Tag Archives for emotional abuse

Blog awards galore

This is a bit of a behind-the-times post as fatigue has kept me from writing sooner. However, there’s lots of exciting news to share, all concerning awards for bloggers. :)

First of all, congratulations to Pandora of Confessions of a Serial Insomniac and to Beckie0 for their success at the Mind Media Awards! If you’re not familiar with Pandora already, she writes a great blog about complex mental health problems and psychotherapy in the wake of child sexual abuse, which earned her the Mark Hanson New Media Award. Meanwhile, Beckie won the Speaking Out award for her video diaries about trichotillomania, a condition I also live with. It’s wonderful to see two very good bloggers/vloggers being recognised by one of the UK’s biggest mental health charities. Well done to you both! The complete list of award winners is available on Mind’s website.

Secondly, I’m pleased to announce that nominations/votes are now open for the 2011 This Week in Mentalists awards – and that I’ve been nominated for an award in the Best Mood Disorder Blog category. :) These are awards for the best mental health blogs on the internet, whether written by patients or professionals (there’s also a Mental Health Cartoon category). Nominating is essentially the same thing as voting – you can name up to three blogs in each category that you’d like to win, whether these have been nominated before or not – and the votes will close at midday GMT on 31 December. If you’d like to support me or any other blog(s), please do head over there and vote.

Finally, the wonderful Char48 of Learning to be Still has given me a Liebster Blog award. Char says, “Moon Tree just comes across as totally lovely and very determined. I’ve learned a lot from her.” Awww, thank you! :D The idea behind the Liebster award is that when you receive one, you pass it on to five of your favourite blogs which have less than 200 followers. This is my second Liebster so I’m not sure what the etiquette is, but since I’ve discovered some great new blogs since June, I’ve decided to give the award to another five blogs. (You can see the original five here.) So, in alphabetical order:

  1. aardvarkinpyjamas writes about her experiences of bipolar disorder, interspersed with random facts about aardvarks. Her Meet the Aardvark page is especially worth a read.
  2. Eliza is… discusses psychotherapy, dissociation and childhood trauma, particularly bullying and emotional abuse. I find it helpful (though also sad) that Eliza seems to have a similar background to me.
  3. Trich Questions is a thought-provoking blog about depression, poetry and – you guessed it – trich. Recent posts include a persuasive argument for being open and honest about mental health problems in the workplace.
  4. What It Takes To Be Me is written by an abuse survivor and convert to Judaism who is in thrice-weekly analytic therapy. In the author’s own words, it’s “best enjoyed with a cup of tea and a spoonful of courage”.
  5. Zee Aitch Bully writes about depression and CBT. She’s also a landscape architect and shares lots of beautiful photos on her blog. Once you’ve looked at her post from 11 December, I defy you to say that Ipswich is shit. ;)

That’s all from me… until I find the energy and inclination to write about my own mental health again.

Edited to add: that I do know aardvarkinpyjamas very well personally, so it’s possible I may be biased about how awesome her blog is. You’ll have to check it out for yourselves and see. ;)

Ten years

On a Tuesday lunchtime ten years ago, I headed into town after telling my flatmate I was going to a medical appointment. I dropped enough hints that he would think it was for a smear test and not ask too many questions. In fact, I was going to my first ever counselling appointment and my first attempt at seeking help for my mental health problems. I was not currently depressed, but the episode I’d had the previous year – when I was living abroad and didn’t have health insurance – had scared me enough that I’d promised myself, when I returned to the UK and the NHS and the university counselling service, I would seek professional help.

That first counselling session was not a success for many reasons. The counsellor was in her late 50s and I worried she wouldn’t be able to relate to me, which made it hard to open up. She resorted to a few too many counselling clichés which made me cringe. At one point, she tilted her head in what I’m sure she thought was a sympathetic manner, adopted an obviously staged ‘sad’ expression and said, “I’m just feeling your pain now.” What? I told her how I’d had to leave an internship two months early because of my depression, that I’d known the bitchy atmosphere, stress of working full time and grey weather weren’t helping so I’d moved further south and enrolled as a part-time university student for the remainder of my year abroad while I convalesced. She told me that sounded like a very healthy decision and, when she found out it was the first time I’d ever turned round and said “no” to something that was making me miserable, focused on what a positive step that had been. Although ostensibly she was right, I saw my recurrent depression as an illness that was disrupting my life and when she didn’t acknowledge this perspective, I felt unheard and invalidated.

