An Experiment in Truth

Saturday, 16 April 2011

Diagnosis

So I never updated you all on what happened with my psychoticness.

Eventually, I got a new appointment with the psych doctor through, and spent a stupid amount of time talking to her (whilst my leg was frantically jerking around erratically as it tends to when i'm suppressing panic attacks). Anyway, long story short she reckons I have Cyclothymia. Most people tend to characterize this as the milder version of Bipolar II. Which is somewhat accurate, though I kinda resent that as much as I imagine people with Bipolar II resent the impression that they have the milder version of Bipolar I.

For those not well versed in the DSM, the differences are as follows. BP I requires you to have had a fully manic episode, complete with psychosis, hallucinations, the works. BP II you've gone pretty manic, but not actually broken down into psychosis, so this tends to be what most bipolar people are. Cyclothymia, again, only hypomania, not full psychosis, and also only mild depression rather than a fully depressive episode. Of course, these are clinical distinctions, try telling someone with these they're not quite in enough emotional turmoil and pain even though they can't physically control themselves and you'll find the physical lack of control will be oddly controlled enough to concentrate on your face. But the Cyclothymia does seem to make sense for me. I switch between the genuine extremes a lot less than a BP II person; I rather tend to switch up and down between what I guess you could call severe depression and mania, rather than crippling depression and mania :P And I do it a lot, very frequently in fact, and cyclothymia effectively accounts for the rapid cycling qualifier of a bipolar diagnosis too, so it explains why my mood shifts so dramatically within the space of a week or even a day.

I'm supposed to be deciding what kind of therapy I want to go for. Drugs are a bad choice for me. I likely wont take them; I've never known them to be a viable long term answer for anyone, and as much as I hate the mood swings, I hate feeling 'middley' even more so, paradoxically, I cope a lot better with depression or mania than i do with just feeling okay. And as the drugs are designed to narrow your emotional range and suppress the extremes, that's clearly not going to end well in my case. So I have either the Freudian lying on a couch option whilst talking about my daddy issues, or cognitive behavioural therapy where I get to make mood diaries and other such annoying shit. Obviously I not going to react well to either option, so its a case between the lesser of two evils at this point, though they were supposed to send me information on this about a month ago and they still haven't, so I guess I should ring them and chase this up, especially as there's a 3 month waiting list for a therapist.

By the end of the year, I might finally be seeing someone who can help for the suicidal feelings I was having back in December. -.- God bless the NHS*

*I mock and deride the NHS and medical professionals constantly, and that's because, by and large, it's shit, and unbelievably broken, but in fairness, I am immensely grateful for its existence. If I was born in a country without free social health care, I would have died many times over before I was even 1 year old. I was never supposed to survive by natural selection. And it's only by modern medical treatment I have stayed in the world so long, on so many counts. If I lived somewhere where I had to pay medical bills, I just couldn't do it. I would have died, or bankrupted my parents, and then died another 5 times anyway. So the NHS for all its shitness, for all my frustrations at medical staff, and my hatred of them, is genuinely the only reason I am alive, and in spite of whatever suicidal thoughts I may go through, I will always be grateful for it's existence in British Society.

No Key

[deleted]

The sum of its parts

So I should really try and get back into doing this. I even have a load of half written posts that I just haven't completed. But this is the one that I feel like writing right now.

I'm pretty fucking unique. I know that. And that's not just me being up myself, at least not entirely, I get told this by people. You'd be hard pushed to find someone else quite like me in the world. And yet, I have no personality at all. Or at least I might, but I'm not sure that I do, and I'm not sure what my personality is at the end of the day.

Perhaps I need to explain. Like everyone, I am influenced by those around me, and I adjust my actions, reactions, and demeanour in social situations to fit the situation I'm in and the image I wish to present. That's just normal. Except I seem to do it to a much greater extent than everyone else. Maybe it's tied to my ability to lie to everyone, including myself, so much, that it somehow influences my ability to imitate my environment, or vice versa, whichever way round, chicken and egg and all that jazz. My personality does not exist. It is an amalgam of every personality I have ever encountered, of all the people I have ever admired, respected, envied; every reaction is one that I have seen elsewhere, from a friend, from a character in a tv show, from a cliche. I mix and match these and combine them one on top of the other to form a coherent, if very easily mutable whole, and somehow that makes me unique.

