Making and keeping friends is hard when your mental health gets in the way...

I guess I'm not the easiest person to understand sometimes, especially as a can be positive one minute, then negative the next. With the mental health diagnosis i have there are usually triggers to low mood and impulsive behaviours. Recently my mum has been poorly and my biggest fear I have is losing my parents and also someone pointed out I seem to struggle close to my birthday and I always feel guilty being alive around my birthday because of my birth mum dying at 28 as a result of me being born. I guess I am open about stuff, some people would say too open, but i guess i have been in mental health services so long it has become normality to be around other people with issues who often also talk openly so i forget " normal people " aren't as open. Also I think the last few years my identity became my mental health problems but I'm trying to break away from that. That is why I joined a choir and have started going to a drama group so I can do things to distract away from thinking about the mental health stuff and make friends outside of mental health services. I have friends with similar problems and I value those friends and we understand and support each other but also talk about other stuff too. I go to a group therapeutic community and the days revolve around talking about deep stuff, so in alot of ways that brings stuff to the surface. I have struggled the last few weeks and ended up self harming first time in ages but I dissociate and lose control when I'm really emotional so am suspended from the therapy for a week. I thought of it as a punishment for something I couldn't control but am going to use the time off to spend some extra time with my horse and get back on track with being less impulsive. My mum is feeling a bit better after we finally got her to see a doctor and there are positive things to look forward to around my birthday too. It is the one time of year I do see my close friends and go out for a nice meal together and I want to enjoy more normal things with people.  Please be patient with me, I may be weird at times, i am at times absorbed in my problems but i am also good at helping others too and do care about my friends. I am going to therapy to deal with my mental health and hopefully it will help some things even if not others but i am trying. I guess this week my jumper my mum bought me for Christmas is right"I don't need therapy I need to be with my horse" .

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stalemate with therapy

Image
 I often write my blog to express my frustration, not at individual services but at my frustration of trying to get the right help at the right time for my eating disorder, especially times I'm struggling more. I first asked for help for bulimia in 2002 after it affected me doing what was a dream job at the time looking after rescue horses and I had to move back home. That was when I first openly admitted my eating was a problem, before then I hadn't seen it as a problem and was in denial if anyone confronted me about it. In 2002, apart from some mild self harm when I was 14, I didn't self harm, hadn't took any overdoses, I just had text book bulimia. My gp at the time referred me to a community psychiatric nurse (who back then had very limited training in eating disorders unless a specialist) so I got no therapy, saw a few other nurses and psychologists over the years who told me they didn't understand eating disorders and after a few years a local eating disorder
Read more

Bulimia versus atypical anorexia, trying to feel hopeful about recovery

Image
 I'm always open about my eating disorders but recent years for me have proved eating disorders can occur at any size and size doesn't determine which eating disorder someone is suffering from. Sadly if someone in a larger body loses weight even if with disordered eating, they are praised or it's not seen as a problem as it's expected they needed to lose weight although eating disorder therapists say to recover from any eating disorder, weight loss shouldn't be the goal which is what makes recovery hard. For me I felt too fat even at lower weights even when normal or even underweight so now my eating disorder makes me hate myself more and it affects my anxiety and confidence in general.  At the beginning of last year my eating disorder became more atypical anorexia after following what started as a fairly sensible calorie counting diet. ( atypical anorexia has the same symptoms and medical risks as typical anorexia apart from the weight threshold so if someone even
Read more

All the voices in my mind....wish they knew it was a new year

Image
 I haven't written a blog post in ages and I never know how open to be, but I guess some people will judge or not understand, some will learn what it's like to live with an eating disorder and other mental health problems and some are supportive. It's easier to be open online rather than in person often, you don't want to bring the mood down when in alot of social situations and food is such a big part of life especially socialising but it's hard to explain to people why your struggling too. If someone is anorexic, it is visible, people see the person as ill and don't judge it but someone with anorexia didn't start at a visibly low weight, their eating disorder thinking and behaviour started long before and sadly often the way society is they will have been admired and praised for their weight loss regardless of how it was achieved or how mentally unwell the sufferer is. Often people with anorexia also have a history of bulimia and often switch between the 2
Read more