Inside my head

Inside my head I am a mess, feeling completely absorbed by stress. Like there is no escape.While outwardly I smile; laugh; say all the right things, inwardly I am screaming for someone to help me please. 

With no idea how to cope or even how to let go, I find I want to scream and cry and let this all out. Yet something inside my head is saying "no you cannot show that level of vulnerability", telling me I cannot cry, I cannot scream I cannot allow myself to be out of control. I cannot allow myself to let it flow out. 

Every day I wake up wondering whether this will ever change but surely there must be an answer? Something deep within. A reason I am like this, a reason it can be over come. How do I find this though? What do I do?

So many seem to think I make this out to be worse than it is, when they see me out and about they assume I must be fine. They do not see the struggle inside, the voice in my head screaming that I cannot do this. The adrenaline, telling me to run. The amount I have to push myself just to get out of the door. Sometimes I want to stop pushing myself so hard, I want to just let it be, but I know I cannot do that, as I do not want to end up a prisoner in my own flat. I have to push myself, I have to try and go out.

Some days I manage to control the fear, instead of the fear controlling me. I work hard to make sure no one can see that right in that moment I am having a panic attack. This does not mean I do not struggle, I do not fight and I simply just make it out worse than it is, it means I have become good at hiding what is reallly going on in my head at that moment in time.

Yet no matter how hard I try, how much I push myself, no matter what I do, I just cannot seem to get past this wall, that in there standing between me and getting better. I try to break it down, I try to keep on going, but still it stays knocking me back at every attempt.

I sometimes wonder how much more I can take? Whether I can continue to fight and to be. Yet I know I have to fight, I know I have to be. I want to live, just not with this pain and fear. I want to be free of it, I want to be okay.

I wish my life were a little simpler and not so hard to get through and just be.

I'm done

So I went to the doctors today to discuss a few issues I am having. As I don't get to see my Psychiatrist again until February. I found out that I actually have received a diagnosis of OCD (obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), Anxiety and Depression. Which I knew that he said I had obsessional thinking but I did not know I had actually received a diagnosis of OCD.

Anyway I have also found out that they are referring me back to IAPT, which basically means another few rounds of CBT. No matter how many times they give me CBT it will not make a difference to my life. There will be no change. I will still have these issues and if I deal with some of the symptoms then guess what? New symptoms pop up any how. Not that anyone has ever listened when I have said that.

Basically in this area, unless you are bad enough to be in a hospital or have been in hospital for mental health issues, the treatment you can receive is CBT or medication and screwe you if it doesn't work, because that is all you will ever have access to.

For a while there I started to think things were working out. I was going to get treatment. I was going to work at-with support-getting better. Turns out no matter what happens that is not going to happen. So I have decided I give up.

I have been ill for 9 years now, at least 6 of those years I have been fighting for treatment, to no avail. So you know what? I am done! I am too tired to keep fighting this. I accept that this is my life. I can't fight that any more, It won't make a difference. I am done! I give up!

fear

y'know I have been scared of just about everything for around 9 years now. So I started to wonder what it is that scares me most.

The first thing that scares me most is the fear I have of being like this forever. The fear I feel about never being able to work. Or never being able to go out of the house without feeling anxious. Never being able to feel relaxed and at ease without going into a panic attack. Never having friends over without constantly feeling on edge. Never being able to go and visit a friend without questioning it at every step and worrying about it the night before. Never being able to go about a days business without feeling stressed out and scared. this terrifies me. This is not how I want to live the rest of my life. I want to wake up and feel okay to go out and work and all of those things that I can't do right now.

However the other thing that scares the hell out of me is, and this will sound stupid, getting better. It terrifies me. This is not something that I have ever admitted to anyone, even myself. As it makes it sound as though I don't want to get better, but I really do. It is just the fear of who I am without the anxiety. When I moved to Spain I learnt who I was, I learnt what I believed in. I begun to behave like me without worrying about how other people perceived me. I grew into an adult. I became me.

Whilst finding out who I was though, I had anxiety. Meaning the anxiety became part of me, without me even realising. It is the thing that stops me doing things. It is the thing that controls my behaviour and part of me wonders who I will be without it. Will I suddenly start drinking? Will I suddenly start partying every night away? If I only have a little fear about something, I will normally follow it through, I have become used to that fear. I do not let a little fear control me. I need to feel extreme anxiety to stop me doing something. My fear is, without the extreme anxiety, I will get myself into all sorts of stupid situations. that scares the hell out of me.

