and frustrated, but deep down…

I still believe there is hope.

It will get better.

I don’t know when, and I don’t know how, but I know it will happen. Even if I can’t rely on my own knowledge. Even if I get so down that what I forget what I know.  I know that other people who love me know there is hope (see my post Borrowed Hope).

“I am a success today because I had a friend
who believed in me and
I didn’t have the heart to let him down”

 – Abraham Lincoln

This past week I met someone who I knew about 20 years ago. I only met him once but he was a friend and work colleague of my then husband. It was at an extremely difficult time in my life. I was struggling with severe depression, PTSD and Anorexia Nervosa. I was being judged by all sorts of so-called friends and extended family.

But this man seemed to accept where we were at, and he supported my husband at a time that he needed all the support he could get. I know that I was far from easy to be married to at that time.

This week, this man reminded me that spring follows winter, and dawn follows night. It was a simple reminder of something I knew, but had forgot.

Spring starts in New Zealand this week, although it’s been a few weeks early. The weather here has been great and the spring flowers are blooming.

Image credit: Anita Martinz, Wikipedia.org Colorful_spring_garden.

Perhaps spring is my favourite season for this reason. I need to be reminded over and over again that spring follows winter. There is an end to the dark and cold. Even to the depression and despondency. It might not come for me this week, but I have hope that it will come. And that’s what matters.

To be fair, I know that spring can also contain it’s challenges. Life will be better but it might not be all plain sailing.  There might still be times of darkness. That’s the reality of mental illness. I think I’ve got to a point in my life where I can accept it, even if I don’t always like it.

Thanks for reading

Cate

Please Don’t Mess With My Meds

WARNING: This post does not contain the hope that might usually be found in my blog. I’m sorry about that, but I have to be real. I hope (yes, really) that ‘normal’ service may resume soon.

It’s pretty simple. Just don’t mess with my meds.

Don’t change anything, don’t add anything, don’t stop anything. That should be simple enough, shouldn’t it?

It’s like a huge cauldron of… smoke. Me.

Yes, smoke ( see the image above). The fire beneath burns red through the hot coals. You might not be able to see the coals, but I can. I can see them and I can feel them. They will burn me in their wake and if you get too close, they will burn you.

But the smoke? It looks innocent enough but will strangle, suffocate and kill you and me both. Even at a distance.

Did you read my last post? If you did you will know that I just experienced lithium toxicity (it’s not an experience I would recommend). That is, too much lithium in my blood.

Beyond what I wrote in that post, I was sent home from hospital to detox. That involved coming off the lithium, cold turkey. The withdrawal wasn’t too bad, perhaps because the symptoms of toxicity were pretty awful and over-rode absolutely anything else.

But that wasn’t the end of this issue. Nearly a month later…

I went back onto lithium and have suffered for the decision. Now, I have had two times when lithium toxicity was thought to be the issue resulting in some major physical symptoms, and a total of four changes in lithium dose.

This week my doctor suspected I was toxic again, but after more blood tests finally concluded (yesterday) that I wasn’t. My levels were simply ‘too high’ and I needed to come off lithium again.

I’m struggling to keep up with this,so I will completely understand if you are too.

The whole time what is most on my mind is my mood. When the doctors are most worried about my medical condition, and getting the lithium out of my kidneys. Yes, I get that is important, but my worry is my mental health. Four changes in dose of any drug for your mental health and you might just be reeling too.

It’s when people start messing with my meds that my mental health is what pays.

And now I’m paying. My mental health seems to be dropping by the day and perhaps the biggest thing addressed in my blog – hope – is nowhere to be seen.

Hope is replaced by irritability on a good day, and sheer raging anger (mostly contained internally) on the other days.

Hope is replaced by a belief that I am now completely alone. Everyone in my life has gone, or so it seems.

Hope is replaced by thoughts (but not plans or actions yet!!!) of self-destruction.

And of course, hope is replaced by paranoia. Somehow I have annoyed everyone in my life, and they hate me, so they have either left me (yes, alone again) or despise me.

Hope is replaced by depression (of the sad and angry type right now – no tears yet)

Hope is replaced by nothing. Void.

About a week ago I have to admit that I came scarily close to keying someone’s car. Yes, that’s right. I was going to take a key and run it down the side of this car, leaving hundreds of dollars of damage in my wake. For at least a moment, I didn’t care.

That’s not me! I have never vandalized anything before in my life, but I was so close to doing it. I didn’t. Somehow I woke myself up from a bad dream and walked away, relieved but more than a little bit shaken.

I have been here before.

Not the vandalism, but the Depression and Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) taking over my functioning. It is perhaps most likely that the symptoms of these mental illnesses rear their ugly heads when people are messing with my meds (my physical AND pyschotropic).

Across the last 13 years I have tirelessly taken my prescribed medication every day. There wasn’t a day when I didn’t take the medication prescribed simply because I was terrified that if I missed a day, then I would go back to the psychiatric hell that was 1993 to 2003.