People who know me well will get what I'm talking about. People who have spent a lot of time with me, or known me for a long time, and thus have met a broad spectrum of the various subsets of my friends will even be able to isolate which mannerisms, or sayings, methods of speaking or phraseology, even dress sense and tastes I have picked up from particular people at times. I become so influenced by those around me so easily. And yes it's natural to reflect body language, and speech patterns, in order to subconsciously align yourself with others and show your equality to them, or perhaps in other cases to subconsciously choose an overtly different set of mannerisms in order to show superiority or deference, but 5, 10 years later, I still bear certain hallmarks of people I merely passed in the street. Many things I can tell you exactly who they belong to, some I know they're not mine but I have no idea where I get them from, and others I have no idea if they are the 'real' me, or just the remnants of a person I've forgotten.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and somehow this makes a person that people seem to like, to find interesting, to consider truly unique. I guess in some ways, you could consider it flattering to those I envy, admire and respect, that part of them continues on in me even years after I've known them, and I'm sure some magicos could find some very fascinating prospects in that fact. But if I could strip all these different parts of me that aren't actually me away, I'm not entirely certain there would be anything left. I'm honestly not sure any part of my personality is me. Not just that my own personality is heavily influenced by others, but that in reality, all I am is those other people. In a unique combination perhaps, almost like a piece of art - up close the individual brush strokes might be somehow interesting, but its not until set amongst the myriad of others does any form of picture actually exist. Only the initial canvas is also lacking in this case. There is no core to set all these things against.

The environment that influences me doesn't even need to be that direct. A few weeks ago I was talking on facebook with Terence, and when I turned round to speak to Chris, I used American pronunciation without even meaning to or noticing until Chris questioned why the hell I was speaking like that.

Sure everyone questions their sense of self every once in a while, but does everyone else go through their day thinking about how everything they do isn't them, just the channelling of some other person. This is probably why I struggle to keep my self esteem up. When you have nothing to hold on to as a concept of 'you', when you're just a reflection of things and people you never even chose to reflect, it's hard to believe you have much worth as an individual for any extended period of time

Saturday, 12 February 2011

Recap

Yes I've not updated this in quite a while, and I had a lot of posts in mind, I failed to get round to actually posting any of them, so I'm now going to have to summarize the occurrences in my life over the last month or so several weeks after the events. But I have another whole post planning to come straight after this, though I'll warn you advance it's about weird pagan things.

So shortly after new year my mother attempted to come down to drop off presents, but I was busy, which set her off and I suddenly had her yelling at me about how insensitive I had been by not visiting them for Christmas (which was snowed in with all 30 of my family members there) and how unappreciative I had been and wasn't trying or making an effort for her especially, and how whilst I'd said that I wasn't able to face all my family at Christmas, I'd still found time to visit my friend Joel and so on and so forth. Whilst perfectly understandable from a "I'm your mother" viewpoint, this was not what her suicidally depressed son needed dumped on him, by someone who themselves has suffered from clinical depression so should know better. Time and a place people, time and a place. I was told never to contact her again, and for once, my dad wisely stayed out of it and I didn't get so much as an email on him on the subject. I was doing pretty well at this point, with my family thinking I was estranging myself from my parents, to the point I got a hand written letter from my grandmother regarding the matter, me and my dad still somewhat aloof from each other from a) my growing up generally and b) the events of summer 2009 where there had been huge arguments over my future career choices, and now it seemed my mother was disowning me too. Now, as much as they piss me off and I hate spending time with them, my family is supremely important to me, in the way that big families generally are to each other, we look out for each other and support each other in so many ways, so whilst I might wish to avoid them almost all of the time, I don't want to be separated from them.

Luckily, with several weeks now having passed, this has passed over, I'm not sure why, but either way my mother is now vaguely satisfied with me again, or at least enough to talk to me, so that's one drama over and done with.

I eventually got my psych appointment through. Mail which I have to forcibly control a panic attack over is not the greatest thing to recieve. Especially when your hopes have been raised by that "oooh mail" thought that goes through the mind when something's actually addressed to you, and from somewhere you don't recognise. Anyhoo after a lot of freak outs me and Joel went down to the psych centre on time, and I had the appointment with the psychiatic nurse to basically explain all the stuff I'd already explained to the doctor who'd referred me in the first place to prove that I was indeed crazy and should probably be seen by someone who could actually do something about it. Gotta love bureaucracy. So I go and I sit down and I get asked stupid questions like "why are you here" "what can we do for you?" "what are you looking to get out of this?". But I gritted my teeth and perfectly and quietly explained my situation, dropping in the right bits of information for the nurse to pick up on. Thankfully this person was not so stupid as to say "you seem to be coping" or "you don't seem all that bad" (at which point I would have verbally destroyed them with a tirade of how clearly I needed to be foaming at the mouth and physically incapable of seeking or indeed even recieveing help before I was deemed worthy of paying attention to, whereas actively trying to seek help before that point means I'm not severe enough to consider. This may seem condescending, patronising, or over reacting, but trust me, targets and budgets and over extended resources lead to that mentality for most treatments in the NHS. I don't blame them per se, it's a product of the culture they have to operate in, but that's not the point when you were feeling suicidal not all that long ago.) I actually suffered no panic attacks or even agitation during this whole thing. And I got the nurse to brand me as likely manic depressive, (they also reckon I have intimacy issues - who woulda guessed?!). I was told that I was very good at explaining exactly what they needed to know in the right terminology. I pointed out this was due to having 14+ doctors in the past. Covering the right parts of my medical history in the right ways in under 5 minutes is an artform to me. The nurse also mentioned it probably wasn't in the best interests to have me committed given my past experiences with mental health. Whether that was for my sake, the other patients, or the staff, he didn't clarify. Joel was courteous/irritating enough to point out that whilst I might have told them all this, it in no way meant I was actually engaging with the process. Damn him and his insights. So as it was left the nurse was going to refer me to the actual doctor who can actually do anything about it and properly diagnose me. The appoitnment for that came through today, 1st march. So after pointing out I was suicidal before Christmas, 3 months is a pretty short wait NHS wise. Of course there's then the whole diagnosis procedure to go through, but ho hum...

