Things...they are not too good

So I wanted to make a post on Friday...and then Friday turned into Saturday. Saturday somehow became Monday and I have been wandering around the house for most of today wondering what to write. I know there is a post in there somewhere but I am not sure how to write this.

For as long as I can remember the closer Christmas draws, bad news whatever it may be will find me. I have to be very delicate in sharing this as I do not  want any ill- favor to fall the person that is involved.

About two months ago I was horribly, severely depressed...more suicidal than I have ever been. It was the first time I felt I had no choice. However part of me was either afraid of dying or didn't want to give up so I actually told my parents. My Dad told me well done for confessing but there was nothing he could do for me as he "had no money" and he then ignored me. My Mom reacted with as much love, compassion and fear as she has. She always does that, I didn't think anything would come of it but I scared her more then I thought and she called my godfather who offered to pay for a psychologist. She also called a lady that I have known since I was a baby who is a church counsellor.

To cut a long story short I have been seeing this psychologist for about two months. Two weeks ago her secertary e-mailed me the bill as she had failed to get in touch with my godfather ( he lives on a farm in the middle of nowhere and travels often). I was firstly hit with shock and guilt at the amount and then secondly began to really worry that....it hadn't been paid. Two more weeks went by, my therapist would briefly bring the bill up and I had no idea what to tell her. I soon found out though that the school fees of my twelve- year old cousin- which he also pays for- were seriously overdue. I made the decision then and there to tell my therapist the truth and stop therapy immediately until the bill had been paid.

I have just found out that my godfather's business partner has done him out of a lot of money and there has been an ongoing court case where his brother's grown up children are suing the family estate for another whole lot of money. Basically....the guy is strapped.

Now let me explain a few things...my godfather is actually my mother's first cousin- my second cousin. He is the patriarch of a giant family and ALL the family member with problems come running to either him or my mother. He helped my parents put my sister and I through a private school, fully paid for my last year of highschool at a private homeschool, helped me go overseas, paid some of my university fees. As I write this I want to cry because I feel so guilty....and thankful. He has given my parents money more times than I can remember. Right now he is supporting my loser aunt and her whole family by paying their rent. If I could count how much money that woman has manipulated him to give it would probably run into millions.

I am more than grateful that he has done this for me because it pulled me back from the brink.

But I am now left with a massive bill that neither me or my parents can pay. Money that is being set aside for me to go back to university is dwindling as it is. And it has sunk me even further into the mounting debt that I am struggling to pay off. Not only that, the stress and pure fear this has brought me is undoing all the hard work that I have done in the past weeks.

During the day my hands are full with teaching a six year old little girl to read and write and generally taking care of her. Although this has been exhausting it has been a blessing in disguise because it has kept my mind off my troubles. But at night, or whenever I get a chance to be alone, the terrible dread fills me. It is not just my debts although that's enough to cause sleepless nights, it's the fear that I won't be able to go back to university therefore not be able to go to Japan ( it may be a weird aspiration but it's an aspiration that means a whole lot to me). I want to live and extraordinary live and achieve the impossible- that feeling is the last shred I have of the old me, the me the died when I had my breakdown and I have been clinging onto it with both hands but it is slowly slipping away.

Most of all I want to get better or be in a place where I can managed this wretched illness that has plagued me for as long as I can remember. It has nearly killed me, it makes me want to die. I kept remembering what one of my church counsellors told me, that I have never known freedom. I remember that because he was right. How tragic and funny that the apple is always dangling beyond my reach.

I have been busy while writing this post. I have not seen my therapist in two weeks and my mother made an appointment for me tomorrow. This has made me feel very uncomfortable and quite frankly I don't feel like talking to anyone right now. While writing I have attempted to cancel my appointment only to be stopped by my mother. This has resulted in huge argument between me and my parents ( funny how my Dad always reappears when the arguing starts). I don't really know what to do, I am dreading the appointment tomorrow. Of course my Mom told my therapist that I have been sinking further and further into depression since I have seen her. I feel a reprimand coming my way.

