Still moody after all these years...

Ohmigod. First two days of this week I was up and away and ready for anything. Halfway through Wednesday I started to crash. I am thinking 'hormones'. And maybe, 'HRT'. I've been on it for about six months now and at first it seemed miraculous in its effects. Now I am less sure. My appetite has been out of control too...cravings for sweets, even though I don't go near sugar any more. Also been waking quite early. And getting terribly tired. Haven't been to the gym all week. Just couldn't face it.

It isn't mental health problems as I've known them in the past...there seems very little danger of a recurrence of psychosis or severe persistent depression. However these rapid and unpredictable moodswings are impacting on my life. They don't prevent me from working or functioning, but they do make me feel fairly miserable at times. In the course of a few days, even hours, it's all change. Today I was massively fed up at work, yet the other day I really enjoyed it. It isn't the blasted work. It's me!

Will be starting a new voluntary job at the library on Monday. So that will be three days working out of five.

Still pretty down, and I am doing pretty much every damn thing I can to be well. It occurred to me today that work itself does trigger me sometimes...in the sense that in an average, office environment I am faced with facts about my life that I find difficult. For instance, I have been on state benefits for the best part of twenty years...for a lot of that time I was too ill to work and as a result I have missed out on a career or even gaining significant work experience in the professional world. Whether I can really catch up now is doubtful, however good I am at learning and so forth. I'm going to be forty-six tomorrow. The best I can hope is to defy my age somewhat by keeping mentally and physically fit. I feel so depressed right now that I'd better not even carry on down this route...I just can't find it in me to be positive and I just hope to God that I'll feel better tomorrow.

Feeling better...

...and hope I will be out of my little trough soon. I guess I was a bit gung-ho about the work thing to start out with. The other shoe had to drop...is that the right expression? Well anyone bipolar knows the score. The knack is to ride these mood waves and prevent them from derailing us too badly...but if I am forced to pretend normality I am afraid I will fail every time. For God's sake, I'm working in a mental health organisation and I already feel pressured to keep the mask up. Because it's an office and I'm on the reception desk! If it was at all a busy reception I think I would chicken out of it...it's just too exposing for my hypersensitive little bipolar soul!

Anything regarding work is a steep learning curve for me. I've been, in some ways, privileged to be able to do my own thing for years and years without having any significant money worries or restrictions. Now I'm discovering something about how the other half live. My ego is having to take a battering, and my self-esteem is suffering too. I basically feel like the office dogsbody...I'm the only volunteer and it can't be coincidence that I'm having to do stock-checking (YAWN!) post franking and entering lists of names and figures in a book for the finance department. Is it for this that I got a first class degree in languages?

Whither my grandiosity! Still there, but in reduced circumstances! I have to withhold any conclusions about my current work situation because, please note dearest reader, I'm a little bit low! I have to bite my tongue, which feels like giving vent to an outbreak of Tourette's, and play the good, docile office worker. My ego has to bear feeling incompetent and clumsy at even these most basic of tasks.

I'll give it time. And as I'm only doing two days a week I have plenty of time to scan the job market. Surely a paid job can scarcely be harder work than bloody volunteering! Take care all...Love, Zoe.

Been a little bit low...

...and been having a crisis of confidence about the work thing. Been having to fight feelings of reluctance and resentment about going into my voluntary work. Long to somehow connect my abilities with the task but there's no flow at all at the moment. I feel like I'm doing tasks that any idiot could do. Coupled with that when I browse the job websites (such as Charityjobs) I am overwhelmed by the length and specificity of the person specs.

I've always waited to have a sort of Eureka moment as regards work, looking for a vocation rather than just a way to pay the bills. I'm an idealist. It's never really happened and at this point in my life, on the cusp of my 46th year, is as good a time as any to have to come to terms with that, I suppose. It happens for some people Goddammit! Why not me?

Slightly depressed, energy a little low. Take care! Love, Zoe.

It's been a while...

...and maybe I didn't mention that I was going on a Buddhist retreat? Maybe I did, anyway I went for a week, came back last Friday and it was quite an adventure! What with the communal living with seventeen or so assorted folks, the amazing beautiful setting (and weather), the long periods of silence and seemingly endless long periods of sitting meditating in the shrine room...yoga and lovely vegan food too. Does that sound like Zoe heaven to you? Well, almost. And the teacher was one of the Western Buddhist Order's best meditation teachers, He's written a few books and his approach is very compassionate, humane and above all, very grounded in the body.

Even though it was by no means easy (by God meditation and silence faces you with yourself like nothing else!) I felt great by the end and really began to enjoy the company of the others and appreciate them. We had a lot of fond goodbyes when it was time to leave, like long-lost friends, and yet we had been in silence most of the time!