My mood was considerably lifted however, when I finally got a Thursday off, and the Grapple 101 crowd were staying late. People say I'm really good at picking up guys. I'm not, I swear I don't know how it happens. I fully concede, I get more guys than most people, and I get guys I shouldn't be anywhere near the same league as. I put it down to the combination of being small and sweet and innocent in some ways, combined with rough, aggressive, strong willed, and able to take it (that last one can intentionally be interpreted in a variety of ways). But that doesn't really explain how I pick up guys. I don't. Honest. I went to grapple and within 30 seconds in there, arguably the hottest guy in the room (he was a blond, australian, buff, swimmer in low cut jeans and a vest) turned to my friends and said I was hot and he'd be happy if he went home with a kiss from me. Now fine, I might not be able to explain how I pick up guys, like then, generally it just 'happens'. In 30 seconds I had hardly had the chance to do anything, and I wasn't even dressed hot; I was dressed in my cut up jeans that I wear to work and an oversized jumper to keep warm. But regardless, it takes an idiot to not capitalize on an opportunity that obvious. I gave him one hell of a kiss; later I got screwed by him, and now I have his phone number and get regular texts from him. (needless to say that's the short, short version) Score one for being small yet mighty! I do think however, that my forthrightness and openness about my sex life does get me a few more shags. Many consider it slutty, but so what. I posted about meeting a hot aussie on twitter, and not soon offer one of my friends was begging for a threesome. Q.E.D. Q.E.F. as soon as I can organise it.

My friend Patrick is currently living with me. This won't be a suprise to most people. He broke up with his bf shortly after new year and I offered him somewhere to stay for a few weeks as he lived at his bf's place. 6 weeks later I still haven't got rid of him :P It's actually not that bad, he does try and stay away a bit, though he doesn't have many options. His job doesn't give him enough to save up for a deposit for a new place easily. And I get a lot more sex when he's around. And drugs. But at some point I suspect I may have to have the "hows sorting a new place" talk with him. Or I could just point him in the direction of this. But it is nice having him around. If I could afford a place with a spare room I'd offer him it. And he's gone from being a fuckbuddy I thought was a cool person into a good friend and someone I spend most of my time with at the moment. Plus he gets me free entry into the sauna where he works, which is only 10 mins from my work. Yes, that kind of sauna ;)

And not surprisingly, I am broke still. To the point where I am now having to walk to work and back. It's not that bad. About an hour each way. But when you finish work at 0030 and then have to walk home, it really sucks. And the chances of being able to afford taking me anywhere this summer, let alone Chris too are decreasing every day from their already minimal level.

Thursday, 6 January 2011

The Never Ending Story, part LXLVIGIVIAIJFIPAGJAAIVIVIVIVIIIII

We started rehearsals for the new show yesterday. It actually sounds really awesome, so I'm kinda psyched for that, even though much of my job is still pissing me off. We're closed(ish) for 2 weeks however so I have pulled the entire techroom apart, put it all back together differently, and turn it into a decent store area/my new office. It's usually one of the warmest room in the building, so that's a bonus.

