A Trumpet Shall Sound!

Hi to all my friendly readers. Yes this month there have been more of you through my dark times of recent weeks.

Yesterday I received a rather garbled text from my dad saying my mum was in hospital. I rushed down to Kent on the train and saw her unconscious in a hospital bed. At 2 o'clock this afternoon she died very peacefully. I am at home with my dad and my sister trying to make sense of things and working out how to do this blog.

We moved to live by the sea when I was 9 years old. My mum swam in that very same sea every day of the year when the weather was good for nearly 33 years. She was taken ill whilst doing what she loved and never recovered. Perhaps it is fitting that the sea she so respected, loved, and feared took her in the end.

My views and those of mum have differd radically since I got ill. I lost my faith but hers continued. We had different beliefs but at a time like this I hope she is right and I am wrong.

I think of the astonishing piece of music that is Handel's "Messiah" and am drawn to the words near the end:

"A Trumpet shall sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible". Such power in those words. I guess she knows the answer now to what she believed all her life. I will find out one day.

So for now I revert to what I do best. I will cook for us and we will take each minute as it comes.

Thanks to all of you.

I Heard a Voice.

Strange Days

The last 2 days have been most odd. I woke up yesterday after several nightmares feeling very tired and quite low. I didn't want to go to work but I did. Not expecting to get much done I was presented with an envelope by my friend Karen bearing the marks of the Vice Chancellor's office. Somewhat surprised I wondered what on earth they would want. I opened it unusually quickly and was quite simply stunned by the contents. It was a letter notifying me that I had been nominated for an award as employee of the year. My first thought was why on earth anyone would want to nominate me for an award? The second thought was who could have done it? My third was one of irony-given my recent problems there leading to my mental meltdown on the last few weeks, how ironic would it be to win such an award?

Actually I doubt I will even make the short list but nice nonetheless. It did lift my mood somewhat. So I went to Hakalok to eat Malaysian and see Joey. That was very nice.

Yet this morning I awoke back in that feeling of emptiness and apathy again. I couldn't find anything I wanted to do today, not even to cook. So I have rather drifted through a strange Saturday in which for the first time in ages I have felt utterly bored.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring? I do have a plan to go and watch the university play American Football and then to eat slow roast shoulder of pork. Perhaps that will make me re-engage with the world.

I Heard a Voice.

It Had to Happen One Day

Today I made my first tentative steps back to work. I met with Occupational Health yesterday so am working to a plan-just 2 hours today.

I often wonder why on earth I work at the university, particularly in the light of my recent absence. I also sometimes wonder what the university employs me for. There is a simple answer-to prevent suicide. I am lucky enough that in all the years I have worked in mental health I have never lost anyone to suicide. I'd lost 9 friends but never 1 of my charges.

So much of that was down to luck and I am sufficiently wise to know it could not last for ever. Well today it happened. A student I saw a couple of times last year killed himself. I'd not seen him this year and did not know that he had withdrawn from the university. Usually I can tell the risky ones but there was not the merest of hints with him.

Did I fail? Who knows who the judge of that is? But I can't help asking myself what might have happened had I got round to sending a hello e mail which I do from time to time with students I have not seen for a while.

I feel shattered and empty again. Of all the days this was not the one for it to happen. It is theoretically the 3rd suicide of a student or affiliate student this year. In the first 4 years we only had 1. But that is life and it must go on.

Exhausted now. I think it is time for ribs.

I Heard a Voice.

The Ghosts of my Past.

Yesterday I went hunting ghosts. Still uncertain if I would go to Cambridge yesterday I took the plunge and went. It was a very strange day. I expected to see some of the ghosts from my past but not that many. Some were good, some not so.

But it was the man from my past who made the most impact. Gone was the giant of man with terrifying power. Rather there was a slimmed down shadow of his former self. He did retain his energy and drive but without apparently the raging retribution of 30 years.

Did it help me with my demons? Not really. It was just another day in this long journey through an insane and sometimes sane world that is my life.

I paid the price today-slept for hours. My mood feels nothing, neither good nor bad. But I can think now unlike 10 days ago. I'm still on much higher doses of medication but will need to think about reducing it if I go back to work tomorrow. I still have no motivation to do so-my heart is no longer in it. Yet I must make that decision.

After roast ham I will have a think. Do I have the energy to do so? I don't yet know.

I Heard a Voice.

The Slow March to Sanity

Slowly, very slowly I think I am getting there. I seem through the worst of it. Now it is just low mood and complete apathy that I'm having to contend with. I think it is what some shrinks refer to as dysthymia. Many years ago whilst utterly psychotic, depressed and suicidal some fool of a junior Doctor diagnosed me with that. What a fuckwit! It would take another 9 months until I found someone who really knew what she was talking about.