So at the same time as fearing being like this for the rest of my life. I also fear not being like this for the rest of my life, to the same degree.

Trapped

I know I have spoken about my anxiety before and I am sure people get bored of hearing it. I get bored of saying it too, believe me! Any time anyone asks me to go anywhere, I instantly become filled with a sense of fear. This would mean being around people and going out of the house. Both of these things I find difficult. When I feel I just can't do it, which is rather often, I find that now instead of just saying I am anxious-I come up with stupid excuses, which I am sure people don't believe (and if any of them read my blog, will now know to be untrue) as I am fed up with saying, sorry I feel too anxious. I am sure people find that to be an excuse half the time. So I just make some stuff up. Meaning a lot of the people I know probably feel I am just not interested in being their friend, which just isn't the case.

I love to be sociable but I hate it at the same time. I want to have friends over, I want to go out and enjoy myself. I love to sit and chat or go for walks or anything really that means I am around other people. I love to be around other people. I really do! I just can't do it. I don't remember a single time in recent years that I have been in a social situation and not felt anxious, unless I have taken a Valium (I sometimes get them from the doctor, not often though) to make me relaxed but then I am extremely relaxed. People can't tell that I am feeling anxious, hell people can't even tell I am having a panic attack anymore. Well depending on the severity of the panic attack!

It is like I have a constant internal dilemma going on as I want to do these things I just can't. It seems to affect every aspect of my life and no matter how hard I try I just can't seem to get passed it. A lot of people think I don't try at all but for me, going out of the house for even five minutes presents a challenge. I remember one person telling me I needed to "get out of my comfort zone" which I do every day. My comfort zone is laying in bed and staying there! This is not what I do on a daily basis though. I do not feel comfortable getting out of bed, I do not feel comfortable when I have people over, I do not feel comfortable when I go to the shops. I just don't feel comfortable. I feel anxious and scared most of the time.

I have recently been given anti depressants to try and I have tried them. I found however that they made me drowsey and anxious at the same. I could hardly keep my eyes open but also had no chance of getting any sleep because I was constantly scared that I was going to die. Then when night time came and I decided to go and get some sleep-the anxiety had worn off by now-but then I still couldn't sleep. I was awake till well gone 7am! This was not ideal as I had a lot going on and had no time for no sleep. It was like the day from hell only worse. My only escape from anxiety is sleeping. Whether that be napping in the day or sleeping at night. Yet this didn't just take one away from me it took both! I had an entire night and day feeling anxious. No sleep and completely drowsy. The next day I found I felt depressed and sluggish. I was sure this was down to the lack of sleep, which I did manage to catch up on, but then I still felt depressed after that. I don't see how the hell I will get through two weeks of that, and then maybe feel better. The thought of trying to take them again fills me with terror.

I get so angry at myself for this, because there is a chance that if I could just get through the first 2-3 weeks of anti depressants making me feel worse than I already do, there is a chance I would feel better. However I can't seem to do that. I feel trapped by my own mind. I want to feel like me again, without all these constant extreme feelings. Just be myself and not constantly worry about what everyone thinks of me, or what I am saying, or how I am saying it.  To be able to just sit and have a conversation without a million things running through my mind, from whether I am going to die or not, to whether what I just said is being perceived as stupid.

The best part of all of this is, when I am not anxious I worry about why I am not anxious. What is happening that means I am not anxious. Anxiety has become such a big part of my life. I completely see that everything happens for a reason and I know without my anxiety the chances that I would ever have graduated university are stupidly slim! So I can see why I have suffered with it, yet it all seems like it has become too much now and I fear that for me there is no way out.

positivity?

Things in my life seem to be going pretty well right now. I have managed to get through to see a psychiatrist after years of fighting for something other than CBT; I have been found as unfit for work, giving me the time and space I need to get better; I have been housed in a flat in an area I kind of know. Basically things in my life seem to be going in the right direction. This should make me happy right? I should be sitting here feeling positive and excited right?

