undiagnosis

so i've been waiting for months and months to see an autism specialist here in Bristol, and i finally got to see one for three sessions a few weeks back. i get called back in for a third about a week ago, only to find that they've undiagnosed me - that is to say, these specialists (and they're pretty much the experts) are sure i don't have a developmental disorder. so "what's wrong with me" has now gone from Asperger's Syndrome, to Borderline Personality Disorder, and now to nothing at all according to these ladies (apart from major depression.)

not really sure what to think of that. i trust their professional opinion, and their diagnosis was based on a pretty comprehensive test battery plus a massive arseload of history - interviewing me and my ma, pages on pages of questions about my life and my development (my ma's questionnnaire about me was 18 pages long) - so i don't think it's likely they've got it wrong. but if there's nothing wrong with me, officially, that sort of screws with my access to mental health services outside of severe depressive episodes. so i don't know if this is good or not.

anyone else run into anything like this? ever end up with a diagnosis that stuck?

L

status affected

okay some new things have happened and it is time to stop neglecting the blog and actually tell people something! hooray.

first some bad news. unfortunately i wasn't able to pay the tuition fees for my place at UWE, and i can't get a loan because you can only have so many years' worth of loans. there's no exemption to the rule for health reasons, apparently. i signed the withdrawal form on Wednesday to break the contract and officially cancel my student status, so i am now without an occupation other than "itinerant loser". i'm trying to trade in the credits i earned so far for a designated degree, as crap as that is. much better than no degree. after that, i'm gonna try and get some kind of research assistant job. if anyone knows of any institutes or universities hiring, i'm all ears, could always do with some extra leads.

second, some good news. i found a partner - although you probably already know that because i said it on Twitter.

also the documentary is still on - we have a lot of raw footage, plus my old videos, and i'm told it now needs lots of storyboarding to work out the narrative. then editing, graphic art work, more editing etc. i don't know fuck all about filmmaking really.

health wise i'm alright. i started a new treatment last week - a six-week course focused on mindfulness, which is a new treatment for depression that looks promising from the evidence. it seems pretty helpful at first glance. i also had a new drug added to my regimen - aripiprazole (Abilify), which apart from making me sleepy as fuck is actually helping my mood levels i think. between all of that, Paul, and the support i've been getting from you all i'm dealing with things pretty well overall. it's nice to have someone to look out for me.

can't think of anything else that's happened right now, but i probably will sooner or later. hope you're all enjoying the run up to Christmas, sibs.

cc

L

nyuus

ugh. i'm so crap at composing blog entries these days. here is some shit that has been happening:

while the current shitty depressive episode is still ongoing, i'm getting closer to some proper treatment. a few months ago my referral to LIFT Psychology, a local mental health service, went through and i was sent on a three-day "stress and mood management" course based on introductory cognitive-behavioural therapy. it did help explain some shit about how exactly the thought patterns created by depression work, how they become cyclical or "neverending", how triggers exacerbate them, etc. the downside was that although this knowledge might be useful if i do get any one-on-one sessions with a CB therapist, it didn't do any good for actually halting or removing any of those destructive patterns. that was the first day, and the other two were about anxiety disorders and anger management, so although i was there they weren't really relevant. they're gonna call tomorrow evening for a "review" and i'm hoping they'll send me on something specific to long-term depression now. i'll take what i can get. i also discovered that this whole time i'm meant to have had weekly or fortnightly appointments with my GP specifically to discuss my mood, thoughts, antidepressants and the like, which the GP has utterly failed to even mention, so i'm gonna try and set that up even if it's just a medication review. i haven't had the dose on my escitalopram (my main antidepressant) checked or adjusted for about five years now so i'm pretty sure it needs doing.