I had been told in 2003 that I would have to take two medications (particularly) for the rest of my life. One was lithium. I believed the doctor.

After my experience of (particularly) the last month, and admittedly some other problems I have had with the drug over the 13 years, it has been recommended that I come off lithium permanently.

The only problem I have with this is that the doctors involved seem only interested in my medical well-being. Sure, that is a major issue but my desperate desire not to return to what was the pit of hell for me, is a much greater issue for me. I don’t want to put my life at risk, and that is what it will involve. I know it.

The doctors treating me now didn’t know me when I was in that pit. Perhaps they think I am exaggerating how bad it was. I am terrified in the possibility I could go back.

When people (yes, doctors) mess with my meds, they have to consider ALL the consequences, and they have to be listening to ME. I know myself better than they do.

Of course I know that the worst may not happen if I come off lithium completely, but I have to do my darnedest to protect myself from the possibility. I would be crazy not too.

We would all be crazy to not do this when changes to our health regime are made.

Thanks for reading!

 

Cate

Watched**Stalked**Traumatised

He was watching, from across the road, as I stepped off the bus.

He was (also) watching from across the road, as I came out of church with my friends.

He watched as I walked down the hill from the school gates.

He drove past, three times in half an hour, as I was sitting in my friend’s car chatting.

He was sitting on his motorbike watching as I came out of work.

It took about one to two weeks for him to track me down after I had shifted house. And there he would watch as I arrived home.

He sent flowers. My skin crawled. The flowers were ugly and I gave them away.

My flatmates were interrogated, either on the phone or at the gate. What was their relationship to me?

I was visiting my friends and he saw my car parked outside. They were his friends too. As he knocked on the front door, I snuck out the back door. I never visited my friends at home again.

I came out of a church from my friend’s funeral. She had died in a car crash. He was across the road, on his motorbike, watching waiting for me. He “just wanted to talk”.

He was watching, waiting, always. But he never touched me.

♦♦♦

I was stalked by two men at the same time. They weren’t aware of each other. They never touched me while stalking me, and in those days that meant the NZ Police couldn’t do anything. The Police gave me advice, but I knew all that by now.

Constantly trying to avoid, trying to hide where I was, confidential phone numbers. The only friends I spent time with were those who would support my demand for privacy. The stalking went on for around 14 years in total. It started when I was 14, and I finally brought a stop to it when I left the city permanently at 28. It was a long time to convince myself that leaving town wasn’t giving in. It was taking control.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was diagnosed some years later, when I finally sought help (when I knew that help was actually available). You see, it wasn’t until after the stalking that I let out a breath and could finally feel my fear. I crashed. But relief didn’t come until I had the help. Meanwhile, I was still hiding, mistrustful of all.

♦♦♦

The triggers started to play on me… they included, but weren’t confined to…

Every man, who wasn’t a blood relative, was potentially unsafe to me.

Anyone who expressed a romantic interest in me, especially if they were ‘too keen’.

A gap in the curtains still meant someone could be watching me.

Motorbikes, especially the sight of them.

Going back to the city where it happened brought on terror in some suburbs and hypervigilance in all places.

Church

Dreams, nightmares.

The gift of flowers.

Later on, ‘friend requests’ on social media.

And many, many more.

After years of therapy for these and other issues, I really thought I’d finally beat the PTSD. The triggers controlling my life had lasted much long than the stalking, even though that had been long enough. It had been a long time since I had felt that all too familiar fears.

Then a few weeks ago, a man shifted into the house next door. Because of where I am living (temporary housing for earthquake recovery) our houses are very close. His kitchen looks into my bedroom. Our lounges look in on each other.

When I first shifted here there was a woman living in the house, and it was her practice to keep all her curtains pulled shut all of the time. Now I could start to understand why. I didn’t want anyone looking in on my bedroom and I have taken to keeping the curtains permanently shut for the windows facing his kitchen. Regardless of who he is, and what he does, I see him as a threat.

I hadn’t met him at this stage… but when I eventually did, I felt that familiar feeling. Elements of his personality ring warning bells for me. The fear instantly builds, and I admit that I don’t have much rational thought. I’d describe the type of man, but I can’t. And it wouldn’t be fair. Rationally I know he has done nothing to make me afraid, but this is exactly what PTSD does to me.

I just don’t want to be anywhere near that sort of man.  I’m simply afraid. It’s difficult to know that this is about memories, and feelings, from a long time ago.

I’m afraid, and while I thought I had completely dealt with PTSD, I realise I haven’t. It’s not over for me yet.

Since meeting the man I have simply done my best to stay away, but I irrationally want to move out. I’m terrified that this man is going to do what I refer to as “turn into another stalker”. I know he has done nothing to stir up this fear. I know it is completely irrational. And actually, I irrationally think that every man will eventually “turn into another stalker”.

And do you know what? It really pisses me off that those stalkers of years ago can continue to have such a hold on me. I thought I was truly over it, but this man has shown me (by doing nothing) that I’m not. And that is so disappointing.

