I’ve been thinking about this again recently. For as long as I can remember I’ve always enjoyed watching disk defragmenters run…these usually have coloured squares representing areas of a hard disk that contain fragmented files. Now it isn’t tetris or a game or even interactive but it is usually represented on the screen by blocks changing colour.

Last night I was defragmenting a netbook and felt so calm and relaxed (i.e. unusual!) while watching it, must have easily spent over an hour. Didn’t have any flashbacks to you-know-what during that time. Totally unscientific and only one occasion but I thought I’d record it anyway just because of the peaceful state it left me in and with no ‘troubling’ thoughts while I was doing it. 

I wondered at one point “I wish I could get a screensaver that would defrag during idle time”.

The big problem for me in any of the advice given in the stress management course relaxation exercises was that most of them are based around visualisation - I am phenomenally crap at imagining anything, my head is filled with (to me) horrific and distressing *real* things that have happened that replay on an infinite loop in my head, re-experiencing many of the same emotions,though to a lesser degree that I felt when they happened. 

Maybe watching the blocks gives me something in the *real world* to focus on, that works better for me than something made up inside my head and it’s the current real world blocks that are literally blocking older memories from coming to the fore. Well anyway, am definitely going to look to see if I can find something like tetris but not interactive to put on the ipod touch so I could carry something ‘blocky’ around with me. Now I’m going to go round defragmenting as many drives as I can find, I’m just grateful for a small instance of something being helpful :-)

is realising that handling new information/bad news when you’re already stressed, pre-menstrual and on Amitriptyline is a less than awesome combination. Scuse me while I curse a bit.

Fuck,Fuck,Fuck,Fuck,Fuck,Fuck,Fuck,Fuck,Fuck,Fuck

A week last Friday I was delighted and relieved. A hospital consultant gave me a proper neurological exam found nothing of undue concern and diagnosed mild peripheral neuropathy from my other symptoms. Mild in the sense that I still have reflexes/sense of touch and it’s contained in hands and feet i.e. it’s not something that’s ongoing and spreading. She said the pain I’d been experiencing in the last couple of months was a *good* sign, at this stage it usually means that the nerves are starting to regrow and the body is trying to heal itself. I asked what time frame I would expect to see things improve, “about 6 months”. Today (monday) I had to go to the GP as I was running out of Amitriptyline for my pain relief, my usual GP (female) was on holiday so had to go to one of the other partners instead. Turns out to be the guy who first signed me off with Acute Stress Reaction back in December 09. Went over the recent history and how I’d been titrating upwards in 10mgs from 30 up to 50mg currently.It’s been magnificent at reducing the pain even if it’s not always 100%, sleeping so much better but when I got to 50mg am really starting to feel the grogginess in the morning and being less than *alert* actually usually still feeling ‘dull’ well into the afternoon. Last week was uncomfortable physically, had 3 days of hand flare ups in the afternoons, the worst being 4 hours of being in pain.

Then I was floored.

Him:”the tingling is psychological”.

Me: “24/7 since December? Wouldn’t it vary in that time if it was psychological?”.

Him: “No”.

Me: just dumbstruck. I was so stunned I couldn’t think what to ask. WTF, WTF, WTF. Came home and had a good greet instead. When I’d mentioned the tingling back in December he’d said “that sounds like classic anxiety” I was happy to accept that, but now? I’m *really* confused. Did I misunderstand something at the hospital? I’d asked my mum to sit in on the hospital consultation so I had a back-up brain. She agrees with my interpretation of that examination and the consultant’s summary. I’m struggling to understand, one doctor says this is a physical problem,the result of nerve damage, probably caused by poor nutrition and stress last year and will get better with time…the other - it’s psychological. Who do I believe? Is it both? Neuropathy causing the burning pain but pins and needles psychological? He signed my current certificate “Anaemia,peripheral neuropathy” again confuses me, if he thinks symptoms are a mental issue why isn’t that reflected on the certificate like with the original stress reaction? Also don’t get why he still put anaemia when even weeks ago my own GP said my iron levels were fine now (as did the hospital) after the treatment.

Christ I know I have problems with stress and it’s the no.1 thing I asked the MHT to help me with, together with getting back to work and to go on the waiting list for counselling for the ‘dad’ stuff. This confusion is the last thing I need now. Need to keep calm as I’m still trying to get started with the Mental Health Team things aren’t finalised in the arrangements. My ‘normal’ GP isn’t back until second week in August so can’t get another take on what’s going on health-wise. I really need to understand this. I don’t have a lot of energy, need to be crystal clear what direction to work on and don’t work on wrong assumptions. Why is everything to do with my health so damned complicated?

