hsphaven

I feel like the weather here in Melbourne: all over the place. It is the start of spring and we have had a couple of sunny days, but most of the days are still cold, wet, and overcast. The past two days we have had storms with thunder and lightening. Apparently it even snowed on the mountains.

Sometimes I’ve had the energy to put some effort into my appearance. One night I was watching N3ko Mom’s channel on YouTube. She identifies as an adult baby and also has BPD. Her outfits are art. She pairs cute onesies with beautiful make up. It awakened something in me, and I pulled out the black and white party wig I bought a few months back at the $2 store. I tried it on and it actually suited me. It instantly shifted my mood. I will share a photo of me in the sound-proof box I sleep in wearing the new hair. I am with my clowns, which I bought to nurture my inner child. I had two clowns just like these when I was a toddler. Their names were Coco and Noddy. I took them everywhere with me. I think my mum threw them out, but I managed to find some just like them online (they are now considered vintage). The clowns and I are starting to look alike.

The wig is versatile. It makes me feel little, especially when I wear it with cute printed clothes. It also goes well with my black goth clothes, and I like that it is a bit androgynous.

I wore the wig when I went out with my disability worker on Wednesday. We picked up a few things I’d ordered online, then went down to the beach. I had the best potato cake I’ve ever tried from a fish and chips shop, and a very nice chai latte from an organic shop. The lady in the organic shop said my hair reminded me of Sia, one of her favourite musicians as well. We then wandered over the road to the beach. If I knew how lovely the beach was that day I would have packed my swimmers and a towel and gone straight there. It was a sunny, still day and the beach was quiet, which was surprising given it was school holidays. The water was crystal clear and warm enough to swim in, even though we are barely out of winter. I wanted to swim but we didn’t have enough time. I just waded in wearing my pink cargo pinks, which got soaked. I took them off in the car and covered myself with a bag, but I think I felt a bit anxious sitting there without any pants on as the tremor in my arm was bad. My nervous system was pretty rattled by the overdose I took earlier this year and ever since I’ve had a tremor, which I notice is worse when I am anxious.

I decided to go to an online support group for women with trauma on Wednesday evening. I was still wearing my wig. It was not what I was expecting. I found the other women extremely judgmental. One woman complained about her niece who has depression, accusing him of making no effort to get better. She said his sleeping patterns were terrible. She said he’d told her that she didn’t get it. She then went on about how if only he knew how bad her life was…. that she had been sexually abused and gone through worse things than him. It was like it was some kind of competition whose life was worse. As someone who also has depression I know how debilitating this illness is, and even though we want to feel better, we are often stuck in some very vicious cycles. Someone once liked depression to the dementors in Harry Potter. It sucks all the joy from you and leaves you empty. When our depression is particularly bad, it doesn’t matter how “good” your life objectively may be, you can’t feel anything positive. It is like being colour blind. I have quite the collection of mental diagnoses, and no one is any worse than the others. They are all equally horrible in their own ways.

Shortly afterwards another lady started talking about someone she knew who she said was manipulative. She then said she thought this person had BPD, equating manipulation with BPD. That was the point I lost it.

“I’m not comfortable with some of the things being said in this group!” I wrote in the chat box. “People with Borderline personality disorder are not manipulators!”

I was about to cry. One of the facilitators messaged me privately and offered to go into a “break out room” with me. She said she didn’t think this women meant people with BPD are manipulative, more people who are drunk (I’m pretty sure this women meant the former). She thanked me for speaking out. The conversation then moved on and I calmed down. But I don’t think I want to go back to this group. I felt like the oddball. I don’t know where I belong. I don’t like the diagnosis of BPD as it says there is something wrong with the person, rather than the abuse they have endured and the environment they live in. People are put into DBT bootcamp which tries to train their “bad” emotions and behaviour out of them. Yet in trauma groups I have met people who have demonised those with BPD, claiming people with BPD are abusive. Some professionals claim that BPD and Complex PTSD are the same. I don’t know what I think. I run a Meet Up group for Complex PTSD and it used to be a combined group for people with BPD as well, but people were messaging me saying they are not the same and didn’t want it to include BPD. So now I have made it just Complex PTSD.

When I woke up on Thursday I felt like I’d been run over by a truck. I was going to meet someone in Box Hill to buy a dress, but I kept procrastinating and nearly missed my train. It was another sunny day and the trains were busy. There was even some young guy sitting near me vaping on the train. I just wanted to disappear into a hole. But all the effort it took to get there and back was worth it. The dress is awesome. It’s luscious with bows and ruffles and is of beautiful quality. I feel amazing wearing it…. way better than any antidepressant. These are the things that make my heart sing. I put together an outfit with one of my pink wigs that evening. I texted my friend saying that I was turning into one of our mutual friends who dresses in pink.

My mum said I looked “ridiculous” and would get a lot of attention if I went out into public wearing this. I often dress a little differently and actually forgot that I stand out until some school girls made fun of my baggy masculine cargo pants and ear muffs (which I wear to block noise) one day on the train. I don’t usually catch the train. I don’t think I could fit in, even if I tried, so why not embrace it and wear what I want?

I was feeling creative and took a few photos that night. Here is another one I am proud of.

On Thurs night I wasn’t able to get to sleep until sunrise. I woke up feeling dreadful again the next day. I took some dexamphetamine, an ADD stimulant, to try and pick me up a bit. I then threw on a plain blue top, a 180 degree turn from the previous day. I texted my friend, who always wears a blue top, saying I’d turned into him now. I was even going to wear thongs like him, just because it was too much effort putting socks on.

