This is it! A 'warts and all' record of living life with mental health problems as well as going through the transition to being the person that I should have been born as. I know that I'm nearing the end of my transition but the issue of mental health has reared its ugly head to give me a new set of problems only quite recently. I have started this blog on a day that began badly for me. I was supposed to get up this morning to go and do some errands before going on the usual Tuesday health walk at 2pm. I have 4 alarms on my mobile phone and all were set last night to wake me by 9am. Bed time was a respectable 10.45pm, or thereabouts, and I remember switching 2 of the alarms off in daylight. Then I looked at the clock and it was 2.45pm. What had I done for nearly 6 hours? Was I asleep or somewhere else? I have no idea. I only know that I was sitting on the bed at that time with no recollection of what I had been doing. It's most likely that I slept on until my mischievous mind decided that I should wake up. As long as I get things right tomorrow, especially getting up in the morning for a doctor's appointment, I will spend some time catching up on what I should have done today.
There is one thing that I can depend on but would rather that it would go away. I have a permanent headache that is mostly kept down to a dull roar with regular medication. If it should decide to get nasty, as it does at times, I have some very strong painkillers to tame it. This alone is enough to drive me totally off my trolley if I let it, so the headache has other co-conspirators waiting to ambush me. Panic attacks are bothersome little oiks that do their best to turn me into a tearsome, quivering mass of confused humanity. The last time that they won a round was a few weeks ago while visiting Charli and Helen for a few days. I don't remember much about it apart from being a snivelling wreck and Charli hugging me and trying to get me eating an apple. It was all because I couldn't find a razor, which goes to show that panic attacks don't care how small you're concern is before they decide to have a go at you.
Here's a question for you. What happens when your brain decides to ignore reality? In my case, the answer is 'mental absence'. If I wasn't asleep this morning, as noted above, then I had a mental absence. It is a strange kind of occurrence that I either remember all of, parts of or nothing of. The few people who have seen this happen to me all describe the same thing which is what I know of the episodes that I remember. Wandering aimlessly, jabbering on in what could be a foreign language, picking up objects to look at and talk to before putting them down and not always in the same place, waving and pointing at something that may or may not be there and staring off into space like Mr Spock on mogadon! There is little or no warning of these, which means that anything can happen to me if I am out and about when the brain takes off on its own. If I can, I get to a safe place while I fight it off or it wears off. Should I not be able to do this, I could walk in front of a bus and not know a thing about it, until I wake up in hospital or the morgue. You might say that I'm being morbid but it is a real risk for me and people need to know how serious a risk it is.
I was going to write about memory next but I can't remember what to write! Sorry, I couldn't resist that one. My memory has become fragmented, like what happens to your computer's files and you have to defrag it every week. The difference is that my brain doesn't have a defrag programme to put it right. It is said that the most powerful computer in the world doesn't have the power that the human brain has. It does, however, have one big advantage over our brains. It can be repaired and improved quite easily. Try installing a new memory in your brain and see how far you get. Not far. My memory still has tons of room, but something is preventing it from working like the steel trap that it used to be. Some things will stick in there and some things will be forgotten within seconds. This first blog post is taking a very long time for me to write, mainly because I keep forgetting where keys are on the keypad. Also I forget which word I'm supposed to be typing in. Sometimes I have to use a different word because I don't know the word that I was going to use. It gets awfully confusing. I have to keep reminding my self what the full date is because I can forget what century it is never mind the day.
When we are performing a task, we need to concentrate on it. The more difficult or complex a task is means that concentration has to be more intense and focused. This is another problem that slows progress for me. I used to be able to concentrate on something until it is finished, even though it would sometimes mean taking breaks and coming back to the task. I now get times when concentration levels are zero, which leads to a job not getting started at all for some time or it gets started and waits for months to be completed. Allied to concentration is attention span. What a minefield this can be! My attention span can often be measured in seconds. I might get settled in to start something, then just put it to one side immediately as if I had just done a day's work on it. Writing this post has involved about 4 breaks in concentration and once that my attention span cut off. After a cup of coffee, I managed to get my attention span back on track along with concentration.
Confusion sets in mostly when the memory has taken an unannounced break, which only needs to be a second or two long. That's when I have to find answers to questions like 'what am I doing?' 'why am I stood here?' 'where am I going?' 'did I make a coffee?' etc. Mostly, it is only involving minor situations. It can be more serious when it comes to important things. For example; some weeks ago, I had an appointment for an EEG test of my brainwaves. Memory takes a break, I get confused and miss the appointment. I nearly have a panic attack when I realise this but manage to focus on phoning the hospital to re-book it. The staff were brilliant and set my mind at ease before sending out another appointment that I kept. High anxiety levels make these situations seem worse than they are. Anxiety is great for warning us of danger, although too high a level of anxiety can lead to problems. I have had to learn effective management of my anxiety and it works for most of the time.
Depression is not the same as feeling depressed. I have learnt how to control my depression but there are times when it gets through to me. That is when I can not even get out of bed easily, never mind getting dressed and getting on with the day. Feeling depressed is a heavy kind of sadness that can be lifted by something happy happening to get a smile on your face, even if it takes a bit of time. I have more or less got control of my depression now, despite the lows that I still have sometimes. It's a great feeling when I beat it!
maz you no i love you deppresion i know about but some things you describe could be spiritual i recognise some things out ov body experriance i have been there done that
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