Well it's been a year....

So it's been just over a year since I last posted on this blog. I set this site up in the first place as a place I could go to vent and voice my concerns or worries, and I found it less useful than I thought I would. Maybe I was looking for a therapy, writing my feelings, seeing them in print. Well it didn't work, I still felt shit but things are different now; really, really different. One year ago I could never have seen myself where I am now. Some things have changed for the good, some for the bad.The major changes are these:

I'm getting divorced and I live with my boyfriend, Matt. I came to the realisation that I didn't love Gary anymore and it took me a while to build up the courage to do something about it (I mean who wants to be divorced at 24?) but eventually I asked him for that divorce and it's now in the process of going through. I miss his friendship and it makes me quite sad sometimes but I have a new best friend and I love Matt with all of my - everything!!!! We live together in a one bedroom flat, so no dogs, I miss Amy and Squeeze terribly, but I made my choice and that meant leaving them too, I get to see them occasionally.

I have more friends than when I last posted thanks to being in a new relationship. I spend more time playing music, mainly the piano but I've started up the oboe again as of today. My relationship with my family has improved, my Dad and I have started speaking regularly and my Brother and I are very close. Michelle, my childhood friend, I see at least once a week, when I'm well. So all in all there have been a lot of positive changes. However, where there is joy - there is pain.....

My mental health in the last year has gone from bad to worse. In October of 2009 I started getting auditory hallucinations when very depressed. I'd hear music when there was none, voices shouting my name when out in busy places, a man pacing the corridor outside the bedroom as I tried to sleep. This was petrifying. I had been coping with mental health problems since the age of 11 (as far as I can remember) but I'd always felt sane. Suddenly I felt crazy. Lying started to become second nature; I had always carried a certain pride that I refused to lie about my condition (except to my Great Nana, at the request of my family) but now when asked if I was okay, my automatic reaction was "Yes, I'm fine". Scared of being deemed unfit to be part of society.

It was only a few weeks later when I realised that my relationship with Gary carried no love anymore and was no more than a good friendship. I ended it and by happenstance I became involved with someone I have since learnt is my soulmate. Regardless of your own opinion as to whether there is the perfect someone out there for everyone, just trust that he is mine. :)

Just before Christmas, the DVLA wrote to me and informed me that they believed me unfit to drive in my current medical state as I had not been stable for 3 months prior to my licence renewal. I suddenly felt extremely incapacitated, leaving the house was hard enough already and now I had no home (I was living with my parents), most of my belongings were at my old house and I couldn't get around without even more help than usual, (I still have no licence).

In the last 6 months the hallucinations have got worse, I still hear music, and voices calling my name but now there are three succinct voices, all male, one who speaks the most often. I don't necessarily have to be depressed or manic anymore for them to start talking. It's so embarassing and I'm finding it increasingly hard to cope with. I am now on anti-psychotics to try and combat them and they do help but they don't completely erase them.

On top of that, my psychiatrist and I decided to try something experimental after she admitted to me that I was a difficult case and she didn't know what to do with me. She put me on an antidepressant. Now for most this would be a good move, I am getting more and more depressed, maybe not as severely but definitely more regularly than before so an antidepressant should help with that. However, the last time I took an antidepressant it screwed me up and made me manic. We took the chance though and it went VERY badly. I ended up experiencing 5 days of visual and auditory hallucinations in conjunction with paranoid psychosis. I wish I didn't remember it and I'm not quite ready to write about it but believe me when I say I was scared, really scared and I still am. What if it happens again?

So all in all, the past year, my day to day life has improved but my mental condition has gotten worse - it's a twisted world, huh?
So I think you're all caught up, apart from the fact that I'm now 5 days with no Lithium after suspected Lithium Toxicity from dehydration after holidaying in Egypt. It's turning me into a real bitch and I'm scared that drug-free Stacey is not a nice person. It's 5am - I can't sleep even after taking Sero (which knocks me out usually) because I'm hearing stuff intermittently and I've got a psych appointment in 6 hours that I'm dreading!

F.M.L

Love and Best Wishes
Stace
xx