hsphaven

I haven’t felt a part of the festive season for a long time. It is hard being surrounded by merry songs and celebrations when all you want is to die. I have suffered so much loss and painful goodbyes around this time. Right now another important therapeutic relationship is coming to an end. Even though I have been through this so many times before it doesn’t get any easier. It just gets worse. Continue reading “There is a fine line between love and hate” →

This page is from a book called “From Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories The Make Us” by Rachel Aviv.

The degree of  “insight” a person is seen to have is what determines their treatment. I am quite fortunate in that my mental health team think I usually have excellent insight. The flip side is that they equate insight with the degree of my distress and pain i.e. my pain isn’t great because I have excellent insight into it. So I don’t get help. You can’t win. They try to lock me up and force medication on me when I’m not asking for their help, but when I am severely depressed and suffering the worst pain and trauma imaginable, I am just left to deal with it alone.

It is my birthday. I want to cry the minute I wake up. Mum is going to take me to Warburton but I can’t get moving. All I want to do is sleep through this day. I sit in the car with her and snap at her for making conversation with me and telling me twice that I should move my bag from my feet as I have no room. I don’t think I can last an hour stuck in a car with another person. I tell her I’d rather go somewhere closer. We drive to Olinda and wander round the shops. It is a sunny day yet a big black suffocating cloud follows me everywhere. The joyful Christmas songs playing in the shops make me want to puke. I pray that the shop keepers don’t talk to me and ask me how I am. Continue reading “Birthday” →

It is often when I am at my lowest that I feel something is reaching out to me. Call it angels, guides, God, Spirit, our higher self, it is like a break in the clouds. Things happen that carry a message or lesson that is very clear to me. It is not always pleasant. Sometimes it is tough, like a distressing near death experience after being so suicidal. These experiences make me realise maybe I don’t actually want to die just yet and they give me a sense of gratitude for my life. Often, though, the communication is gentle and touching. A few months ago I had very traumatic night where I had a sudden panic attack and also became psychotic, dissociated, experienced intense feelings of Solipsism, or however you want to view the experience. I was admitted to hospital. Then when I was discharged I was still not right. My mental health team made it worse by trying to section me under the Mental Health Act and give me compulsory treatment. I fled my city and spent five weeks in my friend’s holiday house. Inside the house was the Footprints poem and all I can say is I felt protected spiritually. On the Monday, the night I first experienced the “attack”, the bedside lamp in the front bedroom mysteriously turned itself on. I was a little creeped out at first, but I took it as a sign that somebody on the other side wanted to make their presence known and remind me I am not alone and I am safe. I left the light on over night and fell asleep. The next day when I woke up it had turned itself off. It was like somebody was there with me that night holding my hand until I fell asleep. Continue reading “Spiritual guidance and Life Blockage Release” →

There is a difference between Complex PTSD and PTSD. People with PTSD suffer a traumatic event. People with Complex PTSD suffer a traumatic life. I read this quote this evening which someone posted in a Dissociative Identity Disorder group:

“When you’re recovering from childhood trauma you’re not trying to get your life back. You’re trying to get your life for the first time. You’re trying to form your identity for the first time. The chance to do this as kids was stolen from us and doing it now as adults is so hard.” Continue reading “A depressing rant” →

It is 10pm. Night is my favourite time of the day. I lie on one of the seats in the small hospital courtyard. It is cold, which is strange for summer. I guess winter doesn’t want to let go just like my trauma. It’s like they’re both really mad and keep storming out of the room and then coming back yelling, “And another thing!” I cover myself under some of the hospital’s white blankets, but the hairs still stand up on my arms. I gaze at the hazy starless sky, or what can be seen of it behind the shade sail. I am in a rut, literally. There is a path above and sometimes people walk by. I don’t see them, only the shadows they cast on the wall of the courtyard. We must be careful not to befriend a shadow, for we don’t see their face. And most of all, we must never, ever love a shadow, because shadows don’t love back. We cannot touch or hug a shadow, and the people behind the passing shadows are out of reach. Just like everything in life, the shadows come and go. You are just a hopeless romantic hanging onto the shadow, latching onto someone or something you don’t even know. It is love from a distance, like loving a celebrity. You will be heartbroken over a love that didn’t even exist. Continue reading “Evil angel” →

Only two months ago you had the cops chase me across the country because I was so “unwell”, and you tell me I could get manic and psychotic again. Now you are saying I am doing really well and are talking about discharging me. It feels like you’re just trying to push me out the door and it is extremely invalidating of what I continue to go through. My problems are not going to just disappear overnight. This is going to be a lifelong battle and I need [inset clinic’s name]. Yes, for a few weeks I have not had a crisis. For a few weeks my suicidal thoughts haven’t been as strong. But I am far from well. My suicidal urges are a shore which has been receding and has now come back as a tsunami. I have never felt urges this strong in my life. I have been through this same pain before but instead of getting easier it only gets worse. What I am experiencing is a cumulation of trauma and I can’t believe you are considering discharging me and putting me through this again. Even the mere talk of it has been enough to set me back terribly. Do you have any idea what you have put me through? On Friday I could not get up off the ground outside and I could not speak. I wailed like I’d lost someone I love. I should have been admitted to hospital but I was not because you keep telling everyone I am really well! I have always trusted you and felt you got me but I’m not sure I do anymore. It was negligent to send me home in the state I was in (and dump the problem on my poor dad who is barely coping himself). Don’t put words in my mouth that I am doing really well and I don’t need you like I used to. Continue reading “A letter to my mental health team” →

Last night I decided to make a therapy room on Animal Crossing. I had enough bits and pieces of furniture to play with. I turned my beach chair into a Freudian couch. I am really pleased with how it looks. Continue reading “Animal Crossing and reflections on therapy” →