Flashbacks

My reflection is staring at me from the computer screen as I type. I look old today, the three lines in the middle of my forehead from furrowing my brow too often appear deeper, the circles under my eyes darker and the skin of my eyelids seems to sag heavily as gravity slowly gets the better of them. 

It has also been exactly 2 years since I was released from my two month psychiatric hospital stay after my last suicide attempt. Those years have mostly passed quickly in a memory-less blur. For many, many months following my release I felt nothing. Semi disassociated from the world, my feelings were numb and it was as though I merely watched myself going about the motions from a safe distance.

I have had to learn to feel again, learn to love my family and friends again. It’s like they were from someone elses life where I had just watched the training video and then was expected to step into the main character’s role without any actual experience.

Blocking out the painful stuff is a tactic I learned in childhood, ignoring bullies didn’t make them go away but ignoring my feelings worked well, replace the pain with food and fake laughter only letting it creep back in at night time when I was alone and could cry myself to sleep. Some traumas could for the most part be shut out altogether, I remember ‘refusing to think about that’ and mentally changing the subject, but avoidance only takes you so far.

Real feelings have been sneaking back in, memories lost or blanked out reappear suddenly and startle me, usually in that twilight haze just as I begin to fall asleep. I find tears flow randomly and seemingly without provocation, tears for a life that was saved but perhaps lost after all.

I have been having a lot of flashbacks to my time in the hospital, the fear and humiliation of not knowing where I was, of being stripped to nothing but a gown in a ward full of big psychotic men and being made to sleep on a mat in the middle of the common room floor like a dog for weeks on end because by trying to end my life while in their care I had betrayed the trust of the doctors and nurses.

I think about what could have been done differently, what I could have done differently, I had the option of returning to a different mental health unit when I was released from intensive care and I chose to go back to where I thought I would feel safe and familiar. It didn’t work out that way. I was the enemy now, I had tricked them and no doubt been the cause of a great deal of paperwork and legal meetings. But that wasn’t my intention, I just couldn’t live with the pain anymore.

My psychiatrist added a new med on my last visit around 6 weeks ago when I started to fall back into depression after being brought down from my manic episode, it is a low dose of an anti-depressant. There was always the fear that it would make me manic again, but touch wood that hasn’t happened. The tablet is possibly working, I think I am less suicidal than I was – suicidality is always lurking in the background for me, it’s more a matter of how often I think about it than ‘if’ I do. I don’t know, it’s hard to tell how far I would have crashed if I hadn’t started taking it. 

The new med is kindly only giving me a few side effects, carb cravings that scare the hell out of me because I CAN NOT gain weight, my labido got up and walked out and one that seems to unfortunately be getting worse by the day which is shocking night sweats. I wake up freezing and drenched as though I have been running on the treadmill for hours its really gross and I’m tired all the time from the constant broken sleep. But I’m not manic and I’m not dead so I suppose I should be thankful.

Sorry, this got whiny fast. That wasn't my intention when I switched on the computer! It's 1pm now, I should really go hang out washing, clean up my bomb site of a house and do a water change on the fish tank but instead I think I will curl up back in bed and watch a movie while playing hashtag games on twitter.

Animals and Mental Health

Clive and I

As a natural born animal lover and someone who has spent most of her life working in the pet industry, I may be a little biased when I say that keeping animals as pets does wonders for the human psyche. But there have been a number of studies done over the years stating that frequent interaction with animals improves both mental and physical health and some even say that owning pets can make you live longer.

Of course we see evidence of the important role therapy animals play in helping people with physical disabilities every day and we all think of the classic golden Labrador when talking about seeing eye dogs. 

Now I am starting to see more and more dogs of varying breeds on visits to shopping centres, some say “hearing dog” on their little jackets but many of these are un specified ‘service animals’ and play big part in helping those of us with mental health issues such as anxiety stay grounded and perform tasks such as grocery shopping more comfortably.

 Another great example of using animals as therapy is ‘hippotherapy’ which is despite the name, is actually the practice of using horses as therapy animals – it might not be quite as cool as using hippopotamus’s, but it is still very cool! I personally know a few families that have had wonderful success when their Autistic children with severe language and sensory processing disorders have gone on to develop strong bonds with a horse as they learn to trust each other through touch and body language.

But how do animals improve our mental health?