For some reason however, I feel the positive feelings for maybe an hour or so and then I am back to feeling anxious or depressed. I sit and try and force myself to see the good in my life and I honestly do know there is a lot of good in my life right now. It doesn't change this feeling of wanting to run and hide and not come out again for a very long time.

I know people must be tired of me going on, when everything in my life seems to be going the way I need it to and yet I still am not happy. I can really understand why that may annoy people/ I don't want to see anyone for this reason. I can keep the fake positivity online (apart from this blog post :P) but in person I am finding it increasingly difficult to do that. I know that I have good friends in my life and I am lucky for that but one day the way I am will push every last one of them away and so now I just avoid people-that way when I do see them I can do everything possible to appear positive and happy. Then maybe I won't lose them.

One day I plan on really feeling and being positive, right now I'm just working on getting out of bed and appearing as somewhat happy.

Dear Teachers at Walderslade Girls School

Dear Teachers at Walderslade Girls School,

I am writing to you as a formal pupil of yours. I left the school in 2002 and therefore you probably won't remember me but I remember alot about my days at that school. One thing that sticks strongly in my mind is the fact that not only did you dislike me but you made it known to me.

 Every day at that school I felt as though I was worth nothing-you helped to make me feel that way, with the exception of maybe three teacher: Mrs. Stock, Mathematics; Mrs. Gillingham, French & Mrs. Ford, R.E. These are the only teacher I remember ever actually having any kind word to say to me. To those Teachers I apologise A) if I spelt your name wrong and B) for always messing about in your classes and not listening when you told me I was not meeting my full potential.

I clearly remember one teacher singling me out of the entire class for stealing a patractor (what anyone would want with a protractor I am not sure??) and making stay behind after class to search my bag, where guess what? There was no protractor! I have no idea why it was only me that was picked out, but I think that is how I was seen by many of the teachers in that school. Someone who was out to cause trouble, right down to stealing a protractor! I was humiliated and made to feel like a thief, yet when the search came up empty, did the teacher apologise? No. What did that do instead? Insist that I must have stolen it and I just hid it in a good place. Even the proof that I did not have it on me was not enough, it MUST have been me.

No matter what I did I was seen as the worst pupil to attend the school. Why? Because I wasn't bright? Because I caused trouble in English in year 7? I will admit to causing trouble then. That is my fault and I chose to do that. Yet I weren't like that in other classes, but I was soon branded a trouble maker. Which in that class I was. Why that had to be spread into every other class though, I do not know.

I also remember one teacher telling me I would never make anything of myself and will work in a factory when I grow up. I was told I was not bright enough to pass my GCSEs and made to feel as though this was the truth. I honestly believed I was just stupid and had no way of making anything of myself.

I was told I definitely did not have dyslexia and my reading and writing age were fine. When I went to college at mid kent though, it was discovered that my reading age was well below avarage and I needed extra time in exams. Further to this it was later discovered that I do in fact have dyslexia.

I eventually gave up on college and moved country, I didn't believe in education anyway, or myself for that matter, so not going to college didn't seem like a big deal to me. Then however I came back to the UK and started college where I now live. Make no mistake my behaviour still stank, my attitude stank and I am almost certain during this time, my tutors hated me. Did they let that be known to me though? No! Not once did those teachers treat me any differently. In fact they took time out to try and understand why I was the way I was and they pushed me to do better. One teacher in particular gave me so much support and understanding that I managed to complete the Access to Higher Education course at South Cheshire College! Which got me into university. That's right, the person you thought would make nothing of herself got into university. Wait though because it gets so much better.

I went onto university an again had a very lovely teacher who was always happy to listen and help. Just like my access tutor and do you know what that did for me? Made me feel safe enough to go to her and explain that I was struggling. I had tutors who believed in me! Tutors who actually liked me!! Didn't tell me I was going to amount to nothing. Actually encouraged me to do well! Wow, what a novel idea!

Thanks to having tutors that actually wanted to help their students and wanted to see them pass, I graduated from university this year with a second class: first division honours degree in Psychology and counselling. (See told you it got so much better). So how is that for amounting to nothing?

Dissertation? Completed without a hitch! (I wish)

Well I have finially finished my dissertation only 9/10 months after I first began it and let me tell you, it has not been an easy ride. It has been a roller coaster, first with the ethics, then with the collection of data and finally with actually completing the report.

