Appreciation Post: The Importance of a Support Network

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I haven’t posted in a few weeks because I haven’t been in the right headspace or physical space… I started treatment for my Borderline Personality Disorder this week, Emotional Coping Skills Group Therapy, which was causing me a great deal of stress and worry. Last weekend I was in London and the week prior to that my parents, who are a significant part of my life, were on holiday so I subconsciously planned in far too many activities so that I wouldn’t feel the need to reach out to them if I had a bad day and make them worry. That, alongside normal day-to-day stress at home and work, has led to a rollercoaster few weeks that has made me sit back and really appreciate the people I have in my life because I honestly hate to think where I would be without them.

For a start, the people I have at work. This treatment programme will be taking me out of the office for an afternoon each week for fourteen weeks and the fear that this would mean I’d annoy my colleagues was causing me a whole world on stress on top of the treatment itself. But they have been wonderful, and really I should have expected nothing less – from the encouragement and positivity before my first session, to the reassurance that it was all okay and the immediate interest they took the next day it made me really stand back and appreciate the support that I have from all of them. They’ve made something I am petrified of that little bit less daunting and I know that, on a bad day (like the one that left me in tears on Friday) they all rally round and make the effort to understand and help me work out what’s going on and find solutions and coping mechanisms. Whilst my parents were away I had a day of horrendous dissociation which put me close to crisis and I was ridiculously grateful to have someone I could ask to go on a twenty minute walk around the grounds so I could talk through how it felt and ground myself – knowing that there are people I can explain even the most confusing and ridiculous sounding aspects of my mental health too without judgement, who will do nothing but try to help and support me. Thank you all.

Next, the people I’ve had in my life for years – the best friends who have put up with so much of my mental health it is unbelievable, yet are still there for me every single day. Having a friend that, when I was particularly concerned about my parents going away I could nominate to be my surrogate and text all my worry instead so that I wouldn’t ruin their holiday; and that same friend who I could call on late in the evening before I started my treatment to come round and keep me calm because I was getting into a state. Or friends that I know I can message and talk about all the random rubbish and they will tell me the truth and make me see sense, but also take the time to understand and learn about what is going on so that they can help me get better. Even the fact that they are still willing to socialise with me despite the days that my mental health has gotten in the way and made me rubbish company, they still give me the chance and for that I am getting the opportunities to practice and keep getting better. The last few weeks have been hard, but having people to socialise with and talk to when I need to sort out my head has kept me grounded and stopped me locking myself away and letting a depressed mood take over completely, and despite the bad days and how close I have been to spiralling downwards they have helped me still have good days, so for that I am extremely fortunate.

But one of the biggest challenges I have faced, and one of the appreciations it has made me want to make sure is out there for the world is for my parents. Not having them here for a week and actively trying to keep going on my own and not contacting them, even when I was close to crisis, made it impossible to ignore just how much they are a part of my day-to-day life – the normal conversations and contact that anyone would have with their children but also just how much they provide a support network. How often I have a bad day and ring my mum to cry or talk it through so that I can hold it together in front of the rest of the world, or a bad emetophobia day where they provide a significant coping mechanism. Proving I could do it by myself was important and another important step in my recovery, and allowing them time away to relax and not worry about me was even more so, but it also made me grateful for the fact that I do have them there – they are my biggest cheerleaders and people I can turn to no matter what and I am ridiculously lucky to have them. With their support, and the fact I can turn to them on the bad days but equally celebrate the good days with them, I have made it through mental health struggles we weren’t sure I would beat and it is that that gives me reassurance that, with their support, I can do it again this time. So thank you Mum and Dad for everything you put up with and everything you do.

Above all these last few weeks have made me remember just how fortunate I am for the people I have in my life, but also that we need to appreciate those people we have – I am not always an easy person to know, when my mental health is bad and confusing and hard to understand, but they’re all still here and because of that I have a much greater chance of recovery. So never forget the people in your life and always remember to say thank you, and return the favour when they need someone on their side too. So, for all the wonderful people I have in my life – don’t forget I’m always here for you too and I love you all.

