this is your life
Diaries, year-planners, whiteboards, pinboards, in-trays all these are your friends. When I've been closest to doing myself serious harm, across late 98 and early 99, and over the last two months, when it seems like noone else can help, I try to help myself. And these inanimate friends have been the tools that help me refocus, reorganise, and gradually pull out of the downward spiral.
I've just started to take a grip on things again after a year or more of drift, begun to look for help, to address issues that create stress, to keep on top of issues I might otherwise forget about that could come back to haunt me, and to make sure I can instantly put my hands on anything I need. Of course this is a fine short-term fix, and requires concentration and energy to sustain. It is also only a first step, that has to be followed by others, for instance tackling my social phobia. But I really want to record that over the last day or two I've mostly been happy for the first time in a long while, I also want to record the strategies that have helped me.
The irony is that with my new-found sense of purpose I'm trying to engage more actively with mental health services, but in any assessment I'll come across as happier and more stable than perhaps I am, organically. Luckily I've kept a track of the darker events recently, and have a checklist of things I'd like to be dealt with, and some idea of the help available. It is perhaps also a good thing that I am feeling better and more assertive, or I might again end up being fobbed off with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. CBT is a great short-term help, but it doesn't differ greatly from strategies I already have in place, and it seems of limited use in really tackling anxieties.
More soon. I have a couple more mad poems to post, and a busy few week, so there should be plenty to pass on.
I've just started to take a grip on things again after a year or more of drift, begun to look for help, to address issues that create stress, to keep on top of issues I might otherwise forget about that could come back to haunt me, and to make sure I can instantly put my hands on anything I need. Of course this is a fine short-term fix, and requires concentration and energy to sustain. It is also only a first step, that has to be followed by others, for instance tackling my social phobia. But I really want to record that over the last day or two I've mostly been happy for the first time in a long while, I also want to record the strategies that have helped me.
The irony is that with my new-found sense of purpose I'm trying to engage more actively with mental health services, but in any assessment I'll come across as happier and more stable than perhaps I am, organically. Luckily I've kept a track of the darker events recently, and have a checklist of things I'd like to be dealt with, and some idea of the help available. It is perhaps also a good thing that I am feeling better and more assertive, or I might again end up being fobbed off with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. CBT is a great short-term help, but it doesn't differ greatly from strategies I already have in place, and it seems of limited use in really tackling anxieties.
More soon. I have a couple more mad poems to post, and a busy few week, so there should be plenty to pass on.
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