However I still have a pay gripe. Yes, I got a raise not long ago, not the raise I thought I was getting, but £1.12/h was better than nothing. I happen to know exactly how much the actors get paid. Partly because I know they're on Equity Rates, and partly because I've seen the contract. The actors get paid £380pw net. I get paid just under £325. For the £380 we are entitled to 8 performances per week, or 40 hours out of the actors. Our rehearsals are running 11-6, with a break for lunch, which only equates to 35 hours. Our shows will have a call time of 1845, and should be done by 2245 at the latest; that's 20 hours a week. Don't get me wrong, I know better than most people that actors don't just do their 'acting work' whilst they are on site and in a show. There are lines to be memorized each night, rehearsals midday at various points even during the show, songs to practice; you're paying a premium for certain skills especially where our specialist entertainments such as stage combat, circus skills, improvisation etc are a big factor in our overall production. But I work at least 40 hours a week, often more, I design and spec all the tech aspects of myself and often have to build/fit/install/maintain/repair/troubleshoot them myself. I go in earlier or finish later than most of the other staff as needs dictate, as often I need to be there when no-one else is to effectively carry out maintenance or upgrade our hardware and infrastructure. I'm now helping out significantly on HSE compliance. I train other members of staff. I manage both in a stage and an administrative capacity. I am heavily involved in pre- and post- production on a range of special events for private hires and one-off nights such as Halloween, Valentines, St Patrick's Day etc. I bring specialist knowledge, skills, tools, and software into the job at my own expense. I routinely work unpaid overtime well beyond my contracted hours. I routinely work weekends, public holidays, and past midnight, and I will continue to do all of this every week of the show, where the actors, as previously stated, reduce their on-site hours to 20 - 25 once the production starts, with only the occasional extra rehearsal or input required on their part.

So why the damned hell is my salary £240 a month LOWER than theirs?!

Saturday, 25 December 2010

It's a Festivus miracle! Or not really...

I tried. I tried really fucking hard. To ignore the thoughts in my head. To make an effort. To face the world. To get myself into the Christmas mood and at least have one day where I didn't just want to stay with the covers over my head the entire time. I should have quit whilst I was behind...

After enduring the morning round of the ever-fun game 'pick on the depressive's physical appearance and fashion choice for the day, I occupied myself by making the obligatory mulled wine. After which we were supposed to go to the market up the road from me, which was laying on a Christmas Eve daytime special. Agreed that we were supposed to be leaving at 2, of course we didn't walk out the door until 3.30, by which time all the stalls were in the process of deconstructing the metal frames and driving off home for the day. Fail strike two.

I tried my best not to be too down about it. I have no doubt it was blindingly obvious I was disappointed and frustrated, but I at least managed to keep my voice neutral, rather than despondant. I'd been banking on wandering round marketyness to get me feeling vaguely in the festive spirit, but that option clearly went out the window.

In fairness, 15 minutes of our late departure was due to me trying to make an effort in my appearance; I showered, shaved, scrubbed, and put on jeans, a vest, tshirt and a shirt instead of the black joggers and hoodie option that had been my staple for 2.5 days. Obviously in light of the fact that going out was a pointless exercise anyway, trying to make an effort to look somewhat decent was well beyond the universe's expectations of me for the day.

One of the Christmas rituals in my family is that we have turkey sandwiches at midnight, and open the presents then. It comes from when I was young and my dad used to work really long hours all the time, so there I was at 10.30 at night, with turkey in the oven, and something happened. Something small, but I broke, I fell apart, and all I wanted to do was go back to ignoring the world, even the relatively small world of Chris and his friend who's staying with us. I realized that all these Christmas rituals only mattered to me, that Chris and his friend would carry on and have their Christmas just fine whatever happened, so there was no need to fight so hard to make sure there were turkey sandwiches, or to think about the fact that I haven't watched The Muppet's Christmas Carol or It's A Wonderful Life this year. Chris probably thought he was being helpful when he agreed that it didn't matter. It doesn't. But it did. A hell of a lot. And no-one even noticed that I was trying, or why I wanted to do these things.

I get that my being majorly depressed is trying on Chris. He doesn't know how to deal with me at the best of times, and he can't relate to the place my head finds itself in, so it's hard to judge what to say or do, or how to react, when to force an issue and when not to. And I know he's doing as best he can. And I know it's unfair to sit here, and spout out a bullet point list of failings, because that's not accurate, and it only tells half the story. I'm the cause of these problems in the first place, and I know that. But sometimes that boy can be so goddamned obtuse. Like when he wonders at me why I seem to be so much worse than usual this year, if it's just that I put on a face when I spend Christmas with his family, or mine, because I've never been this bad before. Why at the moment, nothing good seems to make me smile, and everything bad is so severe and dramatic. How when all the frustrations of having to deal with a depressive boyfriend, completely understandably, get to him, he decides that the most appropriate person to vent angrily about it to is said depressive. How all he wants to do, is just tell me to cheer the fuck up, and we both know it.

...So much for a relaxing 5 days off work before my 6 weeks non-stop marathon. I escape to Joel's tomorrow for the day, so maybe that will calm me down.

Oh yeah, merry fucking Christmas. I bet this is exactly the present the bf wanted.

Monday, 20 December 2010

These are a few of my favourite things.