And even worse, in the truly life and death category, my aunt is in the Beatson (a specialist cancer hospital) fevered and vomiting, not good signs in late stage cancer. We’re hoping it’s just a bug or the tail-end of her recent pneumonia. So my poor mum has been concerned about me but that’s nothing compared to worrying about maybe losing her sister. She’s so choked-up and at the point of tears most of the time saying things like “is this the year we lose her?”, it’s painful to watch. I don’t know what to say to her.

When you have your health, you never give it a moment’s thought.
When you don’t, nothing else seems important. 

Again, two hours+ to write this.

“Acute Stress Reaction”.

*Awful* start to the morning. Dad had another bottle of vodka and was completely drunk at 8.30am. He was crawling up the stairs like an animal on hands and knees, collapsed on the landing. I was in my room hearing him groaning outside. If this had been last week I would have opened the door and checked to see if he was OK. Now, I was getting ready to go to the GP, I was just so shit scared of what I would see if I opened the door (had he injured himself again?) I stayed in bed, shaking with nerves, just wasn’t going to risk having to deal with his shit when I’m such a fragile state. Thankfully after an hour (longest fucking hour of my life) he seemed to sober up enough to get himself down the stairs again.

GP diagnosed Acute Stress Reaction in me and signed me off work till 30th Dec. Just had one shock too many last Friday and this morning *really* didn’t help either. To use a boxing analogy it’s as if all year I’ve been absorbing jabs dealing with his alcoholism and erratic behaviour but Friday I got a KO blow and it’s flipped me into something stronger and altogether stranger. After previous dad ‘events’ I’d feel shock in the immediate aftermath, often too shocked to speak later the same day then the next day the fatigue would kick in and so on and so on, similar kind of pattern with my mum and my brother slightly different plain out not getting much sleep at all. But this one is different, Not the kind of person who cries much, maybe 2,3 times a year with PMS and usually less than 5 minutes. Last Friday I cried for a solid 3 hours. Ironically it wasn’t anything dad did that day, it was the sense of ‘abandonment’ by the CAT team, hope was being taken away that finally made me snap. The GP was great, pretty scathing about that team and the way they are organised, kind of reluctant to contact them again.

Physically this is weird. Feels like wading through treacle, mentally all my reaction times seem slower, it feels like I’m even talking slower and certainly quieter. A feeling like there’s a physical weight on the top of my chest and seem to be taking much shallower breaths than usual. Staring off into space, head empty (completely useless for problem-solving at work), Strangely I can type OK but thinking, concentrating or physically talking is proving to be difficult right now mainly because of the lump in my throat being almost at the point of tears most of the time.

Wednesday night I was so proud of my brother. He came in dog tired from work, got filled in by mum who was still visibly distressed about dad this morning and my health condition. He channelled all the rage,upset and pain in the house into the most spectacularly eloquent and forceful “stop drinking or else” kind of ultimatum of a speech. Me and mum sat next to each other on the stairs listening in, sad, weeping but totally in awe of what my brother was doing and the way he was expressing himself. Telling dad to HAVE SOME BALLS. Fucking *awesome* stuff dude. Off the cuff oratory but he went unbroken for 20mins detailing all the problems, possible solutions, outcomes if the drinking doesn’t stop (like being homeless!). I’m totally pessimistic that it will have the least effect (GP also thought dad’s not the kind of person who’ll stop) but it’s a heroic effort. You did good kid.

Reading up on ASR at least it sounds like in most cases it sounds like it *should* be a short term thing from a few days to a few weeks. But that’s in situations where the ‘stressor’ is removed. How does it pan out if continuallly exposed to more of his antics in the short-term? God knows. Well that’s five days now. Was a wee bit concerned to see that ASR can sometimes turn into PTSD in the longer term so if anyone’s got advice of good things for me to be doing right now to make sure that doesn’t happen please let me know.

Update (17 Dec 2009 15:15), more physical symptoms:

• circulation? Feet cold
• pins and needles in feet and hands and lips
• open pores
• mild headache
• pulse slightly *slower* than normal for me (low to mid 60s)
• feeling of tension/heaviness in my nose/upper lip/upper jaw, really bizarre sensation.