An Update: My Mental Health

Last few weeks I have done a few posts on Mental Health and subsequently I felt that I need to do an update on what’s going on:

My moods have been a complete rollercoaster if I am brutally honest!

After that assessment that I spoke about here I did spiral quite low and a few things happened; I got into an emotional slump that has been difficult to shift but my personality disorder also flared again. One of its main triggers is feeling helpless in a situation with nowhere to find focus; I would hope for those who read the post can understand why I was feeling like this.

This being said I didn’t give up!

Last Thursday I went to the Doctors and she tweaked my medication which at the moment hasn’t quite set in but I am sure that it will soon. She assured me that when the assessment letter came back to me that she would appeal but knowing what these letters are like that might take a while.

By Friday the personality flares kicked off quite badly and shortly after one of them I decided that I needed to vent it somewhere. In doing so I phoned the centre that had assessed me; they kindly told me that I was, as most people who go there, assigned a care support worker to discuss things with.

I can tell you that I wasn’t happy and that I was quite irrational and aggressive on the phone! Can you blame me?

Now although she was wonderful and calmed me down she did say that it being Friday afternoon that there was very little that she could do but she will chase up my account and assessment details and pencilled me in on Monday.  Grrr…… How annoying!

Monday came but not soon enough;  I, over the weekend, was getting worse with the personality disorder but I had also started to have trouble keeping it in and controlling it and was, in places, taking it out on people (Sorry guys…you know who you are)

When I did manage to speak to her again she wasn’t very reassuring but did agree to meet me this coming Wednesday.

What I do have is some good news for you!

She didn’t understand why I was left in the situation after the assessment and why I was told the previous things.

I have a meeting coming up at some point with a Doctor who will look at my current medication and properly asses and diagnose my Mental Health.

From that meeting I have several options available to me:

1. A programme called Steps which is a 26 week course as a group that will help look at my emotions and feelings and how to control them. By the sounds of it the course will be structured and I will have “work” to do along the way. (I know very little about this but will keep you updated)

2. There is a group locally that helps people with Personality Disorders so within that they might be able to help with specific things.

3. Psychological therapy; from what I remember, I could be wrong, that this could either happen one to one or as a small group.

These are great options and something that I can now focus on and not feel so abandoned by the system; I would personally like to have option 3 because I think it would be great to use the other two but feel that they’re aimed at more managing life with a personality disorder rather than trying to resolve issues.

My mental health was put as an analogy this week which I felt fitted quite well:

“You have been walking around for two years with a broken leg and instead of putting it in a cast to help mend it they’re telling you that it’s definitely broken but they won’t help you. They can offer you the odd crutch to use but ultimately you still need a chance for that bone to heal”

This pretty much did sum up a few things; how I look at the above options are similar to that analogy. I see points 1 and 2 as good ‘crutches’ something for me to lean on. Yet I see option 3 as more of a fix.

None of this though means that there will be a quick fix or that I will turn down any of the suggestions or options if offered to me; what I am seeing now though is another target to push towards, even if I do feel drained, low and depleted, this is something I can go forward with.

The next few weeks, or more, will be tough and I do have a lot of maintaining to do but this is definitely a good start.

Before I go I did just want to say thank you for all the support that you guys have given to me either on or off of here I do really appreciate it and felt so overwhelmed with love and well-wishes.

 As always I will keep you updated.