Awake at just before seven and up at 7:40 after admitting to myself that going back to sleep was an impossibility giving up my day for a lie in. That is a very unusual time for me during these holidays but things on my mind as you know. So I got up and got out some books to distract myself. Some time to myself at least. Ten minutes later the youngest girl was on my lap and five after that the boy was on there too with not much reading getting done. So all I could do was keep looking at the clock and countdown the time until the head doc arrived.
It made for a long morning which was very much rough seas. Sometimes I was panicking badly and at other times completely relaxed. The latter was a very unusual sensation, most strange because it is something new to me in this situation of anticipatory anxiety. Its not one I get. Yet there it was and each time it happened, for about 15-20 minutes at a time, I thought I'd found solace at last. Then I would be shooting back up again quickly. But as the time got nearer that calm place never returned and instead it was a constant level of high anxiety which had all the panic symptoms boiling up within me.
My wife was on a mad house cleaning frenzy and I ended up having a fall out with her. I didn't mean it. It was just so bad that I told her if it persisted I wasn't letting the doc in to which she angrily replied that it was for that reason he was coming. Arse to that, I said and should have left it there but for some reason I felt the need to tell her that it was not a suggestion but what I was going to do regardless of what she thought. There you go, I'd stamped my authority on the situation but as you can imagine it wasn't a positive move. Unreasonable? Yes. But in that moment I felt I was going through all that stuff I didn't want just to please her and would not be doing any further jumping through hoops. I know that sounds bad, well it does to me typing it, but that is just the way it was at the time. My resentment at having to do something I didn't want to do had found its bounderies.
A couple of minutes after the specified time the phone rang and there was a mobile number on caller ID. Bingo, he couldn't make it. Instead I found a lady on the other end who was a CPN and she was sitting in her car in the street looking for my home. So I went out and she appeared with a younger girl who was either a student or a trainee or something else I'm not quite sure as my mind was elsewhere. The thought of having someone else there to gawp at my impending panic attack did much to aggrevate me but I let them in, we sat down, my wife too and the CPN said it would take no more than 45 minutes. That was the point when high anxiety turned to panic. In my mind I couldn't take another 5 minutes of this but 45 minutes was not on. And I was about to say so and explain that I just couldn't and maybe even do as I said and show them the door if they didn't comply but the lady started to talking and I started listening. It was a real see-saw from then on of mentally standing at the open door pointing out and sitting back down on the couch again clawing at my neck and sipping on a glass of water. In the end though I stuck it out for well over an hour.
My past experience has been that the apprehension is the worst and 10-15 minutes into a visit of any kind the anxiety starts to ease. It didn't this time though. It took that 45 minutes before I started to feel the edge come off but even then I was still like a bad of jumping beans. It was mainly information gathering and from what I could gather near the end unknown to me it was also to decide whether I would be helped or not. But I will be helped and while I still reserve judgement I have to be honest and say that this lady filled me with more confidence than the previous people I have dealt with. She looked interested. She had a great manner about her which was compassionate one minute and then harder the next without being pushy. And to me she seemed honest, genuine and someone who will at least try to help- also someone who believes she can help. That is all I can ask for. That already is a complete differene to my previous mental care visitors. If I needed any proof of that it was how happy my wife was after as she has always only every been disappointed in the past. She said she sees a light at the end of the tunnel. Me? I feel like its sink or swim time.
So what is in store? Well I am not too sure exactly. Some of what she would like to do is subject to cutbacks- those government sods are in my face at every turn with their big pair of financial scissors. Oh and I hear they are now sending the hounds out after my types so I better develop a limp to make it look convincing. Sorry off on a tangent there, tale for another day. Back to the CPN. Ideally what she would like to do is have 6 sessions where she wants to prepare me to get out and challenge, or deal with, panic. And if she feels I am in a position to do that she would like to pass me on to someone who would then come out with me and help me to the next step but that is the part that might not happen because of the cutbacks.
She was very good at confidence building but would also balance that out with telling me that it would be a lot of hard work and it would not be easy. Also she was open to ideas and said that if I wanted to discuss anything or try anything from my growing library then we could look at that rather than it just all being about her own philosophy. Also to my wife's delight and not so much to my own as you will know from past posts she asked me what I thought of "this ridiculous situation with medication". Meaning why had medication never even been on the menu in the past after all this time. On this I was specific in that I still am not sure about medication but if I was to take any I didn't want it to be an ongoing thing and would prefer that it was something to take when I needed. That one is being left with the Psychiatrist in charge of my case.
So at the tail end of next week I have my first proper session which I am not thinking about now and know I will yet again be dreading as she said it should last about an hour. OK I got through it today but it wasn't a nice experience. In fact all in its not been good since the weekend and today's hour was just the peak of it. Its going to be difficult again and I'm going to have the apprehension again but I only hope it might be easier now that there is no uncertainty. But I will also counter that with something else. After it I felt great and had a couple of walks with the kids which is what seems to always happen when I get something I dread over with. And on that visit she will also leave me material to work with which she expects me to do in between then and the visit after which is fair enough. So I've started and I'll see where it takes me. I am ever the pessimist and will remain so but on the positive side this CPN was much better than what I was expecting. And she left me with the impression that she can help me formulate my escape plan from this prison where I have become institutionalised.