If you have been reading this post, thank you for reading it until the end. I wrote this hoping that I could transport some of my fears from me into cyberspace, where hopefully it will disappear forever. Maybe it will work....

How dumb can you be?...oh earth PLEASE swallow me!!

Yeeeeah!!! SO confession time. And this is HARD!. And this post will be long- make some coffee!

This happened to me on Friday but I have honestly felt so stupid and so embarrassed and ( probably worried too) that it has taken me until today to finally pluck up the courage to share with you how I @#!%*** up!. Feel free to laugh because it is funny in some ways and feel free to be perplexed because and the other hand it made me realize how bad things are.

I had two appointments with Dr Shaw last week. One on Monday and one on Friday. This was all fine the week passed by quickly. I wrote in a post last week that I was struggling with some pain due to BIH and severe fatigue due to a combination of BIH and depression. So I was really out of it, the days seemed to run into one another. My mother was away concluding the sale of her business, my father was locked up in his office as always and my grandmother....well, you never go near my grandmother when you have a headache. I remember feeling relieved on "Wednesday" night, thankful that my appointment wasn't until the day after next.

BUT when my mom woke me up on Thursday I learned that....it was actually Friday. WTF? I was dumbfounded- what had happened to Thursday? Where had the week gone? HOW COULD IT BE FRIDAY?!!!. The most comical argument started between us ("no it isn't!"..."yes it is!"..."no it isn't!"..)  I had never been so confused in my life! What was worse is that my appointment was at 11:00...and it was 11:16 and a few seconds later my blackberry started ringing with Dr Shaws number on it. My mom told me to answer it,  I handed it to her and told her to answer it (cue next comical argument). Eventually I covered my head with my pillow and let it ring off. After much pleading with my mom she eventually went downstairs and phoned Dr. Shaw  to apologize and see if I could get a later appointment- yes I know I should have done this myself but I was to occupied with wanting to shoot myself.

In the end we couldn't get another appointment and Dr. Shaw landed up having a loooong conversation with my mom- who was mostly silent except for "hmm", "oh", "yes" and one "That's not good". And I knew that this was not going to go down very well. All my mom would tell me is that Dr. Shaw told her I was resisting and retreating.

When I got to the appointment yesterday (10 minutes late as usual). She opened the door for me and I knew that I was in for it. She told me she was very worried by what happened and gave me a stern talking to about what happened and that it showed her that I am not living in my life, that I am loosing touch with reality which meant that neither she or my church counsellors were helping me. The word "no" slipped out before I could stop myself. But then I told her that it wasn't anything that they were doing or weren't doing. It was actually me. I felt like crap! And I realised that I should have told her what I had written on this blog weeks ago when I first started therapy.

Basically I didn't have the strength to fight anymore, I was burnt out. I had gone so far down the road to suicide before I started therapy and had just taken a step back from it. Yet I feel to exhausted,  to crawl my way back along the road to recovery...yet again. There was also doubt about seeing Dr Shaw- originally my godfather hoped that six sessions would wrapped things up nicely. Both he and my mother hadn't realised that some people spend months....years in therapy before the are finally able to see some light. So there is always the threat that it will be discontinued....again- Dr Shaw is one of many psychologists that I have seen in my lifetime. And that threat really does affect how I feel about getting help and what I do with it. At first I felt I had to put everything I said in keywords to save time because I didn't know what session would be my last session. So I just haven't really taken it seriously yet.

I didn't have time to tell her all this (mostly because  we ran out of time). But the main topic of the whole session is what I could do to pull myself out of this- I didn't have a whole lot of ideas on that one, because I just don't know. But one thing that has been on my mind for a while is for me to start working  at a non- stressful job- to get me out of the house and in contact with people again. I entered the corporate world at 19 and worked my way up in London to a managerial position in human resources for a big company. I was working for a grocery distribution company in America when I had my breakdown. Since then I have been studying and doing menial jobs for my mother's company which she has now sold. Last year I was booked off any work because of my BIH and I decided to defer my studies this year because I was so ill.

