WHATS BEEN HAPPENING

On Thursday the 3rd of December i was sitting at my figure painting desk at about half three/quarter to four. I suddenly felt a great overwhelming sense of utter despair and depression. Sort of like a great horrible wave of terror and a vast sadness. I also think i heard voices at the back of and behind my head telling me to kill my self and that the end of the world was rapidly approaching. This was accompanied by a sort of internal hallucination of a fire burning at the end or the curve of the earth. I had to stop what i was doing and lie down whilst wave after wave of fear and a complete feeling of being out of control of my brain and any of the thoughts within it fully took hold.

I suppose i should put this into some kind of context, at around the turn of the last millennium i was diagnosed with the mental disorder now known as ‘bipolar affective disorder’ or as i prefer to call it ‘Manic-deprssion’. I was in my early 20’s when this label was attached, but I had had previous episodes of this problem in my teens that had not been recognised. These earlier episodes seem to have been very strongly tied up with my excessive use of drugs including a heavy use of the drug LSD. I suppose looking back on those days i thought the madness i was experiencing were directly related to the drug use. However some where along the line i got together with possibly the greatest living girl who had the insight to see that my fear of the phones being tapped, the internet(yes even in 2000 we were fully online!) controlling my thoughts and me being followed and seeing/hearing things that weren’t there being more that just the side effects of a large spliff intake. I was very nearly sectioned at one point when a nasty incident occurred with a knife, but that's a different part of the story. Since then i have had a battle with bouts of both Mania and Depression and more often than not these to mind sets occurring at the same time.

When Vicky(the greatest living girl) got home that evening however i did feel a bit less horrendous and managed to keep the mask of non-insanity firmly in place, although it was one of general depression. That night i did actually fall straight asleep, but at around 2:15 a.m i half woke up an lay there for the remainder of the night hearing a growling, a voice in the room talking about the various methods of suicide and seeing visions of fires burning, and strange mutated devils.... not very nice.

Friday 4th and luckily Vicky had the day off work due to an appointment in the middle of the day. I did sleep for an hour or so and when i actually got out of bed the growlier had quietened. I was, though, pretty sure that the end of the world was only hours away. With some kind of odd (or possible not odd at all) twist of fate i had an appointment with the consultant I had previously seen, once. This was however at a hospital in Clapham, one i had not visited before. Vicky went out for her appointment before me and once alone i started to feel very hyper and worried about going out. What happened was first i left the house, got to the train station before i realised i had left the map/details for the appointment at home. Panicked i went home to get it and missed the train. Then the next train was delayed and i missed the connecting train. Even more panicked i ran from the station (Battersea) and spoke rather garbled nonsense to a mad at the station what i should do. He told me to get a bus. I got on the bus with twenty minutes to go. However the bus seemed to be going into a part of London i had never seen and so i got off it. I now realise how odd this was but i felt so impatient and, well, mad! I walked for about half an hour with gibbering in my head and a fear cloud engulfing my rational thoughts. I had no credit on my phone so could not call and for a while was to scared to get some credit, but i did and that tiny act alone calmed me enough to get a grip on the situation. I called the doctors receptionist and explained what had happened, she said she’d send out a letter. I then called Vicky and told her my tale of woe. I was now somewhere in Clapham, very close to a pub and a bus stop. I had convinced myself a drink would help calm my nerves, but i was also aware that Vicky would be in now way happy if i had a drink. I very very nearly went into that pub but a bus was suddenly there and i just got on it.

Now what you must understand is although the above passage seems innocuous enough, in my mind i had been prevented from seeing this doctor for some reason. None of what happened had been coincidence, it had all happened as some kind of plan. I worked this out as i walked home from the bus stop. I also decided not to tell Vicky this as it would indicate my mental state sliding into chaos. The strange nature of this thing is having an awareness that these thoughts are wrong, dangerous and the signs of sickness, but being unable to detach from them. I believe them even though they are mad. This is hard for me to understand, and probably hard for you to understand too.

My memory of the rest of that day seems blank. I remember feeling odd and fearful and very depressed.

I was hearing a voice telling me to kill myself and also telling me of the impending apocalypse but, by the evening i thought that possibly drink was the answer. A few beers. Then a bottle of wine. Then half a bottle of Vodka. Maybe this doesn’t sound much, or maybe it sounds like an awful lot. I have drunk much more without being mad, and much less and been completely insane. . I drank this amount of booze over many hours though the evening and for a while managed to ‘drown’ out the voices and drunkenly convince myself i was not having some kind of mental collapse, which is quite ironic, as the speed and amount i was drinking should have told me the opposite.