I remember in my first year thinking " I really don't thik I will ever be able to complete a dissertation." Right from day dot, my dissertation worried me, as I knew it would be a massive task, and now one I ever really believed would be possible from me.

I wanted to do something that would interest me, so that I would be interested enough to do the reading that needed to be completed in order to get it done. Yet even though it interested me massivly, I did not really find it all that interesting when it came to the amount of work that needed to go into it. I thought it would be a lot of work, but this much work? Nope I had no idea!

I have spent months trying to get it sorted, lets start with the ethics form. Which for me was pretty simple, as it was a qaulitative study, the ethics didn't seem as difficult as it was for those doing a quantitative one. I got that sorted once I put my mind to it, then came time to collect the participants! I thought this would be relitively easy, being as I only needed 6! I felt pretty lucky compared to those doing quantitative, who needed sometimes up to 100 participants.

However, collecting my participants turned out to be harder than I first thought it would be. As not many people were too thrilled with the idea of doing a half hour intereview plus, surprisingly, many people did not meet the criteria for my study, which was a shame. I interviewed my first participant back in November 2011, when I realised my questions did not gain enough information from people. So to be honest I started to panic a little, as I thought I had to resubmit my ethics and then wait for that to be approved. This was luckily not the case!

I had to rethink my questions though, as the first set of questions only gained ten minutes worth of answers and I knew this was not long enough. I needed between 20-30 minutes worth. So I went back to the drawing board and thought about what exactly it was, I was trying to find out. So I looked again at some of the misconcetions surrounding self-harm and developed more questions based on this. Now though, there was a problem, we had hit Christmas holidays. Everyone will have gone home, so I had to wait until after Christmas to be able to continue the intrviews. My project schedual at this point had gone out of the window!

I spent Christmas working on my other essays, as I thought I needed to pay some attention to those, if I want a good grade, my project was not the only thing I had going on! My second interview wasn't until february but this one gave me 22 minutes. This ade me so happy. So I continued to intrview people and I interviewed a further 7 partciants, yet three of the participants had to be excluded from the data set, as they were only 10-15 minutes long. I knew this time it was not the questions though, as I had enough from other people.

However, this did mean I only had 5 interviews that were useable all in all. So I went and spoke to my tutor, to see whether I still needed to interview more, as we were gettng close to the deadline for the draft to be in. She said as long as I felt I had enough data to work with, it should be okay. So that was a relief I must admit. Now we come to the hard bit-working with the data.

The reason I chose a qualitative study over a quantitative one, is because I hate numbers! Seriously despise them! So to me doing a qualitative study seemed to be the lesser of two evils. You see with quantitative, you have to use SPSS and all sorts, and the thought of that made me want to cry! I had only ever done one qualitative though, and I didn't do overly great on it. Yet I knew where it was I had gone wrong and decided that I would prefer that, over the other.

To start with, with the data, I had to transcribe it, talk about mind numbing boredem when doing that. Just listen, pause and type. Each one took me at least 4 hours to complete. Meaing I had spent twenty hours with my data, before I even began to analyse it, and that is not ncluding all the time I spent trying to get people to take part, things going wrong when people agreed and actually carrying out th interviews. By this oint, I had already had enough of my project, I hated it and didn't think it was any good. So I was definitely lot looking forward to my write up.

he analysing I thought would be pretty simple, choose some extracts, and write about them, sounds simple enough, right? Wrong! First you have to read the transcripts about 4-5 times just to make sure you know your data, before you start deciding what can be used and what needs to be left out. So then you need to look at what is happening in the data, what looks good, what looks like it is similar or contrasting to what other participants have said. Once you have done that, it is time to start deciding which extracts can be used within your study and why they can be used.

I had so had enough of the things my participants had said at this point (Sorry to any of you reading this, it was not what you said, just the amount if time I had spent reading it! lol) as i knew the interviews inside out, but this did not seem to make the process any easier, I still had to sit for hours deciding what can be used and what needs to be left out. So then I started to put all the things that were similar and contrasting together, to see what those sub-themes could be named and how these fit together as main themes. I hadn't even started talking about what the participants had said yet, and naming the sub-themes was much more difficult than I thought it would be, as I just kept thinking of the questions I had asked. So in the end my friend took a look for me and helped me come up with more sufficiant names. Then I had to group these together into main theme. That bit was pretty simple to be honest, so didn't stress me out too much!

