Mental health update; trees consulting pebbles

[vaneramos]

From the haiku generator:

~

writing down the air
earth and water because we're
going to burn ourselves

~

trees consulting pebbles
and streams looking for meaning
in the storm grasping

~

It was a rough day: I had to go downtown to meet someone recommended to me by both the social workers who have interviewed me. I didn't want to go, spent some time pacing around the apartment. I had to pull the address out of my bag several times and check it before I absorbed where I was going. I felt useless, lonely and desperate.

My big fear is that Things Will Not Go Well, that I'll burn another bridge, so the world of opportunities will get smaller and smaller. It's irrational for me to avoid opportunities for fear of losing them, but this is in fact what I do.

The reason I had to go today, is that I have a second interview tomorrow with a social worker at the Community Mental Health Centre. Last time, he gave me homework; contacting this person was one of them.

It was also a good day, because the meeting went pretty well. Her name is Karen and she runs a peer support centre for people with mood disorders. Not only that, but she organizes a writers group. She's writing two novels.

She was pleasant and easy to talk to, a little scattered, so I felt right at home. Even so, I noticed partway through our conversation that I was twisting a band of paper around my fingers. A nervous habit.

I came home and fired all that anxious energy into tidying my office, went through two boxes of papers. I cleared enough floor space to vacuum. This wasn't just a matter of shifting things from room to room again. I actually threw out a large bag of papers, filed some others, and reduced the unsorted ones to a single box.

Comments

[ciddyguy.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you had a good meeting and congrats on the organization of your papers etc. I've gone through part of mine, and still have a bunch more to go through, and they keep piling up. :-)

Clutter is the best way to be a scatter brain, I know, my bedroom is not organized and nor is it a calming retreat at the moment.

But in the end, I bet you felt good for having done all that.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

A little clutter means the artist's mind is fertile, but too much and it's just like you say: not calming. The primary motive for this cleaning was to locate some paperwork I need to finish. But as a side benefit the place is more peaceful now.

[apel.livejournal.com]

What I'm reading is that you successfully overcame your fears and went where you needed to go. Then you used an anxiety displacement technique to deal with your fears during the visit. Then you came home and used the rest of the fear to energise yourself for another task that needed to be done. All in all, a very successful day. Even if it might not have felt that way at the time, it's the result that counts.

I'm pointing this out because I need this pointed out to myself sometimes. I have a tendency to think that if I'm a nervous wreck while doing something, the result somehow doesn't count. Very unrealistic expectations -- not only do I have to get results, I also have to do it in a stylish and unruffled way. "Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast."

[grandiva1968.livejournal.com]

*HUG*

It's a good week to look into mental health stuff, I think.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Your comment is, as usual, quite helpful. In fact it helps me identify my fear more clearly.

Within moments of meeting Karen I realized the interview could not fail. She reassured me immediately: "I'm bipolar. We're all in this together." Despite that I experienced frustrating anxiety symptoms during the encounter. Besides the paper twisting, I couldn't make eye contact when I was speaking, and worst of all I blanked out a couple times. She did the right thing: didn't interrupt, and waited for me to remember what I was saying so I could carry on. Which came easily enough, because I realized I didn't have to impress her.

Unfortunately there are many instances in which I need to impress people, and that's where I'm certain I'll fail.

The energy is interesting. I don't believe I'm bipolar, but I've noticed a polarity in my life between depression (when I have trouble motivating myself) and anxiety (which stimulates productivity). Danny remakred on it when he was here on the weekend; I was still charged as a result of the phone call from my ex-wife earlier last week, and was cooking and baking almost obsessively. Before I started taking the new antidepressants in June I never got enough sleep, so I could never sustain this energy level for more than a day without becoming exhausted.

I must find a good therapist who can help me explore this further, especially help direct this energy and insight toward changes I need to make.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Yes? I hope so. That's what this week seems to be about.