FURTHER BACKGROUND:

I have been pretty much been %100 well for over a year and a half. For the last, lets say two years, before that i’d been quite bad with depression and had been on a lot of drugs of the legal kind. Now these drugs have a lot of different names but Olanzapine (evil!) and Lithium(neutral) are the names i remember. Also diazepam(good) and the hideous sleeping pill Zopiclone, hideous because its side effect (for me anyway) is to make everything taste of a awful metallic rancidity. Now i am not adverse to taking these drugs and i do believe that Lithium is a fantastic mood stabiliser. I do however think that the powerful anti-phycotic drugs are prescribed for to quickly when often times a few bloody good nights sleep can be just as effective.

Sleep however becomes extremely elusive during a manic episode, and the sleeping drugs (Zopiclone etc.) endues a kind of sleep that is only partially helpful. The ‘calmers’(diazepam, clonazepam etc.) do ‘calm’ but leave the mind in a place where thoughts are really only have formed shadows and phantoms.

BACK TO THE PRESENT.

At some point late in the evening of the 4th of December 2009 i twittered a big load of bollocks, the tweets may or may not still be there. They are a combination of gibberish,anger and a call to people to listen to the tunes i was broadcasting. I have no memory of going to bed, but i awoke at around 3 a.m with a loud growling and voices, two voices, one my one which was not in my control and a second one in the room talking about the end of the world. Also i was still quite drunk. I saw a lump of raw metal dug up smelted, (or what ever it is they do) turned into a screw, used in a satellite sent into space and finally become a tiny piece of floating rubbish in space. these seemed very important.

Saturday 5th was utter hell as I'm pretty sure i lost my mind quite a bit. I lay in bed with nightmare on elm street that seemed to last six or seven hours.the voices and the growling were loud. The growling was in the house, in the walls!

That night i slept very well.No vision, no voices probably a solid eight hours. This i put down to utter exhaustion.

Sunday 6th, i spent lying on the settee watching things on dvd. I felt utterly depressed with a huge heavy weight of doom on me, however the voices were a lot quieter and the growling was more of a whimper.

Vicky was obviously extremely worried about me and i wasn’t being very good at alleviating that worry. I don’t remember too much detail but i do remember ‘Top Gear’ on the tv helping. I went to bed and slept till 3’ish. Awoken by vague whispers and again the fires on the curve of the earth. But i just lay there with rather less fear that previously.

Monday 7th. I laid in and Vicky took the day off. She was phoning the mental health people that are conveniently situated at the end of our road! Unluckily no appointments were free. I don’t remember much of this day either.

BACKGROUND

I have seem, over the years at least fifteen mental health professionals ranging from the moronic to the utterly inspiring. Over half fall into the first category. The biggest problem they have is a lack of time. Time to spent with the patient, time to make thought-intesive decisions, and time to consider the impact of there actions. This is not usually there fault and i do have sympathy and a large amount of respect for them. This said they can be arrogant,inconsistent and as bonkers as the people they ‘treat’.

Trust has always been an issue for me with these people. Both my parents suffer from mental health problems and growing up seeing them ‘treated’ by the ‘experts’ created in me a very understandable fear of the whole situation of mental illness.

The doctor that gave the name to my ‘condition’ was, it has to be said brilliant. Doctor Stevens at Winchester hospital had time, insight, and consistency. She went a long way in restoring my faith in the mental health services of this country. Winchester is not London though, and i expect the levels of the intensity of in Winchester ‘madness’ are very different from London. I mention this because i because if it weren’t for her I would have a lot less time and faith in any of the frazzled out pros I've seen in the metropolis. To begin with i was given prozac which actually pretty much put me in a very psychotic state. I do remember (so time in around 2000-2001) downloading and printing out hundreds of pages of information on subjects ranging from bomb making to the occult to diagrams of telephone exchanges. This information seemed vital to me surviving. Due to the fact that i was at art college and hashish and weed were more common that a good meal and every one else seemed a little mad (mad and stoned are interchangeable to a certain degree) i was accepted as just another ‘stoner’ by most people. Doctor Stevens was totally aware that i was smoking a lot of drugs, and although she was against it we had long semi-rational conversations about its merits/problems. I to this day believe tamazepam to be equally as counter productive as hashish, but that discussion os for another time.

I do not take drugs really at all anymore. They are a rare treat and i am very aware of their dangers. Alcohol on the other hand is an entirely different matter and i enjoy it regularly.