I went out to the shops. I find shops are just too much for me these days. I don’t know if it was the dex but I felt particularly shaky and felt like I was going to pass out or have a seizure. I wanted to cry on and off all day. I bought a whole lot of apples, oranges and carrots from the health food store as I’ve started making my own juice. Then I went to Officeworks and printed some more badge designs. My mood picked up for a bit and I sat in my car messaging people. The dex seems to have that effect on me, making me more social. I felt kind of high but physically exhausted at the same time. The high didn’t last longer than an hour and soon enough I was back being tormented by the buzzing sensation on my head. The buzzing started years ago when I was given an antidepressant called Effexor. I was only on the starting dose and only for a few weeks but those nasty bullets really seemed to do something to me, also making me manic. The buzzing has never gone away, and wears away at me like water eroding rock. I have seen GPs, psychiatrists, neurologists, physiotherapists, reiki masters, Chinese medicine practitioners, you name it, and no body has been able to help me. My old case manager thought it might be a residual somatic hallucination as apparently I also became psychotic around the time I was taking Effexor, but I don’t think it is. I have been on olanzapine, an anti-psychotic, but it didn’t help with the buzzing. Perhaps I needed a higher dose, but I found when the doctors increased it more than 10mg, it started shutting down all the wrong things. My mind was still active, noisy and awake, but the drug seemed to shut down my bladder and I started getting incontinence at night. I posted about the buzzing to a schizotypal group I’m part of on Facebook. Someone thought I might have parasites in my body. That is when I fell down a very strange rabbit hole. I discovered this cleansing program where you only drink water and vegetable juice for anywhere from a day to twenty one days. It’s meant to rid your body of parasites and toxins. I thought I might give it a crack, until I got to the part about squirting coffee up your butt using this thing which looks like a hot water bottle with a tube in it. This is called a “coffee enema”. No thanks. I decided to try spraying a mixture of wormwood essential oil and water on my head instead, but unfortunately it did nothing. I’m getting desperate. I spent $320 on crystals and tried meditating with a large clear quartz pyramid on my head, but I haven’t noticed a difference. Last night I tried standing on my head to improve the circulation to the area. I’m now waiting for some magnesium glycinate to arrive in the post, which is meant to be the most absorbable form of magnesium and helps with sleep and relaxation. I’m finding it incredibly distressing that this buzzing is not going away, and am starting to think about suicide again, or shaving my head. It is depressing when it is your own body which is giving you sensory overwhelm. How do you get away from your own body? I was tired at 10:30pm last night. I managed to turn off the computer which I am addicted to, brush my teeth, and put myself to bed. I want to sleep at night as I think my mum’s right, my nocturnal lifestyle is making me ill. There was one day recently where I was up at 9am, 8 hours earlier than I usually get up. The sun was out. Cafes were open, shops were open. I felt I was part of life around me, rather than living in this alternate world where I’m awake when everyone else is asleep, and asleep when everyone else is awake. I actually felt a bit better. I wanted to try this new me for longer, but I quickly slipped back into being a night owl. I do like the night and the depths it takes me. I seem to feel things a lot more intensely, both the highs and lows. I love the peace and quiet. Music sounds better, and in fact the other night I rediscovered a favourite old song of mine, “We Are The People” by Empire Of The Sun. A part of me just wants to sit up listening to music, contemplating life and sometimes doing wild and reckless things under the cloak of darkness. I think a part of me also procrastinates going to bed. It is too much effort to brush my teeth, fill a hot water bottle, get changed etc. all just to lie in bed being tortured for hours. My ears ring, my head buzzes, my pulse pounds. I feel like I’m going to combust. Last night I felt like checking myself into a psychiatric hospital. I ended up taking some diazepam, but even that didn’t help. Finally I managed to fall asleep, but it was crap sleep. I woke up at 8:30am and did not at all want to start my day, so I took another diazepam and slept for a few more hours. I then got up at 1:30pm and took the train to Box Hill again. When I went there to pick up the dress there was a little stall in the shopping centre selling lots of cute anime merchandise. I bought a cute scrunchie, and I wanted to buy another one. I’ve been doing more with my days lately. Sometimes it helps having stuff on, but other times it’s a bit much. I really struggled today. I am unwell physically. I woke up with a headache from clenching my teeth and jaw. Then as I sat on the train to Box Hill I felt breathless, like my body wasn’t being oxygenated. I moved seats a few times to get away from other people, and as I walked down the carriage my body felt so weak. I have been getting pain in my abdomen too which I think is my period threatening to come. That would explain why I kept feeling like crying the past few days. I find my period exacerbates all my mental health issues, and as I’ve said in other posts, it is usually around this time I end up in hospital. I seem to have really bad physical anxiety right now, and my finger which I burnt a few years ago started tingling again while out today. I’m surprised I managed to write so much as I am so unwell. It is probably time to bring this post to a close now. Unfortunately my dad’s just come in the door, so I can’t just relax and make myself some tea and dinner. I really don’t want to be around another person. It is really hard having to share a house with someone when you are totally burnt to the ground. I am in “autistic burnout”, which, according to the UK National Autistic Society, is “a state of physical and mental fatigue, heightened stress, and diminished capacity to manage life skills, sensory input, and/or social interactions, which comes from years of being severely overtaxed by the strain of trying to live up to demands that are out of sync with our needs.’’ I remember reading a good article about autistic burn out on theaustisticadvocate.com, if this is something you want to learn more about.