This Week in Mentalists (93)

Okay, after a little diversion yesterday, it’s now back to regular This Week in Mentalists…

Aethelred the Unread reminisces on his previous issues with alcohol.

The salient detail is that I was drinking a lot. As in really a lot. Over time, I started to drink more and more, mainly at home, and usually on my own. I managed to cut back significantly once I lost my job. A massive drop in income will always help with that, but it was also a conscious decision not to spend my money (i.e. your money, given that I was on benefits at this point) on booze. I would like to say that I noticed a great improvement in my mental health, but I didn’t. Actually I found anxiety, in particular, much harder to deal with, because I had been using alcohol as a way of coping with it. Life without my alcoholic crutch was really rather horrible for a long, long time.

In any case I persisted with my reduced alcohol intake for a good while. I would have a single beer with my dinner on a Friday night, and would have a few pints of lager when I went out on a Saturday night. (The switch to lager was deliberate – I don’t actually like the revolting, gassy stuff, so drinking less of it was quite easy.) I was still somewhat dependent on alcohol, however – I would have found socialising sober literally impossible. (This is part of the explanation for why I have stopped socialising of late.) In time, however, my alcohol intake started to creep back up again. I switched from beer back to wine on a Friday night. It was when I found myself picking up two bottles (for myself, for one night) that I decided that I was slipping back, and that I had to stop.

Fighting Monsters gives a positive review to a new Time To Change film challenging the stigma of mental illness.

Challenging some of the preconceptions that surround mental illness is certainly a positive as the preconceptions are invariably negative. I doubt there will be much measured effect but if it makes it easier for people to speak about mental illness and for the distress to be recognised, that can only be a good thing.

The BBC quotes a Yougov survey that indicates a third of people questioned thought that people suffering from schizophrenia were violent. It’s unsurprising and in some ways, I’m surprised it isn’t a higher figure.

The films will help I imagine, but the real stigma needs to be fought in some of the media reporting which tends to define people by their mental illnesses because it is an ‘easier’ explanation rather than display any kind of sensitivities or understanding of other factors that might come into play.

Mentally Interesting: The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive is contemplating therapy.

I still haven’t properly discussed therapy with my social worker (along with a lot of other things I haven’t done lately), but I will, because I think I need it. I was going to go to Brook and get counselling over the whole stuff in April (crying fits and rants about it all, combined with my tiny breakdown in May, give me the impression I might not be as okay about it as I thought- I didn’t go through it alone, it wasn’t just me, but it changed how I saw myself, my past, present, future, and not in a good way) but pure cowardice has stopped me.

I would like to get a bit more help with things than medication, though. I think I’m ready for all that stuff, finally, and I don’t want mentalism and emotional worries to carry on ruining my life and my relationships. I need a bit of help to get out of the paranoid, cyclical and obsessive thought patterns that make me miserable. Hooray. And I need to try to live more “in the moment” and to look to the future instead of the past because I want to be happy, I want to give things a go with Robert because he is lovely, and I just want to be able to feel hopeful about life, to be open, and to not be so scared. Because the moment can be quite wonderful and the world, beautiful. I very very much want to be happy and I often am because my life-mentalism aside, if you can imagine such a thing- is for the most part exciting and good right now. I have very little to complain about. Even if I’ll always have a mental illness, I need to get a handle on it and realise I am still living in the world. Which is what I’ve tried to do lately.

Marine Snow is is facing the return of her ghosts.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. After such a positive post about how I was going back to lay my ghosts, it seems my ghosts were none too impressed. I’ve fallen spectacularly to pieces. (Hypocrite Hypocrite, Liar! Liar!)

Going back, or at least the though of doing so, has been waiting in the wings, and whilst all the time, thinking I was fine about it. It seems very much that I am not. I started getting headaches a week ago, feeling exhausted, and thought, logically I was just unwell. Ignoring the constant “arghghghghgh!!!!” going on in the background. Then Wednesday night, I came home, and worked myself into a complete mess about going back to the hospital. Thursday I phoned in Sick, and have spent the past few days off work in flashback hell. Nightmares and daymares. Shaking mess.

When I think about the past couple of years of my life, it makes me feel like throwing up, and not in a self-inflicted-fingers-rummaging-down-throat kind of way. In an I-can’t-bear-it-please-pass-the-bread-knife-I-want-out-of-my-head kind of way.It’s like the appointment is now hanging over my head like a guillotine ready to fall. I lack the motivation to get out of bed again. I can’t stop bursting into tears. I can’t turn over without some random recollection accosting me, accusing me, slipping in coated in venom. Help me. Make it stop.