Bee x

Borderline Personality Disorder: What it means to me

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Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a mental illness that is surrounded by stigma and considered by professionals to be a severe psychiatric disorder yet, despite the negative connotations and complexity, being given a diagnosis was in some ways a positive as it has made so many things in my life make more sense. There is so much involved in it that it simply wouldn’t be possible to fit into one post, so today we are just going to start at the beginning: the criteria of BPD and what it means to me.

To be diagnosed with BPD you must meet five out of nine diagnostic criteria (symptoms) as defined by DSM-5, and these need to have a significant impact on your life. Below we will look at them in their most basic definitions as the complexity and variety of individual symptoms and manifestations is extensive, and with each one I will include just what it means for my diagnosis and how it started to make everything make sense.

  1. Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
    1. I will do anything to keep people happy, often to my detriment, and take the smallest inconsistencies as a sign that I’m hated and not wanted. I incessantly apologise and constantly need to check and validate that things are okay, people still like me and I haven’t done something wrong. This is due to an intense fear of rejection and not being good enough. All of a sudden this diagnosis made the way I behave make perfect sense.
  2. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationship characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
    1. Unhealthy previous relationships and the way I go through phases of viewing the validation from certain people in my life as being of upmost importance fits into this criteria perfectly.
  3. Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
    1. There are days I look in the mirror and don’t recognise who I see. I will cling to any opportunities to define myself by an activity or a relationship, just so that I have something solid that I can hang my identity onto. This criteria made me notice just how much my self-image differs depending on my mood or who I’m with, it is never consistent and that is one of the primary reasons I’ve struggled so much with my confidence.
  4. Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating).
    1. Fortunately, this is one of the criteria I meet less but I still haven’t escaped completely. I do things to extremes – I will be compulsively saving and then sporadically become obsessed with a concept so buy everything related or try to cheer myself up by spending money I later regret. Or it will be little things like sending impulsive messages or making sudden decisions on things that ordinarily I would think through and plan. And I become easily obsessive so a substance abuse problem wouldn’t be difficult to imagine.
  5. Recurrent suicidal behaviour, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behaviour
    1. This criteria made behaviours I’ve had since I was a child make sense – predominantly dermatillomania (compulsive skin picking). As a child they thought I had a skin condition and even tried to treat it. But now it makes sense that it is correlated to stress or low mood – it is rare I don’t have areas of skin that I am picking at especially my fingers or my head. And one of my coping mechanisms for emetophobia has always been digging my nails into my arm. Between the two I meet this criteria without even thinking about it. And, although I’ve never made any concrete plans, I do get suicidal ideation.
  6. Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
    1. Mood swings. No doubt about this one – I can wake up in the morning feeling on top of the world and it takes only the tiniest trigger for it to spiral downwards into anxiety or depression or something equally as unpleasant but, on the plus side, it also means it doesn’t take a lot to trigger a good mood and bouncing back. Having a diagnosis gives some hope that, with the right coping mechanisms, I can get these triggers under control and maybe start to find some stability.
  7. Chronic feelings of emptiness
    1. Between the mood swings, depression, anxiety and dissociation sometimes the emptiness is a welcome relief but there are without a doubt days that I feel completely numb to the world and with it comes intense feelings of worthlessness and loneliness which certainly isn’t pleasant.
  8. Inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g. frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
    1. Of the nine criteria this is the one I identify with the least – only very occasionally do I feel intense anger and, although sometimes I can be extremely childlike in my five minute tantrum of showing it, I don’t think it is any less than anyone else.
  9. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms
    1. I get days where I think that everyone is talking about me and looking at me, and days where I feel completely detached from the real world and like I’m in a bubble, add in the seizures which are a dissociative symptom all of their own and I have certainly got this criteria covered. But it’s such a strange feeling that dissociation will have to be covered another time. At least having a diagnosis, alongside the NEAD diagnosis, means more hope of getting it all under control.

So, that’s the basics of BPD – although there is so much more depth to each criteria and so much more that people go through alongside this. And, although I was certainly guilty of googling it prior to my assessments, it is such a complex disorder that no one should take this list as a way to self-diagnose – a diagnosis can only ever come from a medical professional.