it was my birthday on the 14th - i got all the messages people sent me & all that, so thanks for the kind words. i also checked the facebook page duneo set up so thankyou for your messages there as well. my family went to the pub carvery (yeah that's how classy we are) and i abused the fact that i've survived twenty-six years without killing myself or dying of self-induced septicaemia to persuade the chef to give me an extra Yorkshire pudding and the tasty bit off the top of the roast beef that everyone else doesn't want. HAUTE CUISINE. my brother and his partner baked a cake that was blue on the inside, with yellow and purple buttercream, covered with iced flowers and rainbows, and was filled with jelly beans in the centre. it was a badass cake. i didn't want any presents on account of the cost, but my parents bought me a weird-looking toy frog to replace the one that i'd had since i was born that got stolen from me when i was moving out of University halls one summer (i had two big market bags that contained all my possessions/clothes/books and the one with all my textbooks, my toy frog, my recent birthday presents from friends, a little book that my dad gave me when i was two or three and my completely worthless sentimental-value jewellery was the one some scumbag lifted while i was loading up the other one into a taxi.) i named it Slymer II after the first one. i'm still gutted about that fucking frog.

regarding university, i have been trying to get into Bristol University, but we got the news a week or so ago that they don't take students without maths A2 levels, which i don't have, or they would have accepted me. their advice was either to go back to sixth form (yeah, back to fucking SCHOOL) for two years to get one, or to apply to the other local university UWE (University of the West of England). having looked at both courses, i'm pretty sure the Bristol one is too theoretical for the type of research i wanna go into - plus i don't wanna go hang out with a load of sixteen-year-olds who are still in compulsory education, i don't wanna wear a school fucking uniform, and i especially don't wanna go anywhere near the town secondary school which was the place where i got so badly bullied that i don't even have proper memories of most of it. the UWE course seems much closer to what i was studying in Aberdeen. i am actually very, very bad at maths - one educational psychologist in Aberdeen thought i had dyscalculia because i can't do basic arithmetic in my head, although i'm alright with stuff like algebra - so even if i did manage to get an A at the A2 level, i don't think i would be able to handle the contents of the second and third year university courses, which you have to take at the Maths Department with the maths students. even if i did i wouldn't be able to get the sort of grades i was getting in Aberdeen. seems like there's a distinction between mathematical, theoretical computing science in some universities and applied, less academic CS in others - the only thing i'm kind of worried about is that this might make it a "lesser" degree and maybe that would affect my chances of a career. when i was applying for places on linguistics & language degrees at eighteen i was repeatedly told not to apply to UWE because of its bad academic reputation, so i was also worried about that, but it seems that was referring to the Languages department, and UWE has apparently vastly improved its rankings over the last five years or so. so, i'm now trying to find someone at UCAS to find out how to apply for this place given my rather twisted situation.

in other news, my parents have decided to use what they've saved up over the past few years and take us on a holiday. a massive ten day holiday. the kind i've never been on before. they're going to some all-inclusive place in fucking Jamaica and for some reason they actually agreed to take me with them - i've seen the brochure and it looks incredible. the pool has a bar that you swim up to and sunken seats where you drink your drink and there's a snack hut on the side that gives you hot jerk chicken. it even has a Chinese restaurant. they're going in September (so my ma will have her 50th birthday out there which is pretty bizarre to think about because there is no way my ma looks fifty years old), so hopefully if i do get into UWE it won't interfere with classes, but i suppose i can always take some class work with me. i wouldn't mind working the whole time if i could go to the pool bar for breaks. i've never done anything like it - we don't have that kind of money and they've saved for a long time i think, it's never gonna happen again, so i'm still amazed they actually let me come. (hence why i didn't want them to spend any money on my birthday.) i am gonna have to take about ten cans of factor 75, and figure out a way to get a litre of heavy opiate painkillers into the country without being arrested, but i fucking love travelling when i can & i think it's gonna be fucking great.

