When I get a new toy, I’ll play with it all day, every day until I forget it exists a week later.
Today is Sunday and there’s not much else to do except extract the cat from beneath my toes and stare at the mess in the kitchen, knowing I should do something, not really sure what. Oh, I know, light another cigarette and write stuff on the internet.
It snowed here last week. I was sad I didn’t get further than my own doorstep as I imagine London in snow would be quite something. I did take some photos that day. Click to enbiggen:
I’m going home to Belfast for a few days tomorrow. I am looking forward to it for a change because I am going for No Reason. No funerals, no wake-like Christmasses, nobody dying.
I’ll be away for four days, meaning that I have three days worth of appointments to reschedule. They’re not fun appointments. I have to cancel:
- My psychotherapy appointment, which is tomorrow
- My appointment with my psychiatrist, which is Wednesday
- My blood test at the hospital, also Wednesday
- My appointment with my CPN, which is Thursday
One of the reasons I had to leave my last job was due to “unacceptable absence”. Meaning the sheer overwhelming volume of hospital and doctor’s appointments I have to attend. On all corners, they start with the same question:
“How do you feel today?”
The answer from me rarely differs.
“Er…I’m fine?”
Then you know what’s coming. The questions usually run like this:
“Have you had any thoughts of harming yourself?”
“Have you had any thoughs of suicide?”
“Have you been “high” at any time?”
The outcome is the same no matter what your answers- keep on at your medications and I’ll see you soon.
I have fought with my doctors to take me off Lithium but they refuse. They say it’s the safest drug for women “my age”, i.e early twenties (like me, who is 21) to early 30s. Childbearing age. Why is everyone trying to protect my phantom baby?
I find it very weird that I am hemmed in by so many doctors. Before I ended up in hospital, I had great difficulty even visiting my GP. I am from the I’m Fine! camp. I never admitted that my problems were anything other than solvable and felt constantly ashamed of myself for wasting people’s time.
Now it’s like second nature. I sleep walk to the hospital, offer up my arm to the needle (pausing only to curse under my breath), roll up the sleeve and dander over to the psychiatrist’s office. I nod my way through questions, yawn, a prescription is stuffed in my mouth and I get back to the world, tottering slightly from the amount of drugs inside me. And probably rattling, too.
My CPN is a gruff woman who took an instant dislike to me because I couldn’t remember her name. She had called me up first thing in the morning, when I was still zombified from Seroquel, and rambled on rather quickly about her role, winding up her speech with, “I’m on annual leave for a month now”. So I put the receiver down and fell asleep.
When she called me last week to arrange an appointment, I asked her to hold on while I found a pen. She chastised me and barked, “Just remember it!”
She will be most displeased to learn that I lost my job. I am most displeased too- I can’t get any benefits so I have to find another job straight away, even though it’s clear for the time that I can’t cope with working. God bless Great Britain.
When I get a new toy, I’ll play with it all day, every day until I forget it exists a week later.
Today is Sunday and there’s not much else to do except extract the cat from beneath my toes and stare at the mess in the kitchen, knowing I should do something, not really sure what. Oh, I know, light another cigarette and write stuff on the internet.
It snowed here last week. I was sad I didn’t get further than my own doorstep as I imagine London in snow would be quite something. I did take some photos that day. Click to enbiggen:
I’m going home to Belfast for a few days tomorrow. I am looking forward to it for a change because I am going for No Reason. No funerals, no wake-like Christmasses, nobody dying.
I’ll be away for four days, meaning that I have three days worth of appointments to reschedule. They’re not fun appointments. I have to cancel:
One of the reasons I had to leave my last job was due to “unacceptable absence”. Meaning the sheer overwhelming volume of hospital and doctor’s appointments I have to attend. On all corners, they start with the same question:
“How do you feel today?”
The answer from me rarely differs.
“Er…I’m fine?”
Then you know what’s coming. The questions usually run like this:
“Have you had any thoughts of harming yourself?”
“Have you had any thoughs of suicide?”
“Have you been “high” at any time?”
The outcome is the same no matter what your answers- keep on at your medications and I’ll see you soon.
I have fought with my doctors to take me off Lithium but they refuse. They say it’s the safest drug for women “my age”, i.e early twenties (like me, who is 21) to early 30s. Childbearing age. Why is everyone trying to protect my phantom baby?
I find it very weird that I am hemmed in by so many doctors. Before I ended up in hospital, I had great difficulty even visiting my GP. I am from the I’m Fine! camp. I never admitted that my problems were anything other than solvable and felt constantly ashamed of myself for wasting people’s time.
Now it’s like second nature. I sleep walk to the hospital, offer up my arm to the needle (pausing only to curse under my breath), roll up the sleeve and dander over to the psychiatrist’s office. I nod my way through questions, yawn, a prescription is stuffed in my mouth and I get back to the world, tottering slightly from the amount of drugs inside me. And probably rattling, too.
My CPN is a gruff woman who took an instant dislike to me because I couldn’t remember her name. She had called me up first thing in the morning, when I was still zombified from Seroquel, and rambled on rather quickly about her role, winding up her speech with, “I’m on annual leave for a month now”. So I put the receiver down and fell asleep.
When she called me last week to arrange an appointment, I asked her to hold on while I found a pen. She chastised me and barked, “Just remember it!”
She will be most displeased to learn that I lost my job. I am most displeased too- I can’t get any benefits so I have to find another job straight away, even though it’s clear for the time that I can’t cope with working. God bless Great Britain.
Filed under: bipolar, manic depression, photos