My last 6 months-ish- IM BACK-for catch-up

Hello Everyone

I have been gone for so long- It's been nearly 6 months since I wrote so I cant and wont presume there is anyone who will read this but I have missed you all out there in the blogosphere. I had to stop blogging for several reasons.

Firstly, someone- one of my readers sent my prof (Shrink) a link to my blog which partially resulted in me getting sectioned, so I felt I couldnt write here anymore without it being analysed. He now knows the blog is no more so he wont be coming here. Secondly, I wanted to take a break after 3 years of blogging I felt I had said it all many times and then all the concern I got whilst lovely left me feeling very guilty for writing things that would cause such distress.

Lastly, Life kind of got in the way - who knew there was a life in between mental health act assesments and psych appointments, cc meetings and police chases. Well there was ..THERE IS.


So how to summarise how things have been, I have managed the occasional tweet and even a trip to London to meet some of you, but here it is:

I haven't really talked about this before here and to do so is quite risky but I went back to University despite missing the first two months being in hospital and despite the kind lecturers allowing me only a week to catch this all up. I managed!!!.. I am half way through a five month placement which will see me finisihing the second year of my course and I am on target for a First as well, although I try and say that modestly with the intention of proving that things can really turn around for people and not a YIPEE AREN'T I GREAT moment. All things being well in just over a year I will be a qualified MH professional myself. EEkk!

I know that must sound odd and alarming to some reading.I mean you look back to my posts last year or any other year and my life was so chaotic and risky- so what of the mentals you ask?? Well- they are still there. I had a difficult time just over a month ago..I disclosed what had happened to me in hospital to my shrink who then tried to pressure me into making a proper complaint and held/still holds me responsible for others safety, for keeping him at large. I tried to drown that thought out in a very bad way and I had MHA assesment 17(I think its 17 but lost count). It was a blip a reasonable sized one but only a blip. Things hit rocky patches briefly at times but mostly it has been uneventful and I have had no contact with crisis, police or hospital otherwise.

I am not recovered. But I am stable enough to know that, to know that it is hard work most days but to know I can do it and I can help others too. My current placement is going very well, its not MH directly but I come across mild MH problems. Its very strange being on the other side of the fence- I had a lady say to me last week that 'she felt under the weather, but I couldn't possibly understand as I had never felt down'. I will say its both wonderful and tragic to hear that in my position. Wonderful that I must come across so stable and unaffected but tragic that professional boundaries forbid me from reaching out to her and telling her there will never be another worker of hers that could understand it more, but alas- its not about me so I kept quiet. Although I must admit another small part of me wanted to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all.

And so to recap mentally I still see prof he still continues to be concerned at times but not in anyway to the same level and hospital is never mentioned - I see him every 4 weeks. I still have a cc but I see her sporadically and mainly to pick up meds which for the main part I do take. But now I live for the majority of time in that other world otuside my blog, my illness and my appointments..Who knew there was more out there. And I realise that I am not my illness nor do I walk around with that label on my head- for all to see.

I continue to question at times my suitability to help others when I have struggled so much to help myself but I am always midful of this and wouldnt continue on this path if I thought I was ever going to be anything less than a good worker. I have had too many professionals let me down to ever give anyone any less than my all. Whilst everything I have ever written on this blog has been real, very real it does not sum up all of me. Yes my mind has been chaotic but I am really very boringly normal in real life and as my lecturer said the me on paper, and the me in person do not add up and 'you would never believe you had been assessed or in hospital let alone 17 times and sectioned'- But those were his words. I hope the few of you I have met can attest to that.

So every day I drive past the psych hospital with my city council lanyard I work less than a mile away and every day I have to shake myself to remember only 6 months ago I was sectioned there. I see patients who were there with me walking about outside my office on leave and I smile but they no longer know who I am- I am the badge I wear and they cannot marry the out of control person needing to be sedated on the wards with that badge. Its a little sad but I cant be service user and professional all at once thats not how it work, I have to switch rapidly between the two as necessary, its ok - Im used to rapid switching :)

I have been told by my supervisor that she has never seen such a well adjusted confident person as I am as a student. She doesnt know. I like that she doesn't. I like that for once mental illness is sidelined. My little boy will soon be five - he is coming to the last year of school and his teachers report him to be bright, outgoing and popular and that is my biggest achievement - as I feel like a terrible lousy mother for what I have done in the past and that I almost left him, so I hope he continues to be unaffected.

And that concludes this rather oddly disjointed catch-up. Except to add - Happy Easter- did someone say it was the 8th - Pah. :0)