And it helped me a lot with my difficulties with the loving-kindness meditation practice, the metta bhavana. The way he explained it, that and the mindfulness of breathing meditation are basically the same practice. And also, he said not to necessarily think of metta (loving kindness) as a feeling. One can equally use one's intelligence to approach a problem or a person lovingly. This was very comforting as I was experiencing quite a bit of emotional turmoil and I think my heart centre or whatever was rebelling at being told what it should be feeling!

I've been back a few days now and had a lovely weekend with Richard. Today did my computer course, then the gym, and tomorrow I start a new voluntary job at Tulip, another mental health organisation. I found that a few days after I realised MIND wasn't going to work out. It seemed fortuitous, they just happened to have a volunteer leaving and wanted to take on two new people to job-share. I am going to do Tuesdays and Thursdays. I am a bit nervous about starting another new thing, but they seem very nice and quite efficient. Which will make a change from MIND. I will doing general admin and reception work...quite a bit of answering the phone. I seem fated to have to do phone work...Once I know who's who and what's what it should be OK I suppose.

I'm also thinking of volunteering my cooking skills on Buddhist meditation retreats. You get to go on retreat for free if you do. And that NVQ in Catering might come in handy at last!

Take care all...Lots of love, Zoe.

The rocky road to...work!

Hi peeps. Yes, this week has been a saga of work. My personal life is going fine, my health and fitness levels are better than they've every been, but on Monday I went to do my day at my local MIND centre in the office and found everything kind of collapsing around me. It would have been inexplicable except that a friend who knows someone on the committee had told me that they were in a lot of difficulties with their funders. They basically may have to close, and it's clear that no-one is quite sure if they will still have a job in a few months. Which is all fair enough, mental health organisations are all being squeezed these days, but no-one said a thing to me. I was left to do my own detective work. Finally I asked the admin lady if it was true they might be closing and she didn't confirm or deny, they were having a meeting at lunchtime and it was clear that everyone was pretty preoccupied. It absolutely was not a time to be taking on volunteers!

There wasn't nearly enough for me to do, I wasn't told who my line manager was or introduced, I didn't even have my own computer to work at, just a desk with nothing on it that they had pushed against a wall for me. I have been volunteering at a volunteer office! I kind of know that this is not the way to treat volunteers! Why did no-one tell me anything? Is it because I have been a service user, or is everyone just in denial, trying to pretend everything is fine? I can only speculate and perhaps it's better not to go there. Whatever the reasons, it's not good enough.

So I said perhaps I better leave it for now (no perhaps about it but I was being polite) and she said OK and to call in a few weeks if I'm still interested. Well frankly after all this malarkey, I'm not! I went straight up to the gym and worked out then went to Learn Direct but the disappointment over the lack of communication (as well as the loss of the job) kind of threw me out for a few days. Not helped by the fact that I am becoming less satisfied with the volunteer centre work. My line manager there does not really supervise me to speak of and I'm getting stuck doing jobs that feel peripheral (and very dull) such as inputting numbers onto a database. All day. This at a volunteer centre that definitely knows better! I bumped into this guy my line manager in my local area last week and we went for a cup of tea. He talked! I listened and tried to get a word in edgeways now and then. Basically he isn't that happy in the job, he's stressed and by God it shows! So I have to say that that also unsettled and demotivated me.

So the week wore on and I felt a bit stressed and disenchanted with the whole volunteering scenario. However I knew I could not give up on it, I need to get stuck into something that will help my job prospects. On Thursday I plodded wearily to the volunteer centre to do my boring work (phoning our organisations to ask them for flyers/leaflets, well at least it wasn't the database). My line manager wasn't there as he was at a meeting (hadn't even told me). The volunteer coordinator was though (I get on quite well with her) and I'd told her all about the MIND thing. She said 'Tulip are looking for someone'...they are another mental health organisation in the borough, really, the only other one they've got on their books and not one I've had a lot to do with as a client. 'Shall I phone them for you?' That's her job, you see.

I had a brief chat on the phone to one of the administrators and arranged to go in the next day. Eureka! He and the very nice (somewhat pregnant) lady who does most of the HR work both interviewed me. They were everything that MIND wasn't! Very volunteer-aware. She will be meeting with me regularly, proper supervision. I've got my own desk, will be answering calls and transferring them and my own computer. Quite a bit of reception-type work. No contact with service users (I'm OK with that). A variety of admin tasks and they can adapt the role to suit me (so some higher-level stuff). It's a really pleasant friendly office, they get good feedback from their volunteers and it's really local, I can walk there in fifteen minutes or so. They want me for three days if I can manage that, but can be flexible. HOORAH! So in the space of a week things have turned around. As we say in the 12-Step Fellowships, 'these are high-class problems!', in any case. A few years ago I would have given my eye-teeth to be worrying about work! Except that I don't have any eye-teeth, they were taken out because my mouth was overcrowded!

Enough! All is well and this weekend Richard and I are driving down to see my Mum. Weather is unseasonally gorgeous. We're also set to see Jasper on Thursday. And I go on retreat on Friday. I will start at Tulip on Tuesday 26 February. Lots of love! Zoe.