She was called Heather and I will for ever be in her debt for giving me the Holy Grail of risperidone. The rest was of course supposed to be history. But life has a habit of being unpredictable and so I find myself fighting my way out of my third major relapse since 2001. That is not bad going considering what I have even if Heather left before she could give it a real name.

I find myself vaguely thinking I should go back to work next week but have no motivation to do so. I called my friend in Occupational Health today and she will see me on Monday. Perhaps then I can make a better decision.

In the mean time I try to plug away at the new book. It is coming on, I'm up to 70,000 words now. I did think it would be about 80,000 but I now think it will be a little longer than that. I wonder if anyone will want to read it though.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring? I do know that I'm supposed to be going to Cambridge on Saturday to sing. I think I will leave that decision until the actual day.

Bye for now.

I Heard a Voice.

Should the Sun Burn off the Mist?

Today was a day of glorious spring sunshine. After such a mild winter-so different the the last 2 years-spring has come early. The bulbs are coming out and it is pleasurable being out in the day time sun. But isn't the sun supposed to burn off the morning mists? Maybe in the real world that is the case. I am still out of touch with that.

My mood has not shifted. It is neither good nor back. Flat and uninterested seems to pervade my mind. I am not where I was mentally 10 days ago. But I have come to a halt. I long for those days where my mood soars. That may piss some people off but isn't that where all of us with mood disorders long to be?

Having been stuck in my flat since I returned home on Sunday I decided today to venture further afield. So I went to fill up with petrol and to visit my Chinese friend in the Wednesday market. After that I wandered round a shopping centre. There were many things I wanted to buy but I saved my scarce money. My only spend on a good cappuccino from my Italian friend.

When I got home I thought I had wasted the day. Must get on, must get on! So I wrote chapter 37 of the book. It recalled a dark time in my life with the death of a friend and mentor and another enforced move of house. They were hard times but nowhere near as I feel now. When will it end? I have no doubt it will end though.

I have 2 more days of my time off. Time maybe to get better perhaps. I need to be motivated to carry on back to my world. There is little but the kind loyalty of my readers who suddenly feel the need to read my ramblings.

Thank you to you all.

I Heard a Voice.

Wading Through the Fog.

I am back as the fight to recover goes on. I spent some time in Kent which was good to be away. I saw lots of friends and on occasion my mood ventured tentatively into the + side of my scale. Particularly good was the party on Friday. I had dreaded it but it was most unexpected. I saw faces from the past including the extraordinary Caroline Latham whose healing powers so assisted me before I found risperidone. And then there were the dealers, the DJs, the artists and the hangers-on-it was all good. But my mood remained precarious.

Yesterday I came home. My mood is still volatile, hovering just below or on the 0 line. No great lift upwards. The medication is making me very tired but I so desperately need it as I try hard to work through the fog and the mire. I'm aiming to go back on Monday but as yet have no motivation to return to my work-the university lies in the darkness that I can't seem to look beyond.

Maybe this is what recovery is all about, time and patience. I was buoyed by the comments of Dory on some of my posts and the general rise in reader numbers. Thanks for all you who are willing me to get better. Sometimes it feels very lonely being ill again. Behind that glass screen that few can penetrate. I have no one to turn to but my friends. Who looks after the advisor as one of my students commented recently? Good question!

More soon.

I Heard a Voice

A Lift of Sunshine.

I'm back. I wasn't expecting to come on here until the weekend but am taking a few minutes to add a brief update.

I travelled down to Kent yesterday to visit Beka and my feeling started to come back despite the rain. I zoned out a few times but it was generally okay. Then today I awoke to glorious sunshine and a mind that had woken up again. It feels good but induces guilt. If I feel like this I should be at work. But my Doctor was most insistent to take time so perhaps he is right.

I'm now with my mum and dad and we're about to get Chinese takeaway-I feel the urge for salt and pepper ribs. Tomorrow I will go back to Beka's and on to an art exhibition in the evening. Saturday I return here and Sunday I will get the train home.

I am on the mend but am on the lookout for the sudden unexpected slumps in mood that usually accompany the lifting out of depression. This has been very real but I don't think I fell as far as 2 years ago. Thank for the Holy Grail that is risperidone!

I Heard a Voice.

An Empty Mind

Well a few days on from my last post that elicited quite a response my mind remains empty. Risperidone has blunted the onslaught of the whirlwind in my head. Psychosis was stopped in its tracks.

So where now? What it leads to is more emptiness. I feel nothing still but that will come back. I went to see my Doctor today who signed me off for 10 days. Last time it all went wrong 2 years ago, that did the trick. I think I caught it early enough this time though.