WHERE WERE WE?

Tuesday 8th. I had another good nights sleep but was still feeling all over the place with racing thoughts and odd feelings. I remember little detail now but do know that at 2pm i went to see the mental health people.

Two doctors (or one doctor and one nurse) and a student doctor/nurse. I was and still am confused as to exactly who two of them were. I spoke with these people for about 45 minutes. I spoke at them. I tried to fit in the whole of the past five days events into half an hour. This was not so easy and i found myself repeating myself, going off at random tangents and coming across as a kind of happy but angry scared sweating goof-ball. I told them about the demons i saw at some point that had hands with eyes in them. I said i wanted a magic stone exorcism because i’d seen it on True Blood and thought it might help me too!

General nutty shit like that. The doctor gave me a script for Clonazepam (which is a general calmer downer i believe) and sent me on my way. NOTE: i was told to take two 500-micrograms, this is half a milligram, three times a day. This is therefore 3 milligrams a day.

The rest of the day sort of blurred away into a Clonazepam haze. That night i slept but woke up but couldn’t move. This was not so unpleasant and i endured it. No voices or growling.

Wednesday 9th. I took two tablets first thing. I felt actually quite normal and decided to go out to Balham to do some shopping. They say getting exercise is good at improving mental health but sometimes walking along with only your own thoughts for company can be quite intense. The shopping went fine but at some point on the walk back from Balham across tooting common as the sunset on a eerie light day a switch went off in my head. I just suddenly felt very odd again. I got home but felt completely ill at ease in the house. The walls seemed to be closing in and outside it was dark and i wanted to keep walking. I called Vicky and told her i was feeling a bit odd an needed to walk a bit more.

I walked to the pub. I proceeded to get quite drunk. The Clonazepam mixed with the Alcohol made me go all extremely drunk very quickly. I managed to loss my mobile phone, get some mud on my face and draw a rather good picture of the queen mum eating cat food. I had thoughtfully taken with me a drawing pad and some pens, almost as if i knew i was out to try and document the events!

Anyway i got myself home Vicky was upset but more concerned than angry. I fell asleep on the sofa with fight club on. Later i woke up and stubbled to bed.

Thursday 10th. To be honest i remember little of this day. I remember thinking that i should feel more hung over than i did, but then remembering i didn’t actually drink that much as it was the combined effect of the drug and the drink that had got me so wobbly. So I'm afraid there is little to really report. No voices and only slight growling, although still a fear of some possible world ending/changing event. Tiger woods seemed to be on my mind a lot.

FURTHER NOTES ON THE FROM THE EDGE

The sliding rule of Manic-depression is a long one. You can be in so many different states within quite a short space of time. At least in my experience. Mania comes in may forms from rapid thoughts that don’t finish properly, paranoia, seemingly endless nervous energy and hearing voices. The last one is a pretty good indication of being ill. Is it however actual psychosis? Also can psychosis be there one day and gone the next, or does it really take months to cure? how rapid is the cycle of mania-depression? can both the manic and the depressive states exist at the same time? I don’t know the answers to the questions and i suspect a far few of the doctors and consultants i have seem couldn’t truthfully answer them either. It is my belief that taking a drug to counter act a chemical situation within the mind can do more harm than good. Would i have gone and got drunk on Wednesday had i not been in the fluffy dope haze of CLONAZEPAM (have a look at the side effects, particularly the second one!!)

Friday 11th. This was an infuriating day. Basically due to a admin error, although at the time it seems much more than just that. I had been given on the Tuesday, by the consultant/doctor/whatever which was to be at 10 a.m. I took two ‘calmers’ and 3 cups of coffee for breakfast and went down the road to my appointment. The place itself is basically hideous. you are buzzed in, they never speak to you on the intercom, just buzz you in. It is on the second floor so you go up a flight of stairs. At the bottom of this flight of stairs in a large bag of gritting salt. This has been there since the ‘big London snow day’. I think this is a general indication of the attitude of the place.

The waiting room was actually refurbished this summer. They managed to make it look worse, replacing the normal chairs with the kind of wipe-able things you see in old peoples homes and they took down all the pictures. And put up a 3ft by 2ft sign. The receptionist sit behind bullet proof glass and there are armed security guards....Okay, they don’t have armed guards but its a pretty intimidating place. No windows, no natural light...