The time it took however, to write up what they had said, felt like an eternity. I think all in all, that part took me well over a week, with a little panic inbetween, where I believed I had lost over 1,000 words that I had typed up the night before, but my friends boyfriend helped me sort that one! (Where would I be now without these people? lol).

Whilst doing all of these other things I had been reading up about self harm and taking down notes about what would be good in my study. I had also started writing up the introduction, but it was most definitely in its early stages, didn't even have sub-headings at first! So once I had finished the analysis, I had to get down to it with the rest of the write up, which felt like it took forever too. I remember when we first started our projects, they said "8,000, sounds like a lot of words but trust me, you will want more". I could not imagine wanting more than 8,000 words, that is of course until I was writing it up, but the time I got to the discussion, I only had about 300 words left to spare!! I hadn't even done an abstract either. Now I really wanted to cry, I did what I could though and got 200 words over the word count, which obviously was too much! We're allowed only under 1% over otherwise we drop a grade point. My discussion also looked pretty crap at this point, as I only had two studies in it and not a whole lot else!

Then my tutor told me to change my results section, so that it didn't have so much in it and it was easier to follow. To be honest, this annoyed the hell out of me. I LOVED my results section and felt it was the best part of the study, so I spent two days throwing a tiny little trantrum to myself, where I told myself I was not going to change the results section as it did not need changing! Then I realised I am an adult and therefore have to act like one, even if I do want to act like a little child! So I set about changing my results and aking words out of it. I thought this would take a lot longer than it did however, as it only took around 3 hours to complete it! it also gave me an extra 800 words to work with, so I got back to work on my discussion!

Now the hard thing about my study was, it had never really been done before. There is very little data out there on public stigma towards people who self harm. So I was a little stressed trying to get things to relate to my study, but knew if I worded it right, I would manage it. I did at this point however, wish I had done a different study that I may be able to find more research on, but then I don't think it would be as interesting. Well to others the one I have done now, may not be interesting, but I found it to be lol. Wat I had to do is somehow relate the findings of studies of A & E staff to that of mine. Which was hard as they're not really the same thing, but it still seemed to mash together somehow!!

So finally I was well on y way, the worst thing was the niggly parts that had to be changed. Such as changing the words self harm to self-harm and then changing Self-harm to self-harm. This seems pretty easy but when you have used a word over 300 times, it gets tedious to go through and continually change every single one of them.

And then came the day to get it printed and binded. Now the printing side of it sounds pretty simple right? Again wrong! I printed out three copies, which lets just say cost quite a bit. Only as they were printing I realised some pages were a yellow colour and some pages were crisp white. This is not something I could have. If it were just an essay, I would have accepted it, but NOT on my dissertation! Not a chance! I seriously felt like crying at this point, as I just could not handle how crappy it woud look. So my friend, Lucy told me to go and tell the library staff, who kindly refuded my money and ensured the next printer I went on, had all white paper.

Then to print the pages that needed to be in colour. This is another thing I thought would be simple, expensive but simple. I was again wrong. The first lot printed out double sided. So I had to print them again!! This time I made sure they were one sided. Then headed over to start binding them. I honestly just wanted to cry at this point, nothing felt like it was going right.

The binding I knew wouldn't be simple but with two of us, it made it a little easier, probably halved the time it took me to do it!  Only one small snag, the second document I started to do, I then realised I had been putting them on the binder backwards, so the whole project was mixed up, I was right at the end of that one when I realised, so had to take it all off!! Then I started to do it again, when we realised I had punched the holes in two of the pages on the wrong side, so I sent Lucy off to re-print them. while i nicked those two pages from the third one that needed binding. Finally, after about two hours spent in the library I had all three printed and bound, so off we went to hand our projects in! I must admit, although it is a relief that it is handed in, I still feel a little sick about it, as I cannot change anything on it and now keep noticing small little things that are wrong with it. I need to stop looking at it!

All in all, this project has been the hardest piece of work I have ever had to do! However I showed myself I could do it and feel like I have achieved a hell of a lot a long the way! So YAY me!! lol

On the right is mine, on the left is Lucy's