Numbness is a very strange place when one's life is lived on high and fluid emotion. Sometimes that is worse than the chaos of the whirlwind. But at least I stopped short of the voices. They simply haven't come this time.

I think I have eased back a bit from the brink. I decided to take a break and go down to Kent for a few days. I just hope people don't mind me not being more normal self. Even those who have known me for years sometimes forget about my madness. But I can never truly and whole heartedly forget. Even if at times I feel a fraud who made it all up.

Probably won't be on here again until next week. I hope by then I will feel something.

I Heard a Voice.

Nothing Shall Come of Nothing.

When I was 13 I read King Lear. In retrospect far too young although when we went to see our headmaster in it we all marvelled at him having his eyes gouged out. King Lear mad in the end so I guess we have something on common. I do remember one more thing, Lear says to his youngest daughter Cordelia " Nothing shall come of nothing".

Well nothing is how I feel today. Not good, not bad, just numb and empty. Hugely increasing my medication has blunted the force of my onslaught of madness. Yes it did get that bad on Friday. Much to my surprise at the time when I didn't want to speak to anyone, everyone was phoning or texting. Perhaps that shows that someone gives a shit. Just a shame my friends have no power.

I awoke at 10.50 am for the 3rd time in the night. I had a nightmare about babies being butchered with bayonets. That is one of the worst I have had in a long time. Maybe that is indicative of my mental state. But where do I go? I 30,000 people who could potentially come to see me to sort their heads out. But I have no one. Thank God for risperidone.

I have yet to decide whether to go to work tomorrow. Not that I will be much good to my students in this state. Everyone keeps urging me to take time off and get away to Kent. But would that mean they have won.

On this very wet day the symbolism of my madness lies all around. She loved the rain and when her voice became strong it would say "I love the rain, I love the rain". The voices haven't come so far but I can feel them lingering in the depths, willing me to come to them. Oh that it was not a rainy day.

Maybe the sun will come tomorrow.

I Heard a Voice.

Why Do I Do This?

Ever have those moments when your greatest desire is to win some astonishing amount of the money on the lottery so you can withdraw from the world and tell it to fuck off? I guess we all do but fortunately for those moments are extremely rare for me. Even if I did win enough to retire my belief is that I would carry on working although I would probably only do it part time. But after this week I would walk.

It has been real bad this week. I can usually cope with bad; in fact I have a reputation for dealing with bad-that's what I get paid to do. Rarely do I lack confidence and self belief even if sometimes that belief is over the top. Yet as I write today, I am seriously questioning what I am doing and whether I have the ability to do it. I have lost all self belief.

On Tuesday I discovered that I had lost my long running pay dispute with my employer. Even my manager was stunned. Much to my surprise she admitted to me that she thought I would be upgraded and my immediate colleagues to be downgraded. I guess that explains her reluctance to help me for the last 18 months as I sought equal pay. But some mathematical calculation that is not used by any other university saw otherwise. Yet I am supposed to take on all the complex cases. I wondered what magical skill it is that my colleagues have that I don't have that is clearly so valued? I'm fucked if I know.

Despite spending the evening with the 2 bipolar Lauras-fellow bloggers-I spent the next 2 days utterly disillusioned and feeling completely unvalued. I was writing a blog that no one wanted to read and have a book that no one apparently wants to buy. I'm writing another book which I have made no progress on in 3 weeks and wonder what is the point? If the first book failed-maybe selling no copies is a failure-why on earth would I write another?

Faith was restored yesterday after spending time with 2 excellent colleagues and friends who do value me and actually doing something useful. But that all changed today.

I saw 5 people today. I had no lunch break and was asked for the 3rd time in 2 weeks to be a glorified taxi service to do the dirty work that my higher paid colleagues don't want to do; perhaps that all an unqualified fool like me is qualified to do? That was all okay until I was told that despite a student being chronically depressed, dangerously suicidal and awaiting psychiatric assessment he does not have a mental health difficult!!! What the fuck am I doing? Clearly I must know nothing at all!!!

So I'm very glad this week is over. I am hunting for a new job; there are few out there. That is not just because I feel utterly disillusioned but because it is a financial necessity-I simply cannot stay here with no prospect of any more money and the cost of living way outstripping the 0.4% pay rises we have had for the last 3 years!

Do I buy a lottery ticket then? On balance no. Even if I won I might be able to walk away, but I am still me with my madness. The danger now is that I slip back into that madness. It is tempting to phone my Doctor on Monday. Some would chuck a sicky. But however I feel I would never do that.

Roast chicken for dinner-something to look forward to!