Rings around the moon.

The fall out from the terrible year blows across all areas of my life. My first and clearest observation is, acute and chronic stress causes time to speed up. Days strobe past, a week becomes two days long. At the moment, I'm dealing with my life literally flashing before my eyes. Memories of things said, things done. Not so much a desire to put right, just a feeling of inevitably. The stress becomes fall out when it reaches toxic levels. Dulling senses, creating selfishness. It is a truly horrible experience. I believe it is only truly perceived when healing starts....

I shall give him a name, let's call him Josh. Josh is called a 'service user' in various systems. The term service user is a status, rather than descriptor. The term could be seen as a prosaic, utilitarian description of a person using a service. Nothing wrong with the term, nothing I can easily put my finger on. Anyway, Josh is my son, and he doesn't have much choice about being a service user. Not because of legal constraints thank goodness, but there are subtle forces that create compliance, albeit very sensible and totally making sense to me reasons... Nevertheless the transformation from a person into a service user isn't life enhancing. At worst it can be seen as a ceremony of degradation: ... a formal or informal ritual that is used to eject an individual from a group and to rid that individual of his or her identity as a member of the group. Used to deal with people who subvert the norms of society. So if you are wondering what happens to se...

As I start writing this, I am recovering my sense of balance s l o w l y. There was a brown lump in close proximity to a long brown smear on the carpet between Service_user's room and the bathroom. As I observe I continue, into the bathroom to have my shower, dress, clean my teeth...keep my self together. I go down to the kitchen and describe my observation and ask, does he know how or why or what? He does not. I ask him to check his room, is there any more? No I say 'oh well, perhaps it was you, or my husband, or a cat, or a dog, or Satan himself...I will clear it up and no, I don't want to know if it is what it looks like, so no need to smell it...' He offers to clean it. I say no...I need to do this for my own peace of mind. Thinking to myself, well, I've got nothing else to do.' Since THE BAD THING happened (3rd May) I am in bits. THE BAD THING was nothing to do with Service-user, it was everything to do with my sense of identity and security, my ...

Tomorrow is my son's 'living funeral'. It occurred to him that he has a right to attend his own wake - being as he carried out his intent to die - he did not mean to survive, and yet here he is. He feels there should be some celebration. The funeral of the person who wanted to die, perhaps... So I'm at the computer to craft a ceremony, and I'm feeling a mix of dread and happiness..It has been an awful year, truly appalling. If tomorrow marks the end of it, that will be very good indeed. As I write this I am reminded that reality is made rather than found. If I can put enough of this intent, to close the book and bury the panic, terror, sadness, grief, rage and seemingly endless frustration through this living-funeral, that will be some feat! There will be cake, Service-User's request was a Red Velvet Cake, and I made that yesterday. It isn't red though, despite following the instructions and using the recommended food colouring. It will be decorated ...

I am at one of those, 'I don't know where to begin' moments. People are people and life brings up stuff, and stuff happens, but I didn't expect betrayal. I'm not going into details. Just know I experience it as waves of grief. What helps is naming the question when some kind of flash-back experience is playing, because somehow those moments when I see my life racing past my eyes and start to feel the black waters of oblivion drowning out my connection to the world...whilst I'm ostensibly looking for a bag of flour, or coffee, shopping in a supermarket..As I sink and the tears well up in my eyes I know there will be some kind of statement/question underneath it. If I can catch it and ask it, I will move forwards. Mostly it is details of the betrayal. I have the kind of mind that needs to know the truth. I am more able to put things to rest when I can orient myself to fact. It has been one month now, this is the fourth Friday since it happened, and this week ha...

I've not met the early intervention guy, I simply go away and pretend I'm not here when he arrives so Service User has all the attention. Sitting at my PC I can hear the tone of voice, but not the words coming up from the kitchen down stairs. EI man is 'dynamic' 'curious' and sounds very rational and positive. Meanwhile things are not so great here, a spiral of repetitive thinking is gaining momentum. Or rather it never went away, it was always just below the surface. The D2 receptors blocked by Resperidone disconnecting feeling from action...Now it's gaining enough energy to break out once more. I feel conflicted, a part of me thinks I should stop my course and focus on him. Surely I could make sure that he is getting more experiences that will 'bring him out of himself' and feel free here to add all the other cliches. But the truth is, even though I think I'm mad to continue my course, and though I don't feel that I've been present fo...

Today it seemed worse than any day since sectioning. My aim is to dissociate from the monologue; the endless because sentences that all speak of wasted time and hopelessness. Not necessarily because it's better for him. Because actually it's better for both of us. Though the morning started fine, by dinner time I was beginning to feel the pre-sectioning, skin crawling vibe. It is like having ants under my skin, except it is him not me, transmitted in the way he moves, body language, tone of voice. I could feel myself pulling the imaginary armor back on, alongside a desire to just run! and keep on running. So? So...lets's just hope it was a missed tablet.