But perhaps the biggest reason I didn’t go back was what happened towards the end of my session, at 13:46 in the UK, although I didn’t know about it until a couple of hours later. You may have guessed that this was not just any Tuesday in 2001. It was 11 September 2001 and, after a trip to Ikea, my housemate’s brother got a text message saying, “Have you seen the news? This is fucking scary!” When we learned that terrorists had crashed planes into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, when we got home and watched the footage of the towers collapsing over and over without it really sinking in, I made a decision. There were Real Problems in the world. 3,000 people killed, with probably millions injured or traumatised. I did not have Real Problems. I would take the counsellor’s advice, put the whole thing down to a toxic work environment and get on with my life.

I didn’t get very far with this outlook. Within a month I had relapsed, first into anxiety, then depression. By the end of October I had seen my GP and was on medication. But that first counselling appointment proved to be the start of a pattern of years struggling to get my illness taken seriously, by myself as well as by the professionals. I think there were several factors at play, all interlinked. I’ll try to list them:

  1. Although I knew I was depressed, I didn’t want to accept that this affected my ability to function. I felt I should be able to push through it, but trying to do so only made me more ill, as did beating myself up when I ‘failed’.
  2. Many of the counsellors and therapists I saw, like that first counsellor, viewed my depression and other issues as a normal reaction to having been severely bullied and emotionally abused as a child. They encouraged me not to think of myself as ill. Although I’m sure it wasn’t their intention, this fed into #1.
  3. The CBT I had, while teaching me useful techniques for challenging my negative thoughts, also encouraged me to ‘get more active’ and behave as though I wasn’t depressed. (I’ve written more about this in my second What’s wrong with CBT? post.) What’s more, to help prevent relapse, I was advised that when I developed the early warning signs of depression I should ‘look for alternative explanations’ rather than seek help. This also fed into #1.
  4. The medical profession first failed to diagnose me with depression (I was initially told it was ‘normal final-year stress’ and prescribed beta blockers and sleeping pills), then wrote me off when the second antidepressant they tried didn’t work. I was actually told by one GP that as I’d had a traumatic childhood, medication wouldn’t work for me – but I couldn’t access effective therapy (see #2 and #3, then add in NHS waiting lists and limits on sessions) or crisis support either. The fact that they didn’t seem to take me seriously fed into #1.

When you take into account the fact that antidepressants have been the only thing to lift my depression (and I don’t think I could handle proper therapy without them), you can probably understand why I have a thing about being taken seriously, and why being viewed as ‘ill’ when I am depressed is important to me. To this day, I can’t read Dorothy Rowe’s Depression: The Way Out of Your Prison because she argues that depression is not a medical illness. So many people have recommended it to me, and intellectually I recognise that her viewpoint is (a) one valid perspective among many and (b) probably not the main point of the book, but it’s just too triggering. Even if my childhood has caused me to develop or be more vulnerable to depression, I need to believe that brain chemistry is involved, whether because there’s an endogenous side to it too or because trauma has changed my brain chemistry. You might think that’s an entirely logical conclusion since the meds work (even if they haven’t been able to stop me relapsing), but I think it goes deeper than that.

What does it mean to be ill? What does being ill mean to me? These are the questions I’m pondering and I think it comes down to two things. Firstly, being ill means medication can be appropriate, that treatment from GPs and psychiatrists as well as counsellors and therapists is appropriate, and that’s important given what I now know about what works for me and my depression. But secondly, being ill means it can be appropriate to take time off work and time out from responsibilities. If I am ill, I am allowed to cut myself a break. I’ve probably mentioned before that I’ve become good at taking care of myself when I’m clinically depressed, but I really struggle with perfectionism and pushing myself too hard the rest of the time, making relapse all too likely. My current therapist – thankfully in a way that makes it very clear he does take my problems seriously – says that depression for me may be a healthy response, a way of getting the rest I need. Ill yet healthy. It’s a strange dichotomy, but I’m starting to suspect that deep down I feel it’s only OK to take care of myself when I am ill. The rest of the time, I have to prove my worth.

