And…. I’m back in the room

Gosh, it’s nice not being depressed.  It happened in the course of about half an hour the other evening and has been holding strong (barring a few hours this afternoon - a blip, I hope - thank you A~ for listening to me and picking me back up) for 4 days now (everyone touch wood,...

The hero’s journey and self-aware doormats

A couple of weeks ago my friend D~, looking genuinely upset, said that he ‘wanted the old Caroline back’.  That one has really stuck with me.  It hurt, almost a physical sensation of being stabbed in the chest, not because I think he shouldn’t have said it, but because I agree with him. The problem...

Not a cry for help, or: Oh God, on Thursday I turned into Neil out of the Young Ones

Trigger warning:  The opinions expressed in this post are from the point of view of someone who is suicidal and therefore may not be rational.  If you think you may be triggered by this, please don’t read on.  It’s mostly inane drivel anyway.  Go and do something else instead.  Seriously.  Anything.  Cut your toenails or...

Rapid cycling (without a bike) and how to get kicked out of DBT

So, I didn’t write a blog post last week.  It was a bit of a tough week, one way and another, so I just …. didn’t. Anyway, I'm back to full ranting power this week, so… Over the last few days, I have been experiencing rapid mood cycling.  It is an utterly ridiculous and exhausting...

Art, altruism and food

I’ve been questioning the bucket list idea a bit lately, wondering why I am doing it.  Is it a mere distraction from pain?  If it is, then maybe that is okay, maybe that is the best I can hope for right now.  But I want it to serve another purpose as well - to help...

Fractured – how split personalities lead to you pondering why you bought so many tins of baked beans

A friend of mine commented that she couldn’t really hear my voice in my post about receiving my diagnosis (Diagnosis & a Donut).  I don’t mind at all that she said this, I think she is right.  So, I got to pondering why that was.  Perhaps I should have ‘fessed up at the time of...

Schrödinger’s car

The theme of DBT (Dialectical Behavioural Therapy) this week is radical acceptance.  I have to think of examples of things that have happened/are happening that I find difficult and carry out exercises to achieve acceptance.  In part, this involves using particular postures and facial expressions, so it has the added bonus of making me look...

There is a beauty in broken things; or how to have a friend with suicidal ideation….and how not to take it (too) personally

I'm not writing this week - this week my amazing, courageous and resilient best friend is writing a guest spot......... I have been thinking about writing a guest blog for X for some time now but it was her “Diagnosis and a donut” post that really sparked off my internal responses. It was the lines...

Diagnosis and a donut

Someone once told me that the traits we dislike most in others are those that we hate or fear in ourselves.  Ouch.  I think they are right though.  There aren’t many people I don’t like, but I’ve met a few in the mental health system, and I suspect they are the ones with diagnoses closest...

Catch 22 – How to not die

Last week I wrote about why I stay alive. Today I want to talk about how I stay alive. So, let’s imagine that you’ve thought about the reasons for not committing suicide and you’ve decided not to kill yourself.  I have been through that process maybe 4 or 5 times in my life (not really...