Thursday, January 1, 2009

Horrific Things Going On In My Head


by: Author Unknown,

I first knew something was wrong immediately after the Port Arthur Massacre. I was at my mother's house and the television was on and a news bulletin reported that a young man (at this stage they were saying about 21), with long blond hair and a surf board on the roof of his car was running amok with a semi automatic. I remember thinking 'oh my god - it's a surfer boy - if it can be someone like that, it could be me'.
A friend had recently commented to me how weird it was that occasionally those thoughts 'I could just kill that person' come to you, and what it was that stopped you from actually doing it. After the Port Arthur massacre these thoughts just kept popping into my mind. I didn't understand at all, having never really heard of intrusive thoughts (even though I had just completed a major in psychology!) and couldn't work out why these thoughts, accompanied by such extraordinary panic, kept coming back. For a long while I thought perhaps I had just lost the plot, but couldn't understand why, if I was indeed a homicidal maniac (as I assumed I was), I wasn't thinking with pleasure of these things, instead of absolute horror.
At the same time as I had started experiencing these thoughts my mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer a year earlier, started showing the first physical signs of the illness. I was 22 and had just moved out of home for the first time, leaving mum alone. As my father has never been around and I am not very close to my brother, mum was really the only family I had. Even though I knew this, however, I never picked the connection between the horrific things going on in my head and her illness. I thought that if I was feeling bad about mum's illness, it would be a certain kind of bad feeling, that the feelings I was having could have no connection because they didn't fit in with my idea of what I should feel in reaction to mum's cancer.
Anyway, without the gritty details, this went on for about the next three years, with a variety of different intrusive thoughts. I was drinking really heavily because it was the only way I could make the thoughts go away and was sleeping very badly as well. I finished university and spent a few unpleasant months unemployed and generally miserable. Then, when I finally got a job and started in the work force I had a very difficult time functioning. I was terrified of meetings, of public speaking and of many of the things that were common place in the job I had started. I felt like I was the only one who felt this way, and this compounded my feelings that everyone else was coping so much better than I ever would. I was still drinking heavily, smoked a lot, and had started taking Beta blockers (physical relaxants which the doctors seemed only too willing to prescribe) to cope with life and Benadril to help me sleep. I constantly woke up in the early morning and lay there worrying about the next day. I felt like I was using a different substance for everything, caffeine to wake me up, alcohol to make me socially acceptable and tablets to make me capable of functioning at work. I went to a psychiatrist who specialised in anxiety, and she suggested anti-depressants in the first session. I said that if I was to be medicated, it might as well be self medication and never went back. She didn't make any connection between the stress of mum's illness and the way I was feeling.
Then mum died. The next few months after this were terrible in that I didn't understand any of what I was feeling and tried to keep up appearances. I went overseas and had what was, in retrospect, a fairly horrible time partying with my friends because I didn't feel like I had the space to grieve. Most of my friends at the time also drank really heavily and so didn't seem to notice anything too much wrong with what I was doing.
Then one of my friends, a very dear friend who I met up with in London, told me how worried she was about me and suggested I saw Sallee, who she knew through rock climbing. I was so distressed by this stage that I was more than happy to try it.
I could go on for ever about the process of counselling and recovery, but there really isn't time so I'll stick to the main points. Sallee turned out to be absolutely perfect for me, and I can't express my gratitude for what she has helped me achieve. I didn't always feel this way however. The second session we had she announced I would have to stop the smoking, drinking, caffeine, Beta blockers and generally everything. I was utterly depressed afterwards, convinced that I would never have any fun ever again and that my life was effectively over.
The next few months consisted of her slowly helping me to believe that these things could change, and helping me to understand that there is nothing wrong with not feeling completely under control in every situation. This was a pretty impressive task on her behalf given that I am very stubborn and tend to assume that other people don't really understand what I am going through. She also made me see that what I was experiencing was not pathological, as was suggested by the psychiatrist, but that it was a perfectly natural grief reaction to everything that had happened in the last four years.
It was quite a slow process, and I continued to see Sallee for the next year and a half. We developed a really trusting relationship and I was able to see what a decent therapeutic relationship is all about (which was very handy, as a psychology student). There are so many things that I feel like I have learned through this process, but I'll just mention a few.
The first and most important is that there is no point trying to be bullet proof. I think that this desire to be completely under control is at the root of most anxiety related conditions and I don't think that it's any accident that there are so many people with these symptoms around at present. We have developed into a society that values invulnerability so much that everyone is busily running around trying to pretend that everything is fine. And the thing that strikes me as most ridiculous about this is my own realisation that I don't like bullet proof people. I don't trust them, I don't admire them, and I certainly don't want to be around them. So why on earth was I trying so hard to be one? Now I feel like the most admirable people are the ones who are open and honest about their experiences and feelings. I also feel like it is a responsibility to other people to be honest. Every time I pretend that everything is alright when it isn't, I add to the army of people faking it and to the impression each and everyone of us seems to have that she is the only one with the problem. It's a bit like plastic surgery - everyone who has it contributes to the fact that those people who don't, who are normal, begin to look like freaks.
I also learnt that what you do to your body physically has an amazing effect on your state of mind. Things like regular exercise, herbal teas and stopping caffeine and alcohol intake improved my mental health massively. Far more so than anti depressants, I imagine.
The other really important thing is that being unable to imagine doing something is in no way a realistic measure of being unable to do something. In the last week, I have spoken in front of seven different groups of complete strangers as part of my thesis research. Since commencing counselling, I have taken up rollerblading, tried rock climbing, dance classes and language classes. And all this from a woman who had trouble leaving the house without a spare stash of Beta blockers, 'just in case'.
I should say at this point that I am not 100% over it all, and don't really ever expect to be. I occasionally get anxious, I have sleepless nights, and I behave invulnerably to protect myself. I imagine, however, that this is actually just part of being human, rather than being part of a syndrome or disorder. We are all a bit wobbly at times, and I think that the world would be a far more refreshing place to live if we were better at accepting this and living accordingly.

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