So I have been out of the workforce for a while. I don't know if returning to work would be the wisest thing for a person who so very depressed. But if you spent one day in my house you would understand that it is probably the best thing to do. My house is a circus. I live with my mother, who has been supportive but is mostly unavailable because I am not her only problem. My grandmother who is 83 is in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's- a fall two months ago fractured her hip and she is now mostly bed ridden needing full time care- the energy she drains out of us all is the biggest problem we face. My Dad is bipolar but refuses treatment and also has heart disease. I need to get away!

One thing I worried about when I was talking about with Dr Shaw about getting a job is 1) my family needs me at home. However she pointed out that what was happening wasn't fair, I had been sick too and had mostly had to take care of myself. There is nothing more I can do for my grandmother. And if my sister and I constantly have to keep making sacrifices in the name of family issues we will never get anywhere, or have our own lives. 2) My family is very image conscious, they will really be concerned about what job I get and where and how it will "look" if someone I know sees me. I am thinking of a simple job in a coffee shop or something but if someone "sees" me the impression will be made that I have bombed out with life and the only success I could make was working in a coffee shop. I went to a well known private school and this makes it worse. Such are the petty circles we move in.

I've gone a little off topic. We also spoke about not letting my parent's attitude and words have any control over me, which is part of what I mention above. That will take a lot of work. Old habits will die hard...

Anyway I've got a huge amount of work to do and it all seems to be overwhelming. By Friday I have to come back to Dr. Shaw with a journal of how I am going to go about getting a job. She has also told me she will give me 15 minutes to be late before calling and rescheduling the appointment- which means a cancellation fee. This is more of a motivation to my mom who drives me to these appointments and has made me late nearly every single time. I guess you can call this a little wake up call even though I still feel like I am sitting in a heavy cloud.

Yesterday wasn't all that bad though, I went to my support group and it had a nice ending which I will post tomorrow.

Still feeling a little sheepish :/ and I'm STILL wondering where Thursday went.... :)

What a lovely afternoon

  It's late- most of my posts are written late just check the times they are posted. I am sitting here alone pondering, of all things, why some people are more accident- prone then others. Just got up a while ago only to knock over a 500ml cup full of water, on my way to get a mop I tripped over a chair in the dark, stubbing my toe- ouch!. Lastly on my way back, the door handle caught on my sleeve and snagged my jersey. This all happened in the space of two minutes. It kind of reminded me of one of those "Carrying on" shows. And maybe I shouldn't mention that one of my rabbits peed on my bed- I only discovered this AFTER I sat down.

On the other hand I had a great afternoon. Most of it was spent making my little cousins belly- laugh by acting like a dork. Sometimes I can't believe that they actually think the lame tricks I pull are funny- seriously I've had them rolling around the floor on occasions- but I love making them laugh. Now matter how depressed I am I can feel my spirits lift every time I hear their squeals

We then went to pick flowers in the park and ate gooey fudge. Watching the youngest one run around chasing a white butterfly was one of the best moments.

Spending time with them was one of the best things I could have done today. Right afterwards I had my 6th CBT session with Dr. Shaw. Today was the day that I had to painfully recount my breakdown in America. I was kind of dreading this session because it is so emotionally exhausting and talking about that time still hurts a great deal. But I walked in there after having spent the day laughing with my girls and I felt ready to take on the elephant in the room. It was still hard, but drawing from the strength of being loved unconditionally by two little people made it possible for me to cope. What an amazing effect people can have on each other- even when someone is too young even to realise it

x

 Gooey fudge!!