i have also lost half a stone since being taken off one of my antidepressants, quetiapine. if any of you have depression, or an anxiety problem or a psychosis-related condition, i'd advise thinking really carefully about your calorie intake and checking the side-effects of your medications before you start if you're offered a new one. especially that particular medicine - it does help you with mood but it's so, so bad for side effects and i've had similar experiences (though not as bad) with others. i didn't look at the info properly and so because i didn't change my diet as they increased the dose i went from a size 8, weighing eight and a half stone, to a size 12 weighing eleven. being disgusted with yourself and not being able to figure out why reducing your calorie intake isn't working like it should pretty much offsets any benefits the drug might have moodwise, and it doesn't help if you're finding it hard to do things like put on makeup, shower properly, etc because now every time you look in the mirror or down at your body you're reminded that you're repulsively overweight. i'm hoping to lose the rest of the weight over the next year.

i'm loath to say "EVERYTHING IS FINE NOW" because it's still not and every time i say that something fucking awful happens, but shit is at least going a better way than it was a few months ago. i've been able to tidy the house and make the beds more often the last couple of weeks, and also to take my dog out for a couple of walks, and today i did the house, had a shower, did my hair and paint, and took my laptop to Hawkes House (the local omni-hangout that does restaurant food and tapas and drinks and coffee, that sort of shit) with the express purpose of putting a blog entry up and starting to deal with emails. a month ago doing any one of these things would have been the max i was capable of in one day, and there were a lot of days when i couldn't do fuck all.

i'm gonna try and do this again tomorrow. i haven't replied to any emails today (i was writing this) but i did clear out all the spam and automail, so tomorrow i'm gonna try and get to the emails.

carpe corporem

L

in other news here is my dog

i love my dog. her name is Frankie. she is my best friend.

L

repairs in progress

i have seen an assessment dude from the psychiatry services here recently and said dude has recommended a pretty major medication shift. the main sleep medication i have is quietiapine, or Seroquel as its brand name. it's actually an antipsychotic (i am not psychotic) so it has some pretty gnarly side effects, but it works well as a sedative and is also one of the only well-studied treatments for BPD. i was fairly certain that because of this i'd be stuck with the shit for life. it's a pain in that it fucks up your metabolism and appetite - apparently almost everyone on these drugs gains weight, which is one of the things that's been really getting to me. i track and restrict calories but the amount that i lose weight on instead of plateau has gone way down, from 1500 losing me a good amount of weight per month to still weighing the same on 1350, so it's hard to actually get the weight off.

so assessment psychiatrist dude tells me apparently there's a new drug called aripiprazole or Abilify that i'd never heard of. says you add it on to pre-existing antidepressant regimes instead of replacing them, but he reckons it can replace the quetiapine. and it doesn't cause weight gain - in fact it's apparently associated with weight loss in depressives. fucking a. i agreed, and dude wrote to my GP (who is currently in charge of my psych meds until i can see a real psychiatrist, in the predicted waiting time of six to eight months, natch) recommending a regime change. he also pointed out that tramadol is a pretty crap breakthrough pain med for someone accustomed to 100mls of bloody methadone as their everyday pain control, but didn't suggest a replacement, so i have to go inquire therein about everything. hopefully i can see the GP either tomorrow or Tuesday and start that shit ASAP, although i did find that quetiapine can fuck you up if you stop taking it suddenly. mine ran out when i forgot to request the repeat scrip once and i was throwing up everything i ate for like five or six days. i think i'll probably need to taper off of it this time.

dunno how i'll do with sleep on just melatonin, but insomniac is better than fatarse.

L

pathetic whimpering

i did something pretty stupid today. i couldn't sleep last night, even with all this in my veins, and i just kept thinking of Muad-Dib. so at about 0400 i wrote a letter to him. the handwriting was so shitty he probably won't even recognise it, on account of my hands shake at the best of times and it gets worse when i'm stressed. i'm not even sure what i said.

i guess the heart of it is that i still love him. i cannot forget that. his loss poisons me every day that i am still without him, like something inside my chest is rotting away. i find myself thinking that if i can't be by his side again, it would have been far better if i had never met him at all. i had never loved anyone before him - i told a few boys and a few girls that i did, but it was always the kind of situation where you're forced to say it back because they just did and you don't want to upset them, then you sort of come to believe that liking them is the same thing... then i ran into Muad-Dib and everything was different. i'd do anything to be back with him. it's fucked up but if he asked me to stab my dog in the heart, and then i could come back to him, i'd seriously consider it. my loyal, faithful Staffie dog, the best dog in the world, that tries to comfort me when i wake up yelling at night and licks my face if i cry, that i could take for a walk on the main roads without a lead if i wanted to because she sits down at every curb and waits for me to tell her it's okay to cross, that never disobeys a command, the best friend i have in meatspace - and i would probably murder that poor dog if it would bring back the man i loved. i'd give up decades of my lifespan. i'd let myself get sent to an asylum. anything. even after all the shit.

