Diagnosis

So on Monday, after a few tears, shaken heads, cursing, crying, shaking and sweating I finally was given a diagnosis, by far it was one of the most challenging things I have ever had to do.
To talk and be scrutinized on every word you are saying, for someone to sit and pick your thoughts apart bit by bit, and knowing that you only have one option if you want this to all change and get better, and that is to tell the truth (the whole truth).

For the past ten years I have been trying to kid myself into thinking that I am perfectly fine and coping with it alone, and brave facing it as such. Until a few weeks ago when I completely lost the plot and a good friend sat me down and told me enough was enough and I need to speak to someone....
I didnt like that very much but being brash i decided to see my GP. After lots of negotiating i finally agreed for her to refer me to the Mental Health Team - who believe me to have Borderline Personality Disorder.
This diagnosis has made no difference to me at all because at the end of it whether it has a name or not I am still the same person with the same difficulties, and I am still the same person who hates counsellors, who hates therapy, talking therapies and everything that surrounds them.
Yet as the psychy person said ' there isnt a magic pill to make it all go away, and talking therapy is the only way forward'
As she gave me the number and has since left me to book it - ha that is another step that I've got to take - unwillingly. I hate talking, i dont even talk to my friends so why anyone thinks that i would talk to a stranger... Who Knows. But hey lets watch this space.....

"One day you'll look back"

Thought most of my secondary school and sixth form years I had the same English teacher. He was a cracking teacher and the kids always had a tonne of respect for him.

For some reason I found blokes a lot easier to talk to than women, they didn't do the sensitive sausage bit. They just saw it as it was and said what they needed to - no Nampy pampy shit.

It was my first year of 6th when I was caught behind at the end of a lesson clearing away my millions of coloured pencil labelling words in Keats 'Lamia' when all of a sudden I accidentally fell into a deep and meaningful conversation.

Completely opened up to my English teacher who previously I had barely passed the time of day with other than corrections here and there.

I will never forget how he sat there, took a deep breathe in and said "One day, you will look back on all of this - every single detail and realise that it has been completely worth it. It may take twenty years but you will"

Simple just like that short and sweet, he was a good guy, and for that I will always remember him! 

I have my psych assessment on Monday - fill in lads of questionnaires about things that you would have thought completely unnecessary... But alas I did filled it all in truthfully too- and posted it back.

I'm just waiting for my crazy bitch label now. I'm paranoid about saying the wrong thing. I'm a perfectly logical normal functioning 21 year old - or so I like to project to strangers of this world.... 

Wish me luck, I think I'm going to need it....

Finding relief

Sounds kinda screwed up really, especially when you say it out loud "in order to make myself feel better I actually hurt myself"

It's definitely a conversation stopper!!! But in all seriousness it's something that shouldn't stop a conversation, it's something that should embrace a conversation, be a conversation starter. 

The way the world looks at self harm is getting better, with more awareness around mental health growing stronger each day there is lots of hope for everyone that at this right second is reading miserable quotes through tear filled eyes, trying to decipher what the reason is, why they are even breathing.

There are millions of words I could use to describe it, the hopelessness you feel at that exact second, the relief you feel, the guilt, the desperation to stop

It bleeding. It's a vicious circle. 

I'd like to say that it magically gets better, it doesn't. Don't place your hope in one day it just disappearing odd to the carribean on holiday and never darkening your doors again. It doesn't happen like that. You have to unpick the painful parts one by one. In order to fix yourself you must first destroy yourself in bringing up artefacts of the past that you would much rather keep buried deep deep inside - where no one can ever find it. 

