A trip to the funny farm

I have blogged a few times about my experiences at hospitals, there was this entry about Moorfields Eye Hospital A&E, or this entry from when I had an X-Ray at the Nelson Hospital. So why am I so reluctant to blog about my trip to the hospital yesterday?

Probably because yesterday I was visiting the Community Mental Heath Team, not as an adviser on disability rights or rights of access or even to advise mental health nurses, all of which I have done in a professional capacity in the past. No this time I was there as a patient to see a psychiatrist. Not something that I feel completely comfortable announcing on my blog, although of course you all knew it was coming, I have talked about my mental health before.

But as I have alluded to above I have worked for the last 10 years promoting the rights of disabled people including those with mental health conditions. So I should walk the walk as they say and do what I can to lessen the stigma attached to mental health conditions, to being mad.

So I went to the hospital yesterday to see a psychiatrist. I was incredibly nervous. I was shaking, twitching, trying to remember to breath deeply but somehow I just couldn't. The waiting was the worst thing. I'm not good at waiting generally but yesterday it was agony. I could hear the blood pounding in my ears, it made me feel like there was a boy racer car in my head, it's stereo blasting. Thump, thump, thump, thump.

As soon as I saw the psychiatrist though, I felt better; he looked totally normal and was clearly a smoker which some how reassured me. I didn't want to talk to someone who didn't have their own weaknesses. I would have hated to see some pious, holier than thou type!

I was there all afternoon, after being afraid that I wouldn't be able to talk, everything just tumbled out. I was like the local grass on a cop show, squealing, except it was my secrets I was telling not the local villains'. Afterward I felt pretty shaky for most of the night, but today I do feel relieved.

I suppose the turning point for me was that after 12 years of experiencing mood swings, anxiety, depression, panic, and fearfulness on and off, I finally want to do something about it and get better. I don't just want to be patched up and stagger on for the next few months until the stress gets too much and I explode again.

I have been signed off work for a while, I have instructions to avoid stressful situations and try to do normal things slowly. My existing medication has been increased slightly. I have been given some books and a programme of work sheets to go through before I see my psychiatrist again in a few weeks. There is the possibility of more medication in the future but hopefully I won't need it and cognitive behavioural therapy too. It is all remarkably sensible. I just have to co-operate.

I never intended my blog to become a journey into my mental health and how it is being treated but I'm cool with it touching on the subject every now and again. Writing is one of the few things I still feel able to do and to concentrate on for more than 20 minutes so its important that I do write at the moment. So my blog won't go bare!