Thanks for reading

 

Cate

Both images contained in this post remain the property of  Healing From Trauma: Welcome To My World. I hope you’ll take the opportunity to visit this great Facebook page.

 

 

 

 

 

Fighting Tooth And Nail

That’s what I am doing. Fighting ‘Tooth and Nail’. Nothing seems easy and it’s as if it’s one thing after another. Know the feeling?

When I was at high school I read a book that affected me profoundly. It was New Zealand book Tooth And Nail: the story of a daughter of the Depression by Mary Findlay. I read it firstly because at the time I was interested in the era of The Great Depression. I think we had been studying it in History class. My second reason for reading it was that the author, Mary Findlay was the great-grandmother of one of my closest friends.

She fought Tooth and Nail.  Amazon describe the book as this:

“This a the true story of Mary Findlay during the bitter days of the Depression. When her mother dies and her drunkard father harasses her, Mary is forced to fight tooth and nail for food, work and a place to live.”

It affected me profoundly not just because of the connection to my friend but also that it was a life lived much harder than anything I had ever known. My life seemed easy by comparison.

Right now nothing seems easy. There is one thing after another. I’m sure there are those in my life who still think I have it easy. I don’t have a 60 hour a week job, I don’t have, say four children, nor do I have a partner to think about. It’s true. Compared to Mary Findlay’s life I perhaps have it easy. But to me, nothing seems easy right now. And when it all boils down, it is the person’s own perception that matters.

I could easily write a post about each of what I see as my current hardships. But I haven’t. Mostly because at the time there haven’t been words, and so you won’t have seen posts from me since before Christmas. But here is a taste.

• My 88-year-old (yes, she had a birthday) is deteriorating fast. Her physical health continues to be great, but her mental health in the form of Alzheimer’s Disease is going down hill fast. I’m learning as I go. Some days there is little to recognise the woman she was in my growing up years. And tomorrow? I face what happens to Mum next in terms of the care she needs now.
• My doctor stripped me of Fibromyalgia. He says I don’t have it, even after four years of being treated for it and having originally been diagnosed with it by a doctor with more qualifications and experience. Apparently I simply need some Art Therapy (yes, really!) to cure my symptoms. Thankfully a few weeks after this pronouncement he announced he was leaving the country permanently. I am to be assigned a new doctor, and time will tell just what s/he will have to say.
• My dentist has just presented me with a whopping $2,000 (that’s a whole lot of money in NZ) quote for the work I need to stop some corrosion happening in my mouth. Hear this, if you take medication regularly. The $2,000 problem is caused by dry mouth and having been on lithium for the last 12 or so years. Both of these have a terrible effect on teeth. Right now I’m still trying to pick myself up off the floor. I was gobsmacked! I am likely to have these dental issues for the rest of my life (if I listen to my Psychiatrist and stay on the medication for life, as we have previously agreed). I have no idea how I will possibly pay for this work but meanwhile, I am eating only soft foods to avoid further corrosion to my teeth (particularly my front teeth).
• And I can’t forget the fibro symptoms of mainly pain and fatigue. You know the fibro that I don’t have? Well, those symptoms continue with more fatigue than ever. I go deal with whatever needs dealing, and then come home and collapse, literally. Day after day.

That’s just a taste, perhaps the really big issues, and maybe that doesn’t seem like a ‘tooth and nail’ battle. But it is. Like I suggested above, it’s how it seems to me that really matters. I might not be in the middle of the Great Depression like Mary Findlay, but it seems like my own ‘tooth and nail’ battle (emphasis on the ‘tooth’ because if I don’t find $2,000 soon I’ll be looking at whatever a pair of dentures cost).

It was a long time ago that I read Mary Findlay’s book but I still remember the impact it had on me. Maybe I didn’t learn this at the time I read the book but I know now that we can’t compare our hard times. As a 15-year-old reading that book, I thought her life was incredibly hard and mine incredibly easy. Actually, I was having my own pretty hard time back then, but I gave no value to my hardship. Now I have learnt that behind the scenes other people can be having incredibly difficult times. Harder than we can imagine. And it really isn’t possible to compare.

If I was to ask each one of you what are the hard things in your life right now, you could probably come up with your own list (like mine above but different). We all have our hardships, and all of those can have a bearing on  mental and physical health. Whether we tell others of our hard stuff or not, it’s there and we’re probably fighting a ‘tooth and nail’ battle to simply keep afloat.

I haven’t listed my current hardships out of wanting sympathy. Or wanting you to say you’re sorry for me. Rather I share it with you because maybe it reminds you that we’re not alone. We all are probably fighting ‘tooth and nail’. Life is hard, but we don’t do it alone. Just because your hard stuff is different from mine, it doesn’t stop me from being aware that you’re having a hard time. And that, makes a difference to me, so perhaps it makes a difference to you.

Thanks for reading

 

Cate