And that's where the beginning of the story starts. I wait with baited breathe. As I'm about to be torn apart into painful chunks, I can't begin to imagine how much this whole thing is going to hurt - but as they say "no rain, no rainbow"

An average kind of day

The term average differs in every ones lives I'm certain. I mean my kind of average day, is where I spend half of it busy, the other half worrying about some sort of insignificant rubbish about perhaps the way I sent a message yesterday that could have been interpreted the wrong way. Or some other silly crap like that.
I'm sure that is why I'm exhausted most of the time, spend most of my time worrying about stuff that really doesn't need to be worried about. Other times I can be completely blazee about a whole situation - that maybe I should have put a little more thought into:

So after spending the day running around after four smaller than average people ( all under seven) I'm crashed out in bed trying to 'relax' and trying to avoid  heart failure as my washing basket falls off the side. A pretty boring average day. No major highs, no super duper lows. Just somewhere in the middle. I'm not sure what's worse really.

Where it began... or begins...

So if you are reading this you are either bored, browsing through random blogs, or you are here for a reason.
I decided that it was best to write it all down under a blog where no one can find me, or link it back to the who behind this. To you I am just another person writing something on the internet to alleviate some sort of inner pain with out being misunderstood.

At the grand old age of 21 I thought this darkened piece of history would have by now disappeared into a deep dark crater never to darken my doors again. I couldn't have been more wrong. Since the age of 12 I have been shadowed by this dark cloud that likes to prevent me from enjoying simple parts of my life.

I'm not even sure if I know the definitive meaning of normal, and what a normal teenagers/young adults life should be like.
I don't drink, I don't particularly enjoy going out - I find crowds and strange people all a little much. I am sort of lost in the atmosphere of this big spinning world not quite sure where to put my feet down.

I have tonnes of support, friends and family a like - even if I don't want to accept their kind words, even if they do drive me to the point of distraction with their idea of the simplicity of life. If only they knew it wasn't just a case of pull your bootstraps up and find something you enjoy.

Im sort of stuck half way between logical thinking and complete irrational thinking. Planning a great escape to the middle of nowhere to camp in a tent and get some real meaning of life - and being showered and ready for bed by 7.30pm

So I have my doctors appointment sat ready and waiting for me on Monday morning to confess the deep dark depth of my mind and how for the last 9 years I have continued to play the systems of I am absolutely fine, its all gone, I am no longer hurting myself, I don't need to see the counselor any more.

So here it begins - the road to recovery - complete recovery for myself, not for everyone else!! Wish me luck - I think its going to be a little bit bumpy.

To follow why and how this person called me became this 21 year old fuzz ball of nothing ness!

The big P word....

Okay so I did it. I visited my doctor and told her the truth - the small essential missing bits of vital information that I had held for nearly ten years just to myself. And she said im going to refer you to the adult mental health team, to be assessed by a Psychiatrist. The word sends shivers down my spine. It's drummed into you growing up that any one with a psychiatric disorder is crazy. I'm paranoid about being crazy. My rational thoughts are suddenly being scrutinised by myself just in case they may have a hint of loonacy etched into them somewhere.

I keep thinking I might wake up and it will all have been a really shitty dream, and I'm gunna wake up and just go to school back to year 7 and start a scratch. I wish. Oh the things I would do different, but as they say. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. I'm sure one day I will look back and laugh at this slither of my life, but for now it's real as fuck. I'm scared as shit and ready to hike.

I was brave; after half hour in the waiting room shaking like a leaf, waggling my leg around (my trait that everyone seems to hate) and continually clenching my sweaty hands together - my name was called. I went in opened my gob and just talked for what seemed like forever.  Coming up for air I realised the GP had her head in her hands and asked me why I hadn't said anything sooner, it was at that point I think she realised how seriously it had affected me, the little 13 year old me that was still buried deep inside of me. "I didn't realise it was wrong" apparently that's what a lot of 'victims' say. I don't class myself as a victim - what happened happened, but I know realise it's affected me a lot worse than I first anticipated.

And now I have to go and repeat my whole story to another stranger, who is probably going to be assessing my every movement, the way I pronounce my words, the way I skirt around the edges of certain words, make hints but don't actually say them out loud, I know my flaws, I've known them for a while just been playing games in my head that I'm absolutely fine. And I am 100% absolutely deffinately not fine.

So step 1 of the road to recovery complete, here's to step two....