i don't have a clue if he would forgive me for depending on him for so long. he probably remembers months and months of him working, me doing nothing, him bailing me out each time i bought too much food and pushed my bank account into the infrared again. i was a massive drain on his finances. and because of my depression, i was close to catatonic for a lot of the time, which must have looked a hell of a lot like pure brazen laziness. like just basking in the free time, not having to work, getting while the getting was good. i will always regret that.

of course because i had been writing and thinking of him, the dreams were even worse last night. every so often i have this cruel dream that i'm with him; usually there's some surreal conflict going on, like this time he was choosing a woman to marry from a list. i screamed and begged and pleaded with him, as i've never done in waking life. "Just marry me!" i shouted. and he agreed. i was so fucking happy. just like the other times, he came back to me and took me in his arms, and i actually felt him hugging me and his hands in my hair, and everything was gonna be okay again, and then i fucking woke up and it wasn't true and once again there i was sobbing at six in the morning like a fucking fool. i still sent the letter.

all i can do now is try not to wait for any reply. i can't get my hopes up, because if i do and nothing happens, or worse, he replies and tells me he's found a real woman who's beautiful and sexy and has a nice clear sunshiny fucking mind, it will be like hearing him leave me all over again.

this has come about as a result of all the promotion of Valentine's Day, of course. i suppose all the bitterness sank into my brain until it vomited. i doubt it was a good idea to send anything - tomorrow he will in all likelihood either get drunk with his mates, all of whom i also miss, and go to a club and pull some pretty girl, or if he has already replaced me, he will be writing her a poem and giving her roses. i will be alone in the house (my parents will be having a nice dinner somewhere) with the dog. i will probably raid my dad's stash of cider, get wasted, feed cake to my favourite hen Steve McQueen (she may as well have a nice dinner too), and hopefully fall asleep without any fucking dreams.

fuck. what a pathetic screed. believe me, i would love to be able to "get over it" as common sense suggests. other forms of repair are progressing: i have been assessed by a psychiatric nurse and referred to a consultant psychiatrist who is coming to my house in a few days to see how fucked up i am; i have a stable if expensive source of medication from a prescriber who does not believe i am a lying crackhead; i have seen an orthopaedic specialist who has decided that my spine, while it is too curved, is not bad enough to qualify as "deformed" and therefore does not require surgery. i also need to thank everyone who has sent anything, be it money or food or anything else - it really, really does help, so thank you. on Valentine's Day, all of you who are happily ensconced in loving couples, maybe think about not snogging and giggling in front of your fucked up single acquaintances. throw us a fucking bone here.

L

begging hat

my sincerest apologies if i inadvertently appeared to be a scam by not claiming funds via PayPal - i forgot you had to do that. i cannot thank you all enough for flinging a few quid this way here and there (or a whole lot of quid, as it may be) - i literally have nothing right now and it's fucking amazing to suddenly have even a little bit of funds for food and fags. i am kind of a massive burden on my parents and it sucks to live in someone's spare room and not even be able to feed yourself.

on the benefits front, i duly applied, sent lots of data and got a nice letter in the post. dear hacker, we cannot pay you benefits. it doesn't even say why - under the "why" section it just says "we cannot pay you". i don't even know if i'm eligible for some other shit, or what - the guy on the phone sure as hell didn't think i was. i guess i'm gonna have to find a way into the nearest city to get to a physical job centre or something, i dunno.

emo or not, the colder it gets, the more i just miss Muad-Dib. i'd give up anything for a chance to be back with him.