ANGRY AS HELL...oh and CBT session 2

My sister is home. Again. I'm not into people- bashing on this blog, it doesn't have any place here, but every time this girl comes home- which thankfully ( for me at least!) is not very often- it is a whirlwind of emotions and I was lying in bed and becoming more and more angry and frustrated that she is sleeping peacefully in the next room while I am seething. Plus it's Friday night...I'm home AGAIN and it's been the most awful day.

My sister is not a bad person- she works hard and is studying for her Masters- she left home at 18 and rarely asked for help from my parents or anyone. She is a good friend, caring to those less fortunate and is supportive of my parents- bosses them around!.

But as a sister she is crap. It's not like I haven't done stuff in the past to deserve it but she seems to be on some sort of relentless campaign. Every time she is home she reflects back the self- disgust, disrespect and anger that I feel towards myself. She knows all about my depression, breakdown, anxiety and being suicidal. But she thinks it's bullshit. I don't know how, but she has gotten into her head that I am doing it for attention. She has even implied that I FAKED my breakdown in America.

You may think this is a textbook case and you know the reasons why she is like this. But here is the kicker. Her flatmate and friend suffers from depression- she's not suicidal- but she's had her ups and downs with meds. My sister has been there for this girl every step of the way. Suffered through her mood swings, stayed up till the crack of dawn talking to her, cooked for her, did her washing etc, etc. My sister searched high and low for a support for this girl that they could go to together- this is after having scoffed at me going to a support group. And now for the real cherry- my sister applied to be a Sadag (South African depression & Anxiety Group) counsellor. Yes! she wants to COUNSEL people with depression and anxiety- some of them probably worse off than me.

I used to think the reason she was like this was because she didn't understand mental illness. That maybe it frightened her. But now I know that she is the way she is because of me, not my depression. On the upside I guess that is one less prejudiced person I have to deal with. How I am handling this is keeping her well away from me. Someone in the support group- the one she thought was so funny- said that I am not responsible for her forgiveness towards me. I have asked her to forgive me. I have tried to be her friend. Turned myself upside- down to make up for being such a brat as a kid. But I am done with it. And I can't be bothered to be around a person who's mission is to show me again and again that she doesn't respect me.

I had my second session of CBT today. For some reason it feels like a month and not a week since I last saw Dr Shaw. She didn't really do any CBT, we spoke about my current situation and then I started talking about my the events that lead up yo my breakdown in America, I got as far as my arrival in America. She gave me homework to write a list, no matter how outlandish, of things I want to do with my life. It was a very pleasant session, until the end, When she told me my godfather had agreed to pay for only six sessions. I really don't want to sound ungrateful- I am tremendously grateful for his kindness in trying to help me. But judging by the fact that we are already on session 2 and I haven't even gotten off talking about my past, I knew 6 sessions just wasn't going to cut it.

I immediately became so worried. I would not be able to afford this therapy by myself, which means going back to the state hospital six month waiting list (therapy there consists of going through a workbook and seeing a therapist once a month) There's no way I can ask my godfather for anymore, which leaves me right back where I started. And I just CANNOT go through this again, of starting with a therapist, going through the emotional trauma of having to bring up everything from my past and pick through it. It's just too painful and I'm to tired. So I've told my Mom to give the four remaining sessions to my cousin, who is a single mom of three girls and is about to "throw in the towel" - her words exactly. My Mom is adamant I should continue but I really don't see how or why.

The advice I have for anyone about to seek treatment,is to make sure there is the means to see it through until the end and that there is not threat of it being taken away from you. I think it's actually worse to start something and not finish it then to not start it at all.

My baby is on the way & CBT therapy session 1

In about six weeks,I'll be welcoming two new babies into the house. Surprise surprise I'm going to be a mother to two little balls of fluff- one a pale cream colour the other brown- sporting two long ears and a fluffy tale with a serious addiction to hay, carrots and pellets!



