There was a turning point in all this when my willingness to go through the motions regardless of cost changed to stubbornness- a more familiar and natural state for me. It came last week when after still receiving no news about the proposed medication I contacted the CPN who later left a message which annoyed me so much I had to wait a couple of hours to phone back while the anger spent itself. The message amounted to an appointment set up for me 6 miles away in another town to see a psychiatrist who would determine not what medication I needed but whether I needed any at all. So I called the CPN back and reminded her that not only could I not do that but that she had spent 3 sessions with a view to trying to get me to go a short mile trip to the shops and back. What about if she came and collected me? Still it hadn't sank in. But why can't you do it? At that point I just about slammed the phone down, I just can't. Just like I can't sit in the school car park for 10 minutes or go to the bloody shops anymore. I can't do it and that is why you are here to help. Have you not been fucking listening? Are you not the one who on every visit said you could not understand why I had never been offered medication and it was now a priority? I would have thought that much was obvious but the only obvious thing was that it was not. So she said she'd have another talk with the doctor and get back to me but she never did. It was at this point I realised she was really no different from the first CPN who visited 3 years before. Won't listen, couldn't care less, of zero help and actually worsening my state. Fired.
Torn between guilt and mental preservation the latter finally won out last night and caused an almighty fight with my wife- as I knew it would. I've said many times before how my wife has pinned her hopes on my recovery being delivered by the hands of mental health services so when I told her last night I was going to phone them the following morning, today, and tell them not to bother coming back she flew into a fury. For a woman who claims to hate confrontation she threw one hell of a wobbler I can tell you. It was survival of the loudest and angriest to which we both fought our corners well.
But I dug my heels in and under a muttering breath of words I could not possibly transcribe here she sulked off to bed banging whatever she could never to speak again. So much for mental preservation then. The anxiety left and guilt, like I knew it would, filled the void. So much so that I sat in the silence of an empty room for an hour mulling over things and then spent a couple of hours lying down in bed doing the same before finally the sleep came. For all my wife's anger I would hazard a guess she went out like a light as soon as her head hit the pillow- something I envy. She puts everything on hold to the morning and conks out while the worrier beside here stares at the ceiling with a million thoughts running wild.
I felt like the abject failure I was supposed to feel, made to feel, knew I would feel. My wife lives in hope of a day not when things will improve but for a day when things will return to 'normal' again. Not much to ask is it? She wants things how they were and she wants the man she married but he is no longer there and nor will he be coming back- which I have never told her as it would crush her. Without that hope my mental state would not be the only one in jeopardy. So to her my news was a bombshell. I'd rolled her hope up into a ball and drop kicked it out the window. No wonder she was mad. She is so blinded by this faith in mental health services that I could not reason with her and regardless of my excuses or justifications I was throwing away my last chance at a happy end to all this. I was being selfish and wasn't willing to try to get back the life not only she but the kids too deserve. Quite a bit of guilt to handle when put like that.
My reasons are many for ending this pantomime. I had an appointment scheduled for today at 10 and thought I could just grit my teeth to get through it but realisation struck me late last night and I reached the point of no return. I guess it was sitting there going through the material the CPN had given me and the work I had to do. Sorting out types of distorted thinking and all that kinds of rubbish that looks good on paper but serves no purpose in the real world. I mean what really does it matter whether my thoughts are catastrophising, overgeneralising, absolute or whatever else? Is sorting them into different piles going to make me well again? Of course not and it was all that sort of thing that was starting to get on my nerves. There is nothing practical in there, its all identification.