So i go up to the glass screen and say i have an appointment at 10 a.m. They look a little confused and ask with who. I try and explain i do not remember the doctors name which doesn’t seem to go down to well. They ask my name and one at a computer at the other end of the room from the glass window looks me up.

“Yes, Philip you have an appointment on the 8th of January 2010”

Brilliant.

I reply,“well no, i came on Tuesday and they told me to come back at today at 10....”

before i have time to finish the woman at the actual counter now says

“No you do not have an appointment today at all” and something along the lines of “your not in the book”

by this time i begin to feel a bit angry and a bit panicked, is it some kind of joke? what’s going on here, why can’t these people be a bit nicer...

“take a seat and i’ll let you know what’s happening” says reception lady, curtly.

So i sit down for quarter of an hour. just waiting for the ‘news’. I make sure quarter of an hour has passed and i go back to the counter.

“oh yes, someone might be able to see you after 10:30.....” So i sort of launch into something along the lines of

“you said you would let me know what was happening and i sat there for quarter of an hour because you said you would let me know when you had any news. You obviously now have that news and yet you did not let me know, how long would i have had to sit there before you told me this...etc.”

At some point whilst i was saying this she picked up the phone and started making a phone call. I think i felt my blood pressure rise slightly at that point.I said something like “good grief what is this! you don’t have to be so rude, how is this in any way my fault”

I decided to leave at this point but as i was going a woman came out a side door and asked what the problem was, i explained, she looked baffled and a little concerned. I finished by saying

“basically it comes down to good manners. If the person on reception was a bit nicer, possibly even saying sorry for the problem, i would not feel so upset. I mean I only come here when I'm feeling a bit out of sorts as it is and good manners cost nothing.....” you feel me?

The upshot of this (and this is by now way the first time this has happened) was of me storming home with a panicky anger and a disbelief that the people who work in such a sensitive area should be so utterly insensitive. about an hour later i get a phone call from the actually doctor she says come back at 2pm.

Good job i only live five minutes from the place eh?

So i go back, its not worth recording here the events of that meeting other than to say that she seemed to think i was psychotic and need to go on a gradually increasing amount of drugs that will stop the psychosis. As i walk home i think to my self, i could have literally said anything to her, in there, and this would have been the up shot of the appointment. I have to say i did cry in there with her because i couldn’t believe she was telling me to take mind-fuck tablets worse than MDMA for the next six months to two fucking years because i had heard voices for a few days and been a little crazy!...... them’s the brakes.

That night i slept perfectly, no voices, no horrors, no dreams. The best type of sleep.

NOTES:

Is she right? Does she know best? i have spent no more than two hours in her company and she is deciding the next two years of my life will be a drug addled haze. I have been here before and it is not such a good place. For the last year and a bit I have been 95% mentally fit. I have enjoyed beer and wine throughout this time as a kind of relaxant like every body else does without any major problems. Now that enjoyment is banned. Worse though is the fact that the drug Olazapine(evil) is nasty. It turns your brain to mush and is linked to obesity, raised blood sugar, and actually shrinks the brains (within animal studies) by 14.6%. YIKES!

Saturday 12th. A truly wonderful day. I didn’t get the Olazapine so that nightmare was yet to start and i felt as well as i had before this whole thing had started. Vicky and i went out in the afternoon, she got her hair cut and i got some super bargain pc games for our ageing but still amazing laptop. I got the old classic driver which is fantastic, i love the way the cars move. also got age of rise of nations which i think will take some time to master. I have a later version of the same game on my mac which is completely time draining and magically complicated. Any way I played games and Vicky watched the Xfactor which i despise but it’s finished now so that’s good. On the trip out we’d picked up the script for the anti-psycotics so i had my first one that night. Slept the sleep of the drugged up psychotic i supposedly have become in the last week or so.

Sunday 13th. The 5mg of Olazapine had the instant effect of me losing a fair bit of control of my balance and my mind slowing to the speed of a sloth. Must say coffee is a winner in this situation. So we had a tidying day, by the afternoon the Olazapine must have worn off as i felt much clearer of head. I did a big bunch of sorting shit out which always helps. Poor Vicky was feeling quite low and my treat of sweets with meat in as a treat (she’s vegetarian) didn’t really help. Vicky is however, going to take up knitting, which gives me an idea for a Christmas gift....

I stayed up late last night looking at crap on the internet(more on that later) and thinking about this situation. I took my 5mg and sat up a bit longer than gave in to its effects.I slept as i slept the night before.

Monday 14th Thats today! i lied in bed till past ten! very rare, got up drank coffee and wrote this.