Blog number two

I have started my therapy and all is going well. It's surprising how helpful it is just to have someone impartial who listens to you and doesn't judge you when you are honest about things. I have made many visits to our local mental health unit-some as a worker but a few as a patient. Like I said before- it can feel like living some kind of double life but I just get on with it. Even doctors have to see their GP sometimes, right?

Anyhow, I have had a few medication 'jiggles' over the last few weeks and they have unsettled me at times but I think we have got the balance right now. I was having trouble sleeping and am now able to sleep properly. I could not believe how important sleep is to mental wellbeing until I got my sleep pattern back to 'normal'! Wow! I have also started to walk to work each day. I think it's about 4 miles and I do it in just under an hour. I am pleasantly surprised on that front as well! I know the research says that physical exercise is good for mental health, well, it IS true! I stick my Ipod in my ears and off I go. I do a lot of thinking whilst I am walking-as well as a bit of singing along to my music which is probably very off putting for the cyclists who have to share the path I walk along...! But seriously, it improves my mood- which has to be a bonus for my work colleagues, it helps with my sleep, it helps with the way I process my thoughts and it is making me physically fitter. Good stuff all round then!  

I have also made a big decision about my future career. I was on the verge of changing my degree so that I could access some funding but decided against doing this and am now sure that I will not live to regret this decision. I am sticking with the Psychology and am aiming to be a Clinical Psychologist eventually. I am getting good grades and feel inspired to keep going. It has been tough at times but I know what I am like-if I am determined to do something then I generally succeed in the end. I know it won't be easy but I am a fairly pragmatic person and will take the rough with the smooth!

I have been quite well most of the time recently but sometimes things have been tough. I have had the usual derogatory talk from the main voice that I hear and most of the time I have been able to use my coping strategies to get through this. Mood wise things have been a bit 'up and down'. I find this more difficult to deal with than voices sometimes-after all it is easier to tell a voice that talks to you to 'go away' than it is to say it to a mood- even when you know the voice isn't real! It seems somewhat paradoxical to me because the experience of voice-hearing is in essence, an abstract experience to those who do not experience them whereas moods are something everyone experiences (to varying extents). Yet somehow I feel more able to snatch the power back from voices by telling them (in no uncertain terms) to go away, than I do to reason with my mood! I find moods envelope people and are a lot more tricky to resolve than problematic voices are. I have always been of the opinion that what medics call the negative symptoms are worse than the (so-called) positive ones most of the time. Still, although I have had some stressful times recently, I have survived and coped with things but I am also aware that I do need to be vigilant of any of my early warning signs as stress can cause me to be unwell. I don't want to go down that road again!

I have been in my job now for two years which is something I never thought I could do. I guess it just shows that determination pays off. Even when things get difficult, we are a good team that pulls together and I find my colleagues are so supportive-and they make me smile-a lot. I think that when you are given a serious mental health diagnosis, it feels like the end of anything like  a career or for job prospects in general. I have always been of the opinion that if someone says that I can't do something, I will just go out and prove them wrong. I guess that's what I am doing! As the old saying goes, 'That which does not kill me only makes me stronger' (apologies to whoever made that quote...). My point is that just because people-or society at large says that people with mental health problems can't do the things that others can, it doesn't mean we have to believe them. So-as Sclub7 once sang- 'Reach for the stars....'