Last week was the worst of my life. The hole in the roof of my mouth got bigger. It took away my ability to speak and be understood clearly, restricted my diet and fluid intake and made taking medications challenging.
It sent my mood very low. Apart from attending a coupe of medical appointments, I slept. Day and night. That’s all I did. The situation felt overwhelming.
Its taken me a week to figure it out. I’ve been stressing and worrying about things that I have no control over. It reminded of this page in The Alcohol Therapy Workbook:
So I am re-focusing on what I can control: me. My thoughts and behaviours.
Loss leads to a grieving process. I feel like my vasculitis diagnosis and accompanying symptoms have led to a loss of a quality of life, as well as a shorter life expectancy than I had expected. So I’m currently grieving.
I’ve done the denial and shock stages of grief, but am currently struggling with the anger and depression stages.
Anger is a weird one. I’m not angry at a person or God, but I’m angry with the whole way this universe works. It feels unfair and even though I know logically that life isn’t always fair, I’m still angry about it. Anger isn’t something I experience often and it is one of those feelings that for me is uncomfortable. I’m rarely ever angry so my resilence to tolerating this emotion is quite low, as are my coping strategies for dealing with it.
Depression on the other hand is bunch of feelings that I’m far too familiar with due to having bipolar. Hoplessness, a lack of joy, physical/mental exhaustion, I could go on, but I won’t.
These feelings of anger and depression are a normal part of the grieving process. I know that. But it doesn’t make them any easier to deal with. I’m struggling to cope, so I’ve referred myself for some counselling. I know there’s really no solution to these feelings, they are not a problem or a puzzle to be solved, they have to be experienced, in order to move on to the acceptance stage.
Right now I’m focusing on being patient and kind to everyone – including myself, so that I don’t inflict any harm on anyone because of how I am feeling.
I am acutely aware that my last few blog posts haven’t been positive. But I suppose that’s to be expected when you’re grieving.
Caroline Aherne was the comedy genius responsible for The Mrs Merton Show and The Royale Family. Caroline was from Manchester, the North West of England.
Caroline had a tragic life including being born with a rare form of eye cancer, being a victim of domestic violence & abuse in her marriage, suffering with depression/possibly bipolar, alcohol dependency, bladder cancer and died of lung cancer at just 52 years old.
Despite all this tragedy and suffering, she had the wonderful gift of being naturally funny. It is for this talent and skill that she is remembered by friends in the BBC’s Caroline Ahern: Queen of Comedy documentary.
This excellent documentary is well worth a watch. It showed Caroline’s love of life with TV clips and interviews with friends, her humour and the impact she had on individuals lucky enough to know her.
How endless does this lockdown feel? It feels like it has gone on forever. It feels like the rules of lockdown have permeated every aspect of our lives. In some cases the rules feel like they have taken our old lives hostage. No longer can we take anything for granted. Not even the simplest of things like exchanging a hug with a loved one.
With experts are expecting a 2nd wave, it looks like the relaxation of lockdown maybe reversed. Possibly made even stricter.
With all this going on, it’s not surprising that for some, this has had a tole on their mental health. So I would like to remind you that you can purchase my book Mental Health Wisdom from Amazon for just £7.49 paperback (or £1.99 Kindle) here. It’s full of strategies to help people to deal with adversity and improve their mental health.
Now let’s talk about me. It been a bit of a difficult time. First there was an international shortage of Depakote, one of the medications I take. So I had to switch to Epilim, basically the same thing but a different brand. However nobody at the Pharmacy or GP knew there was a shortage of Depakote, so it took nearly two weeks without any Depakote to get the Epilim prescribed and started. This led to manic and mixed moods.
But before this and underlying I had been struggling with depressive symptoms, that even the maximum dose of Venlafaxine wasn’t helping with. So my Consultant Psychiatrist has taken me off Quetiapine and started me on Mirtazapine.
I’ve never had this mix of medications before, so it is uncharted territory. We just have to keep trying until we get the right balance in my brain. Even though I know this, it is sometimes frustrating.
In other news my iMac (photo below) has died and gone to Apple heaven.
My iMac finally died.
It had been really slow for a while and since getting a laptop I haven’t used it that much; but it is still disappointing.
This week I’m off on annual leave. I’ve taken a few days to rest and recharge. Next I’ve got a few days seeing family and friends – social distancing. Then at the end of the week Steve and I are going to South Lakes Safari Zoo.
I’ll be sure to do a blog post about my visit to the Zoo. Blog soon,
Antony
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Wednesday 1 July 2020
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Antony Simpson - Author, Blogger, Nurse & Witch.
Author of eight books.
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