My mother saw an advert at the local shopping centre for dwarf rabbits. We went to see them the day before yesterday They were the size of my palm and very tempting to squeeze. I've always wanted a rabbit- my sister and I had bunnies when we were little. That lasted until our landlord's Jack Russell decided to have them for lunch- literally

One of the ideas that has kept up coming in my support group is that owning and loving a pet is very therapeutic for people with mental illness. I'm hoping to add a kitten to my fluffy family (it will learn to love the rabbits!)

On a different note yesterday was my first session of Cognitive behavioral therapy. I think my zombie- like behaviour at home had more of an effect on my mom than I thought- she phoned my support group counsellor who recommended a psychologist specializing in CBT and made an emergency appointment. Only after did she tell my godfather who agreed. I was bit surprised at their efficiency, they are so used to my moods by now that I had thought they might have gotten to the stage when nothing shocks them anymore.

The psyhcologist asked my mother to join us for the first session to shed some light on my childhood history and to teach her relaxation exercises to do with me. I immediately knew this was useless because a) I remember my childhood in most cases better than both my parents- this has been proved time and time again and b) my mom would never have the time or even remember the exercises she was supposed to do with me. So I started off the hour being really irritated at having to deliver yet another monologue about my childhood, teenage years blah blah, while I watched my mom's eyes glaze over at having to sit through the same old story yet again. I don't know if it is essential that a parent or partner be there for the first session but maybe it would be a better idea for the psychologist to schedule a separate appointment to full in the blanks.

The psychologist was a very nice, sweet lady- very positive. I was immediately aware of her enforcing the Cognitive behavioural therapy. She challenged ALL my thinking and took EVERYTHING I said and turned it around into the positive. E.g Me:"I feel like part of me died after my breakdown" (that's the best way I can describe it) Dr: "Do you really think that it is possible for part of you to die?". After describing each traumatic event she would be sympathetic and start rationalizing it. What I've told her is just the tip of a very, very large ice burg- I'm really going to be putting her to work- she ain't seen nothing yet!! :).

The session flew by, generally the sessions are supposed to have a time limit- I would think because it is bloody exhausting. Truly after an hour of her turning around everything I was saying, I was ready to scream, "Just let me feel sorry for myself dammit!" The big emphasis is on SELF- HELP, they give you homework to do!. My homework this week was to go for one walk a day and keep a diary of everything I saw. We have just moved to a house on another farm and- until I discover some more- there are only two walks- each about 5 minutes long. I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to journal about. On my walk today I saw a pigeon...then another one. I suddenly realised that an online author I am following had probably updated her story, so I ran all the way home (it is a VERY good story)...that was my walk.

Tomorrow I have my appointment with the church counsellor, who is praying for healing for me.So right now I'm seeing a state psychiatrist, going to a support group every two weeks, am on medication, seeing a church counsellor and finally have a proper psychologist. I have all the tools I need to help me get better. The rest is up to me.

And that's what I am afraid of. A month ago- even two weeks ago I would have the drive I needed but right now the-the selfish cow that I am- I just don't feel like I have the energy that I need to work towards healing. I was so tired sitting in that psychologist's office. I felt like a hundred years old being forced to walk down the same path again. I have always been eager when starting treatment- thinking that finally this will be a chance to get better. In the end either money would run out or the state health care would mess up putting a stop to all those treatments. It's like I'm cursed. How can I stop feeling this way?

I'm also having to really trust my godfather and my mother- who hold the financial and emotional keys to my treatment. You could say they are the matriarch and patriarch of a messed up family full of needs. As my Dad put it, "The loudest bark gets the most attention". This time it is my bark that got the attention, but there are other people in the family- some of them children- that are in desperate need as well. I feel guilty for the precious kids and angry that I am being lumped together with all the adults in our family who messed up and are now wanting charity.

It's past 2am and I need to attempt to go to sleep. I have no idea who is reading this blog. I know a lot of people aren't right now because I'm not exactly promoting it. But I have found that it is cathartic to write on here. And the possibly that someone may read this is a motivation to write :)