Hopefully this has given a bit on insight into BPD and how I got this diagnosis, but please do not hesitate to comment any questions you have.

Bee x

My Mental Health Story: Leading up to a diagnosis [Diary Extract]

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After the SSRI triggered hypomanic-type episode (here, if you want an excuse to chuckle at me) things were up and down – I still had days with the warm bubble of over-enthusiasm where I knew I was edging on too high, and day’s that I felt like I was going to crash I wanted to go to the psychiatrist with as much information as possible so I kept track of it all in this record I kept between the episode and the day I got my diagnosis:

23/03/2018 – after the few days of hypomania I woke up feeling fuzzy and butterfly-ey still but this began to dissipate and I started to feel calmer, although the world still did not feel normal. I met my parents at the pub that evening and my mood was still elevated, racing thoughts and chatty.

24/03/2018 – 27/03/2018 – over this period I felt very up and down, between feeling quite hyper and up and a bit lethargic. The first few days were considerably more up than down, this balance then shifted as the week went on and I felt more levelled out. Extremely embarrassed and anxious over my behaviour on the previous days, however, I did feel closer to normal than I had done. I still struggled with my appetite and did not feel overly hungry.

  • 25/03/2018 – decided I wanted to get certificates so looked online and found courses that were officially certified and proceeded to buy 3 (spent over £100 but was also extremely pleased due to the savings which is another thing I am easily obsessed over). These were in subjects I am interested in but have no use for currently. I then became obsessive about completing the first one for 4-5days before losing motivation.
  • 26/03/2018 – had a doctors’ appointment first thing and then went shopping with my mum at an outlet shopping centre. I had already been thinking for a while that I needed a new purse and, when looking round, found a designer one I liked. Whilst in the shop I also saw a bag I liked and impulsively bought it – spending more than I could justify on the bag and purse. Normally I would weigh up the cost implications of this, thinking about it whilst shopping further and returning to the store, but I spent this money impulsively without much consideration, especially as it was a good saving. I also did the same thing with a pair of shoes.

28/03/2018 – 30/03/2018 – although I did not feel normal, with still feeling up and down, I did feel a lot more normal than I had done previously and the changes were not significant enough for me to actively notice.

31/03/2018 – continued to be very mixed in my moods. I was fairly content when I woke up, but then had a period of being sad and anxious in the afternoon where I questioned a friend over concerns that no one would turn up to my funeral. Attended wedding that evening which I found difficult as I had a previous failed engagement and this wedding was with friends that would have been attending ours. I had a period of intensely over whelming sadness when everyone coupled up to join in with the first dance and you have a recipe for disaster. I had 2 glasses of wine however felt the effects of it far more than normal, and I was being more outgoing than usual; I even asked a cousin of the bride, who I had never met before, if he fancied going out for dinner which is extremely out of character for me. This is the last thing I have recollection of…

  • Information gathered from others due to no recollection: When I was sat down (approx. 22:00) I was talking to a friends’ partner who then went to get her as I was apparently no longer making any sense when I was talking. They then removed me from the room and led me down as I began to have what they believed to be a tonic clonic seizure (two friends at the wedding that looked after me are both in a medical field). I was incontinent of urine at this point so they borrowed spare clothes. I was not particularly responsive, and when I was it did not make sense and I may have had further seizures during this time. They got hold of my parents and drove me to my parents’ house – arriving at around midnight – in the car I was ‘twitchy and kicky’. Once at my parents I was sat on the sofa, but still unresponsive and not very conscious, I then slid off the sofa and was incontinent of urine again. At approx. 1am my parents rang an ambulance as I was still not regaining much consciousness. The ambulance took me to RHCH, in which I had a further event where I made a lot of faces, with my tongue going in and out of my mouth, and my legs shaking and kicking. The ambulance did nearly put oxygen on but we then got to the hospital as they were considering it. In the hospital they did bloods which confirmed my alcohol levels were not overly high and that there were no other substances present. I then became quite agitated and aggressive – taking three of them to put a cannula in, which I later tried to pull out, and I was put on fluids overnight. I do not have any recollection of any of this and my memory does not kick back in until I awoke at around 6am on 01/04/2018, this felt like I was just waking up as normal, except for the confusion about where I was and how I had got there from being in the middle of a wedding. I was discharged from hospital and stayed at my parents – I slept for a large proportion of the day and struggled to eat initially.

