Saturday, 19 May 2012

Local Mind Services and Me

Written for the Mind website

Even before I moved back to Aberystwyth I was involved with the local Mind services here in a way. My mum, ever supportive and wanting to make sure I managed okay, went to the Drop-In and had a chat with one of the staff there about what they offer. In Aberystwyth they have the following services: Art classes on Monday and Tuesdays, Drop-In, where people can buy tea and coffee and a healthy lunch on Wednesdays and Fridays, and Yoga on Thursdays. As well staff you can make appointments with, and help with all sorts of problems.

At one point I was going to the local Mind everyday almost. Except Thursdays, I didn't do the yoga. I did everything else.

I didn't have any friends when I moved back, my support system was my mum who's arthritic and my sister who has two kids of her own to deal with. I had only just met my doctor and I was still in the process of getting support from the local NHS mental health services.

Going to the first drop-in was a terrifying experience, as well as Borderline Personality Disorder I suffer with anxiety, it's the one problem that really prevails, so going somewhere new, with new people was, well, terrifying. It took a while to convince me to go in fact, but then, I didn't really like leaving my flat either. I wasn't entirely looking forward to it, and wouldn't have gone if I hadn't promised my mum and GP.

But I was greeted at the door by a volunteer, and I bought a cup of tea and was introduced to some of the other service users and the staff, and it wasn't scary as I had thought it would. It was nice. And I ate my first healthy meal in about six weeks (I was living off pizza and whatever soups my mum brought over). I drank a lot of tea and chatted a little bit, then went back home.

I went to the drop-in once a week at first, Fridays, then decided to risk going to one of the art groups. I had really enjoyed the art part of art therapy and wanted to carry on with it, regardless of my lack of skill, and I went along. It's two hours long, costs a quid, and you get a cup of tea. I quickly found that it was as much a support group as it was an art group. But I could just sit quietly and draw or just sit and talk, either worked. I loved the art groups and went on both Mondays and Tuesdays, meeting different people each time, and eventually went to both drop-in days as well.

And instead of just being this hermit, I had a life again. I spoke to people everyday, which was hard for me even though I had been in a full-time therapy programme before I'd moved back to Wales. The volunteers understood me, helped me when I was really anxious or panicky. Some days I would go to drop-in still shaking from my morning panic attacks, some days I would bounce in hyper as anything and they accepted it all.

More importantly I made friends, people who I met during art, or during drop-in but became people I met up with outside of Mind, became part of my life even though now I don't even use the local services that much.

Now I'm too busy to go to Mind, but I still have the friends I met there. Because of the people I met at Mind I'm now back at university part-time, because of the confidence I got from going every week, from getting out of the house and talking to people almost every day, university really isn't the terrifying prospect it could've been. When I get married in July, the friends I met at Mind will be there with me.

And I know I can go back any time I need to, or want.

Tuesday, 15 May 2012

Untitled Poem

Hang me up by my bones,
my ragged skin held together
by pine needles
and I curl up
with thorns in my side.

Nudity is modesty and honesty,
but there's little dignity
with the stems and leaves
sprouting from my back.

Every organ becomes a part
of something else
separating me from my body
leaving my mind full of inconsistencies

r.l.w

(inspired by the images at the wretched hollow)

Saturday, 12 May 2012

Ill....again

Okay, I'm not this sick.
I'm fed up of being ill.

I had a cough that lasted two months, that I got rid of at some point during the four days I had a fever of 101 degrees (my fiancé has an American thermometer - but trust me that's not good). As well as this, I've had a few overnight fevers and now I have another cough and cold. All seemingly harmless in the long term but they're building up and it feels like they're never really gone.

The worst thing of this is that I'm actually living better, healthier.

Since meeting my fiancé I've been more active (she makes me walk places and up hills), and eating better. I was living off a diet of pizza, crisps and diet coke like any good hermit. Now I eat actual meals, vegetables, meat, full meals. Breakfast. I stopped eating breakfast everyday when I was about eight and my mum burnt the toast into a unrecognisable lump of carbon.

I wasn't one of those sickly children, in fact I'm somewhere in the middle. I wasn't really ill all the time, but I had my moments. Like I had whooping cough, measles, German measles and an inflamed gall bladder all in a roughly two years space. It's sort of like that now, I'm not so ill I need to be in hospital all the time, but I'm ill enough of the time that it really gets me down, or interferes with my life. I didn't have enough energy to go the florists Thursday, I've missed lectures, I'm miserable; I might as well be suffering with the severe depression again.

Anyway, this was more of a complaint than a blog post. I'm going to the doctor next week to try and see what's really going on.