1       Unconditional love and devotion

This is the big one, something that is impossible to achieve with humans. Animals, dogs in particular will always love you and forgive you no matter what, even if you were too tired to take them for a walk today – or yesterday, even if dinner was two hours late and even if you got mad at them 15 minutes ago for chewing your brand new slippers. As soon as you say their name that tail will start wagging 100 miles an hour and

2     They don’t talk back

Unless of course you have a trained parrot, in which case any back chat is usually exceptionally cute and sometimes hilarious bordering on the inappropriate. But in all honesty, if you are unable to introduce your pet parrot to your grandmother then you have most likely brought that upon yourself!

But the ability to be able to simply pour your heart out to your feline friend and then be validated by soft cuddles and purring instead of judgement and opinions can go a long way.

3       Ability to pick up on emotional cues

Animals have this innate ability to tell when you are having a bad day and then respond to it appropriately. Who can stay angry for long when those big puppy dog eyes are staring at you with such devotion? I know when I am sad or depressed my animals always respond, my little Pomeranian ‘Deigo’ is particularly in tuned to my feelings and on bad days he will sneak up onto the bed next to me and just cuddle quietly into me giving me the odd reassuring lick to tell me he loves me.

4       No Judgement

So you haven’t showered in three days and just ate a full tub of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream while binge watching seasons 1 and 2 of The Gilmore Girls. So what? As long as your furry companion can cuddle up on the couch next to you then as far as they are concerned, just let it be.

5     Responsibility

Owning a pet, while extremely rewarding, also forces us to be responsible for something other than ourselves and this is important. On days when the depression is winning our pets still need us, their whole little worlds revolve around us and even if getting out of bed seems impossible we still need to feed them, walk them, talk to them and love them. While it can feel like a chore, being forced out of bed to take little LuLu outside into the sunshine for a pee is actually very good for us.

"Blackie"

During my many years working in the pet store we had tons of regular customers, we saw these customers go through all manner of life events, we saw how the bond of a dog could be lifesaving after the death of a spouse, we watched the hilarity of merging blended cat families together, lent fish out for weddings, watched custody fights over blue tongue lizards after divorce, supplied information to help convince tentative landlords that keeping a pet turtle would be fine in a rental home, we even babysat an axolotl while one man did a 3 month tour over in Afganastan.

Some of our customers were unable to keep pets at their own houses but came in every week just to visit. One older lady came into the shop every single morning at 9:30am Monday to Sunday for over 5 years and never bought a thing, her visits were part of her daily routine and helped keep her mental health on track. Pets are simply a huge part of human society, they need us and we need them.

As my regular readers know, my own animals are a big part of my life, I live on a farm and keep many pets. They are just as good as my children at helping me keep structure and routines in my days, better possibly because they can’t tell me what they need verbally so we need to be more in tune with each other and communicate on a deeper level. 

I also love the way they don’t judge me if I’m still in my pyjamas when I take them for a walk around the farm and they don’t yell at me for forgetting to buy cornflakes or neglecting to remind them their major history assessment worth 50% of their grade is due the next morning… 

"Diego"

So I believe that having animals in your life is an important part of maintaining good mental health. For people with fur allergies fish are excellent pets, I can literally spend ½ hour just staring at my big fish tank watching all the goings on – it’s a bit like meditation for me! Even if you can’t own a pet yourself then go to your local pet store and pat a bunny, visit the zoo or even ask if you can walk your neighbours dog while they are at work. I promise, it will brighten up your day!

PS : To those lovely people who were concerned, I am also pleased to report ‘Monet’ the Siamese Fighting Fish is very doing well, I put him in a different tank and while he is still having some difficulties eating, his fins are healing, he seems much happier and he’s even building a bubble nest!

Who Am We?

Ha! I crack myself up. It just occurred to me as I logged out of one of my computer profiles and into another to write this that if I suddenly croaked, someone managed to defeat my password barriers and went through my computer they would be left with more way more questions than answers. 

My computer knows the map to all my secrets, well my computer, my iPhone and any secret government agencies that may be spying on me. I have different real life friends, music playlists and computer profiles based on ‘who’ I am on a given day or hour and never the twain shall meet. It almost feels like it’s some kind of really mild form of dissociative identity disorder without the history of known abuse or the severe dissociation. 

I know I shouldn’t compare myself to someone with DID like this really and I worry it comes across as ignorant, I have not suffered major childhood trauma, I only rarely lose time and my dissociations are mild not black outs. It just feels like sometimes it’s the most accurate description for the way I am, at one point years ago I even started naming my ‘selves’ to help me deal.

I have always had my personality described as eclectic by others and in private I have set up named Facebook pages, blogs and Twitter accounts for each of the far corners of my personality and each corner seems to have its own attitudes, taste in art, music, strengths, weaknesses, manners of speech and film preferences. Yet they are all just parts of me, whoever it is that I actually am, and I mostly do have control over them.