Today my thoughts and prayers are with the victims of 9/11 and everyone who has been affected by the tragedy, but I’m also looking back on ten years of my own mental health treatment. I hope it won’t take another ten years for me to truly believe that I have worth just by being who I am.

The one about coping skills

It’s after midnight, and I’m about to turn into a pumpkin. I may have made it home from the ball safely, but I need to be up bright and early tomorrow for a packed schedule of conference activities. Yet instead of sleeping, I find myself plugged into my hotel room internet and blogging. I’ve just realised something and it feels important.

Yesterday, I said I had not forgotten my healthy ways of coping. I saw pain/stress/dodgy mental health as outweighing those coping skills not because I’d lost skills, but because my circumstances had changed – either life is just more stressful now, or my mental health is inherently worse. I suspect now that this may have been a little white lie.

The last – and only – time I dieted healthily was in 2007. Yes, I was in a less stressful job back then, but also one which bored me to tears, and I was looking to get out, daring to develop my career after years when simply making it into any kind of job was an achievement. I was winding things up with my private therapist and felt pretty damn well recovered. But perhaps the biggest difference of all is that I had and used a support network. I was an active member of a depression forum, a fantastic group – I thought – of people. I was also working on talking to the people in my life about how I was feeling. The usual pattern was I would sound things out online first, then venture on to the scarier task of face-to-face conversations. I was aware of a need to lean on the internet less and develop my real-life relationships more, but I saw this very much as something within my grasp, as a continuation of a journey that had already been set in motion.

In early 2008, I was very badly betrayed by the owners of that forum. To be strictly accurate, the betrayal had occurred about nine months earlier but I was only just discovering the web of vicious lies they had spread about me while being warm and supportive to my face. On the surface of things, I coped with it very well. I recognised that this was about them and not me; I had not done anything to deserve it. In therapy I had come to realise that I wasn’t a bad person after all, I wasn’t fundamentally unlikeable and I hadn’t done anything to cause the bullying and abuse of my childhood, and when it was put to the test, this view of myself held up. I was also able, for the first time, to confront the bullies and feel proud about it.

It has taken some time to spot the damage that was done, the extent to which I have stopped trusting people and stopped reaching out. I was warned that those admins would follow me to other forums, essentially spy on my posts, and possibly try to kick up trouble for me. Although this proved not to be an issue (I have never heard from them again, and frankly I don’t care whether they do or don’t read this), initially taking precautions to conceal my identity made me realise just how open I’d been. I’d posted in forums that could be read by non-members and search engines, using my (unusual) real first name, and I hadn’t bothered to hide or change any of the details of my day-to-day life. A habit that had started in my impulsive Seroxat/venlafaxine years, when I was just too ill to care, could have real implications for my career and it was time to change. (Er, no pun intended.) So I planned to join some sort of more private forum, but there was never really anywhere that seemed right. There was always a tangible reason why a place wasn’t right and it has taken a long time to recognise that perhaps those were only surface reasons. It has taken even longer to realise that my plans to develop my relationships with real-life people, to be more open with friends and relatives and lean on them more, got shelved somewhere along the way.

I am now blogging, which feels very right, and I am reaching out online at least. It’s only taken me three years. ;) The trouble is it almost feels as though I’m starting from scratch again. Reaching out is far more difficult than it used to be and the real-life stuff feels well nigh impossible.

On top of this, there’s a second problem with my coping skills. Not only have I ditched the ones that involve other people, but the things I can do for myself… frankly, I’m less interested in them than I used to be. Coping well, in terms of not turning to food blah blah blah, seems much less important than being heard.

In my previous post I explained how I had been able to stop bingeing and purging when I was 19, largely by avoiding the triggers. What I didn’t explicitly state is that I did it all alone, without professional help (this was before I ever dared to seek help), and also without support from others in my life, as no one, but no one, had any inkling I might have an eating disorder. This is a huge recurring theme in my management of my issues. First I was too scared to reach out, then I was badly let down when I did (both by the NHS and by those forum admins). But the reasons don’t matter as much as the pattern and the impact it has on me today. I am sick of struggling on alone and patching myself together. I want to let myself feel cared about.