In mid battle I asked my wife if she thought things were getting better. She shrugged her shoulders and then asked me what was the alternative. I'd already given her the alternative and informed her that it was bad enough that I wasn't going forward but these sessions had stuck me right into reverse. I've been at the bottom before and I can see the slide. I now see how things went in a chain reaction when this all started from panic outside, panic inside, monophobia, socail phobia, etc in an orderly fashion. I can see it happening again and it worries me. Where in the past year I was dealing with people in the house these sessions are conditioning the old fear again which is one reason I could not bare another visit. The general anxiety level has been stuck on high since the run up to the start of this which I think is because I knew deep down it was a waste of time. Now I am constantly fatigued and constantly on the verge of panic while experiencing a host of new and agitating sensations that I have never felt before- at least not for a couple of years. Walks are at a minimum and drives have disappeared. So after explaining I asked my wife if this was what she thought was progress, did she want me to slide right back down to the bottom again and was she happy for me to be this miserable every waking moment- and I do mean miserable. I should have known the answer as it was the same one, the only one. What was the alternative?
So OK then. I just watch myself slink all the way back into the house and under the bed and wave mental health services goodbye when they decide its time to do a runner again calling me a hopeless case over their shoulder as they flee for the horizon leaving me a wreck. Not a chance. I have no desire to go back there, none at all. And if I do find myself back there then it will be by my own hand and not that of a stranger. So this time there was no compromise and regardless of the guilt I was sticking to my guns. Even knowing the hurt it caused I could appease no longer. There was not a chance in hell I was going to let someone lead me by the hand all the back down to where it all started once more. Not a chance.
It was my wife who broke the silence first this morning and credit to her for doing so as I am totally in stubborn mode now- its a lifestyle choice with me when I choose to do so. I'd woken up in a panic which is unusual. I've had panic on waking a few times lately which is another sign things are not well but its always a few minutes after waking. The strained tension between us is no doubt the cause, an unresolved issue which has no amicable resolution. This actually woke me up and I hope its not the start of some new perverse chapter anxiety is throwing my way. I got up a couple of hours earlier than usual as a result which just gave more time to apprehension. When my wife spoke things were calmer. We both said our bit and the other listened. And from this we came to a solution, or compromise, and that would be that I would see if I could get the CPN postpone all visits until I'd gotten some medication to at least allow me to get through a visit without panicking from start to finish and actually being able to hear what she says because the majority of the time I am fighting off panic and she is an inaudable moving mouth. At least between my wife and I all was well again and the atmosphere softened. But my wife insisted on making the call not trusting me to come to an agreeable solution and instead most likely sabotaging all hope- I won't say it didn't cross my mind.
After she came off the phone she seemed happy. She was happy that the CPN had agreed to lay off until I got some medication to help me along. She was happy that it wasn't, for now, ending. But this is the part that really pissed me off. The CPN said the Dr refuses to give me any medication until I go out to the hospital to see her first even though I had said that if I could go out and see her I wouldn't need the medication in the first place. I met her once- she came out last year or the year before. To be kind I'd say she was aloof but a closer description is up her own arse- excuse the French but that is the only way I can describe these pompous-I-have-letters-after-my-name types who won't even listen to an alternative. So she is playing god and I have to look elsewhere. My wife reminded the CPN that she herself had said it was ridiculous that I had never been given any medication to which she agreed and said in her opinion I definitely do but I was the one who shunned the appointment. Ah, no wonder I'm tired I tell you. So instead what I have to do is talk to my GP and see if he can give me anything. It annoys me because that is not his area of expertise and the expert with the title is delegating to him. I mean can she not even do it over the phone? Why does she have to see me? I could send a picture I suppose. Even my wife could see how ridiculous this was but there was no anger there because all she was worried about was that I was not a lost cause to mental health services and that our GP would be more likely to medicate.
If nothing else that weight was lifted today and despite not being a conclusion it is at least good enough for me at the moment. But I also know there are longer term ramifications. For my marriage as an example, and more accurately to out relationship.In my wife's eyes I am giving up to easily. Its hard for her to understand that I can see clearly this is doing me all damage and no good and that is why I am unwilling to keep playing along. It is hard though for others to understand when all they see is how it affects their life and cannot have an insight into how troubled the other is. I have tried. I let it go on longer than I should have done and in doing so nothing good has come of it and instead long term problems are ahead as a result. Never again. I am on my own from now on, so be it.