02/04/2018 – I felt extremely up and down during this day, feeling fairly content and then very irritable and low. This continued throughout the day.

03/04/2018 – 11/04/2018 – on waking up I felt extremely low and tearful, which continued for the rest of the day and did not ease. I continued to feel low. This continued over the next week and I remained feeling extremely low. It was noted by colleagues that I was actively withdrawing, I struggled greatly with my concentration at work and this did affect my social life and work productivity. I also had periods of extreme irritability. During this period, I was also very paranoid about what people thought and overly apologetic (although this is common behaviour regardless of my mood, so I guess this wasn’t that unusual). I have also noticed that my memory is extremely patchy, unable to recall simple details / events – such as what I have done on certain days, who was present and associated details. I continued to struggle with my appetite, and have had little desire or motivation to eat or prepare food.

  • On one day, although I am unsure of the date, I did still feel low but I also felt like there was a strange bubble of warmth in my stomach and torso. Not like the butterflies I have experienced, more like a full balloon. This was after a night that I struggled to sleep. This feeling did appear on other days but to a lesser degree and did not last as long

*11/04/2018 –I saw the epilepsy nurse who confirmed that the seizure activity and other physical symptoms I experience are functional / dissociative episodes; cause be Non-Epileptic Attack Disorder (NEAD) (also known as Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures, PNES).

12/04/2018 – I was still low when I woke up, and continued to feel lethargic and withdrawn throughout the day. In the evening I was not hungry at all – even less so than I had been previously – and, although I had been tired earlier in the day I no longer felt able to sleep. I was also extremely agitated over noises from next door which, although I could sort of justify it that they were louder than normal, led to me ringing mum to walk around the house and check cupboards / rooms – behaviour that I have not performed often since shortly after I began living on my own. I watched TV all evening, eventually deciding to go to bed at midnight as I knew I had work the next day. But once in bed I still didn’t feel like sleeping so played on my phone until 1am. I then made myself turn everything off as I knew I had work. I did sleep through until 6am.

13/04/2018 – woke up feeling brighter but slightly detached from the world. On the bus I noticed that I had cramp in my left arm, the butterfly feeling, although not overly strong, was detectable and I was feeling more turned on. Things were more interesting on the bus – I noticed a post box I had never really given much attention before purely because of the colour. On getting to work I felt chattier and more upbeat than I had done the previous weeks, my change in demeanour was enough for a colleague to comment on. But still had a residue of feeling sad sat behind it all and by lunchtime I felt very detached from the world and in a bubble.

14/04/2018 – Safe to say the dissociative symptoms are really coming to the forefront whenever I get more stressed and emotional. It’s been such an up and down week, add in my diagnosis from the epilepsy nurse and nerves about seeing the psychiatrist on Monday and you have a recipe for disaster. I went out for dinner with my best friend last night and thank goodness it was her, because she is one of the few people I actually believe will love me and stick with me regardless. We had a lovely meal, and then went on to a bar afterwards, but I don’t remember getting there. The next thing I know I’m waking up today, at my parents, feeling extremely peculiar. I managed to collapse and have some sort of dissociative seizure whilst out and end up in the back of an ambulance, again. I am now completely riddled with guilt and embarrassment and I really don’t understand why people are still willing to socialise with me.

 

Then, on 16/04/2018, the appointment with the psychiatrist resulted in my diagnosis of ‘Borderline Personality Disorder’. But we will go into more depth about that next time.

Bee x

Self-care; let’s do more of it.

~ Bee x ~ 1 Comment

With a combination of the stress of work, dealing with my diagnosis and a current ongoing health scare I am re-evaluating how I look after myself and actively making our mental health a priority is something important enough for everyone to start thinking about it, so that’s what we are going to start talking about from today.