If all my friends from all walks of life came to my funeral it would be hilarious to see how different they are and imagine the different stories they would tell, something almost worth faking my own death for just to see!

Like living in a kind of fantasy world I do indulge the different parts of myself in different ways. I don’t do it deliberately but it’s as though those parts of my personality that I require for a situation will usually just ‘click’ into place when I need them. 

I can be swearing loudly in a parking lot with one person bitching about meds and how long it takes to get through to the unemployment line in the morning and then I suddenly find myself in the presence of someone from one of my other worlds and switch to the Queens English while discussing the finer points of the education system and which diamond would look better with that dress over an expresso, coming off as a highly educated stepford-wife type without a care in the world. 

Common across all my selves is the mania and depression of my bipolar but it manifests differently across all my personalities, some are prone to isolation and hiding in bed when depressed, with productive hypomania focused on organisation and bettering of self, some of me is more prone to gambling, spending, sexual innuendo, drugs, psychosis and self-harm. 

There are also parts of me with different tastes in foods and movies, I have always had trouble understanding how I can sometimes enjoy mushrooms and Jim Carey movies and other times I utterly despise both. 

There seem to be six more distinct variants of my personality:

There is the me that looks 32 but is basically an approximately 65yr old semi-retired women with a positive outlook on all aspects of life, she suits the name Linda and has a love of gardening and cats. She is the part of me that attends garden club each month, bakes cakes to share, speaks knowingly about growing watermelons and kiwi fruit in this climate, she dresses smart/casual, never swears and writes the clubs articles for the local paper in what can only be described as an English accent. 

Depression causes her not to attend garden club and make up socially acceptable excuses as to the reason, when hypomanic incessantly chatters, takes and shows hundreds of photographs and finally updates the blog & Facebook page she created for them during a past mania. 

“Bel” Bel is always the victim. Chronically depressed and self-loathing, she is basically incapable of looking positively at anything she does. She is bitter and resentful towards people from her past that bullied her, she flies into psychotic rages at herself and can’t accept her imperfections. She is the only part of me that likes horror movies, I haven’t dealt with full on Bel for quite a while, she is the nagging voice of my eating disorder when it’s at its worst, a big part of my deepest depressions and my most dangerous mixed manias. 

She only leaves the house in perfect make-up and fancy clothes, she is the self-harmer, a firm believer in punishment for wrongdoings she despises her reflection and even when she hasn’t completely taken over my thoughts, she tends to hang around subconsciously hissing negative commentary in my ear telling me how useless I am and that I need to kill myself continuously. 

I was in an angry “Bel” phase once during an interview by a shrink when I was in the hospital and he said my diagnosis was clearly wrong and I had Borderline Personality Disorder. The shrink the next day when I was no longer “Bel” had no idea what he was talking about and said it was definitely Bipolar... 

Although I have never described myself as a ‘voice hearer’ Curiously, anti-psychotics seemed to get rid of and keep Bel away. I have been off the meds since December and some days I feel her on my shoulder, breathing in my ear, just reminding me that she could come back at any time.

‘Shyla’ is both very similar to and the total opposite of Bel, like a weak angel to the devil. She is big part of my eating disorder and mixed manias, gets confused and paranoid, hallucinates and experiences delusions and is fearful and very anxious and prone to panic attacks. 

She is naïve, forgetful, lonely and is terrified of most of the things that Bel stands for, Bel tends to communicate through her. She is childlike and very impulsive and often actively suicidal and has a lot of trouble regulating racing intrusive thoughts as they quickly overwhelm her. She has been the present force during all of my suicide attempts. 

A big part of me is still Katie, she hasn’t changed much from that 14yr old girl from high school, she is the insecure one, the people pleaser. An animal lover whose heart will always work in a pet store, she eats very little meat except chicken. She can sell things she believes in but hates to pressure people. She can’t make decisions to save herself, tends to forget to wear make-up, always has her hair in a ponytail and dresses mostly in jeans and black tops. 

She is chronically guilty, cares deeply what people think of her and wants to help everyone. She is usually around when I’m depressed, it’s a state in which she feels familiar, her eating disorder is a big issue, she sometimes starves herself for months then binge eats and then hates herself for it, she has to force herself to suffer through her hour of daily exercise.

Her depression is passively suicidal in nature, although she does make plans she doesn’t act them out. She leaves the house untidy, garden neglected and emails and phone calls unanswered. She doesn’t drink or do drugs but curses her manias because she talks too much and regrets it straight after and has a problem with excessive gambling. 

