A positive corner
This Wednesday was national writing day and I’m afraid to say that I took part in no writing whatsoever! However, I will write today’s post in the spirit of the day and try and make up for it that way. This week I have mostly been hot! I can’t remember the last time we had such a long period of nice weather as we’ve had in recent weeks but as I was saying to a friend earlier, that’s probably because I’ve been in and out of hospitals for the last few years and hence mostly stuck inside. It is so nice to be out and able to experience simple things like this. I took my dog for a walk at 8am this morning and it was lovely - really set me up for a positive day. It really goes to show again that the small victories do matter and can contribute a lot towards your state of mind.
I have felt in recent days like things might have taken a positive turn in the road. Only round a corner perhaps but still steps in the right direction. I got some good feedback on my writing from my tutor at the adult education course and that has motivated me to keep going with my project, whenever I can find the time. Also, I managed the journey back even though the train was massively delayed and there were issues along the way. I didn’t panic and get stressed like I so often would and instead just accepted that I was going to be late home. Who’d have thought, the journey was the same as it would have been if I’d have worried constantly throughout it, I just got back a lot less stressed out!
Two days ago I had my much awaited therapy reassessment. It went better than the last time we met in that I didn’t end up having any kind of (visible) bpd meltdown mid-appointment and got neither angry nor upset. That was despite being told that psychoanalytic/psychodynamic psychotherapy really isn’t available in my area, largely because the evidence base for it isn’t as good as that for other modalities. That did disappoint me a lot because, as I have previously written about, what the evidence from the general population says really doesn’t bother me - I know it works for me and that is what matters to me. Still, there was some movement on the possibility of me having some kind of therapeutic input at some stage but what and when is still an unknown until we have ascertained what issues need to be targeted from my history. That will hopefully happen over the next few weeks. I say there was no visible bpd meltdown but afterwards I did feel very overwhelmed and was extremely close to tears. I guess a lot of that was relief. I felt like I’d had a meaningful conversation with somebody and they’d heard my concerns, which was a big change from our first meeting. A few more steps round that positive corner.
Yesterday I also had a very positive meeting with someone from my local Mental Health Trust about becoming an Expert by Experience and getting involved in some of the work they do.They cover a huge range of areas whereby input from service-users can help inform people, policies, documents etc to help make services, the people they employ and the information they provide, better going forward. I don’t know exactly what sort of things I will be getting involved in as yet but the prospect is exciting and something I’d really like to do. Just like this blog, I hope that my difficult experiences through the mental health system can help improve things for others and maybe even offer a little hope to people that things can and do get better, no matter how bleak they may be at times.