One thing that I have always been bad at, mainly because due to my BPD I beat myself up and self-sabotage myself so much instead, is self-care. But self-care is one of the most important things anyone can give themselves permission for – whether they suffer from a mental illness or not. Everyone has stress and everyone deserves a break, practising self-care is one of the main steps to stop that everyday stress escalating and making you ill, and for mental illnesses to not be exacerbated and end up in crisis.

Self-care encompasses so many things – it is all the lifestyle changes and techniques we can use to help manage the symptoms of mental health and stress, and depending on the day and the situation it can be completely different things. Like the examples below:

  • There will always be the logical stuff that is very clear why it works as self-care and what benefits you get- things like going for a massage to relax you both physically and mentally or ending a long day with a relaxing bubble bath.
  • But equally, learning to say ‘No’ when needed is an important example of self-care – saying no is about respecting yourself and being able to put your physical and emotional needs first. Equally, it is important to remove yourself from a triggering or stressful situation – such as taking five minutes out when things are tense at work or making the decision to go home when a social situation is just too much.
  • Eating right and drinking enough as well as exercise are more things that you would think are quite logical but so many of us overlook them. The difference it can make to your mental health when you look after your physical health is phenomenal, with more energy and clarity and better sleep being only the tip of the iceberg in terms of benefit. Especially when you add in things like herbal teas and
  • Catch-up with friends and family and don’t isolate yourself, and if you don’t have people in your life you can openly discuss mental health and other concerns with look at other ways to reach out, you never have to be completely alone. I have an incredible support network but still how found so much benefit as the BPD community on twitter, where being able to talk to people who really understand the things I go through day-to-day, has made an incredible distance to how I feel about myself and my symptoms.
  • Mindfulness and meditation, taking advantage of some alone time to reset, there are many different online guides, programmes and apps that you can try to see what works best for you in order to help guide your self-care.
  • Get into nature, go on a walk – two birds one stone as nature is relaxing and a great opportunity for mindfulness and we all know the benefits of exercise.
  • But some days, self-care will be a task as simple as getting the dishes done. This helps in terms of meaning you know you have one less thing to worry about, a sense of accomplishment at a task completed and a tidier, more relaxing environment. And never underestimate the benefits of de-cluttering an environment!

This list is inexhaustible – every person will have different things that work for them, and depending on the situation, your head space and what you want to gain it will be different for each person day-to-day. But that is why it is so important to think about and work on incorporating into our lives, making sure we take the time and put ourselves first. My philosophy is that it is better to take that time now and work on getting to and then maintaining a relaxed and health place, than to need even more time further down the line when you’ve ended up in crisis.

Self-care is something that I am going to be working on consciously adding into my life, so I’ll probably come back to this again – with tips and tricks I’ve tried, what’s worked for me and just reminders of the things we should all try to incorporate more. So, to start as I mean to go on I have booked myself a ‘hot-stone back, neck and shoulders massage’ for next week… that should set the ball rolling nicely!

Feel free to let me know what self-care you guys do or would like to try, and anything that you’d like me to look into and feedback on then do not hesitate to let me know!

Bee x

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My Mental Health Story: The events that triggered getting a diagnosis [Diary Extract]

~ Bee x ~ 1 Comment

We’ve looked at the beginning of my story at School and College (here) and the chapter after that entering Uni and the working world (here) which means we are getting to the specific details about what led to my final diagnosis of Borderline Personality Disorder and it is this event, earlier this year, which prompted the referral that finally got me taken seriously.

I started writing things up earlier this year, before I decided to put it into a blog. This was after a reaction to SSRI’s meant I knew that I needed to take things further which is what led to my since diagnosis. I had been struggling more and more with my mood fluctuations and went to the doctor to request anti-depressants again but, unlike my first prescription, these seem to have a strange effect; which I wrote up in this description on 27th March 2018…

27/03/2018:

It’s been an odd week; it has certainly taken things to a whole new level and I don’t think I can put off getting real help any longer; there is no more denying that there is something more going on. I have noticed this feeling before and that it is a bit odd but wrote it off as just having an exceptionally good few days until what happened on Wednesday (21st March), which has made me realise the similarities between that day and how I feel on other days just to a lesser extreme. It normally happens a few times a month, sometimes just one day and sometimes more than one day in a row. It starts mainly by feeling butterflies in my stomach, like feeling nervous but a bit bouncier, the world feels brighter and louder and often I can feel sort of turned on. If at work I feel less inhibited to chat and interested in everything – looking at the sky and seeing things I would never normally notice, like details on buildings. It normally lasts a few hours and then starts to dissipate during the afternoon. Or sometimes it’ll start in the afternoon and carry on into the evening. But I suppose my mood swings have always been quite extreme, at times going from very low to being extremely hyper ridiculously quickly, to the point people have made comments on how high I am, even questioning if I am on anything.

So, here is a run-down of what’s happened in the past week, starting on Wednesday 21st March. It occurred after 23days on 20mg Fluoxetine, taken each evening. This had made my sleep extremely inconsistent and I had completely lost my appetite – barely managing a full meal in a day even when I could tell I was physically hungry.

I’d felt paranoid all the previous day (20/03/2018) like everyone was talking about me, but also extremely productive – completing a project I had been working on for weeks without having made much progress, and then felt extra bouncy in the evening – dad commented that I seemed happy on the phone. My recollection of conversations and events on this day is limited and I cannot recount that many specific details. I went out for a meal and could tell you very little of what we talked about – almost as if trying to remember a dream.

Then I woke up at 04:30 on 21/03/2018 and was unable to get back to sleep. I felt the nervous butterflies in the morning on the way to work and on getting to work I was more interactive saying hello and asking questions than I normally would be (normally, even if I am in a good mood, it takes until I have a cup of tea to get to this) and then I could tell I was getting more and more happy throughout the morning. The feeling was similar to how I often feel on a really good day, but it just seemed to keep escalating and feeling more intense. I still felt as though everyone was talking about me and I was trying to listen to conversations to work out what they were saying, voices seemed louder and more invasive, the world was brighter. I sent jokey texts to people and, despite their responses not being positive due to their own low mood, I couldn’t stop digging myself a hole until I managed to catch myself and end the conversation. It was a fight for the rest of the day not to pick back up this conversation, on more than one occasion typing a message before I managed to focus and delete it – purely because my concern for them was greater than the overexcitement in my head. By this point I could feel my heartbeat going excessively and time seemed to be going extremely quickly, this did not subside at all throughout the day.

I felt euphoric by mid-morning, completely unstoppable and on top of the world – more so than when I once did a hash brownie in Amsterdam which, to be fair, seemed to have the complete opposite effect. I kept thinking about how I never wanted to feel normal again and simultaneously devastated at the idea that it might go away, fixated on it being the most amazing thing I have ever felt. Everything was new and fascinating and I couldn’t stop looking at everything around me; colours were bright, sounds were crisp and everything was intricately detailed. Watching the clock tick over on the computer made me laugh and was hilarious just to watch. I was still aware enough to know that how I felt wasn’t right and the logical brain buried underneath it all was concerned, and went to seek out a manager, explaining it to them just made me laugh even more and he commented that I couldn’t stop smiling and that I seemed very ‘twitchy’, ‘high as a kite’ and ‘wired’.

I then had an appointment with the epilepsy nurse. On walking the 15 minutes to the appointment I rang my dad and was extremely happy and giggly explaining to him how I felt. And although I could concentrate just about enough during the appointment to get out what I needed to say I still couldn’t quite keep track of my thoughts. For the rest of the day I thought that she was amazing and praised her overly whenever someone asked how it went (don’t get me wrong, I still think she is, but I was overly effusive by anyone’s standards). On walking back to work I did feel slightly calmer and less flighty but the world was still mesmerising.

On returning to work I knew I had stuff to do and sought out guidance as it is a new subject I’m coordinating and I didn’t know what I was doing nor could I work it out, but once I had specific instructions it was easy to achieve and, when printing documents, I found the printer fascinating. I also kept mumbling to myself, talking to the printer and had an urge to sit in the middle of the floor. However, throughout the afternoon I was easily distracted and found it difficult to stay committed to any one task. When walking around the building and grounds at work I continued to half talk to myself and every time I saw a bird I couldn’t help but make a race car noise, I also sent continuous random texts to people, offering to cook and arranging meals with different people and, at one point, deciding I wanted to dinosaur. I settled on a pterodactyl and mentioned this in other conversations throughout the day. Between that and race car noises I dread to think what people thought I was on. This behaviour continued for the remainder of the day.