This all brings me back to therapy, which is why it’s a Very Good Thing that I will be starting therapy soon, and in a set-up specifically designed to focus on relationships rather than self-help-type coping skills. I have the self-help manual and the T-shirt, but it’s only got me so far. Although I don’t for one moment regret my autonomy, my motivation, my ability to come up with solutions by myself, this is not going to get me fully well and it’s time to face up to the scary stuff.

Reinventing Your Life (1)

Originally posted on the Bodies Under Siege Web Board.

This is my place for working through the book Reinventing Your Life, which is based on schema therapy.

Information from Amazon:

The authors, both cognitive psychotherapists, identify 11 common “lifetraps,” which they define as repetitive, destructive behavior patterns associated with a negative self-image. Using illustrations from case studies, the authors describe each lifetrap, discuss its origins in childhood experience, and provide a questionnaire for self-assesment. They then offer a program for change using techniques ranging from experiential (getting in touch with your inner child) to cognitive (writing a “case” against your lifetrap) and behavioral (identifying specific behaviors to be changed).

I will probably be using the term “schema” rather than “lifetrap” because I’m more comfortable with it. :)

A bit of an introduction…

I first read this book back in 2003. At the time, I related most to the Social Exclusion schema (‘I don’t fit in’) – I was painfully shy, expected people not to like me, and found it hard to make friends. I also related quite a lot to the Unrelenting Standards schema (‘It’s never quite good enough’) – perfectionism and tending to push myself very hard.

At the time, I was quite severely depressed, life was very chaotic, and I didn’t manage to put any of the ideas in the book into practice, so I sold my copy.

Seven (yikes!) years on, I’ve worked on the shyness and social exclusion in therapy and that’s no longer a problem for me. My T was quite psychodynamic, meaning we talked about my childhood a lot, and basically by asking very cunning questions ;) she helped me to see things in a different way. I was badly bullied and emotionally abused as a child and I thought there must be something wrong with me that caused that to happen. My T helped me see that that wasn’t the case, telling myself that was my way of making sense of it all at the time, but actually there is nothing wrong with me in a social sense… and once I understood that, it was much easier to socialise and form friendships.

We touched on the perfectionism stuff as well. I came to realise that academic achievement felt like the only thing I could get right. The only way of being an acceptable person. So I pushed myself hard at school and uni to compensate for my social ‘defects’, and all my self-worth was tied up in that. Again, once I came to realise that I did have worth as a person, as a friend, without needing to get As then perfectionism was no longer so much of an issue.

But I guess old habits die hard. :(

I was well for several years, but I’ve had two relapses of depression in the past year. And I’ve had to recognise that once again, I’ve been pushing myself too hard. I’ve also been finding it very hard to reach out, whereas once this was an essential part of my self care. And I’ve been neglecting my needs in my relationship. It took me a long time to admit to all this because I just kept hoping if I pretended to be OK, I would somehow be OK. :/

I ordered Reinventing Your Life again because I remembered it had the stuff on Unrelenting Standards and thought it might be helpful. When I did the quiz, though, I also scored highly on two other schemas*: Emotional Deprivation (‘I’ll never get the love I need’ and Subjugation (‘I always do it your way’).

I think there is a lot of useful stuff in here, at least in terms of understanding myself, which I find really helpful in and of itself. I don’t know what the ‘solutions’ will be like, as I vaguely remember them being a bit simplistic, but there’s lots for me to explore.

So that’s what this thread is for… I will gradually work through the book, do the exercises and share what I’ve learned.

*I also scored highly on Entitlement (‘I can have whatever I want’), but reading the description in the book it doesn’t seem to fit me at all. The authors basically paint a picture of a spoiled brat and say it is highly unlikely someone with this schema would be reading a self-help book! I know impulsivity is a problem for me but it’s not because I believe I’m somehow entitled to whatever I want, so I don’t see this chapter of the book as being helpful with that. The quiz also showed I scored highly for Social Exclusion and Vulnerability (I was scared of everything!) in childhood, but no longer do.