She is prone to paranoia and also spends a lot of money she doesn’t have when manic, often on good causes though, for example she feels sorry for people and buys them things even though she can’t afford it, usually dropping $50 notes to homeless people or charities, she talks too quickly and often has to repeat herself. She is known to accidently joins organisations and makes promises to people that she intends to but often can’t keep. She also unintentionally lies a lot to cover up her gambling/spending.

Kate. Now Kate is a manic part of my personality. She seems stuck in the 20’s I never really had. Generally overconfident, learns easily, works hard and can sell ANYTHING to ANYONE, although at times she has the attention span of a flea. She loves to wear make-up, pretty clothes and accessorise no matter where she is going. She is the life of the party, loves to run and bushwalk, drives way too fast, sometimes to random places often hours from home spontaneously and just for the hell of it. 

She peruses car yards and chats to the salesperson about sports cars she fully intends to find a way of buying very soon, spends a fortune on un needed clothing and homewares and has AMAZING money making ideas that she is certain WILL revolutionise the world as we know it, but she tends to get distracted and so somehow they never do. 

She flirts with strangers, has a tendency towards promiscuity, builds websites, runs on very little sleep, caffeine and green smoothies, enjoys designing floor plans for outrageous houses and likes to drink. She does nothing by halves and desperately wants a tattoo and to dye her hair bright colours, but other parts of me keep stopping her. 

She is quite content to eat red meat and doesn’t tend to feel the guilt associated with the eating disorder, it’s more of an awareness that “I’ll regret this later”. She smokes pot to help her sleep at night, but oddly she has absolutely no interest in gambling whatsoever.

Kate also gets angry and irritable, but while quick to fly off the handle she doesn’t bare grudges and can be singing one minute, yelling the next and then dancing again moments later. She has trouble sitting still long enough to watch a movie and gets up and down constantly.

The personality I like the most I fondly call “Suzi” she is my most honest and adult self, she is a writer, a truth teller, a freedom fighter. She is more level headed and self-aware than the rest of me, with the ability to step back from things and evaluate them. She has the best memory and can relate to everyone except Bel. She is the one who appears at the right moment to take over when I’m secretly sinking, she listens on the phone to struggling friends and gives sound advice.

Cooks dinner and helps with homework, she is fairly self-confident and dresses appropriately for the social situation, likes to help others but only to her ability and is calm in a crisis. She has no hang ups about having a mental illness and will calmly discuss it with anyone who asks. Nothing shocks her. Experiences depression more mildly, avoids social situations and listens to sad music. Hypomania makes her a bit more careless with money at the supermarket, talk loudly and write excessively (*ahem, this post might be an example*).

So in the place where I decided to use my actual birth name of “Kate”, its more “Suzi” who does most of the actual writing, she views and merges all my personalities into one confused brain space and tells my stories. I don’t share them with many people that I know in my ‘real’ life and nobody from the real world knows my blog. I skate on the edge of anonymity somehow getting off on the thrill of knowing that if someone googled the right words I could most likely have my cover blown.

This blog is like my half way house, challenging myself to be open about my struggles before I finally take steps to publish my memoir that has been sitting on a dusty shelf deep within my computers filing system. Once that comes out, the branches of my life will be forced to rub together and I guess deep down I fear they will catch fire.

Something that helps me manage all my parts at home is that my husband sees all of me except perhaps Bel, Bel only becomes visible to others when I'm verging on psychosis.

My different ways of acting around different people irritated the living shit out of him when we first met but while he isn’t aware that I have named my separate selves, he now simply accepts my quirks. He always just calls me “hun” which is nicely all encompassing, in fact on the rare occasion he actually does calls me “Kate” it sounds downright weird and it feels like he is talking to someone else! I do confuse the kids though, they never seem sure if I will react as Jekyll or Hyde.

So, I don’t know if other people experience this separated self without being DID too, another extremely weird symptom is that 'Katie' needs reading glasses but 'Kate' and 'Suzi' don’t. 

WTF? How is that even physically possible? 

I haven’t dared ask my psychiatrist about my many ‘me’s’ for fear of what she might say. She keeps prompting me to discuss early childhood as though she still thinks I’m denying I was abused, but I really wasn’t and mentioning this weird way that I think might fuel that further.

So this was supposed to be a short post but now I realise that I have somehow accidentally written over 2100 words (serious points if you’ve made it all the way through!) I guess for now, I just am who we are and that’s that.

Please comment if you experience this yourself or have some thoughts on it though, I’m very interested to know!