I was picked up from work to go home and was extremely chatty with mum, but I was getting easily irritated when she didn’t ask the questions / say what I wanted her to. On arriving at my parents’ house, I was unable to sit still and wandered around the house waiting for them to leave to go to the pub. Throughout the time at the pub with my parents I was extremely hyper and continued to talk about random rubbish – including telling them all about the clock on the computer, race car noises and pterodactyls. I knew that it wasn’t normal even at the time but I still found it extremely entertaining, my parents commented the next day that I was amusing at times. I had 1 ½ pints of lager whilst at the pub which almost seemed to make the world a bit calmer.

Walking home from the pub alone I rang a close friend and explained to her how funny I felt and how brilliant my appointment had been, she commented the next day that I was most definitely not normal and not talking about normal stuff. I got in and tried to have dinner – homemade soup – but could not eat much of it. I felt guilty about leaving what was left as my mum had made it so when putting it in the bin I found things around the kitchen to throw away to cover it in the bin so that she wouldn’t see and in that moment doing so was an intensely important job that took all of my focus and concentration and that I obsessed over for a disproportionate about of time.

I watched TV during the evening but I got bored easily and couldn’t sit still although I was starting to feel less wired and a bit more tired, so I tried to go to bed. However, I woke up regularly throughout the night, roughly every 1 ½ hours and would have to sit and play on my phone for ½ hour each time before I could even try to attempt sleeping again. I then woke again at 05:00 and couldn’t get back to sleep.

In the morning, 22/03/2018, I still felt bouncier than usual and happy walking to work from the bus stop and still a bit hyper once at work, but at about 09:00 I felt like I’d walked straight into a brick wall and my mood crashed suddenly. I felt really low and started to feel tearful and embarrassed, not really moving much and staring into space, consumed by the negative thoughts. Knowing that this episode was anything but normal I rang the doctor and, on the trip to the surgery, I could not compute talking to my mum and was getting increasingly irritated when she would try to talk to me. I was thinking very mean thoughts about how annoying she was being and that she needed to shut up, this continued in the surgery waiting room where I just did not want to talk and felt extremely angry and annoyed at everyone and everything.

My mood did seem to improve again throughout the day and I felt more balanced by the evening and slept from 22:30 to 04:00 without waking, after 20minutes awake I fell back to sleep but awoke again at 05:30 and struggled to remain asleep after this.

On getting up on 23/03/2018 I still felt the nervous-type butterflies and chattier in the office than normal, and had half an hour of extreme productivity. I even wrote this on my phone, to see if putting it into words would help me explain how it felt:

“I still feel too up today, more than just being in a good mood. And it isn’t a new feeling, it happens every so often. I am aware of everything I’m doing. When I talk a mile a minute and say strange things, incurring confused or unapproving looks from the people around me, I notice and I feel ashamed but still wonderful and, besides, I can’t stop so I may as well let it go. I’m also aware of the fact that this high will die out shortly and sharply. It should be upsetting to know that I won’t feel this way for long and I’ll likely feel the very opposite soon, but during the episode that reality doesn’t really bother me. And I’ve got the nervous butterfly feeling I get in the morning that makes me feel on edge and flighty and just strange.”

Everything still seemed bright and fascinating and more amusing than normal and I also felt more turned on throughout this time. I began to feel calmer after about 3 hours, which progressed into feeling extremely demotivated and flat and quite withdrawn, but despite the change in mood everything did still seem too bright.

Retrospectively it all feels a bit like a dream and completely disconnected from the real world. Parts of my recollection is extremely fuzzy and doesn’t quite piece together. When people mention things, such as a meal I had arranged with them, it is the reminder that I have done or said something I had completely forgotten.”

After that it was clear that something wasn’t right and in the next chapter we will look at what happened after this and when I finally got a diagnosis.

Bee x