Not a bad week...

...bit of a mixed bag really. The failure of the two E's, Emilia and Expert Patients, to float my boat has focused my mind in a way. More than ever I feel sure that I really have to go for the work thing. All other considerations aside getting and keeping a job is simply one of the most conclusive ways I can prove to myself and everyone else that I am capable, competent, and fully viable. As I've become weller (is that a word? no says my spellchecker) I become more and more interested in work for work's sake. I enjoy the way it can absorb you, soak up your energies, distract you when you need distracting. It also binds you to others and to the wider society.

I know that I can contribute more than adequately in the workplace. My voluntary work confirms me in that. However it probably won't be an easy or straightforward path into a suitable job, one that really is appropriate and commensurate with my abilities, and where I can fulfil at least some of my potential. That's why I am getting as much support as I can. Life is exciting...more than ever so. But pretty scary too sometimes.

I heard that the lowest point of the average person's life comes around age 44. No way is that true for me. I struggled so much in my earlier years...a lot of my twenties were pure hell and the thirties not much better. It seems that many people look back at their youth with nostalgia, feeling they have lost something. For sure I guess it's nice to have smooth, taut skin and be able to eat whatever you like and not get fat. For me the appeal of youth kind of ends there. I was the most godawful mess, a walking disaster area I'm afraid.

At some stage in this blog I need to write something about my history. The history of my 'manic depression'. Only by putting the present in the context of the past can I really explain just how miraculous it is. There are lots of us out there and it's important to speak out for the sake of all the others who need just this kind of hope. Recovery from major mental illness(I ain't just talking the odd bout of depression either!) totally IS possible, I have done it, am doing it, the quality of my life now is FANTASTIC, WONDERFUL.

Beliefs that bipolar and other diagnoses are basically life sentences are inaccurate if not just plain wrong and too often become a self-fulfilling prophecy. What I say to any truth-seeking person is, just dare to think outside the box. Study yourself, allow yourself to be drawn into the endless fascination of YOU! You are so much more than some dodgy label! Doctors simply have no authority to tell you what you will or won't amount to in life! That is between you and your higher power...don't ever be tempted to hand your sacred power over to some bloody medic! Like your plumber and your postman, doctors have their place. Advising you how to live your life is not, so far as I'm aware, in their remit.

Oops, been having a soapbox moment. Take care of your dear selves! Love, Zoe.

All is well...

In the last couple of days I tried the Emilia Project and the Expert Patients Programme. I realised that neither of them were for me. The Emilia was particularly disappointing because I really expected more from it. Basically it was just another special 'service users' course. I had an excruciating afternoon supposedly discovering something called the 'strengths approach'. Felt very tense and frustrated all afternoon, unable to really contribute anything meaningful because, to me, the class itself had no meaning! Though having said that I guess I discovered something quite important. That I really have no need of being hived off into a 'service users' ghetto in order to be 'empowered'. The exact opposite of empowerment is what that does for me.

The teacher/trainer's approach to 'strengths' was to pussyfoot around us all. 'If you don't feel you can say anything at all, that's fine'. Etc etc. Then we were sat around in groups in order to help each other list our strengths. When the professor came around, asking us how we were getting on, I had to tell him the truth, but ended up feeling characterised as awkward rather than understood. Well, he did ask! I noticed that others, after some initial reluctance, did seem to get into it more as time went on. But not me. If this would ever have been any use to me, it might have been about fifteen years ago, when I was first diagnosed and at my worst, with the condition. It was bloody rehabilitation! Which I do not need!

I did strike up some camaraderie and shared subversive humour with some of the others. But I knew I wasn't going to be going back. It was even more awkward because one of the trainer/teachers was someone I knew well and was friendly with.

So then today it was the Expert Patients, a self-management programme that originated in the States and is now over here. I had reservations about it but was withholding judgment until I tried it. After the Emilia debacle yesterday I was dreading a kind of repeat performance. Well it wasn't the same thing at all, but for me it was equally useless. I have already written the letter to the administrator of the Programme explaining why I don't want to pursue it any further. It so wasn't me. Picture this, gentle reader! The facilitator tells us 'do as your doctor says and take your medication'. I kid you not! And I'm thinking, dream on, honey. I'm outta here! The thing is, the title really does say it all. But I ain't anyone's patient! Expert or otherwise!

So. perhaps, in their way, a couple of productive days. Discovering what I in no way, shape or form, am interested in doing! Back to the drawing board, back to looking for a job I guess. The Emilia was supposed to be helping us with that but it's pitched at such a low level it would be more of a hindrance. What I do know is, I am not ill any more. I am confident, capable and competent. I'm flexible, a great learner and have good skills which I'm building on all the time. I'm ready to work!

I think I may try working one day at the library (voluntary), one day at MIND and one day at HAVCO. That way I won't get bored and may get some insight into which I prefer. Well, we'll see. Take care all! Love, Zoe.