Rings around the moon.

We are out of our depth. The mental health team had one answer and one answer only - take the meds so you can get back to your own life. The means to achieve the end increased Service User's anxiety, and created a different goal: The goal of compliance. This accentuated the importance of another goal, being able to act sane...to fool the mental health team. Service User was good at this... I think he should take the SSRIs, I have no idea why he wont... Or why he wont consider actively trying to do things to help himself get better... Here is the question: When a person can act sane,or can act mad. Why perform madness if you can perform sanity? Service User's aunt can act sane. She kept a job until the place she was working at closed.. She managed to convince her GP that she was fine... If you can act it you are it... There is an idea of triggers, that something in the environment (internal or external) sets the behavior off... A person who performs sanit...

I need boundaries.. Because the fear and anxiety Service User is operating within, hijacks my thought processes. I find myself thinking about nothing else. Especially when he starts talking about how he wishes he could just end his life... More about that latter. So I will set a time limit of 25 minutes and use this blog as a place to help me to order my thoughts. Open ended rambling or rumination is pointless. So when he talks about suicide, what do I really think? He should be sectioned - This opens up more problems - he would need to section himself! It is a form of challenging behavior - though I'm good at letting it pass over me and through me (Dune reference) I'm getting hurt. He talks about it because the change he needs to make in himself is so great that it feels as if it requires death - death of the harming self.  It is the ultimate self-punishment, the logical conclusion. Ultimate self recrimination. He needs help..can a harming self be neutra...

This Monday is the first since it began that our weeks are free of the punctuation mark, that was the weekly visit from the psychiatrist. Yesterday, bad as it was, represents a kind of bends , a sense of trying to come up from the deep waters too fast and too soon.  We are agreed, husband and I, that I have borne the brunt of the stress. And it is time he stepped in sometimes, rather than staying out of it. The trigger for yesterday, happened before my husband said what he said. I'd watched Service User wolf down his dinner before I'd sat down, then watched him get up and begin pacing. So I asked him please to wait for everyone before beginning to eat, and if he is finished before anyone else, please either get up and clear the plate, and go pace in another room. Not up and down in the same room, transmitting that tense, itchy feeling as if there are ants everywhere... I thought, why am I saying this? Why isn't my husband saying this? Is it true I'm th...

Afternoon. I've just come back from walking in the rain. The air outside is warmer than in the house, and the low grey clouds, a damp blanket. Above me thunder rolling continually. I wanted the lighting to strike me. This thought turned up unbidden. And as I held onto my umbrella imagining the millions of volts and cascading elections, it was such a delicious, forbidden thought. The pleasure of absolute fearlessness. Today has been about theory Reading articles about the mind Asking myself, well then... what is my theory... Eventually it seemed to me that anxiety is like a starting motor, compelling a person into action. But it is a type of anxiety that can't be resolved, there is no target to hit, or enemy to avoid. The awareness of an anxious person is locked. Fixated on the false target that feels as hollow to them as it sounds to me. And any lessons awareness could create from the experience, doesn't happen. Nothing move or changes. Or, if it doe...

I should be celebrating. But I feel as if my chest is being crushed under a rock... Today, Service User got his official Discharge form. I guess a part of why I feel crushed is that Service User is cut off... I get messages from his friends saying, 'is he OK, he doesn't answer my calls or texts'. So he has us, his aged parents for company! I can't imagine anything worse... And we are feeling right miffed that our empty nest isn't! So it is the usual Friday night. Where the mental health team were There is now a gap. Filled with phone numbers to ring for help. Until his appointment in July. I am very glad we are out of the imminent sectioning zone. I've no idea what the next chapter looks like though... And now for us, it is time to gather and think about our resources and best ideas, and try to work out how best to proceed. A friend of a friend recommended a bed time routine and homeopathic aconite. And acupuncture. I think psychoth...

When the psychiatric team arrived I stayed where I was in the living room, and used the time to phone up about the nMRI scan... The company a person buys a scan from had tried to contact Josh. ...Josh wont answer his phone. I gave the nMRI company my phone number. I left my phone in the kitchen with instructions... And went to college. On return Josh told me a consultant had phoned him, and that a scan will be arranged. So, that's good. Josh is deep in recriminations this morning So I listen a while and then say, 'this is more self recrimination.' And You will be able to make better decisions after you have had the scan. It feels better to be able to say this instead of 'you cannot know' or 'you need to ask a doctor'. It feels much better to be able to say with truth and certainty - look, your experience is something and we have found the best way we can, to check out the possibilities' I don't expect it to stop the monologue about brai...

When the psychiatric team arrived I stayed where I was, and used the time to phone up about the MRI scan... The company a person buys a scan from had tried to contact Service User. ...Service User doesn't answer his phone. The phone was found Eventually .. pushed down inside Service User's duvet cover. I gave the MRI company my phone number. Yesterday I left my phone in the kitchen with instructions... And went to college. On retruen Service User told me a consultant had phoned him, and that a scan will be arranged. So, that's good. Service User is deep in recriminations this morning Of course... So I listen a while and then say, you will be able to make better decisions after you have had the scan. It feels better to be able to say this instead of 'you cannot know' or 'you need to ask a doctor'. I prefer to be able to say with truth and certainty - look, your experience is something and we have found the best way we can, to check o...