Becoming Hannah is recovering from a suicide attempt prompted by a reduction in venlafaxine.

After slumping in the chair at my GP appointment, my new Doc took one look at me and after agreeing that yes, I did look like shit, surrendered to the mighty strength of the anti-d. So I’m back on 375mg. Shitting bastard stuff.

There is a little more to this, the descent led to a very unpleasant night in A&E which I feel ashamed of, especially as it meant getting my brother and my mum involved to come and rescue me from alcohol gel hell. I’m angry that after seeing so much improvement in myself, I’ve once again fallen flat on my face, and as usual managed to drag a few family members and friends down with me. Sorry everyone (

OK, I just need to rant about the NHS a little now, as any visit into their sickening domain just seems to inspire more hatred for their incompetence and total lack of provisions and it’s not good to bottle up these feelings!
It’s not all bad though; I went from being treated with kindness and compassion by the paramedics to being treated like a pain in the arse piece of shit once we reached the hospital. It’s all a bit of a blur but on the way to A&E I remember thinking I had done the right thing calling for help, the paramedics really looked after me and were so kind and gentle, but then once in the hospital I was made to feel like a complete sodding nuisance. Big thanks go to those particular oh so helpful health service professionals for making me feel like my life is worth living, next time I’ll not bother you. Well, actually yes I hope I will, because it’s the right thing to do yada yada yada…

Made With Awesome discusses why people contemplating suicide might tell others about their plans.

So why might someone who is genuinely suicidal, someone who genuinely believes that suicide is there best option and has no ambivalence about going through with it, tell someone else about this even though that might prevent them from committing suicide?

* They might want to soften the blow to their loved ones. Even though the suicidal person knows that they will cause their loved one’s grief, they might try to mitigate that by warning them, explaining the deep extent of their suffering, or telling them that it isn’t their fault.
* Many people, generally, alleviate stress by talking about things. If the suicide is not immediate, the suicidal person may talk about his plan in order to alleviate stress between then and the time of their planned suicide.
* The suicidal person may confide in someone about their plans, someone who they think will be understanding and sympathetic to his situation, yet who will not try to get him hospitalized. The suicidal person may be wrong about their chosen confidant.
* I’m sure there are as many different reason for this as there are people who have done it.

I have also frequently heard people who tell someone else about their intent to commit suicide said to be “playing a game.” The first time I heard this I was already in the hospital and I was brusquely told, “this is not a place for playing games.” I was very confused. I understood that “playing a game” meant being manipulative by doing things like saying I am suicidal just to get sympathy or attention. But I wasn’t playing that game; I was genuinely seriously considering the merits of suicide. (Additionally, if you are going to lock up everyone who says they are suicidal while assuming that anyone who says they are suicidal is “playing a game,” how can you say the hospital is not a place for playing games? The hospital is the place for playing games because you have just rounded up all of the game players.) The idea that all patients who say they are suicidal do so in order to manipulate people is just plain mean.

My Medicated Cartoon Life continues on from a previous post about affirmations.

Zarathustra wrote in the comments, “Anyone who can be lifted out of their problems simply by repeating a feelgood proverb from a greetings card probably doesn’t have that bad a set of problems.” I agree. But that’s not to say they can’t help or be part of a process.

And Alex wrote, “Affirmations are about taking control of what you will concentrate on, because what you think about all the time is what you will get.” For me, I believe this is true to a large extent. Certainly, our thoughts can become very limiting and self-defeating. They can hold us back becoming a kind of self-fulfilling prophesy based on where we perceive our place in life is or what has happened to us in the past or in an attempt to retain an identity. Making conscious efforts to adjust that thought process or even simply to interrupt the negative voices seems to make a huge amount of sense to me and I guess affirmations can be a tool useful for some to achieve that.

But I believe for that to really work, there have to be a couple of conditions.

For a bit of light relief, Neuroskeptic explains psych drug acronyms.

SSRI – Sexual Stimulation Required Increased(*)
Also, Suicides? Suppress Report Immediately!(*)
Also, Stopped Suddenly – Regret Imminent?(*)

NRI – No Real Impact?(*)
Also, Nix Relevant Information(*)

NASSA (mirtazapine) – Never Again Slim; Sleep Alot.(*)
Also, Nighttime, And Strange Sights Abound(*)

TCA – The Classic Antidepressants(*)
Also, Toxicity – Cardiac Arrests(*)

ECT – Effective, Cheap Treatment(*)
Also Erases Childhood Thoughts?(*)

VNS – Very Nebulous Science(*)
Also, Very New Snakeoil?

fMRI – Future Marketable Research Initiative(*)